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.
Instead of breaking down passthrough fees — which include costs related to government programs and third-party infrastructure owners — the FCC’s proposed rule change could allow broadband providers to lump them together into an “up to” amount. The FCC will vote on the change on July 22nd.
The trillionaire’s legacy of death under DOGE had a spotlight put on it recently, including from us. Musk responded with threats, including a threat to sue Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) for citing the same study we did. Now he’s in a losing war against the reality of his ghastly conduct. The Guardian explains the saga so far:
New laws in California and New York might stop anyone from 3D printing guns — and create entirely new kinds of surveillance.
Meta says four US states are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties, according to Reuters, in a filing published ahead of an upcoming August trial that accuses the company of purposefully designing Facebook and Instagram to addict young users. Meta’s market cap is $1.5 trillion and it’s already lost back-to-back trials on the matter and settled another.
As the United States turns 250 years old, we have work to do.
Governor JB Pritzker signed SB 315 on Monday, as first reported by CBS News. The “Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act,” passed in May, follows similar bills in New York and California aimed at improving AI transparency and safety, and will require independent third-party audits at AI companies.
[The State of Illinois Newsroom]
Trump has injected himself into Netflix’s business dealings, intervened in the antitrust case against Ticketmaster, and turned the FCC into his attack dog. Now he’s reportedly sullied the beautiful game by pressuring FIFA president Gianni Infantino to review the suspension of the United States’ top scorer, Folarin Balogun.
[The New York Times]
The “heat dome” covering the US from the Midwest to the East Coast interrupted the Trump Administration’s Freedom 250 event at the National Mall, which shut down for about four hours, citing the temperatures, and said it would reopen at 5PM ET.
The National Weather Service said more than 110 million people nationwide were under extreme heat risk.
Precatuions for America250 and other major events are building up the surveillance state.
What’s in, what’s out, and what’s a bit of both this summer.
Elon Musk and Joe Lonsdale are doing their best to make sure “the high-tech future will have to be built in a way that blends church, state and market, to the benefit of those most able to seize public resources and turn them to private profit.” The extractive world of today’s technology — harvesting your data and attention, among other things — has created the Texan Ideology.
[The Baffler]
The search giant has lost its final appeal to overturn a record-breaking €4.1 billion (about $4.68 billion) penalty imposed by the European Commission over practices that abused Android’s mobile dominance. The charges date back to 2018, so it’s taken almost a decade to close the antitrust case.
[Court of Justice of the European Union]
ICE has denied it maintains such a database, but Mother Jones lays out some shifty wording that suggests Trump administration officials are dodging the question — including a spontaneous mention of the known Terrorist Screening Dataset. Given that 15 Minnesota activists are facing federal charges, it sure sounds like DHS may be tracking protesters after all.
A post on the Claude X account featured a video announcement. The reinstatement was announced last night, alongside a blog post by Anthropic about the weekslong negotiation process leading up to it.
AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:
This report from Reuters says 34-year-old Michael Lines alleges that conversations with OpenAI’s now-retired GPT-4o model eventually pushed him to attempt suicide. He overdosed on drugs, but survived.
Lines, a competitive powerlifter who suffered a traumatic brain injury before his bipolar diagnosis, said in the lawsuit that he repeatedly told the chatbot he was on medication for the disorder. Instead of flagging his clearly manic chats and directing him to help, the chatbot validated his belief that he was Jesus Christ, and later posed as a divine being itself during their conversations, the lawsuit claims.
If you or anyone you know is considering self-harm or needs to talk, contact the following people who want to help: In the US, text or call 988. Outside the US, contact https://www.iasp.info/.
According to an unnamed spokesperson speaking to the FT, Tim Cook and EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen had a “constructive exchange on topics of common interest” on Tuesday over the current impasse that will leave roughly 450 million people without access to Apple Intelligence that actually works:
The meeting included a discussion of how Apple can launch its reinvented Siri in Europe while avoiding millions of dollars in fines for violating the bloc’s flagship competition rules, according to two people familiar with the talks.
The President’s annual disclosure noted that companies owned by Trump and his family received more than $800 million from the WLFI token and $635 million in royalties from Trump memecoins, report Reuters, WSJ, and CNBC.
CoinDesk points out the more than $50 million in Bitcoin, $25 million in ETH, investments in Coreweave and Coinbase, and $6 million from an NFT licensing agreement.
[DocumentCloud]
The Court will hear Apple’s arguments about a lower court decision upholding a ruling that Apple “willfully” violated a 2021 injunction forcing the company to let developers point to alternative payment methods, Bloomberg reports.
The Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act — the package of bills requiring online platforms to implement new safeguards for minors — passed the House with a 267-117 vote. The bill introduces regulations for “social gaming platforms” as well, and would require AI chatbots to disclose they’re not human.
Walk softly and carry a Fender Telecaster.
Swedish-language site Flamman reported that Daniel Berntsson gave 5 million Swedish kronor to the Örebro Party. The VPN company responded to the news on X, and Mullvad’s co-CEO Fredrik Strömberg told TechRadar “I don’t like that he made this donation,” but that “we will continue to protect the universal right to privacy.”
A revamped data privacy bill would limit selling information to data brokers, including from chatbot services.
An update to Discord’s support page says it’s trying out a way to scan your ID through Incode, adding that “only your date of birth is reviewed for age confirmation purposes,” while your ID and selfie will be “permanently deleted.” Discord’s also testing age verification via a credit card or ID pass in Google Wallet.
They will get a 50% discount on access to Claude, as part of a “first-of-its-kind collaboration” that also includes complimentary workforce training, technical assistance, and “workflow input from Anthropic developers,” per a release. On the state level, government employees will use Claude to help draft and summarize documents, analyze information, and supplement day-to-day work, per the release.
In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court determined that people have a reasonable right to privacy on their devices. The government had argued “geofence warrants” don’t constitute searches — but the court disagreed.
Elena Kagan, writing for the majority, said:
“An individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in records about his cell phone’s location, and police intrude on that constitutionally protected interest when they demand the information—even though for only a limited time, and from a third-party tech company.”
Mirroring similar concerns raised by Apple, Google is now warning that “scammers and fraudsters could exploit greater access to apps’ permissions” if the EU pushes ahead with draft measures that would force the company to open its Search data and Android operating system to competitors. In a statement to Wired, Google security engineering head, Heather Adkins, said:
”Past implementation [date], I would give it maybe weeks before we began to see an increase in fraud in
Europe.”
‘Everyone will be affected, not just scientists. Every community in the country.’
The maximum penalty for social media providers that fail to keep under-16’s off their platforms is now 99 million AUD (about $68.2 million), double the original. It follows a study suggesting more than 80 percent of under-16s are still using social media in Australia. In a statement, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said:
“It’s clear big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law – there are still too many children on social media.”
