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by Eric RANDOLPH Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The war in Ukraine has rapidly positioned TikTok as the number one source of misinformation thanks to its gigantic number of users and minimal filtering of content, experts say. Every day, Shayan Sardarizadeh, a journalist with the BBC’s disinformation team, ploughs through a hallucinatory mix of fake and misleading information about the war being spewed out on the video-sharing site. “TikTok is really not […]
by John Biers © Agence France-Presse NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Twitter’s shares soared after Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed on Monday a large stake in the social media company, which he has criticized for its approach to speech rights. Musk, who has more than 80 million followers on the microblogging platform, became its largest shareholder following the purchase of 73.5 million shares or 9.2 percent of common stock, according to a securities filing. […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — NASA on Friday began a critical two-day-long test of its giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket complete with a simulated countdown, as the agency gears up to return humans to the Moon. Known as the “wet dress rehearsal,” it is the final major test before the Artemis-1 mission this summer: an uncrewed lunar flight that will eventually be followed by boots on the ground, likely no sooner than 2026. “The […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Content identified as misleading or problematic were mistakenly prioritized in users’ Facebook feeds recently, thanks to a software bug that took six months to fix, according to tech site The Verge. Facebook disputed the report, which was published Thursday, saying that it “vastly overstated what this bug was because ultimately it had no meaningful, long-term impact on problematic content,” according to Joe Osborne, a spokesman for parent company Meta. […]
by Daniel Lawler Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Strange lumpy terrain on Pluto unlike anything previously observed in the solar system indicates that giant ice volcanoes were active relatively recently on the dwarf planet, scientists said on Tuesday. The observation, which was made by analysing images taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, suggests that Pluto’s interior was hotter much later than previously thought, according to a new study in the Nature Communications journal. Rather than […]
by Nick Perry Agence France-Presse NAIROBI, Kenya (AFP) – “Plastic still has value,” said Nzambi Matee of the mountains of discarded oil drums, laundry buckets, yoghurt tubs and other trash being shredded into colourful flakes at her Nairobi factory. “I believe that plastic is one of the misunderstood materials.” The 30-year-old Kenyan engineer and inventor would know: her start-up recycles tonnes of plastic destined for landfill into eco-friendly bricks that are stronger, cheaper and lighter […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia’s media regulator has restricted access to the Google News service, accusing it of providing access to “false” information about Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported Wednesday. The decision was taken at the request of the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office, according to a statement by the country’s media regulator Roskomnadzor cited by the agencies. The online news service “provided access to numerous publications and materials that contain false […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) – The Russian space agency said Wednesday it will insist its international partners pay it in rubles, after President Vladimir Putin said Russia will only accept ruble payments for gas deliveries to “unfriendly countries”. “We will also conclude all our external agreements in rubles,” the Roscosmos space agency head Dmitry Rogozin was quoted as saying by the official Tass news agency. Hours earlier Putin announced that only rubles will be accepted in […]
by Francoise Kadri Agence France-Presse NEFTA, Tunisia (AFP) – A remote oasis in Tunisia’s desert was exhausted by decades of wasteful water use for agriculture — but now pioneers around an eco-lodge are reviving the spot with innovative projects. They hope their back-to-basics approach can keep alive the ancient Saharan caravan stop and its traditions as a sustainable alternative to the region’s high-irrigation date plantations. “Among the palm trees, everything can grow,” said Mohamed Bougaa, […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) – Netflix on Wednesday said it is testing charging a fee to subscribers who share their accounts with people who don’t live in their homes. The US-based steaming service has long taken a relaxed approach to users sharing passwords with family or friends, but recently saw stock dive on quarterly results that showed cooling subscriber growth. Competition in the streaming television market meanwhile has been ramping up, particularly from Disney+, […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., United States (AFP) – Pfizer and BioNTech announced Tuesday they had formally asked the United States drug regulator for emergency approval of a second booster shot of their Covid vaccine for people aged 65 and older. The companies said in a press statement that their request is based off two Israeli studies that show “an additional mRNA booster increases immunogenicity and lowers rates of confirmed infections and severe illness.” Most countries’ case-levels have […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., United States (AFP) – NASA on Monday insisted tensions linked to the war in Ukraine had no impact on International Space Station operations or the planned return of an American astronaut aboard a Russian capsule later this month. Mark Vande Hei is due to fly to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov on March 30 after 355 days in space, a new […]
