Twitter has admitted that it mistakenly removed accounts sharing Russian military activity in the midst of the Ukraine invasion. As TechCrunch notes, the deleted accounts, which have since been reinstated, included an aggregator of user-generated posts from Ukraine and accounts owned by people doing open source intelligence investigation (OSINT) to debunk fake news and claims. 

While users first blamed mass reporting for the account deletions, Twitter Head of Site Integrity Yoel Roth said it wasn't a factor at all. Instead, the removals were a result of errors made by human moderators who are proactively addressing manipulated media on the website. 

In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson explained to TechCrunch:

"We've been proactively monitoring for emerging narratives that are violative of our policies, and, in this instance, we took enforcement action on a number of accounts in error. We're expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated access to a number of affected accounts."

In addition to proactively monitoring manipulated media coming from the region, Twitter has also responded to the Ukraine crisis with tips on how to secure accounts. Ukraine's websites have been hit by cyberattacks over the past few weeks, and social media accounts, especially those sharing news and images from the country, might also be targeted. 

Twitter Safety has posted a series of tweets in Ukrainian with tips on how to protect accounts with strong passwords and two-factor authentication. It also included links to its support page for those whose accounts had been compromised and for those who got locked out. Twitter has linked users to instructions on how to disable location info and how to remove it from previous tweets, as well. Finally, it's advising users to deactivate their account if they feel that the safest option is to delete it completely.

Facebook may be failing to tag a large amount of climate misinformation posted on its site, a study released today indicates. Researchers from the Center for Counter Digital Hate analyzed 184 exceptionally popular stories from what it identified to be the top ten publishers of climate change denial content in the world (a list that includes Russian state media, The Daily Wire, Breitbart and others). It found that roughly half (50.5 percent) of the stories failed to trigger Facebook’s information labels designed to flag coverage on climate change. Stories from such heavily trafficked news outlets should be the easiest targets for fact-checkers, suggesting that much more climate misinformation is evading Facebook’s screening.

Last year Facebook (which has since rebranded as Meta) promised to flag climate change coverage in a number of countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK and the US. Such posts would be marked with an informational label that would direct users to the platform’s “Climate Science Information Center”, which contains information that debunks myths on the climate. The study’s authors began their research following Facebook’s May 2021 announcement that it would tackle climate change denial propaganda, and all articles included in the analysis were posted after that date.

Independent fact-checkers also flag climate change stories that are false, and Facebook adds a warning label and reduces distribution. "When they rate this content as false, we add a warning label and reduce its distribution so fewer people see it. During the time frame of this report, we hadn't completely rolled out our labeling program, which very likely impacted the results,” Facebook spokesperson Kevin McAllister told NPR.

Facebook has made multiple efforts to scrub misinformation posted on its platform over the past few years, for topics like the 2020 presidential election, the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccines. But as Engadget and other outlets have covered, a large amount of misinformation is still able to clear Facebook’s algorithms without proper labeling.

But nearly a year later, Facebook’s review system on climate change content is still missing the mark. I was able to post a number of different climate change stories on Facebook without hitting its algorithms, including articles entitled “Why the West Coast Heat Wave Has Nothing To Do With Climate Change” from The Federalist and “Alarmists: Global Warming Causes ‘Unprecedented Cold’ in Tajikistan”, published in Breitbart.

Facebook hasn’t been specific on what type of outlets or information is eligible for an info label. Engadget has reached out for comment, and will update when we hear back.

While there’s some evidence that suggests efforts by social media platforms to tag misinformation and hoaxes has worked to stop their spread, a large amount of misinformation still slips through the cracks. And unfortunately, additional research indicates that the absence of these warnings (the lack of a climate information label, for instance) increases the "perceived accuracy" of content.

Spotify has released the first episodes of a new audio format it's calling the "bookcast" with help from Dolly Parton and James Patterson. The pair co-wrote a novel titled Run, Rose, Run, which has been blended with an original soundtrack written, recorded and produced by Parton.

The bookcast format brings together audio storytelling with sound elements and original music. Spotify says it delivers "an immersive listening experience."

Run, Rose, Run tells the story of a musician who moves to Nashville to chase her dream of making it in the music industry. Her songs are inspired by a "brutal secret" that threatens to thwart her plans.

You'll be able to listen to the bookcast on Spotify for free. The first two episodes are out now, featuring excerpts from the book set to Parton's music. More episodes will arrive over the next couple of weeks, with the last six landing on March 7th, the same day the novel is released. Parton will release the soundtrack on March 4th, and the firsttwo songs are available now.

The bookcast, which comes from a pair of hugely popular creatives, emerges in the wake of some notable artists pulling their music from Spotify. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell both removed their work from the platform after the former accused the company of allowing Joe Rogan to spread harmful misinformation on his podcast. Brené Brown paused new episodes of her Spotify-exclusive podcasts, while film director Ava DuVernay this month ended her podcast deal with the company before producing any shows for Spotify.

