While the U.S. military builds out a robot support force and debates how much autonomy those robots should be given, China and Russia seem to be having no such reservations.
Driving the news: "At stake is a contract worth almost half a billion dollars for 3,000 backpack-sized robots that can defuse bombs and scout enemy positions," the AP's Matt O'Brien reports.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who started 2018 out with a pledge to "fix" Facebook's myriad problems with data privacy, misinformation, content moderation and user trust, posted a year-in-review message Friday declaring he is "proud of the progress we've made."
Big picture: "Addressing these issues is more than a one-year challenge," Zuckerberg now admits, but "we've now established multi-year plans to overhaul our systems and we're well into executing those roadmaps." In the meantime, as shown by a year that started with the Cambridge Analytica affair and ended with embarrassing revelations about security bugs and opposition research, Facebook continues to be a high-output generator of controversy and scandal.
The Federal Trade Commission, coping with the continuing impact of the government shutdown, will need to suspend all investigations and litigation, including a high-profile investigation of Facebook that began earlier this year, the Washington Post reports.
Details: The agency made preparations for the shutdown, but its current budget only allows it to continue working through midday Friday.
Former American Express chairman and CEO Kenneth Chenault will remain on the board of Facebook without any change in his role, a spokesperson confirmed to Axios.
Why it matters: Chenault will be retiring from the boards of IBM and Procter & Gamble on Feb. 13, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. His departure from the P&G and IBM boards had sparked speculation he would become Facebook’s chairman, a role currently occupied by founder Mark Zuckerberg. He became Facebook's first black board member in February after retiring from AmEx, where he was the third black CEO in Fortune 500 history.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri took to Twitter Thursday to reassure users alarmed by an unannounced change in the apps' interface that the shift from a vertical scroll to a horizontal swipe was just a test that accidentally rolled out widely.
Why it matters: There have been reports that Instagram has been testing the new design for months, presumably to foster deeper user engagement with content and less "mindless scrolling" between posts.
A bitter fight between YouTube and the European Union over a controversial copyright law could have major implications for how we think about balancing free speech and access with consumer freedoms here in the United States.
Why it matters: The debate in Europe is revealing that consumers may not support drastic measures that restrict their favorite social media platforms.
