Misinformation and emotive posts shared and reshared online have exaggerated the threat of the coronavirus and have made it difficult to gauge the real risk, says Alex Webb

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has engaged the help of tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google to aid in its efforts to eliminate fake news but the battle is becoming more difficult.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has amassed a fortune of around €75bn by making privacy redundant. He — and the 3bn people who use Facebook — has changed how data is managed or shared. Social media has thrashed the old comforts, the old shields of controlling information and how, or if, it reaches the public domain. The genie is out of the bottle.

It’s not very surprising that Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg’s state-visit-style trip to Brussels got a pretty chilly reception from EU officials.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg will meet the EU’s digital and industry commissioners next week, days before the EU presents proposals to rein in US tech giants and Chinese rivals.

Last Thursday, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was unflinching on Facebook. She described Mark Zuckerberg’s behemoth as “accomplices for misleading the American people with money from God knows where”.

Chess teams that pair humans with machines beat humans alone and beat unaccompanied machines. The lesson is that workers should not fear being replaced by technology, says Xavier Litt.

The digital discourse must be curated by the private companies that host it, but such power can not be exercised unless it is dispersed in a competitive marketplace, writes Francis Fukuyama.

Stopping Facebook’s Libra in its tracks was a god thing, but authorities should now do something useful and visionary with the cryptocurrency, writes Yanis Varoufakis.

Where the problem for economies and financial services is lack of competition, residents of developing countries need to look to their own politicians. The remedy for their woes is not going to come from Mark Zuckerberg, writes Barry Eichengreen.

US Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren went after big tech during the Democratic debate on Tuesday night but brushed off rival Kamala Harris’s challenge to join her in calling for President Donald Trump’s suspension from Twitter.

The data wars have intensified, and will again.

Social media giant Facebook has launched a new online tool in Ireland to allow people to see what data has been collected on them via their accounts, including when navigating the internet outside Facebook.

The social media giant has unveiled Libra, a cryptocurrency payment system that, if it fails, could take down the global economy. Governments must intervene, says Katharina Pistor.

Deep Fake, that’s the latest thing we have to worry about now.

This week’s report that a weakness in WhatsApp allowed hackers to inject commercial spyware on to phones is another example, as if one was needed, that a belief in the idea of privacy requires the kind of optimism Lotto ticket sales relies on.

How can social media prevent harmful content going viral? Serious changes will have to be made which could bring media back in time writes Lionel Laurent.