Fake news watch: Get the juice on Saddam glorification
Iraq’s supreme judicial council has denied issuing a decision to criminalize the glorification of the late president Saddam Hussein
A viral video purporting to show a Qur’an student being beaten by his teacher at a mosque in Dubai was reported to be fake news
Updated 05 February 2019
Arab News
1 Glorifying Saddam is not a crime
Iraq’s supreme judicial council has denied issuing a decision to criminalize the glorification of the late president Saddam Hussein.
It followed the arrest of a poet who wrote some verse praising the days of the late president.
The incident prompted Iraqis on social media to circulate news reports claiming that glorifying the deceased leader had become a crime.
The judiciary council swiftly denied the claim.
2 Rumors of a boy beaten at Dubai mosque refuted
A viral video purporting to show a Qur’an student being beaten by his teacher at a mosque in Dubai was reported to be fake news according to a report in Khaleej Times.
The Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department issued a statement regarding a video that went viral on social media, the Dubai-based newspaper said.
“We refute the rumors on social media about the so-called incident where a Qur’an student was beaten by his teacher at a mosque in Dubai,” the department said in a statement.
3 Napkins in juice a soggy tale
Jordan’s Food and Drug Administration has denied video footage circulated on social media claiming that napkin fragments were found in a local juice maker’s factory. The administration said in a statement after examining the viral video’s content that it was “unreasonable” that large-sized napkins or towels found their way through a system that had filters.
Mark Zuckerberg set to testify in watershed social media trial
The plaintiff, a now 20-year-old woman, is seeking to hold social media companies responsible for harms to children who use their platforms
Zuckerberg’s testimony comes a week after the testimony of Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram
Updated 58 sec ago
AP
LOS ANGELES: Mark Zuckerberg will testify in an unprecedented social media trial that questions whether Meta’s platforms deliberately addict and harm children. Meta’s CEO is expected to answer tough questions on Wednesday from attorneys representing a now 20-year-old woman identified by the initials KGM, who claims her early use of social media addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled. Zuckerberg has testified in other trials and answered questions from Congress about youth safety on Meta’s platforms, and he apologized to families at that hearing whose lives had been upended by tragedies they believed were because of social media. This trial, though, marks the first time Zuckerberg will answer similar questions in front of a jury. and, again, bereaved parents are expected to be in the limited courtroom seats available to the public. The case, along with two others, has been selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies would play out. A Meta spokesperson said the company strongly disagrees with the allegations in the lawsuit and said they are “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.” One of Meta’s attorneys, Paul Schmidt, said in his opening statement that the company is not disputing that KGM experienced mental health struggles, but rather that Instagram played a substantial factor in those struggles. He pointed to medical records that showed a turbulent home life, and both he and an attorney representing YouTube argue she turned to their platforms as a coping mechanism or a means of escaping her mental health struggles. Zuckerberg’s testimony comes a week after that of Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram, who said in the courtroom that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms. Mosseri maintained that Instagram works hard to protect young people using the service, and said it’s “not good for the company, over the long run, to make decisions that profit for us but are poor for people’s well-being.” Much of Mosseri’s questioning from the plaintiff’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, centered on cosmetic filters on Instagram that changed people’s appearance — a topic that Lanier is sure to revisit with Zuckerberg. He is also expected to face questions about Instagram’s algorithm, the infinite nature of Meta’ feeds and other features the plaintiffs argue are designed to get users hooked. Meta is also facing a separate trial in New Mexico that began last week.