It's possible the bookcast was in the works long before the Rogan controversy blew up, so it doesn't entirely seem to be a case of damage control. However, if Spotify's looking to build up some goodwill, it could go far worse than recruiting Parton and Patterson.

LinkedIn is delving deeper into the podcast world. It's debuting a podcast network that features in-house shows from the LinkedIn News team as well as programs from industry figures.

The shows, unsurprisingly, are geared toward a professional audience. They focus on areas including understanding tech, managing mental health and explaining the hiring process. Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, will co-host a podcast about personal entrepreneurship called The Start-Up of You that will premiere this spring.

The company says the LinkedIn Podcast Network is a pilot and builds on the success of Hello Monday, a podcast produced by LinkedIn News in which host Jessi Hempel delves into the evolving nature of work. The shows are ad-supported and the initial sponsor is Verizon, Engadget's former parent company.

The podcast network ties into LinkedIn's other products — such as newsletters, live events, videos and posts — with the idea that hosts and audiences will be able to keep conversations going outside of the shows. Listeners will be able to check out the podcasts on LinkedIn directly if they follow the hosts and subscribe to their newsletters. The shows will also be available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast platforms.

You didn't think Netflix would leave its TikTok-style comedy feed on phones, did you? Sure enough, the company is launching a test that brings the Fast Laughs feature to TVs. Opt in and you'll get a flurry of hopefully funny clips from Netflix shows, movies and (of course) comedy specials. Find something you enjoy and you can watch the whole affair or add it to your watch list.

The addition is "slowly" deploying to subscribers in English-speaking countries including the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. If it's enabled, you'll find it several rows deep into your home page. Fast Laughs will respect your content settings, but it won't be available on kids' profiles.

The expansion may seem odd for a feature effectively built to reel in people glued to social media apps on their phones, but it's easy to see the logic of a TV edition. Fast Laughs is ultimately a discovery tool for viewers who can't decide on something to watch. This could help you settle on a show relatively quickly when trailers (or Netflix's seemingly endless carousels) aren't enough.

Bethesda plans to shut down its PC games launcher later this year. Players will be able to move their games, DLC, virtual currency, in-game items and wallet balance to their Steam account. More specific details about the process will be revealed later.

Starting in April, you'll be able to move everything over to Steam, including friends lists. You might need to copy some save files to the Steam folder manually. Bethesda expects that nearly all save progress will be transferable. However, at least for the time being, Wolfenstein: Youngblood saves from the Bethesda launcher won't work on Steam.

Users can play games through the Bethesda launcher until some time in May. You'll still be able to transfer your data to Steam after that time.

Meanwhile, Bethesda.net accounts aren't going anywhere. You'll continue to use your account to log in to games that require it and you'll still be able to access it on Bethesda's website. Bethesda will continue to use the accounts in future titles.

Fallout 76 players should note that, as of April, their Fallout 1st membership won't renew automatically. They'll need to renew it on Steam once their membership expires. When they move to Steam, yearly members will instantly receive all Atoms they're due for the remainder of their membership.

Bethesda's parent company Microsoft already sells Xbox games through Steam. Bethesda's games are also available to buy via the Xbox app and many of them are included in Game Pass. For PC gamers, switching to Steam means having one fewer major game launcher to deal with and more of their games available in one place.

If there was ever any doubt about just how much of a threat TikTok poses to Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg recently cleared things up when he cited the competitor as the reason Facebook lost users for the first time ever. Now, the company is ready to push its TikTok clone into more parts of its social network as it tries to counter those declines.

The social network is officially launching “Facebook Reels,” the Facebook-centric version of the feature that first launched on Instagram last year. The company has already been experimenting with Reels in Feed and encouraging users to cross-post their videos across the services for some time. But with the latest launch, Reels will be available as a standalone feature on Facebook in more than 150 countries.

Facebook will also be pushing Reels into even more parts of its app. In addition to placing Reels at the top of users’ Feeds, the company will allow users to share Reels inside of Stories and enable users to turn Stories posts into Reels. Facebook Watch, which has typically focused on longer form video, will also host Reels content, as will Groups. And the company says it will start experimenting with recommending “suggested Reels” in some users' Feeds. In other words: Reels will be in just about every surface of Facebook where users typically view and share video.

The expansion will be a major test for the company, which has made competing with TikTok and luring more young adults to its platform a top priority. And Zuckerberg has made clear that he believes Reels is the best way to win over those users, many of whom are increasingly spending their time on TikTok rather than Facebook. During Meta’s earnings call earlier this month, Zuckerberg said the company was “in the middle of a transition on our own services towards short form video like Reels.”

