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.
Paxton alleges that Meta can access WhatsApp messages despite Meta’s claims that they are end-to-end encrypted. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone says that WhatsApp “cannot access people’s encrypted communications and any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
It’s been a busy couple days for Paxton; my colleague Lauren Feiner just posted about a lawsuit he filed against Discord.
Republican Ken Paxton is seeking to require Discord to implement age verification, maximum default safety settings, and pay penalties for allegedly designing its platform in a way that facilitated teen exploitation. It echoes lawsuits against major social media platforms that have gone to trial this year. “The lawsuit’s characterization of Discord does not reflect the platform we have built or the investments we have made in user safety,” Discord spokesperson Michelle Kramer said in a statement.
Update: Added statement from Discord.
The Director of National Intelligence confirmed her resignation on X Friday afternoon, saying, “My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.” Trump announced Aaron Lukas will take over as Acting Director.
Gabbard, a former US Representative who reversed her previous stand against warrantless wiretapping before taking the post, was reportedly “largely sidelined” from national security operations in Venezuela and Iran, while Reuters reports a source claiming the White House forced her to resign.
YouTuber Coffeezilla first reported the leak of customer details, now apparently fixed. Trump Mobile CEO Pat O’Brien has now confirmed to The Verge there was a breach, which he blames on “a third-party platform provider.”
“The impacted information appears to be limited to certain customer details, including names, email addresses, mailing addresses, order identifiers and mobile phone numbers.
Out of an abundance of caution, our third-party platform provider has implemented additional safeguards and enhanced monitoring measures while the matter continues to be investigated.”
Update: Added comment from Trump Mobile’s CEO.
The company asked the judge to rule that, as a matter of law, it could not be found an illegal monopolist, despite the jury issuing a verdict against it. If that fails, it’s asked the court to grant it a new trial altogether.
As Politico reports, Trump postponed signing an executive order on government oversight and access to AI at the last minute on Thursday, saying it “could have been a blocker” for the jobs and “tremendous good” he claims AI is creating. Trump also said China was a factor:
We’re leading China. We’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that.
A handful of supporters showed up to a pretrial hearing with New York City-issued press passes.
Hijacked accounts include those of people who are “influential in their fields, though perhaps not famous,” like journalists and professors, according to The New York Times.
[The New York Times]
We sent Liz Lopatto to Musk v. Altman and all we got was this episode of Decoder
But the nonprofit Public Knowledge argues its changes could make the National Broadband Map less effective. Public Knowledge broadband policy director Alisa Valentin:
Today, the Commission is once again invoking the term ‘streamlining’ as justification for creating a permission structure that allows providers to evade accountability while consumers experience the consequences of distorted broadband maps.
A judge awarded Penguin Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins, and other major publishers with the judgment after Anna’s Archive — an open-source library and pirate activist group — didn’t respond to their copyright lawsuit.
Just like with the $322 million judgment awarded to Spotify and major music labels, collecting damages from anonymous online operators isn’t easy.
A Brooklyn courthouse unsealed criminal complaints against two men who allegedly posted “thousands” of nonconsensual intimate AI deepfakes, according to the US Attorney’s Office. The Take It Down Act’s criminal prohibitions have been in place for a year, but platforms’ obligation to remove such deepfakes just came into force yesterday.
[U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York]
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:
Update: Added NYT article about NextEra’s proposed deal to acquire Dominion Energy.
ICE raids are the most visible attack on undocumented communities, but Trump has quietly wielded bureaucracy on legal immigrants, too.
Kevin O’Leary wants to cover 40,000 acres. Residents say, ‘Not in my backyard.’
The state became the first to enact a ban on prediction markets, but a lawsuit from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is trying to keep it from taking effect, arguing it’s the domain of the federal government, NPR reports.
The Federal Trade Commission launched a new website for consumers to report alleged failures to comply with the Take It Down Act, which went into full force today. Critics fear the law will be used to censor online speech, but the website also has resources for domestic violence survivors.
A bipartisan bill that was just introduced in the House would levy an annual fee of $130 on everyone who owns an electric vehicle. The reasoning is that EV owners need to help pay for road and infrastructure improvements, since they don’t pay the gas tax that funds the Highway Trust Fund. But EV advocates are miffed that they’re being asked to pay almost twice what the average car owner pays each year in gas taxes, especially at a time when high gas prices are leading some consumers to give EVs a new look.
The Take It Down Act is in full force, but it could be a gift to government censors — not victims of image-based sexual abuse.
iPhone and iPad users in the European Union, Japan, and other countries can now download Fortnite directly from the App Store, Epic Games announced on Tuesday:
Fortnite is returning to the App Store now because we are confident that once Apple is forced to show its costs, governments around the world will not allow Apple junk fees to stand.
Epic Games brought Fortnite back to the US App Store last year following a legal win against Apple. It’s still not available in Australia, however.
Public opinion of the AI industry is already sinking. A parade of untrustworthy executives makes it look worse.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) announced the Energy Cost Fairness and Reliability Act, which would put new requirements on “energy-intensive facilities,” in an effort to lower the strain on the energy grid. It doesn’t yet have co-sponsors, but hits on an issue that’s become central to many communities and elections.
That was quick (about two hours).
I assume because he was recording, since the marshal said, “Give me your phone.” There have been several incidents of people attempting to record or take pictures throughout the trial — but I honestly am not sure why you’d record today of all days.
Unfortunately he does not have a lot of details YGR is asking for. He doesn’t know how many investments Musk has made (11 to date, according to Pitchbook), or how many were successful. He’s getting some pretty tough questioning from YGR in the direct exam. Among the things she’d asked, he didn’t know how many startups fail in Silicon Valley, or the success rate for assorted VC firms.
Some evidence collected by police in the killing the UnitedHealthcare CEO can’t be shown to a jury, a judge ruled on Monday — including a cellphone, a passport, a loaded magazine for a handgun, and a computer chip found during a search of Mangione at a McDonald’s.
But the ruling is a mixed bag: the judge overseeing the New York state case against Mangione also ruled that other items discovered — including a notebook and a gun — can be used as evidence.
Turns out one of Trump’s top infectious disease officials is a former penile implant specialist, which is odd considering some of the administration’s other policy positions.
Ada:
I’m surprised that a Trump official has such an interest in gender affirming care.
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The T1 Phone was supposed to start shipping last week. But our review units haven’t budged, and I’ve so far failed to find anyone online claiming their phone has shipped either. Maybe they’ve had to delay the launch to fix the flag.
A new investigation by the New York Times has discovered that social media influencers are collecting tens, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, to back candidates, endorse policies, and attack political enemies. But where that money is coming from isn’t clear, and campaigns are embracing the secrecy.
The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates deceptive business practices, requires influencers to disclose payments for promoting commercial products and services but, it says, does not regulate political advertisements.
