Facebook is going to start fact-checking, labeling, and burying fake news and hoaxes in its News Feed, the company said Thursday. The decision comes after Facebook received heated criticism for its role in spreading a deluge of political misinformation during the US presidential election, like one story that falsely said the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump.

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Submitted on December 16th 2016 by zyery with 3 comments

Yahoo has suffered another hack. The company disclosed today that it has discovered a breach of more than one billion user accounts that occurred in August 2013. The breach is believed to be separate and distinct from the theft of data from 500 million accounts that Yahoo reported this September.

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Submitted on December 14th 2016 by TentativePrince with 2 Related Links:

1. Yahoo installed rootkit behind the back of its security team Added by thoughtbox on December 15th 2016.

2. Yahoo Says 1 Billion User Accounts Were Hacked Added by Improbability on December 14th 2016.

THE MAN WHO saved net neutrality is stepping aside. Federal Communication Commission chairman Tom Wheeler will resign on January 20, the agency announced today. Wheeler’s decision to step down means Donald Trump will have two FCC seats to fill, one Republican and one Democratic. His resignation will also give Republicans a 2-to-1 majority on the commission even before those seats are filled after the departure of fellow Democratic commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel at the end of the year.

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Submitted on December 16th 2016 by zyery with 1 comments

Earlier this week, Facebook said that it would be partnering with fact-checking sites like Snopes to help weed out the fake news that has been plaguing the site in recent years. But it seems that Germany is not confident that self-regulation will be enough. The chairman of Germany’s Social Democratic Party, Thomas Oppermann, has suggested a new law that would require companies like Facebook to set up an office in the country that would deal with fake news and hate speech at all hours of the day.

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Submitted on December 17th 2016 by geoleo with 1 comments

Now, Yahoo user data could be behind scores of spear-phishes or other breaches.

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Submitted on December 15th 2016 by Improbability

Lawyers who turned porn lawsuits into big business now face criminal charges.

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Submitted on December 16th 2016 by roxxy

Trump will fill the Federal Communications Commission with net neutrality opponents.

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Submitted on December 15th 2016 by sjvn with 4 comments and with 2 Related Links:

1. Net-Neutrality Champion Wheeler to Leave Jan. 20 as FCC Head Added by jcscher on December 15th 2016.

2. FCC Boss Tom Wheeler Resigns, Signaling The Beginning Of The End For Net Neutrality Added by AdelleChattre on December 15th 2016.

To view the cyberattacks on Hillary Clinton's presidential election campaign as a unique offence — as many Americans seem to do — is to miss the full picture.

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Submitted on December 15th 2016 by jcscher with 2 comments

The carbon-enhanced silk conducts electricity, is twice as tough as regular silk, and can withstand at least 50 percent higher stress before breaking. This smart textile could have applications in medicine, athletics, wearable electronics...the possibilities are endless.

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Submitted on December 19th 2016 by zritic

The case that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC) computer network and interfered with the 2016 U.S.

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Submitted on December 14th 2016 by Appaloosa with 5 comments and with 1 Related Links:

1. The never-ending election: How to stop recurring campaign donations Added by AdelleChattre on December 15th 2016.

Over the past six years, the cost of solar energy has dropped dramatically, to the point where it is now even cheaper than wind power in emerging markets like China and India. This may be largely due to rising investments in solar over the last few years. Now, there is electricity being produced in Chile for $29.10 per megawatt hour–half the price of power produced by coal.

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Submitted on December 18th 2016 by belangermira

ACLU investigation revealed fusion centers could access monitoring tech to target activists and journalists while racially profiling people deemed ‘suspicious.’ By Sam Levin.

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Submitted on December 19th 2016 by AdelleChattre with 1 Related Links:

1. Facebook, Lyft, and Medium Join Twitter In Stance Against Building a Muslim Registry Added by AdelleChattre on December 19th 2016.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer is increasing the heat on the federal government to consider recalling e-cigarette batteries and devices that explode and catch fire, injuring users. Schumer, a New York Democrat, has called e-cigarettes "ticking time bombs" and said they continue to cause injuries including severe burns. At a press conference Sunday, Schumer cited a recent Associated Press story saying the FDA identified about 66 explosions in 2015 and early 2016 after recording 92 explosions from 2009 to September 2015.

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Submitted on December 19th 2016 by rawlings

The next time you're standing at a busy junction, look around and count how many people you can see driving for a living. Tot them up – bus drivers, van drivers, Amazon deliverymen, Ubers, black cabs, hauliers – and you're looking at the single biggest sector of our economy. Yet, in another decade or so, almost all these men – they're mainly men – will be out of work, displaced by driverless cars and delivery drones.

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Submitted on December 19th 2016 by Nelson

Humans are probably not the greatest intelligences in the universe. Earth is a relatively young planet and the oldest civilizations could be billions of years older than us. But even on Earth, Homo sapiens may not be the most intelligent species for that much longer.

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Submitted on December 18th 2016 by Petrox

Scientists working to make nuclear fusion a viable reality have smashed another record, after the Korean Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor in South Korea maintained 'high performance' plasma in a stable state for 70 seconds this week– the longest ever recorded for this type of reaction. Containing this ultra-hot type of matter is key to unlocking nuclear fusion, so it's a big step forward in our attempts to make this clean, safe, and virtually limitless source of energy something we can rely on.

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Submitted on December 18th 2016 by aj0690

Bill Gates shares his list of favorite fanatics from 2016, including Jimmy Carter, Nanda Nilekani, Dr. Ana Mari Cauce, Nathan Bowling and Ken Caldeira.

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Submitted on December 20th 2016 by canuck

One of the great mysteries of the universe is why there is so much more matter than antimatter. Now a new experiment is helping us understand the nature of antimatter better than ever before.

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Submitted on December 20th 2016 by kxh

Germany's coalition government is threatening to bring in legislation early next year that would see Facebook and other social media firms fined up to €500,000 (£420,000) for "publishing" fake news. "Market dominating platforms like Facebook will be legally required to build a legal protection office in Germany that is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," parliamentary chair of the Social Democratic Party Thomas Oppermann told Der Spiegel, which was translated on Deutsche Welle.

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Submitted on December 20th 2016 by cone

More than three years have passed since a federal judge in California sanctioned attorneys Paul R. Hansmeier and John L. Steele for using deceptive legal maneuvers to win settlements from people they accused of illegally downloading pornography. Their tactics were complicated but effective. The attorneys, who ran a firm called Prenda Law, would use shell companies to buy up copyrights for pornographic movies, then upload those movies to file-sharing websites such as Pirate Bay, where they would monitor who downloaded them.

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Submitted on December 20th 2016 by rexall