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.
A good story about digital navigators who received federal funds to help kids, seniors, and other people learn to use services like telehealth portals and classroom resources in rural Alabama — until their mission was deemed “woke.”
Luckily Brendan Carr is looking out for them, trying to waive onerous requirements like “telling customers what fees they’ll be paying” so that these plucky upstarts can soldier on.
desertsessions:
These poor burdened ISPs. Won’t someone think of the ISPs.
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Hey Marc, is that big bet on AI not working out? And now you need a contract from Uncle Sam because there’s no other way out of this mess you got yourself into? Is that what’s going on here, babe? Just asking, because it sure seems like this is you trying to grovel your way into the gangster tech ring.
With the government still shut down, the Trump administration announced more layoffs across the already decimated federal workforce. That includes EPA employees who worked on battery recycling and safety, plastics reduction, recycling and composting programs, and collecting solid waste data, according to the EPA union.
In response to China’s plan to place export controls on rare earth minerals, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the US will impose a 100 percent tariff on goods from China in addition to what’s in place. Can I get off this ride?
It only took nine months, but the Competition and Markets Authority has designated Google Search with “strategic market status,” meaning it’s eligible for extra UK regulation. AI Mode has been factored in, but not AI assistants like Gemini. Similar decisions on Android and iOS are due this month.
The Associated Press snapped a picture of a note from Marco Rubio to President Trump about a Truth Social post for the deal between Israel and Hamas. Trump later made the post.
To support their suits against OPM and DOGE, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is selling a retro-looking ringer t-shirt, and honestly it’s kind of a banger. I think I am going to buy one, hem it into a crop top and wear it when I go rock climbing. At $25 it’s a steal.
Now, interestingly, ICEBlock users are the same users who build, support, and buy Apple’s products. And these same people rely on and trust Apple every single day. And I’ll tell you, if I was speaking directly to Tim Cook, I’d say, “Tim, you’ve broken that trust, and now it’s up to you to fix it.”
Apple removed ICEBlock from the App Store last week.
This is the glass cliff to end all glass cliffs.
Wired is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security is planing increase its surveillance of social media. The government is looking to run a “24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year” program that would turn Instagram posts and TikTok clips into leads for deportation raids.
At a hearing in a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, a DOJ attorney defended the president’s federalization of 200 guardsmen. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton said that the president has met the conditions of 10 U.S.C. 12406, having made a proper determination that Portland has become so violent that “regular forces cannot execute the laws of the United States.”
Which determination would that be? “The most important determination is reflected in posts he made on Truth Social,” Hamilton told Judge Karin J. Immergut, specifying posts made on September 27 and October 1, where the president called Portland a “war zone” occupied by “domestic terrorists.”
Scott Kennedy, representing the state of Oregon, called the president’s posts “vague, incendiary hyperbole that lacks a good faith assessment of the facts,” saying they simply did not line up with the reality of what was happening on the ground.
In unsealed testimony, SpaceX investor Iqbaljit Kahlon says that some Chinese investors are “directly on the cap table.” This may raise some national security concerns, depending on how much information about SpaceX — which is deeply involved with the US defense department — gives to its investors.
Identifying faceless ICE agents. Mutual aid for jailed protesters. Calling JD Vance a fascist. The war on ‘antifa’ is a war on free speech, and it’s just getting started.
