A German law to stop fake news
BERLIN — Germany unveiled a landmark social media bill Wednesday that could quickly turn this nation into a test case in the effort to combat the spread of fake news and hate speech in the West.
The highly anticipated draft bill, several months in the making, is contentious, with critics denouncing it as a curb on free speech. If passed into law, as now appears likely, the measure would compel large outlets such as Facebook and Twitter to rapidly remove fake news that incites hate, as well as other “criminal” content, or face fines as high as $53 million.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed on the draft bill Wednesday, a step that gives it a high chance of approval in the German Parliament before national elections in September. The move amounts to a direct response to the barrage of fake news during last year’s elections in the United States.
Large iceberg drifting
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — More than 400 icebergs have drifted into the North Atlantic shipping lanes over the past week in an unusually large swarm for this early in the season, forcing vessels to slow to a crawl or take detours of hundreds of miles.
Experts are attributing it to uncommonly strong counter-clockwise winds that are drawing the icebergs south, and perhaps also global warming, which is accelerating the process by which chunks of the Greenland ice sheet break off and float away.
As of Monday, there were about 450 icebergs near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, up from 37 a week earlier, according to the U.S. Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol in New London, Conn. Those kinds of numbers are usually not seen until late May or early June.
Workers get microchips
How would you feel about having a microchip implanted in your hand to make things more convenient at work?
In Sweden, some workers are volunteering to do just that, electing to have a chip the size of a grain of rice implanted in their bodies to help them unlock doors, operate printers, open storage lockers and even buy smoothies with the wave of their hand. Epicenter, a digital hub in Stockholm that houses more than 300 startups and innovation labs for larger companies, has made the implanted chip available to its own workers and to member organizations in recent years, a biohacking experiment in simplicity that’s been embraced by some but represents a technological frontier sure to make other people shudder.
Venezuelan protests
CARACAS, Venezuela — Hundreds of demonstrators clashed with Venezuelan security forces Tuesday as they marched in support of lawmakers locked in a bitter dispute with the administration of President Nicolas Maduro and the Supreme Court.
The opposition-controlled National Assembly had called for the march ahead of a vote by lawmakers to remove members of the country’s top court, five days after judges attempted to seize the power of Congress. The session was called off before the first vote was cast as the demonstrations turned violent.
Also in the world...
At least six people were killed on Wednesday in an explosion in eastern Pakistan that targeted a team conducting the country’s first national census in nearly two decades, officials said.