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Facebook reorients corporate mission around communities

What’s that? You thought Facebook was already about community? Well, yes, but it’s a community facing growing criticism on multiple counts: from enabling the spread of fake news to hiving people off into political ‘filter bubbles’.

Now CEO Mark Zuckerberg has laid out his ambitions to reorient the social network’s corporate mission to address these and other problems.

“For the past decade, Facebook has focused on connecting friends and families. With that foundation, our next focus will be developing the social infrastructure for community – for supporting us, for keeping us safe, for informing us, for civic engagement, and for inclusion of all,” wrote Zuckerberg.

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Facebook expects to spend another $3bn on virtual reality

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified yesterday in a court case that has seen games company ZeniMax Media suing Oculus VR, claiming that it stole trade secrets used to develop its Oculus Rift headset.

Zuckerberg said he is “highly confident” that ZeniMax’s claims are untrue, but his testimony also offered some interesting data on Facebook’s investment in Oculus VR specifically, and virtual reality more generally.

For example, the oft-quoted $2bn acquisition price for Oculus VR was more like $3bn once $700m of compensation to retain key team members plus $300m of target bonuses were factored in.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s AI butler also recommends music

Every year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg chooses a ‘personal project’ to focus on, with 2016’s being the development of an artificial-intelligence butler named Jarvis.

It’s an app and Facebook Messenger chatbot that controls various aspects of he and wife Priscilla’s home, but in an interview with Fast Company, Zuckerberg has also revealed that Jarvis has music-recommendation features.