nerd

21 Jan 2026

Slashdot

Snap Settles Social media Addiction Lawsuit Ahead of Landmark Trial

Snap has settled a social media addiction lawsuit just days before trial, while Meta, TikTok, and Alphabet remain defendants and are headed to court. "Terms of the deal were not announced as it was revealed by lawyers at a California Superior Court hearing, after which Snap told the BBC the parties were 'pleased to have been able to resolve this matter in an amicable manner.'" From the report: The plaintiff, a 19-year old woman identified by the initials K.G.M., alleged that the algorithmic design of the platforms left her addicted and affected her mental health. In the absence of a settlement with the other parties, the trial is scheduled to go forward against the remaining three defendants, with jury selection due to begin on January 27. Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify, and until Tuesday's settlement, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel was also set to take the stand. Snap is still a defendant in other social media addiction cases that have been consolidated in the court. The closely watched cases could challenge a legal theory that social media companies have used to shield themselves. They have long argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects them from liability for what third parties post on their platforms. But plaintiffs argue that the platforms are designed in a way that leaves users addicted through choices that affect their algorithms and notifications. The social media companies have said the plaintiffs' evidence falls short of proving that they are responsible for alleged harms such as depression and eating disorders.

Hacker News

Leave X – Protect Democracy

Comments

21 Jan 2026 9:41am GMT

Director Gore Verbinski: Unreal Engine is the greatest slip backwards for movie

Comments

21 Jan 2026 9:09am GMT

Can you slim macOS down?

Comments

21 Jan 2026 7:48am GMT

Slashdot

Aurora Watch In Effect As Severe Solar Storm Slams Into Earth

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: Thanks to a giant eruption on the Sun and a large opening in its atmosphere, we're currently experiencing G4 conditions -- a severe geomagnetic storm strong enough to disrupt power grids as energy from space weather disturbances drives electric currents through Earth's magnetic field and the ground. Experts say the storm could even reach G5 levels, the extreme category responsible for the spectacular auroral activity seen in May 2024. In fact, space weather bureaus around the world are forecasting powerful aurora conditions, with some suggesting aurora could be visible at unusually low latitudes, potentially rivaling the reach of 2024's historic superstorm. A livestream of the Northern Lights is available on YouTube. The Aurora forecast is available here.

Era of 'Global Water Bankruptcy' Is Here, UN Report Says

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The world has entered an era of "global water bankruptcy" that is harming billions of people, a UN report has declared. The overuse and pollution of water must be tackled urgently, the report's lead author said, because no one knew when the whole system could collapse, with implications for peace and social cohesion. All life depends on water but the report found many societies had long been using water faster than it could be replenished annually in rivers and soils, as well as over-exploiting or destroying long-term stores of water in aquifers and wetlands. This had led to water bankruptcy, the report said, with many human water systems past the point at which they could be restored to former levels. The climate crisis was exacerbating the problem by melting glaciers, which store water, and causing whiplashes between extremely dry and wet weather. Prof Kaveh Madani, who led the report, said while not every basin and country was water bankrupt, the world was interconnected by trade and migration, and enough critical systems had crossed this threshold to fundamentally alter global water risk. The result was a world in which 75% of people lived in countries classified as water-insecure or critically water-insecure and 2 billion people lived on ground that is sinking as groundwater aquifers collapse. Conflicts over water had risen sharply since 2010, the report said, while major rivers, such as the Colorado, in the US, and the Murray-Darling system, in Australia, were failing to reach the sea, and "day zero" emergencies -- when cities run out of water, such as in Chennai, India -- were escalating. Half of the world's large lakes had shrunk since the early 1990s, the report noted. Even damp nations, such as the UK, were at risk because of reliance on imports of water-dependent food and other products. "This report tells an uncomfortable truth: many critical water systems are already bankrupt," said Madani, of the UN University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health. "It's extremely urgent [because] no one knows exactly when the whole system would collapse." About 70% of fresh water taken by human withdrawals was used for agriculture, but Madani said: "Millions of farmers are trying to grow more food from shrinking, polluted or disappearing water sources. Water bankruptcy in India or Pakistan, for example, also means an impact on rice exports to a lot of places around the world." More than half of global food was grown in areas where water storage was declining or unstable, the report said. Madani said action to deal with water bankruptcy offered a chance to bring countries together in an increasingly fragmented world. "Water is a strategic, untapped opportunity to the world to create unity within and between nations. It is one of the very rare topics that left and right and north and south all agree on its importance." The UN report, which is based on a forthcoming paper in the peer-reviewed journal Water Resources Management, sets out how population growth, urbanization and economic growth have increased water demand for agriculture, industry, energy and cities. "These pressures have produced a global pattern that is now unmistakable," it said.