Not surprisingly, the incoming administration plans to rely heavily on social media to communicate with the public. “Social media engagement targeted directly at Trump’s base and the American public at large will … play a role,” Politico reports, citing comments from incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer, on Thursday. Said Spicer: “When he talks about Americans first, he means 'I don’t care what a bunch of elites tell me or people at a dinner party,'” Spicer said.

Facebook is less than transparent about some of its more detailed user insights, ProPublica reports. “The tech giant gives users little indication that it buys far more sensitive data about them, including their income, the types of restaurants they frequent and even how many credit cards are in their wallets,” it writes. For its part, “Facebook’s site says it gets information about its users ‘from a few different sources.’”

Disney’s ABC Television Group plans to produce several original programs for Snapchat. The shows include “a watch-party aftershow for ABC’s ‘The Bachelor,’” Variety reports. “Over the next few months, Disney-ABC Television plans to roll out several additional episodic shows on Snapchat, but execs declined to provide details on what’s coming up,” it adds. “The deal covers distribution to Snapchat users in the U.S.”

What is Facebook? CEO Mark Zuckerberg just described it as “a new kind of platform,” in a Live video one-on-one chat with COO Sheryl Sandberg. “Facebook’s CEO also lent support to employees trying to fight fake news today, though reports indicated some employees were dissatisfied by his initially tepid response to the issue.”

Facebook this week unveiled a Live Audio feature. “A complement to its Facebook Live video streaming, it could bring audio-first content like podcasts to the News Feed, and provide a low-bandwidth real-time broadcasting options to publishers in low-connectivity areas,” TechCrunch writes. “The first publishers with access will be BBC World Service (news radio), LBC (Leading Britain’s Conversation talk radio), Harper Collins (book publisher), and authors Adam Grant (Originals, pop psychology), and Britt Bennett (fiction addressing race).”

Fast Company spends some time with Mark Zuckerberg and Jarvis -- the AI system Facebook’s found built for his home. “Though it's named for Tony Stark’s futuristic Jarvis AI in the Iron Man movies, it’s more akin to a homemade, highly personal version of something like Amazon’s Alexa service,” FC writes. “When you visit Mark Zuckerberg’s house … Jarvis recognizes you and automatically alerts him that you've arrived.”

Consistent with its broader journalistic ambitions, Twitter is now pushing breaking news notifications. “After a truck crashed into the Berlin Christmas market today, for instance, Twitter pushed a breaking news alert to some of its users that linked to Twitter’s Moments tab,” Buzzfeed reports. “The company did a similar thing when Fidel Castro died last month.”

The European Commission just accused Facebook of giving misleading information during its takeover of WhatsApp. “The statement of objections sent to Facebook will not have an impact on the approval of the $22 billion merger in 2014,” Reuters reports, citing a statement from the Commission. “The issue regards a WhatsApp privacy policy change in August when it said it would share some users' phone numbers with parent company Facebook.”

The German government is pushing forward a law that would fine Facebook about half a million dollars for every “fake news” post it carries. In the country, “Ministers are preparing to introduce a bill next year that will order Facebook to compensate people who’ve been affected by fake or defamatory stories passed around on the site,” Forbes reports. “Laws around defamation are stricter in Germany than in the United States.”

The New York Times surveys the various politically-motivated bots clogging up Twitter’s pipes.  “On social media, our political battles are increasingly automated,” it writes. “People who head to Twitter to discuss their ideals are, often unwittingly, conversing with legions of bots: accounts pre-programmed to spew the same campaign slogans, insults or conspiracy theories hundreds or thousands of times a day.”