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WhatsApp limits forwarding worldwide to fight hoaxes and rumors
WhatsApp limited forwarding in India as part of an effort to curb hoaxes and rumors that could lead to violence, and now that policy is spreading. The Facebook-owned messaging service has announced that it's lowering the forwarding limit worldwide from 20 people or groups to the same five Indian users have dealt with since July. The update applying the limit will start to roll out on January 21st, starting with Android users and reaching iOS later.
YouTube CEO talks misinformation, creators and comments at SXSW
YouTube's presence at SXSW 2018 extended beyond its Story HQ, a space where it turned ads into videos that feel more like art. The company's CEO, Susan Wojcicki, was part of a panel at the event titled "Navigating the Video Revolution in the Digital Age." There, she talked about a wide range of topics, including experiments for YouTube's comments section and how much money creators are making. But the biggest news Wojcicki dropped on stage was about a new feature she called "information cues," which will help fight hoaxes by linking viewers to articles on Wikipedia that debunks those.
Facebook is clamping down on the number of hoaxes in your News Feed
Sure, I've clicked on a link from Facebook only to discover it was a hoax. Don't judge me. In an effort to waste a bit less of your time when perusing that News Feed, though, the social network will flag posts that other users say are untrue. Content that gets flagged or deleted will get reduced visibility in that rundown of goings-on -- including links, photos, videos, and status updates. If you see something fishy, you can report it as false just like you mark tweets for spam on Twitter. And if the item in question draws enough scrutiny, a line of warning text will appear above it in the feed. In case you're wondering, Facebook says users tend to give obvious satire a pass, so if you're a fan of that, don't expect those posts to be affected.
The Dark Below is real
Remember The Dark Below? The speculation and the agony? The short-lived controversy? Even after it was revealed to be a hoax, there were still a few who insisted that The Dark Below really was a thing. In a nutshell, they were right. The Dark Below really truly is an expansion. Just not for WoW. You may have heard of Destiny, the much-anticipated upcoming MMO from Bungie -- the studio famous for its creation of the Halo franchise. It's to Bungie that The Dark Below belongs, and it's the title of Destiny's first expansion. You see, those interested players who purchase one of the two Destiny collector's edition releases: Destiny: Ghost Edition or Destiny: Limited Edition will get special access to the Destiny Expansion Pass, which includes Expansion 1: The Dark Below, and Expansion 2: House of Wolves. So there you have it, everyone. The Dark Below is alive and well, albeit in an altogether different virtual universe, owned and developed by a different studio in a different state. Thus ends forever the mystery of The Dark Below. May it rest in peace, and live up to its, uh, Destiny.
Email widget takes on viral rumors, fact checks for you
If you're one of those people who actually believes that Facebook is going to start charging users tomorrow, you're probably going to want to skip this post. LazyTruth is working on a Gmail widget -- something that could've easily been borne out of Google Labs -- that will automatically vet your messages and determine if they're full of viral misinformation. When it detects specific unique phrases that are consistent with known fallacies, it immediately circles back to Snopes.com and Factcheck.org (a pair of myth busting portals, if you couldn't guess) to provide original source links and even rebuttals. It seems like it could be a great way to make us all even lazier more efficient when it comes to debunking some of the wilder rumors that tend to affect our most gullible friends. Of course, given that there's no set release date just yet, perhaps the source link could use a scrubbing itself. We kid... we think.
April Fools' Day roundup: 'let me Topeka that for you' edition
Alright, good netizens of Engadget, it's time for us to bring you the sort of hard-hitting news content you can expect only on the first day of April. First on our slate we have the earthshaking news that Google is to officially rename itself Topeka, with the company's official blog urging all future communications to be addressed to Topeka Inc. This is to honor the Kansas town that renamed itself Google in an effort to curry favor with Goog... excuse us, Topeka's 1Gbit broadband program. We also have exclusive and absolutely official confirmation of the forthcoming Android 2.5 update, an inflatable laptop from Toshiba, YouTube's textual deviance, and the hands-down best iPad dock you will ever see. You'll have to come after the break for all those -- they're too hot to handle out in the open. We'll be updating this post as the day goes along, so keep it locked.
