Facebook to rely on ‘Community Notes,’ replacing fact checkers, Zuckerberg says
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(NEW YORK) — Facebook plans to replace its fact checkers with “Community Notes,” a move that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said would allow the social network to return “to our roots around free expression.”
“We’re replacing fact checkers with Community Notes, simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing mistakes,” Zuckerberg said on Tuesday. “Looking forward to this next chapter.”
The changes, which will also be in place for Instagram and Threads, will lift restrictions “on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse” and will focus the company’s “enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations,” Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer, said in a blog post.
As the company’s fact-checking capabilities have grown, they have expanded “to the point where we are making too many mistakes,” which in turn has frustrated many of the social networks’ users, Kaplan said.
“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail,’ and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” he said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Michael Kreisel and Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Throughout the country, once bustling business districts have turned into ghost towns. The pandemic has shown that many jobs can be done remotely. Now some major U.S. cities are breathing new life into empty office buildings by converting them into housing. Notable cities that are part of this trend include New York, Austin, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Boston.
The office vacancy rate is 20.1% in the U.S., according to Moody’s. That’s a 30-year high, with more than 900 million square feet of office space empty — enough to fill New York City’s One World Trade Center 300 times.
Amazon, Citigroup, Walmart, and UPS are among the major companies now requiring employees to spend more time in the office. Some companies are pulling out all the stops to entice workers back. Amenities may include massage rooms, health care services, and on-site personal gyms.
However, most experts agree that hybrid and remote work is here to stay. “Companies don’t need office space in the way that they needed office space 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago,” Evan Horowitz, executive director of The Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, said. “Remote work has just transformed that landscape.”
Major cities across the country, including Boston, Austin, and Chicago, are seeing office vacancies at or near record highs. In San Francisco, more than 22% of offices are currently empty, a significant increase from about 9% in 2019.
Some cities are now at risk of falling into what is known as the “economic doom loop.” High vacancy rates can cause property values to plummet, decreasing tax revenue. This decrease in revenue affects funding for essential services such as schools, police and sanitation, ultimately making these cities less desirable places to live.
Horowitz says Boston is more vulnerable to falling into an “economic doom loop” than other major cities because of its unique s tax structure.
“Boston is closer to crisis mode than other cities because it is so dependent on taxes from commercial real estate, twice as dependent as virtually any other city in the country,” Horowitz said. The loss of commercial tenants is having a ripple effect on area businesses.
When Dave Savoie bought his favorite bar and grill, Silvertone, in 2016 he said it was like a dream come true.
The downtown Boston establishment was popular with the business crowd. Office workers made up 50% of Savoie’s customers, but all that changed with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I used to call them suits,” Savoie said. “You know, the office guys, the finance guys. And this was their place. [Now] they work from home. If people come to the city now, they work a maximum three days a week.”
It proved too much for Silvertone and, after 27 years, eight of them under Savoie’s ownership, the bar announced “last call” in May.
Boston’s Mayor Michelle Wu, who is up for reelection next year, is taking steps to address the situation. She is implementing tax breaks and zoning changes to transform unwanted office space into much-needed housing.
“We have about 500 housing units that are now in the pipeline to be converted out of formerly vacant office buildings,” Wu told ABC News. “We’re taking city buildings like libraries that need renovations and adding housing on top of that and making it faster than ever before through zoning and other city regulatory processes to get your building built and to get those shovels in the ground. The more that downtown is a residential, thriving, busy neighborhood, just like every other one of our neighborhoods, the more everyone benefits.”
The idea is that business districts will be reimagined as vibrant 24/7 neighborhoods that seamlessly blend work, living, dining and entertainment. This holistic approach aims to create a dynamic community where daily life and work coexist, fostering a rich, interconnected lifestyle.
“There are lots of ways to build a vibrant downtown that doesn’t involve the central role of office buildings,” Horowitz said. “It could be apartments, it could be lab space. There are lots of other things you can do with land that makes people want to go downtown and enjoy themselves.”
Many cities are already converting office space into housing, with Cleveland leading the way — 11% of its office inventory is currently undergoing this transformation. Similar projects are also taking place in Cincinnati, Houston, and New York, where the iconic Flatiron office building is set to be transformed into luxury condominiums. “This is a challenge that’s affecting every city in America,” Wu said. “And in Boston, we’re showing that it’s also an opportunity.”
That “opportunity” is something David Greaney is seizing on. At a time when many real estate investors are looking to sell their office buildings, Greaney and his firm Synergy are buying them up, at a deep discount. Synergy currently owns 35 properties in the Greater Boston area – four of them were bought in just the past 12 months.
Greaney says the worst is over in terms of office vacancies, and he is positive about the future of cities. “The great thing about cities is that cities evolve, and I certainly think that our cities will evolve,” Greaney said. “You may see more residential uses, more hospitality or institutional uses, but the office component of downtowns, I believe, will continue to be a very big factor.”
Working out of one of the same buildings Greaney recently bought, small business owners and brothers Michael and Emilio Ruggeri are betting on a comeback for Boston’s downtown.
For three decades they have been serving breakfast and lunch to the office crowd at their Archie’s NY Deli. Office workers accounted for nearly 80% of their business pre-pandemic, but that number has since dwindled to about 50%.
“We’ve been doing more deliveries,” said Emilio Ruggeri. “The construction guys have actually kept us going.”
They’ve also reduced their staff, trimmed their menu and shortened their hours to make ends meet, confident that things will turn around.
