Geoffrey A. Fowler

Column | Zuckerberg fired the fact-checkers. We tested their replacement. Our tech columnist drafted 65 community notes, Meta’s new crowdsourced system to fight falsehoods. It failed to make a dent.

Meta fired its fact-checkers, citing concerns of liberal bias, and replaced them with a version of X's "Community Notes." How's that going?

Well, my coworker @geoffreyfowler.bsky.social proposed 65 fact-checks debunking false posts... and only 3 got approved. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Column | Zuckerberg fired the fact-checkers. We tested their replacement. Our tech columnist drafted 65 community notes, Meta’s new crowdsourced system to fight falsehoods. It failed to make a dent.

7 months since Zuck's vaunted moderation pivot, one of its core planks is still barely registering.

@geoffreyfowler.bsky.social submitted 65 perfectly suitable community notes and only 3 got published -- presumably because not enough people rated the others.

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Column | Zuckerberg fired the fact-checkers. We tested their replacement. Our tech columnist drafted 65 community notes, Meta’s new crowdsourced system to fight falsehoods. It failed to make a dent.

Of my 65 draft community notes, only 3 got published.

That’s less than 5%.

The problem: not enough other users voted that my notes were “helpful,” even though they were 100% about stuff pro news outlets had fact checked.

wapo.st/3IZ1Al1

Mark Zuckerberg fired pro fact checkers after Trump got re-elected.

So @washingtonpost.com I tested Zuck's replacement: crowdsourced "community notes." Over 4 months, I drafted 65—debunking lies ranging from Mr. Rogers to ICE.

Spoiler alert: It failed to make a dent. Read 👉 wapo.st/3IZ1Al1

No one likes meetings. They’re sending their AI note takers instead. Artificial intelligence apps that record and summarize meetings can tempt workers into skipping calls, leaving humans who join in the company of silent bots.

What happens when you show up for a Zoom meeting ... and the only other participants are AI note takers?

It happened to my colleague:
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Hello! I'm a journalist covering AI in healthcare and would love to talk to you about your experience. I'm here and on Geoffrey.Fowler@washpost.com

Review | 5 AI bots took our tough reading test. One was smartest — and it wasn’t ChatGPT. We challenged AI helpers to decode legal contracts, simplify medical research, speed-read a novel and make sense of Trump speeches. Some of the AI analysis was impressive — and some was downright dumb...

Testing 5 A.I. bots head-to-head on their summary of medical research papers that I authored (and other domains)
by @geoffreyfowler.bsky.social
gift link www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Your chatbot friend might be messing with your mind OpenAI, Meta and others want people to spend more time with AI chatbots, but there is growing evidence that they can hook users or reinforce harmful ideas.

AI is speedrunning the social media era by optimizing chatbots for engagement, user feedback, time spent.

Evidence is mounting that this poses unintended risks, includ. chats from peer-reviewed research, OpenAI's "sycophancy" debacle, & Character ai lawsuits www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

iPhone designer Jony Ive will join OpenAI to build AI-powered devices Jony Ive, a famed former Apple designer, said he will work at OpenAI on new products that make it easier to use AI tools like ChatGPT.

Jony Ive & Sam Altman are right that the hardware interface between humans and the "external brain" of AI is ripe for development.

I hope they heed the hard lessons about values that have to be baked in, like privacy, safety, interoperability & access.

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

iPhone designer Jony Ive will join OpenAI to build AI-powered devices Jony Ive, a famed former Apple designer, said he will work at OpenAI on new products that make it easier to use AI tools like ChatGPT.

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Sam and Jony introduce io Building a family of AI products for everyone.

"the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen"

um, ok!

openai.com/sam-and-jony/

Column | Google is getting even more AI, changing how we search Google announced a confusing array of new ways to use its AI to find information at its annual I/O event. Here’s a guide.

Have you Deep Researched it? Try NotebookLM. It’s in Google Search with AI Overviews. It’s literally on AI Mode. Dude just ask Gemini. You can Lens it. There’s an AI Summary for you.

