Adi Robertson

The controversial Journalism Competition and Preservation Act — which would let news publishers negotiate payments for being linked by sites like Google — suffered a setback earlier this month thanks to a surprise Ted Cruz amendment trying to limit the platforms’ moderation options. After some negotiations between Cruz and sponsor Amy Klobuchar, it’s back for markup today, and it’s got critics even more worried than before.

The Delaware Court of Chancery has issued another couple decisions in the fast-upcoming Twitter v. Musk trial. It’s letting Musk add allegations that Twitter whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko received a $7.75 million payout from the company. Meanwhile, it punted on a Twitter request for details about whether Musk or his associates knew about Zatko’s whistleblower claims before he took them public — Twitter and Musk’s lawyers will fight that out in a September 27th hearing.

Deathloop’s perfunctory endings were a weak spot in a game full of great ideas, so I’m intrigued to hear that on top of new weapons and trinkets, the Goldenloop update contains an enigmatic “extended ending.” I’m not sure what that means, but it’s enough to make me consider booting the game up again. Besides, I could murder Aleksis much more elegantly this time.

This Girl Does Not Exist promises “everything you will see in this game” is created by an AI. Except... based on everything I’ve read, that includes none of the game mechanics or interface design! It’s an interesting experiment in artificially generated images and audio, but AI-generated gameplay is a uniquely weird and difficult problem. That said, I’m fascinated by the growing move toward an aesthetics of AI — and this project sits square in that zone.

Countless people have discussed the travails of Rick and Morty fandom. But Corbin Smith goes beyond the simple claims that obnoxious fans are just watching the show wrong, delving into the inherent difficulty of writing a character with terrible qualities who’s still undeniably cool to watch. A bonus: he lays out the precise take on Rorschach from Watchmen that I’ve always wanted to read.

Remember when a Texas appeals court decided to blow up internet moderation with no explanation? Well, it finally explained itself, and so far I don’t feel any better. We’re still working our way through the decision, but you can read it below. For now, though, the Supreme Court already temporarily blocked the law while its court battle continues.