Big tech companies tend to make a lot of enemies — but there are none more powerful than the US government. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Meta are regularly called in front of Congress to fend off monopoly accusations — and lawmakers bring up bills to rein in the companies just as often. The Federal Trade Commission has taken a particularly central role, leading a lawsuit to sever Facebook and Instagram while blocking new acquisitions for Oculus and the company’s virtual reality wing. Like it or not, these regulatory fights will play a huge role in deciding the future of tech — and neither side is playing nice.
The European Commission has weighed in on the November decision to block the likes of ChatGPT and Copilot from WhatsApp, and thinks it violates EU antitrust laws. It’s surprisingly fast for the organization, which called the issue “urgent” because of the risk of “irreparable” damage to competition in the nascent AI industry.
The removals — which follow the Trump administration’s previous data purging efforts — target all posts prior to the president returning to office in January 2025, with a goal to “limit confusion on US government policy,” A spokesperson told NPR that the department’s X accounts “are one of our most powerful tools for advancing the America First goals.”
The law has survived the dot-com bubble and the Supreme Court, but it’s up against potentially larger challenges.
A clip that put Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces on the bodies of apes appeared on the president’s Truth Social account for about 12 hours before it was deleted, but not before press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the post, saying it was simply “an internet meme.”
An unattributed statement from the White House published by Variety said “a staffer had erroneously made the post and that it has been taken down.” It’s an excuse Trump has used before.
[New York Times]
The emails show the “anti-woke” crusaders are afraid of accountability.
I like to think you can usually tell the difference between a Verge headline and an Onion one, but these days the lines are getting blurry.
endlessben:
I think you hit “Publish to The Verge” instead of “Publish to The Onion.” It’s ok, it happens.
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The fine, a measly £247,590 (about $335,000), is because Imgur owner MediaLab wasn’t checking users ages, and so handled young kids’ data without proper consent measures. After the ICO warned a fine was coming last September, Imgur started blocking UK users entirely — a ban which is still in effect.
There are many important safety reasons to support China’s move to ban hidden, electric door handles from EVs, but also a pettier one: they’re just bad, unintuitive, and inconvenient handles.
verge_user_m65nybmy:
Rejoice! Concealed handles are so dumb. What do you mean I have to press one side then pull the other? Just give me a handle ffs
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Key privacy settings and best practices.
The Trump administration ordered five major offshore wind projects to pause construction in December, suddenly citing national security risks even though developers had previously secured approvals to start building. After the companies filed suit, federal courts have now allowed all five projects to start construction again.
The Republican congressperson is reportedly so preoccupied with how the internet talks about her that she instructed staff to go to Reddit discussions about the “hottest women in Congress” to upvote and comment in support of her, according to a New York Magazine profile. Previous reporting also indicated that Mace’s staffers were asked to make burner social accounts to defend her.
[Intelligencer]
Under Eric Adams, NYC launched a chatbot to help businesses navigate government programs and regulations. Instead, reporting by The City and The Markup showed that it regularly encouraged illegal behavior, such as taking a portion of employees’ tips or refusing to accept cash payments. It apparently didn’t even know the minimum wage.
[THE CITY - NYC News]
The Trump administration is quietly weakening regulations meant to protect groundwater and limit radiation exposure to workers at new nuclear reactors, NPR reports. Trump has worked to speed up the deployment of new nuclear reactor designs to power AI data centers.
See below for what he had to say. (You can read that memo Cook is referencing here.)
The lack of an official public response so far is a noted contrast to a public statement on racism Cook shared in 2020.
With less than two days before a partial government shutdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, Republican leadership is trying to dodge the hard work.
“I think right now the conversation should be between the White House and Democrats,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said. “The White House obviously is open to negotiation.” Democratic leaders, meanwhile, repeatedly put the onus on Thune for getting a deal. “We have to pass the bill here,” Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democratic appropriator, told reporters. “He’s the majority leader.”
Nick Shirley and others like him are reminiscent of yellow journalism of the 19th century, updated and turbocharged by social media algorithms.
The leaders of US businesses are more scared than he thought:
I was at a conference where they said, how many of you are afraid to speak out? And only like four people raised their hands and I said, wow, this is even worse than I thought. People are afraid to speak out about being afraid to speak out. I mean, because everybody in the room should have raised their hand. Are you kidding?
[Financial Times]
At least in the UK, where the walkback comes after the country’s CMA opened a consultation on forcing Google to do just that, having given the company “strategic market status” last year. Ron Eden, Google’s principal for product management, says:
“We’re now exploring updates to our controls to let sites specifically opt out of Search generative AI features. Our goal is to protect the helpfulness of Search for people who want information quickly, while also giving websites the right tools to manage their content.”
Today’s reports from Hunterbrook Media and Pablo Torre Finds Out claim the company’s hardware is seemingly easily obtained and popularly used in Russia’s war effort through already-sanctioned distributors and other middlemen.
Ubiquiti, which was fined $500k in 2014 over “reckless disregard” for Iran sanctions, did not respond to a request for comment.
A political comms professional breaks down Trump’s meme media strategy.
