Tech is reshaping the world — and not always for the better. Whether it’s the rules for Apple’s App Store or Facebook’s plan for fighting misinformation, tech platform policies can have enormous ripple effects on the rest of society. They’re so powerful that, increasingly, companies aren’t setting them alone but sharing the fight with government regulators, civil society groups, and internal standards bodies like Meta’s Oversight Board. The result is an ongoing political struggle over harassment, free speech, copyright, and dozens of other issues, all mediated through some of the largest and most chaotic electronic spaces the world has ever seen.
The message was shared by Daniel Moreno-Gama in an online chat in January, months before he was arrested for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at the OpenAI CEO’s home. Moreno-Gama added that his words shouldn’t be taken literally, but he’s one of many that have venerated the United Healthcare CEO murder.
[The Wall Street Journal]
The House was supposed to have a procedural vote on renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act today, ahead of the program’s April 20th expiration. Speaker Mike Johnson delayed the debate — again. There’s still a chance the House may vote later today, but it’s unlikely.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the open-source, cross-platform European Age Verification Solution it has been testing will be available publicly soon, reports Bloomberg. She said it is “completely anonymous,” using a passport or ID card to verify age for access to online services, with accuracy that complies with EU child-protection regulations.
Senator Elizabeth Warren is worried about X Money, Elon Musk’s upcoming payment platform, and the risks it poses to consumers and the financial system. She’s probably right to worry, but the solution might have been in front of us the whole time:
GHollister:
Have you tried not using X Money? That is my plan, seems to be working ok.
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Prezzy T filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal after it published Trump’s birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, but the judge just dismissed the case, saying Trump had “not plausibly alleged that the Defendants published the Article with actual malice.” (“Actual malice” here is a specific legal term that means publishing something you know is false.)
Trump will have another chance to refile an amended complaint, so we’ll see if he tries again.
Okay: almost nobody wants a year-end “wrapped” for most things we do — food delivery, subscriptions, you name it. It’d be too embarrassing to look into that mirror. But this one seems legitimately useful to help Americans understand how their taxes are being spent. Enter Tax Wrapped, from Riley Walz. Find out how much of your money is going to health, war, and more.
[Riley Walz]
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is choking off the world’s supply of fertilizer feedstock, triggering concerns about rising food prices and shortages.
After assailing Pope Leo XIV and calling him “WEAK on crime,” Donald Trump, a real US President, posted this AI-generated image of himself as some kind of Jesus, healing… Ethan Hawke?
After failing to get details about a user who said “TSA sucks and we all know it,” via a traditional court order, DHS is now dragging Reddit in front of a grand jury. The government has grown increasingly aggressive in its attempts to deal with online critics. Reddit has not said whether it plans to fight the subpoena, but according to The Intercept:
“Privacy is central to how Reddit operates, and we take our commitment to protecting that seriously,” the company said in a statement to The Intercept. “We do not voluntarily share information with any government, especially not on users exercising their rights to criticize the government or plan a protest.”
Federal Judge Michael Liburdi issued a temporary restraining order halting the state’s case against the prediction market. The CFTC has stepped in to stop Arizona and other states from attempting to supersede federal efforts to regulate prediction markets, but the Trump Administration has largely avoided actually regulating them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, according to Business Insider:
Since Donald Trump returned to office, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., has become a paid advisor to Kalshi, and an investment firm he works for invested in Polymarket.
The truth favored the Iranian regime. AI slop carried its message better.
Explosive Media is going up against the White House in a meme war.
France’s Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM) has announced its “exit from Windows in favor of workstations running on the Linux operating system,” as XDA reports. It’s part of a broader shift away from non-European tech — in January, France’s government also launched its own videoconferencing platform to replace Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet.
TikTok star Khaby Lame sold his personal brand to a small, relatively unknown company called “Rich Sparkle Holdings.” Instead of handing him $975 million in cash, they paid him in stock. Fans piled in, causing the price to skyrocket, briefly making Lame a paper billionaire (several times over) before the price plummeted. It’s now looking suspiciously like a “pump-and-dump” scheme, causing trading apps to freeze the stock. 🤷♂️
As Ticketmaster wraps up its antitrust defense, a different ticketing company is in the government’s crosshairs. The Federal Trade Commission accused StubHub of failing to show customers the full cost of tickets upfront, and the settlement would require clearer disclosure. StubHub spokesperson Jack Sterne said the settlement “covers a limited number of transactions” across three days, and though they disagree with the FTC’s view, “we are addressing their concerns by refunding a portion of those buyers’ fees.”
Update: Added comment from StubHub.
[Federal Trade Commission]
Attorneys who led trial teams against Live Nation, Google, and Apple are among the recent departures, following the DOJ’s Live Nation settlement, Bloomberg and Mlex report. David Dahlquist, who led the DOJ teams against Live Nation and for Google search remedies, announced he’d given notice at a Google hearing Wednesday.
As 404 Media reports, the FBI managed to extract Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone by accessing the phone’s notification database, where incoming messages were viewable even after the app was deleted. Signal users may want to turn on the app’s settings feature that hides message content in notifications.
As a result, “the company will continue to be excluded from new contracts and Pentagon systems,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Yuga Labs, the creator of the now-depreciated line of NFTs, settled its lawsuit against artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, who were accused of launching a copycat RR/BAYC NFT collection, as reported by CoinDesk.
The parties settled to avoid a trial after a court reversed Yuga Labs’ $9 million win last year.
The blueprint — created with the help of NCMEC and the Attorney General Alliance — is aimed at “modernizing laws” to address AI-generated CSAM, improving the reporting process, and building systems that interrupt exploitation attempts.
As part of the tentative deal, Amazon will ship 20 percent fewer packages through the Postal Service, The Wall Street Journal reports. An earlier WSJ report had said that Amazon was looking to cut “at least two-thirds” of its postal volume with the USPS.
[The Wall Street Journal]