Facebook

To further incentive Reels creators, Facebook is also making monetization features available to more people. Monetization features currently include banner ads and sticker ads, but the company plans to start testing Stars, which allow fans to buy “gifts” for creators. The moneymaking tools could help the company differentiate from TikTok, which has recently been criticized for low creator fund payouts.

On the other hand, Facebook could still have a tough time standing out from its main competitor. Instagram has already had to discourage users from simply reposting old TikTok content as Reels. Reels also offers dramatically fewer editing and creative tools relative to TikTok, though Facebook now says it’s working on additional features like the ability to save posts as drafts.

Welcome back! The US Copyright Office (USCO) is again refusing to grant copyright for a work of art that was created by an artificial intelligence system. Dr. Stephen Thaler attempted to copyright a piece of art titled A Recent Entrance to Paradise, claiming in a second request for reconsideration of a 2019 ruling that the USCO's “human authorship” requirement was unconstitutional.

Current copyright law only offers protections to "the fruits of intellectual labor” that “are founded in the creative powers of the [human] mind,’ according to the USCO. For now, AI has the same access to copyrighting as monkeys – that’s to say, none at all.

-Mat Smith

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Capcom teases ‘Street Fighter 6’

Expect more details in the coming months.

Capcom

Capcom has announced the development of Street Fighter 6, revealing a teaser trailer featuring Ryu and Luke, a key DLC character appearing at the end of Street Fighter V. The game was announced following Capcom's Pro Tour fighting game exhibition , but there’s not much more to report at this moment. Check out the teaser – all forty seconds of it.

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Trump’s social network has launched on iOS

Remember Truth Social?

Donald Trump’s Twitter-like social media platform has launched on the Apple App Store. The launch will mark the former president’s return to social media. Twitter and Facebook banned Trump following the January 6th attack on the US Capitol. 

People can use the network to post “Truths,” the platform’s equivalent to tweets, and it's possible to reshare posts on one's timeline to expand their reach. The executive who answered questions from beta users said the company was working on a verification policy that it would publish “in the coming weeks.”

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No, Spotify didn't pull Joe Rogan's podcast

The company says a technical problem is to blame.

Don't panic if you couldn’t play The Joe Rogan Experience over the last few days on Spotify. The streaming service has confirmed to Engadget that a "technical issue" prevented users from playing a number of Spotify podcasts, including Joe Rogan's and The Ringer shows like The Bill Simmons Podcast. It’s bad timing, following controversy over misinformation in Spotify's podcasts like Rogan’s, which has been accused of spreading and tolerating false claims about COVID-19 vaccines. The company has now addressed the technical problem and the episodes are back online.

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Watch one final ‘Elden Ring’ trailer before it arrives

The action RPG comes out on February 25th.

With less than a week before Elden Ring’s February 25th release date, publisher Bandai Namco has shared a new “Overview” trailer detailing the many systems of FromSoftware’s latest action RPG. The clip features nearly six minutes of edited gameplay footage that appears thankfully spoiler-free. In case you haven’t been paying attention, George R. R. Martin (author of Game of Thrones) helped Dark Souls and Bloodborne mastermind Hidetaka Miyazaki create the world of the game.

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Capcom has announced the development Street Fighter 6, the next chapter in the iconic fighting series, IGN has reported. It also released a teaser trailer featuring Ryu and Luke, a key DLC character appearing at the end of Street Fighter V.

The game was announced following Capcom's Pro Tour fighting game exhibition via a countdown website. There was no other information, though the trailer graphics suggest the new title might use a more realistic character style. Capcom said it would have more news coming in the summer of 2022. 

Released in 2016, Street Fighter V was the first title in the series to use a full story mode, but it got off to a rough start due to server problems and limited content. It was eventually a success however, thanks in large part to the subsequent Champion and Arcade editions. 

Along with the Street Fighter 6 news, Capcom unveiled a new fighting game compilation with titles including Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, Vampire Hunter 2:Darkstalkers' Revenge and Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition. It arrives on June 24th on PS4, Xbox, PC and Nintendo Switch.

With less than a week before Elden Ring’sFebruary 25th release date, publisher Bandai Namco has shared a new “Overview” trailer detailing the many systems of FromSoftware’s latest action RPG. The clip features nearly six minutes of edited gameplay footage for fans to check out. And if you’ve been trying to avoid spoilers but still want to see what From’s latest project will offer, this is probably your best chance to do so.

Notably, the trailer offers a glimpse of not just the game’s open-world environment, but the many dungeons that you’ll have a chance to explore during your adventures, including the so-called “legacy” ones that feature the same dense level design that has been a hallmark of FromSoftware games since Demon’s Souls. The clip also offers a look at item crafting, player customization and cooperative play, among other elements.

Elden Ring will be available to play on PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. FromSoftware first announced the title back at E3 2019. A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin helped Dark Souls and Bloodborne mastermind Hidetaka Miyazaki create the world of the game. After years of waiting, fans will finally get to see the fruits of that collaboration for themselves.