4 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Policy

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 war against ‘woke’ could end US science as we know it

‘Everyone will be affected, not just scientists. Every community in the country.’

Bethany Brookshire
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Australia doubles down on social media ban fines.

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.”

The Guardian’s Kai Wright refuses to buy a new phone

But he’s quite happy gardening and listening to John Coltrane.

Terrence O'Brien
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Pete Buttigieg: “You’ve probably heard of ‘swatting’... Now imagine the same concept, but with Child Protective Services instead of a SWAT team.”

This is a long and distressing post from Buttigieg about an experience with CPS over an accusation that he says “was absurdly and obviously false, and was promptly rejected by law enforcement.”

As part of the process, however, Buttigieg could not be alone with his kids, and he could not be present while CPS interviewed them.

A Terrible Thing Happened to My Family

[Pete Buttigieg’s Substack]

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
ICE agents confronted a Syracuse woman to try to get her to delete an Instagram post.

Agents walked into a polling place on primary Election Day to demand that one of the workers, Paigelynne Gonyea, delete her post, claiming she “may be in violation of federal law.” The post contains the name of Jonathan Ross, the agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, who has been named by a number of media outlets, including The Verge.

On Friday, US Representative John Mannion wrote to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin requesting the agency “promptly review this incident and put a stop to any ICE activities that target protected speech under the First Amendment.”

"ICE wanted my autograph. I declined."

[@turndapaigeofficial - Instagram]

The World Cup puts the US’s nightmarish immigration policies front and center

Despite promises of smooth travel for the tournament, fans’ and even players’ visa chaos further illustrates the Trump administration’s goals.

Gaby Del Valle
Anthropic’s Mythos mess is only getting worse

The White House standoff could have dire implications for the US AI industry.

Hayden Field
Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Brake pedals may no longer be required in autonomous vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration kicked off a new rulemaking aimed at eliminating the requirement for brake pedals as long as the vehicle is fully automated. If it passes, it would be a gift to companies like Zoox that make purpose-built AVs without traditional controls. Safety advocates have expressed concerns about these moves, arguing that its premature to eliminate the requirement for manual controls and could pose a safety risk.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Nearly 400 local newspapers are suing OpenAI and Microsoft.

The coalition of publishers alleges OpenAI and Microsoft “scraped, copied, and ingested” their work without permission or compensation to train their AI models. This latest legal battle adds to the string of copyright lawsuits OpenAI is facing from publishers like The New York Times, Ziff Davis, Merriam-Webster, and Encyclopedia Britannica.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
People Inc. CEO says it’s “probably” headed for a confrontation with Google over AI crawling.

Neil Vogel, CEO of the publisher formerly known as Dotdash Meredith, brought up his company’s AI licensing deals with Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft in an Axios interview this week. He noted that while it blocks other unlicensed AI crawlers, it can’t block Google’s since it’s the same one used for Google Search.

According to Vogel, “We would love to do something productive with them, but we’re probably heading towards more confrontation than productivity with those guys.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
This week in the big AI data center buildout.

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:

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Meta reportedly still hasn’t agreed to allow the US government to review its AI models.

That’s according to a report from The New York Times, which says the White House officials are pressuring Meta to submit its AI models for evaluation, something OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and xAI have already agreed to do.

“While we are working through the details, we hope to sign the agreement soon,” Meta spokesperson Francis Brennan tells the NYT.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
YouTube settles ahead of the next bellwether trial over alleged harms from social media.

The terms of the settlement are confidential, Courthouse News Service reports. Meta, Snap, and ByteDance are still set to be defendants in the trial, which is being brought by a 15-year old plaintiff known as “R.K.C.” and is scheduled to start on July 27th.

In the first bellwether case, Meta and YouTube were found negligent.

Elon Musk and the plot to hijack America’s broadband

BEAD was a once-in-a-generation chance to fix the digital divide — then turned into a gift for tech moguls.

Karl Bode and Sean Gonsalves
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Europeans will soon pay more for cheap imports.

Starting July 1st, small parcels valued at less than €150 (about $171) that enter the EU will be subject to a fixed €3 (about $3.42) customs duty. This temporary measure aims to protect local businesses by reducing competition from foreign low-cost retailers like Temu and Shein, while the EU works out a permanent solution.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The Oversight Board is demanding Meta take down an “AI-generated sexualized video” of a woman on Instagram.

Meta said it didn’t have indicators of the post being nonconsensual, but in addition to arguing that was incorrect, the board says Meta should determine that “AI-generated impersonation is non-consensual by default.”

Mia Sato
Mia Sato
Those DoorDash and T-Pain World Cup tweets were a “partnership.”

Over the weekend, the DoorDash X account posted repeatedly about the World Cup, but instead of tagging New Zealand soccer player Tim Payne, the account tagged musician T-Pain — who responded accordingly. The posts had no indication that they were an ad (as the Federal Trade Commission requires).

I asked DoorDash if this was a coordinated effort and whether T-Pain was paid for his posts. Head of social Zaria Parvez said in an email that the company noticed Payne was a fan favorite and happened to share a nearly identical name with T-Pain. “So, in partnership with T-Pain, we executed a fun campaign to connect fans from around the world and remind people that DoorDash has whatever they need throughout the World Cup.”

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Of course campaign workers are making money on Polymarket using insider information.

Politicians have been caught betting on their races, and a Google employee was charged with insider trading. So it makes sense that campaign workers are looking to make a little extra cash based on what they know about the candidates they work for. Watch the clip from NPR below.

Electric air taxis are stuck in the courtroom

Legal wrangling between leading eVTOL companies Joby, Archer, and Vertical threatens the future of the industry.

Andrew Hawkins
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Norway is putting restrictions on AI use in school.

As Reuters reports, the new restrictions will go into effect in August, limiting how students in different age groups use AI:

Pupils from first ​through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general ​rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to ‌16, can ⁠cautiously adopt tools under teachers’ supervision, the government said. In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, it added.

Who decides when AI is too dangerous?
Play

With the Mythos debacle, Anthropic gets its first taste of the Trump admin’s new AI regulation regime.

Nilay Patel
Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
US cybersecurity coordinator finally got access to Mythos Preview, report says.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) gained access to the limited release cybersecurity-focused model last week, Nextgov/FCW reports. It’s just a little late, since the rest of the world has mostly moved onto the drama around the Trump administration’s block of the safeguarded public version of the model, Fable.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
This week in the big AI data center buildout.

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: