News in brief: Meta to End Third-Party Fact-Checking Program; Singapore Considers Social Media Age Restrictions; Disney to Combine Hulu + Live TV with FuboTV 

Meta to End Third-Party Fact-Checking Program  

Meta has announced it will be ending its third-party fact-checking program, instead moving to a Community Notes model. In a blog post for the company, Joel Kaplan, Chief Global Affairs Officer, writes: “We’ve seen this approach work on X – where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see.” Once the program is up and running, Community Notes will be written and rated by contributing users. They will require agreement between people with differing perspectives to help prevent biased ratings. Individuals are able to sign up to become the programme’s first contributors. The change will first be introduced in the US over the next couple of months. 

Singapore Considers Social Media Age Restrictions

The Singaporean government is considering introducing a minimum age restriction for social media, reports Bloomberg. The country is in talks with counterparts in Australia over the matter, following their introduction of legislation which bans those under the age of 16 from social media platforms late last year. Rahayu Mahzam, Singapore’s Minister of State for Digital Development and Information, said: “The stated objective of legislating age limits for social media access is to protect children and youths from its harms…We are engaging our Australian counterparts and social media platforms to understand their views.” It is still yet to be decided how platforms will verify users’ ages in Australia, although the use of official documents such as passports has been ruled out due to privacy concerns. Norway is also reportedly looking to introduce an age restriction for social media. 

Disney to Combine Hulu + Live TV with FuboTV

Disney has entered into a definitive agreement to combine its Hulu + Live TV business with live sports streamer FuboTV. The merged business will operate under the Fubo company name, led by the existing Fubo management team, although both will still be available to consumers as separate offerings. The new arrangement will see Fubo create a new Sports & Broadcasting service featuring Disney’s premier sports and broadcast networks. Under the terms of agreement, Disney will own 70% of Fubo.