After about five years of operation, App.net is calling it quits. “The social network billed itself as being ad-free and subscription-based,” Venture Beat notes. “App.net will cease to exist on March 14, citing an inability to generate meaningful revenue and failure to gain attention of developers and users.”

Germany is considering various measures to combat the rise of so-called “fake news,” including fining Facebook for carrying such content on its platform. “One German official has proposed fining Facebook 500,000 euros ($528,700) for failing to delete fake news stories and hate messages within 24 hours, describing the social media giant as a ‘value chain of digital propaganda,” The Christian Science Monitor reports.

Less than a year after its launch, Twitter is killing Dashboard -- a dedicated app brands can use to manage their various accounts. “The company announced that it will be shuttering Dashboard on February 3, though no specific reason was given,” Venture Beat reports. “Twitter did say that all scheduled tweets will still be posted as scheduled and ‘can be seen/updated from TweetDeck.’”

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and the Omidyar Network are leading a newly formed $27 million fund to lead research into the ethical implications of artificial intelligence. “The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has committed $5 million more,” GeekWire notes. “Awards will be made from the fund to support a global cross-section of research aimed at applying the humanities, social sciences and other disciplines to the development of AI for the public interest.”

Snapchat is misleading investors to drive up its IPO, according to an ex-employee. In a complaint filed Wednesday in L.A. County Superior Court, Anthony Pompliano states: “The avarice of the small group of executives at the helm” of Snapchat and his refusal to participate in the company's “institutional pandemic” of misrepresentation led to his unlawful termination, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t take leaking company information lightly. In one case reported by Recode, Facebook’s founder swore to find the offending employee and fire them -- and then followed through on that threat. That said, “Both the leak and the ensuing witch hunt are Facebook rarities,” Recode notes. That’s despite the fact that Facebook routinely shares private information with its entire workforce.

A developer named Adam Geitgey just unveiled a Chrome and Firefox browser extension that will display all the tags that Facebook uses as alt text for photos shared by users across its site. “Facebook’s tech can figure out how many people are sitting or standing in a picture, whether they’re smiling or not, if the background is indoors or out, and whether there’s a baseball game under way in the shot,” The Next Web notes.

Recode considers all the times that Facebook tried to be more like Snapchat, in 2016. As it explains: “Instead of trying to replicate Snapchat’s entire product, which required users to download yet another app and hope their friends would, too, Facebook is tackling Snapchat one feature at a time by building them into its existing products: Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.”

To expand its presence in China, the NFL has agreed to let social media platform Sina Weibo stream the Super Bowl, and other big games. As TechCrunch notes, Sina Weibo is often referred to has China’s Twitter. Meanwhile, “The deal marks the first time a sports league will live stream games on the service,” it writes. “Additionally, Sina will gain the rights to non-game, video-on-demand clips, highlights and other NFL content.”