Twitter lets you tweet and follow your favorite accounts for free, but a paid version,

Facebook and Instagram users in Europe could pay a monthly fee of at least €10 (£9) for an ad-free version of the platforms, according to reports. The charge, which follows a similar subscription fee introduced to X/Twitter, would allow parent company Meta to comply with Europe’s data privacy laws, The Wall Street Journal reported. Prices for Facebook and Instagram mobile users would be higher, at roughly €13 a month, because Meta needs to account for commissions charged by the Apple and Google app stores on in-app payments, the publication said, while adding more accounts would cost €6 each. The European Union data privacy rules pose a threat to its lucrative business model of showing personalised ads to users, meaning paid subscriptions could offset any potential losses in advertising revenue. Meta would give users the choice between continuing to use the platforms with ads or paying for the ad-free version, the WSJ said. “Meta believes in the value of free services which are supported by personalised ads,” the company said in a statement. “However, we continue to explore options to ensure we comply with evolving regulatory requirements. We have nothing further to share at this time.” The EU's top court said in July that Meta must first get consent before showing ads to users – a ruling that jeopardises the company's ability to make money by tailoring advertisements for individual users based on their online interests and digital activity. It's not clear if EU regulators will sign off on the plan or insist that the company offer cheaper versions. The newspaper said one issue regulators have is whether the proposed fees will be too expensive for most people who don't want to be targeted by ads. Additional reporting from agencies Read More Meta enters AI chatbot market with its own virtual assistant

It turns out that human ancestors and dinosaurs could have actually co-existed, according to new research. Scientists have produced a study which suggested that placental mammals were around before the asteroid that brought an end to the Cretaceous period hit Earth 66 million years ago. A new paper published in the journal Current Biology claims that fossil records of placental mammals suggests that our ancestors roamed the Earth before the extinction event, and later flourished due to the lack of competition from dinosaur species afterwards. According to the research, primates evolved shortly before the asteroid hit. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Lead author Emily Carlisle of Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences said: “We pulled together thousands of fossils of placental mammals and were able to see the patterns of origination and extinction of the different groups.” Carlisle added: “Based on this, we could estimate when placental mammals evolved.” “The model we used estimates origination ages based on when lineages first appear in the fossil record and the pattern of species diversity through time for the lineage,” co-author Daniele Silvestro from the University of Fribourg shared. While we don’t have a full picture of what human ancestors looked like at that time, it’s thought they “were small and squirrely”. Carlisle said: “Unfortunately we don’t know what our placental mammal ancestors would have looked like back then. “Many of the earliest fossils of placental mammals are quite small creatures such as Purgatorius – an early ancestor of primates – which was a small burrowing creature a bit like a tree shrew. So it’s likely that many of our ancestors were small and squirrely.” Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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