Washington Post

[Commentary] Mark Zuckerberg announced recently that Facebook plans to ask its community to help rate news producers’ credibility. Randomly selected users will be asked whether they are familiar with an outlet, and if so, invited to judge its trustworthiness. The ratio that results — of those who know the source, the proportion that trusts it — will “inform ranking in the News Feed” (though Facebook has remained vague about its relevance compared with other metrics).

President Donald Trump boasted that the viewership of his State of the Union speech was “the highest number in history” — a claim at odds with ratings figures released the day before. In a Feb 1 tweet, President Trump said, "Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history. @FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!

It was reported that special counsel Robert Mueller's team is interested in President Donald Trump's role in drafting a misleading statement to the New York Times in the summer, about a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that involved Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin.  Mueller's team already has questioned several White House officials about the statement and that “some lawyers and witnesses who have sat in or been briefed on the interviews have puzzled over Mueller's interest in the episode.

The White House took down the popular “We The People” petitions website, started by Barack Obama’s administration, in December, with the promise that the site would be restored by “late January.” As of 3 p.m. on Jan. 31, the site, which allows citizens to post petitions that require a White House response when they meet a certain number of signatures, is still down.

[Commentary] The battle over net neutrality is rightfully capturing headlines in Washington and worldwide. Far less attention is being paid, however, to a looming threat that could have an even greater impact on the future: The Internet has outstripped the ability of governments to keep up. On issues as diverse as hate speech, espionage and copyright infringement, governments fear a loss of sovereignty in a fast-moving digital world. On taxation and privacy rights, Government 1.0 can’t stay abreast of Technology 4.0.