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... via @geoffreyfowler.bsky.social

At #googleio, the scheduled morning vibe lift is … vibe coding

Column | Gen Z users and a dad tested Instagram Teen Accounts. Their feeds were shocking. Meta promised parents it would shield teens from harmful content. Tests by young users and our tech columnist dad find it fails spectacularly in important ways.

What should be clear to parents: Teen Accounts can’t be relied upon to actually shield kids from the dangers of Instagram's own algorithm.

And lawmakers weighing the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), the failure of these voluntary efforts speak volumes about Meta's accountability.

wapo.st/4kuae8G

Meta's response: much of this stuff is “unobjectionable” or consistent with “humor from a PG-13 film.”

Here are some more graphic examples of what the testers found, and their test report via @accountabletech.bsky.social

I repeated the GenZer tests—and my results were worse. In the first 10 min, Instagram recommended a video celebrating a man who passed out from alcohol. Another demoed a "bump" ring for snuff.

Eventually, the account was recommending content related to alcohol & nicotine as often as 1 in 5 Reels.

These test teen accounts got algorithmically recommended sexual, body image, alcohol, drug and hate content. It left some of the young testers feeling awful.

This happened even though Meta promised last fall that “teens will be placed into the strictest setting of our sensitive content control."

PSA for parents: Instagram promised it would start protecting kids “by default” with special Teen Accounts.

So a group of GenZ users @designitforus.bsky.social put it to the test.

IG filled their feeds with shocking stuff—graphic samples below.

I wrote about it @washingtonpost.com wapo.st/4kuae8G

I repeated the GenZer tests—and my results were worse. In the first 10 min, Instagram recommended a video celebrating a man who passed out from alcohol. Another demoed a "bump" ring for snuff.

Eventually, the account was recommending content related to alcohol & nicotine as often as 1 in 5 Reels.

These test teen accounts got algorithmically recommended sexual, body image, alcohol, drug and hate content. It left some of the young testers feeling awful.

All this even though Meta promised last fall that “teens will be placed into the strictest setting of our sensitive content control."

‘You Can’t Lick a Badger Twice’: Google Failures Highlight a Fundamental AI Flaw Google’s AI Overviews feature credible-sounding explanations for completely made-up idioms.

Google’s AI Overviews will not only confirm that a gibberish idiom is a real saying, it will also tell you what it means and how it was derived -- often including reference links.

www.wired.com/story/google...

You may have seen a lot of headlines this morning about Meta's @oversightboard.bsky.social latest rulings but there was one officials there clearly didn't want you to read

donations to trump’s inauguration from corporations facing federal investigations/lawsuits: $50 million
(one third of corporate inauguration donations)

-public citizen

Analysis | AI tools mostly fumble basic financial tasks, study finds The Washington Post’s essential guide to tech policy news.

New data throws some cold water on AI accuracy, via @nitasha.bsky.social:
A test by Vals AI of models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, etc. found that all scored LESS THAN 50% accuracy on average for simple tasks required of entry-level financial analysts.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

10-year-old girl kidnapped my man she met on Roblox, police said | CNN A California man has been arrested for abducting a 10-year-old child he reportedly met on social media apps Roblox and Discord, authorities said Wednesday.

Good grief, Roblox www.cnn.com/2025/04/17/u...

Here’s the Community Note I posted and my colleague’s fact check it is based on: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

I got access to Community Notes—Meta’s new replacement for pro fact checking. Some of its problems are already becoming clear.

5 days ago I submitted a Note about a JD Vance claim that the Post’s Fact Checker gave “4 Pinocchios.” My Note still hasn’t been cleared to go public—and might never.

I’m super interested to see what new data will come to light about the real “cost” of using Facebook — like losing ever-more privacy, or being exposed to an ever-higher advertising load

Phones, other electronics exempt from new tariffs, Trump administration says The announcement comes after Beijing responded to President Trump’s escalating trade war with a 125 percent tariff on all U.S. goods early Friday.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

Smartphones and computers are now exempt from Trump’s latest tariffs | CNN Business Electronics imported to the United States will be exempt from President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, according to a US Customs and Border Protection notice posted on Friday.

Now phones and computers will be exempt from Trump’s tariffs.

It’s a reminder: Tim Cook is good at his job.

www.cnn.com/2025/04/12/t...