News Round-Up: Windless Weather Blackout Prospects in the UK, End of Facebook Fact Checks and Total Decline of DEI
Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.
Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:
Windless weather threatens Brits with blackouts.
Zuckerberg gives up reliance on biased fact checks.
McDonald’s rolls back DEI goals.
Lockdown consequences: babies cannot respond to their own name.
South Korea: agency introduces facial recognition instead of checking tickets at concerts.
Windless weather threatens Brits with blackouts
Britain came “within a whisker of blackouts” on Wednesday after plunging temperatures and low wind power generation left grid operators scrambling to keep the lights on, writes The Telegraph.
At 5.30 pm on Wednesday, surplus electricity capacity on the national grid had fallen to just 580 megawatts (MW), according to data platform Amira. By comparison, the UK's National Energy System Operator (Neso) estimates peak demand in January at 44.4 GW, but on Wednesday it was actually 46.8 GW. “Had just one large power station tripped [on Wednesday evening], demand control would have been a real prospect,” an independent energy consultant Kathryn Porter commented on the situation.

The reason for the lack of power to the grid is simple – windless weather. On Wednesday, the wind turbines managed to produce only 2 GW of electricity. In comparison, 24 hours later, wind turbines were producing 17 GW. As the temperature dropped on Wednesday and people were more at home, electricity consumption was higher. The grid operator itself sent out warnings on Wednesday that production would be particularly low between 4 pm and 7 pm and wanted more generating units on the grid during the day. “This should be a real wake-up call about the dangers of relying on weather-based generation,” Porter added.
Network operator Neso pushed back on this and insisted it had been holding around 1.4 gigawatts in emergency reserves that went unused on Wednesday.
However, the fact that the UK is having problems with electricity generation after huge investments and now heavy reliance on wind power can be seen from various figures. For example, Britain's imports of electricity last year set a record, so that in the event of its own shortfall in windy weather, it relies primarily on French nuclear power, which is supplied via submarine cables. At the same time, Britain itself has shut down not only coal but also nuclear plants, and production is lower at gas plants. This, critics say, means over-dependence on others and could also end in blackouts.
However, there are also problems in the UK when there is too much wind, as some wind farms are taken off the grid to avoid overloading the grid. But wind companies have to be paid for this – last year they received more than a billion pounds (€1.21 billion) to this end from their customers.
Zuckerberg gives up reliance on biased fact checks
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, the company that owns social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, is ending fact-checking on his platforms and promises to restore freedom of expression on the social network. For now, however, free speech will only be available in the US, while in Europe content moderation will continue as before.
Mark Zuckerberg promised on Tuesday to shut down fact-checks by "independent" third parties and replace such fact-checking with "community notes", similar to the moderation method used on Elon Musk-owned social media platform X, which does not use biased fact-checking but relies on its users to fact-check. Now Zuckerberg also says the so-called official fact-checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed trust more than they have created it. According to Zuckerberg, in addition to ending cooperation with fact-checkers, Meta is reducing restrictions on its platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) across a range of topics, including gender issues and how users handle immigration. Meta has promised to reduce the automated checks that have so far been used to try to find posts deemed inappropriate, but which have also removed many that should not actually have been taken down, according to the platform's own rulebook. Meta plans to continue to monitor content that has been determined to be illegal, such as child abuse and terrorism, drugs, fraud, and scams. In addition to criminal content, Meta also treats posts related to suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders as serious offences, and these may continue to be taken down. For the time being, these changes to the Meta only apply in the US. In the case of the European Union, Meta is expected to face a serious confrontation with Brussels, as Meta has signed up to the EU's voluntary Code of Conduct to combat misinformation, including through the use of fact-checkers. The Digital Services Act (DSA) which came into force in the EU in August 2023, gave the European Commission ample scope to put pressure on social media platforms under the threat of heavy fines. Indeed, Musk’s X has been under constant pressure in Europe, and proceedings have been brought up against it under the DSA.
Explaining his decision, Zuckerberg said that Meta started fact-checking in 2016 with the aim of being more inclusive, but that it has increasingly been used to shut down opinions. Zuckerberg acknowledged that the attempt to remove misinformation had gone too far and ‘reached a point where it’s just too many mistakes and too much censorship’.
Earlier, in a letter to the US House Judiciary Committee, Zuckerberg acknowledged that ‘the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain Covid-19 content, including humor and satire’. He said officials also expressed much frustration when Meta sometimes did not agree to censorship. “I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn't make today,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Zuckerberg also discussed the end of fact-checking and the pressure by the Biden administration to take down even memes making fun of vaccines during the Covid crisis in a podcast with Joe Rogan this week:
Proponents of the censorship, such as Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the International Fact-checking Network, have of course criticised Meta's decision and found it regrettable. The fact-checkers' director argues that fact-checking has never been biased, and such accusations come from those who believe it is justified to exaggerate and lie without rebuttal.
McDonald’s rolls back DEI goals
Four years after launching a push for more diversity in its ranks, McDonald’s is ending some of its diversity practices, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed affirmative action in college admissions, the AP writes.
McDonald’s said Monday it will retire specific goals for achieving diversity at senior leadership levels. It also intends to end a program that encourages its suppliers to develop diversity training and increase the number of minority group members represented within their own leadership ranks.
The decision makes McDonald’s another big company to ditch its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, as during last year, several other major US companies have also backtracked on such policies. For example, retailer Walmart announced the same in December, Tractor Supply abandoned them earlier last summer, followed by motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson, home and hardware retailer Lowe's, with Jack Daniel's whiskey producer Brown-Forman Corp. making the same decision.
Others, such as Anheuser-Busch-owned Bud Light and Target, have faced sharp backlash and falling sales due to marketing campaigns featuring men who claim to be women or selling products that are meant for such persons.
Lockdown consequences: babies cannot respond to their own name
Almost three quarters of teachers say ‘Covid children’ born in 2020 are struggling, The Telegraph cites a recent survey on the matter. In a joint report, four charities – Save the Children, Child Poverty Action Group, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, and the Centre for Young Lives – polled more than 350 reception teachers about children born during the pandemic. The survey report highlighted major concerns about development levels among children who entered reception in September. Speech and communication issues were flagged as the biggest problem, with 90 per cent of teachers saying they witnessed language problems among struggling pupils. Almost three-quarters of teachers said children this year showed more pronounced difficulties than previous year groups, including 44 per cent who said they were “much less school-ready”.