“I’m an eternal optimist,” said Michael Ruggeri. “The buildings are way too expensive to just stay empty. Someone’s going to take over the space, so we’re hopeful.”
(NEW YORK) — In a letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett revealed that he would be donating more than $1.1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to four of his family’s foundations. In addition, he detailed plans for distributing his wealth after his death.
Buffett, the CEO and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, reflected in the letter released Monday on his life and how long he has lived.
“Father time always wins. But he can be fickle – indeed unfair and even cruel – sometimes ending life at birth or soon thereafter while, at other times, waiting a century or so before paying a visit,” Buffett said. “To date, I’ve been very lucky, but, before long, he will get around to me.”
Buffet, 94, said he and his late wife, Susan Buffett, always expected she would outlive him and be the one to distribute his fortune.
But when Susan died in 2004, with a fortune of $3 billion and 96% of that going to the foundation, she left $10 million to each of their three children.
That was the largest gift they had given them, Buffet said.
Buffett believes that parents should support their children but do so in a meaningful way.
“Our belief that hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing,” Buffett wrote in his letter to shareholders.
Buffett explains that he “never wished to create a dynasty or pursue any plan that extended beyond the children.” He also admits that while he and Susan encouraged the children to get involved in philanthropy, that the children weren’t ready to handle the wealth Berkshire stocks had generated in light of their mother’s death.
Since the 2006 lifetime pledge Buffett made and later expanded, the children have dramatically increased their philanthropic activities, Buffet said. And now Buffett is entrusting them fully.
“The children have now more than justified our hopes and, upon my death, will have full responsibility for gradually distributing all of my Berkshire holdings,” Buffet said. “These now account for 99 1⁄2% of my wealth.”
Buffett has described his wealth and age as “lucky” but he also sees a downside to it, he said.
“There is, however, a downside to my good fortune in avoiding his notice. The expected life span of my children has materially diminished since the 2006 pledge. They are now 71, 69 and 66.”
With his children getting older, the family has also designated three potential successors, Buffett said.
“Each is well known to my children and makes sense to all of us. They are also somewhat younger than my children,” Buffett said.
Buffett also reflects on his “lucky streak” dating back to 1930 when he was born as white male in the United States. He mentions his two sisters being promised by the 19th Amendment to be treated equally with males. And he admits to growing in a country that has not yet fulfilled its promises elsewhere.
“In 1930, however, I emerged in a country that hadn’t yet gotten around to fulfilling its earlier aspirations,” Buffett said. “Aided by Billie Jean King, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and countless others, things began changing in the 1970s.”
Favored by male status, Buffet said he had confidence he would become rich one day. But he never expected it to be the way it is, he said.
“But in no way did I, or anyone else, dream of the fortunes that have become attainable in America during the last few decades,” Buffett said. “Billions became the new millions.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday, just days after President Donald Trump called on the central bank to lower them.
The announcement put the central bank on a potential collision course with Trump, though a longstanding norm of independence typically insulates the Fed from direct political interference.
The decision to maintain the current level of interest rates pauses a series of three consecutive interest rate cuts imposed by the Fed over the final months of 2024.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a policymaking body at the Fed, said on Wednesday that the central bank remains attentive to concerns centered on the potential for both a rise in unemployment and a surge of inflation. Inflation stands at a moderately elevated rate, while unemployment remains at a historically low level, the FOMC added.
Taken together, those two considerations — employment and inflation — make up the Fed’s “dual mandate.”
“The Committee judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance,” the FOMC said.
“The economic outlook is uncertain, and the Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate.”
The Fed indicated last month that it would cut interest rates at a slower pace than it had previously forecast, however, pointing to a bout of resurgent inflation. That forecast sent stock prices plummeting, though markets have broadly recovered the losses.
Inflation has slowed dramatically from a peak of more than 9% in June 2022, but price increases remain nearly a percentage point higher than the Fed’s target rate of 2%.
During a virtual address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Trump demanded a drop in interest rates after calling for a reduction of oil prices set by a group of nations known as OPEC, which includes Saudi Arabia.
The prospect of low oil prices will enable the Fed to dial back its fight against inflation and bring down interest rates, Trump said.
“I’m going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil,” Trump said, later adding: “With oil prices going down, I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately.”
The U.S. does not belong to OPEC, nor does the president play a role in the organization’s decisions regarding the price of oil sold by its member states.
Several past presidents have sought to influence the Fed’s interest rate policy, including Trump, who repeatedly spoke out in favor of low interest rates during his first term.
On the campaign trail in August, Trump said a U.S. president should have a role in setting interest rates.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell struck a defiant tone in November when posed with the question of whether he would resign from his position if asked by Trump.
“No,” Powell told reporters assembled at a press conference in Washington, D.C., blocks away from the White House.
When asked whether Trump could fire or demote him, Powell stated: “Not permitted under the law.”
The Fed retreated in its fight against inflation over the final months of last year, lowering interest rates by a percentage point. Still, the Fed’s interest rate remains at a historically high level of between 4.25% and 4.5%.
Last month, Powell said the central bank may proceed at a slower pace with future rate cuts, in part because it has now lowered interest rates a substantial amount.
Powell also said a recent resurgence of inflation influenced the Fed’s expectations, noting that some policymakers considered uncertainty tied to potential policy changes under Trump.
“It’s common-sense thinking that when the path is uncertain, you get a little slower,” Powell said. “It’s not unlike driving on a foggy night or walking around in a dark room full of furniture.”
