Mark Zuckerberg spent this week reshaping Meta to be more MAGA-friendly, and capped it off Friday by calling for the "repopulation" of the "cultural elite class" on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Why it matters: Over the last few days, Meta has dropped internal DEI guidelines and opened the floodgates for hate speech, racism, and conspiracy theories, but Zuckerberg's comments on Rogan tie him explicitly to right-wing talking points.

Within days, TikTok could be banned from being distributed in the United States and, eventually, stop working as an app altogether if the U.S. Supreme Court does not intervene to block a bipartisan law that is set to take effect on Jan. 19.

On Friday, Jan. 10, the justices heard arguments on whether or not to step in and temporarily pause the measure given what TikTok claims is a violation of free speech for its tens of millions of American users.

When Congress passed the law that required TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell it or see it banned in the U.S., it was partially motivated by the fear that the Chinese government might use TikTok to contort Americans’ discourse, pitting people against one another and eroding their trust in the democratic systems that define American politics.

The Supreme Court on Friday heard oral arguments in a fast-tracked case over the future of TikTok, a Chinese-owned social media app that will be barred from operating in the U.S. in just nine days barring divestiture or eleventh-hour intervention from the high court.

University professors across the political spectrum in Texas are preemptively self-censoring themselves for fear of damaging their reputations or losing their jobs, according to a new survey from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a First Amendment advocacy group.

Children in England will be taught how to spot extremist content and misinformation online under planned changes to the school curriculum, the education secretary has said.

Bridget Phillipson said she was launching a review of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools to embed critical thinking across multiple subjects and arm children against “putrid conspiracy theories”.

One example may include pupils analysing newspaper articles in English lessons in a way that would help differentiate fabricated stories from true reporting.

Children will be taught how to spot extremist content and fake news online in a revamp of the curriculum following last week’s riots.

Schools will use lessons such as English, ICT (information and communication technology) and maths to “arm” pupils against “putrid conspiracy theories”, the Education Secretary has said.

Bridget Phillipson told The Telegraph that pupils as young as five would be given the critical thinking skills to identify misinformation online under the new plans.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced a temporary ban on X (formerly Twitter) in the country. The decision followed his war of words with the platform’s CEO, Elon Musk, who has accused Maduro of election fraud.

In a televised speech on Thursday, Maduro accused the tech mogul of “inciting hatred, fascism, civil war, death, [and] confrontation of Venezuelans,” as well as violating national laws. The leader added that he has signed a resolution presented by the National Commission of Telecommunications to ban the social media platform for ten days.