39 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Adi Robertson

Adi Robertson

Senior Editor, Tech & Policy

Senior Editor, Tech & Policy

    More From Adi Robertson

    Adi Robertson
    Adi Robertson
    The post office is not an interactive computer service.

    Legal blogger Eric Goldman covers a weird (and rightfully smacked down) attempt at getting Section 230 immunity for nonconsensually distributing nude pictures through the mail — including some brief, useful observations on the state of nonconsensual pornography law both on- and offline.

    Adi Robertson
    Adi Robertson
    The TikTokers are revolting.

    Apparently TikTok’s push notification warning is working, because congressional staffers say they’re flooded with calls protesting a new play to make Chinese owner ByteDance sell the app:

    “It’s so so bad. Our phones have not stopped ringing. They’re teenagers and old people saying they spend their whole day on the app and we can’t take it away,” one House GOP staffer told POLITICO, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

    Adi Robertson
    Adi Robertson
    The Affordable Connectivity Program for cheap broadband is staggering to a halt.

    The FCC has issued a formal notice that ACP funding, which subsidizes broadband access for 23 million households, runs out at the end of April. As Karl Bode at Techdirt notes, Congress (particularly congressional Republicans) didn’t find the Biden administration’s request for $6 billion to fund it worth granting. Those households will lose out on a $30 monthly broadband discount — which FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel warns will cause some to lose access altogether.

    Adi Robertson
    Adi Robertson
    Play Store developers can link to outside payment offers in the EU this week.

    Google noted the change as part of an update on its compliance with the Digital Markets Act. The update highlights more options it’s already announced or rolled out, including new choice screens and data sharing options, plus changes to how Play Store developers can collect payments — all preparing for the deadline of March 6th.

    Adi Robertson
    Adi Robertson
    X’s lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate sounds like it’s on the rocks.

    The parties held a conference call to argue about whether the nonprofit’s anti-hate speech researchers illegally scraped data from Elon Musk’s social network, and a judge seems dubious.

    U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer was skeptical that when the nonprofit entered the standard user contract governing all Twitter and X users, it could have foreseen that Musk would buy Twitter for $44 billion in 2022 and welcome back users it had banned for posting hateful content. [...] “I am trying to figure out, in my mind, how that’s possibly true, because I don’t think it is.”

    Judge Breyer didn’t indicate when we might get a ruling, Reuters says.

    Adi Robertson
    Adi Robertson
    Tumblr’s AI opt-out feature is live.

    As mentioned yesterday, Tumblr now has info about opting out of AI data scraping on its help page — it’s available via the “prevent third-party sharing” toggle. For visual artists who are still worried about the prospect of AI tools training on their work, there are less official ways to stop that, too.

    A screenshot of the “prevent third-party sharing” toggle as described in the link posted above.
    Adi Robertson
    Adi Robertson
    What do you get from ads made with AI? Someone calls the cops and you make children cry.

    The advertising for “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” looks like peak AI-generated spectacle, promising “cartchy tuns,” “encherining entertainment,” and “a heart-pounding experience you’ve never experienced before” for £35 a ticket. The reality is... well, take a look. At least the kids are getting refunds.

    Prepare to be catgacated.
    Prepare to be catgacated.
    Adi Robertson
    Adi Robertson
    “He didn’t shotgun a beer, crunch the can against his head, rip his robe off, and scream ‘First Amendment forever, motherfuckers!’ But that was the vibe.”

    Corbin Barthold at The Daily Beast has a good piece on Brett Kavanaugh’s role at yesterday’s Supreme Court arguments: the only one in the room (besides NetChoice’s own lawyer) treating government censorship as a unique and serious concern.

    Kavanaugh called the states out for trying to turn the First Amendment upside down. “In your opening remarks,” he told Florida’s solicitor general, “you said the design of the First Amendment is to prevent ‘suppression of speech.’ And you left out…three words…, by the government.”