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  China controls the rare earths the world buys - can Trump's new deals change that? US President Donald Trump has signed a flurry of deals on his Asia visit to secure the supply of rare earths, a critical sector that China has long dominated. The deals with Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia differ in size and substance and it's too early to assess their tangible impact. But they all include efforts to diversify access to the minerals that have become essential for advanced manufacturing, from electric vehicles to smartphones. The agreements, which aim to lock partners into trading with the US, are a clear bid to reduce dependence on China, ahead of a key meeting with its leader Xi Jinping. They could eventually challenge Beijing's stranglehold over rare earths, but experts say it will be a costly process that will take years. "Building new mines, refining facilities, and processing plants in regions such as Australia, the United States, and Europe comes ...

Instagram wrongly accuses some users of breaching child sex abuse rules


Some talk of a loss of earnings after being locked out of their business pages, while others highlight the pain of no longer having access to years of pictures and memories. Many point to the impact it has had on their mental health.

Over 27,000 people have signed a petition that accuses Meta's moderation system, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), of falsely banning accounts and then having an appeal process that is unfit for purpose.

Thousands of people are also in Reddit forums dedicated to the subject, and many users have posted on social media about being banned.

Meta has previously acknowledged a problem with Facebook Groups but denied its platforms were more widely affected.

Dr Carolina Are, a blogger and researcher at Northumbria University into social media moderation, said it was hard to know what the root of the problem was because Meta was not being open about it.

However, she suggested it could be due to recent changes to the wording of some its community guidelines and an ongoing lack of a workable appeal process.

"Meta often don't explain what it is that triggered the deletion. We are not privy to what went wrong with the algorithm," she told BBC News.

In a previous statement, Meta said: "We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we've made a mistake."

Meta, in common with all big technology firms, have come under increased pressure in recent years from regulators and authorities to make their platforms safe spaces.

Meta told the BBC it used a combination of people and technology to find and remove accounts that broke its rules, and was not aware of a spike in erroneous account suspension.

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