Jane Harris, the chief executive of Speech and Language UK, said some children were arriving to class “unable to respond to their own name”. “As far as we’re concerned, we have got the highest number ever of children who are struggling with speech language, and we really think there should be a bigger wake-up call than there currently is – both [for] the Government and schools and nurseries across the country… Frankly, we’re just idiots if we don’t invest early and sort this out,” she said. “It’s hard enough to toilet train a child when they’ve got decent speech development. If they haven’t, it’s really, really difficult – even things like tooth brushing are really difficult,” she added.
Services ground to a halt during the pandemic, meaning many babies went without usual health visits, external stimuli and social interaction, according to experts.
South-Korea: agency introduces facial recognition instead of checking tickets at concerts
HYBE, one of South Korea's largest music companies, is planning to do away with traditional ID and ticketing at its artists' concerts and introduce facial recognition systems at entrance. The company plans to roll out the new technology already in February this year, with the promise of convenience, i.e. ensuring faster entry to concert venues. However, face scanning as a ticketing method has drawn criticism over privacy and data security, writes The Korea Times.
According to HYBE, the system replaces the current ID and ticket checks, which cause long queues. They promise that the fast facial recognition technology will help avoid queues and visitors will be able to enter quickly just by passing a camera. Citizens from other countries with a valid identity card will also be able to use the service.
The new system combines Viva Republica's finance app Toss' facial recognition service with Interpark Triple's ticketing platform. Users registered with the Toss facial recognition service will be able to purchase tickets through Interpark without further registration. New users will need to register their facial details in Interpark's Face Pass feature. Kim Tae-Ho, CEO of HYBE, emphasized the convenience of the new system, with just a one-time face registration to get to the event quickly and easily. In the future, the company hopes to use the same system at concerts and events around the world.

The new facial recognition system will be used for the first time in February, when HYBE will host a fan event for the band TWS. For this event, HYBE says that attendees will still have the choice of whether or not to use the Face Pass system. For those opting for Face Pass, the company has promised that the gates with cameras will allow you to get to the event much faster than those who opt out. The latter will have to go through the usual checks: presenting an ID and a ticket.