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Facebook is expanding its plans to put less politics in the News Feed – The Verge

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Facebook is expanding an experiment in reducing political content in the News Feed. In an update to a February blog post, the company says it’s seen “positive results” in reducing this content for some users in a handful of countries. Now, it’s expanding a test of the strategy to Costa Rica, Sweden, Spain, and Ireland.

Axios reported on Facebook’s plans before the announcement. As it notes, Facebook’s new test also involves changing the signals it favors when promoting content. “Some engagement signals can better indicate what posts people find more valuable than others,” product management director Aastha Gupta writes. “Based on that feedback, we’re gradually expanding some tests to put less emphasis on signals such as how likely someone is to comment on or share political content.”

Conversely, Facebook will more heavily weigh signals like “how likely people are to provide us with negative feedback on posts about political topics and current events.” The company acknowledges that this could affect “public affairs content” and decrease traffic to news publishers, and it’s planning a “gradual and methodical rollout” of these tests over the coming months.

Facebook started its politics-reduction tests in February for some users in Canada, Brazil, the US, and Indonesia. It later announced that it would emphasize “inspiring and uplifting” posts and provide more avenues for people to explicitly indicate what they don’t like — rather than having Facebook infer it from their usage patterns.

These changes come amid a heated debate over what kinds of interactions matter most on Facebook. Commenting and sharing are some of the rare engagement signals that outsiders can measure, and they’ve overwhelmingly indicated that political (and largely right-wing) content dominates people’s interactions on the platform. But Facebook has rejected this framing, saying political content is tangential to most people’s experience — and only makes up 6 percent of the typical news feed. Now, it’s apparently trying to integrate that philosophy more directly into the feed.

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NDP caving to Poilievre on carbon price, has no idea how to fight climate change: PM

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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.

Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.

On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.

Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.

Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.

British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Quebec consumer rights bill to regulate how merchants can ask for tips

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Quebec wants to curb excessive tipping.

Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.

That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.

The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.

And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.

Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Youri Chassin quits CAQ to sit as Independent, second member to leave this month

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Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.

He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.

In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.

Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.

He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.

Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.

He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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