—Eli Pariser & Deepti Doshi Last week, when Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta would end third-party fact-checking, it was a shocking, but not surprising, pivot. It’s just the latest example of billionaire flip-flops affecting our social lives on the internet. Zuckerberg is not the only social media CEO working across the street: Elon Musk, since buying Twitter in 2022 and declaring free speech “the foundation of a functioning democracy,” has suspended journalists, restored tens of thousands of banned users, brought back political ads , and the policy of verification and harassment weakened. Unfortunately, these self-interested billionaires can do whatever they want because of their privileged ownership model of centralized control in exchange for shareholder returns. The internet doesn’t need to be like this. But as luck would have it, new methods emerged just in time. Read the full story. Determining the fate of “leftover” embryos For the past few months, I have been working on IVF embryos. The purpose of in vitro fertilization is to create a baby through some laboratory work: Trigger the release of many eggs, introduce sperm in the laboratory, transfer one of the resulting embryos to the uterus, and cross your fingers for a healthy pregnancy. Sometimes it doesn’t work. But it often happens. For the article, I explored what happens to the remaining healthy embryos. Today, responsible IVF clinics will always talk to people about the possibility of having leftover embryos before starting treatment. But it can be very difficult to make that decision before you start treatment, and some people can’t imagine what the rest will be like—or what it will feel like. Read the full story.—Jessica Hamzelou
