Tibet Earthquake, Meta's New Era, and Brain Surveillance

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Quake Strikes Tibet 

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck the Shigatse region of Tibet yesterday at 9:05 am local time, causing widespread damage and claiming at least 126 lives. The epicenter was located in the high-altitude Chinese county of Dingri, about 47 miles northeast of Mount Everest, at a depth of 6.2 miles. The tremors were felt across Nepal, India, and Bhutan.

More than 1,000 homes were damaged, and rescue teams have been deployed to search for survivors; however, efforts are being hampered by freezing conditions, with temperatures dropping as low as minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Shigatse is the second-largest city in Tibet and the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, the second-most significant figure after the Dalai Lama in Tibetan Buddhism. The region's location along the Indian-Eurasian tectonic plate boundary makes it prone to seismic activity—a 2015 earthquake near Kathmandu, Nepal, resulted in nearly 9,000 deaths.

US Claims Genocide in Sudan

The US government yesterday officially accused a Sudanese paramilitary group and its proxies of committing genocide in a 20-month-long brutal civil war against the North African country's military.

The declaration marks the most decisive stance the US has taken in the war between the forces of two formerly allied generals—Rapid Support Forces leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The conflict (see background) has killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced more than 11 million people—about one-fifth of the country’s population. The US has declared genocide only six other times since the end of the Cold War in 1989. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday the RSF—a group with roots in the infamous Janjaweed militias—committed systematic executions of men and boys and sexual violence against women and girls based on ethnicity. In response, the US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on Dagalo and seven United Arab Emirates companies supporting the militia. 

Meta Nixes Fact-Checking

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced broad changes to the social media company's content moderation policies yesterday, including ending its US fact-checking program and removing restrictions on sensitive political content on its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.

The CEO claimed Meta’s adoption of more stringent content moderation after the 2016 election led to the mistaken censorship of millions of users (watch video). In place of fact-checkers, the company will deploy Community Notes in the US—similar to those on X—where users provide context to posts. It will still use its violation scanner to address high-severity issues like terrorism and child exploitation. The company will also move its safety and trust teams from California to Texas.

Zuckerberg also signaled he would support the incoming Trump administration’s efforts to combat foreign censorship. The changes follow Meta's appointment last week of Republican Joel Kaplan as its foreign policy chief and its $1M donation to Trump’s inaugural fund in December.

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