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.
Marco Rubio says that switching back to Times New Roman would “restore decorum and professionalism.”
It’s the one of the few things Republicans and Democrats can agree on right now.
Back in the mists of time, in ancient 2009, the European Union fined Intel €1.06 billion ($1.2 billion) for anticompetitive behaviors. The two have been in court ever since, and after Intel got the fine cut to €376 million, it’s now dropped again to €237.1 million ($275 million). How low can it go?
Who could have seen that coming? UK regulator Ofcom’s annual Online Nation report shows that major porn sites took a traffic hit following the introduction of mandatory age checks, while VPN use shot up — but has been steadily declining since, which may ease fears that a VPN ban is next on the agenda.
A key committee scheduled a markup of 18 bills, including the revised Kids Online Safety Act, for Thursday. That’s just over a week since holding a hearing to first consider the package. After killing KOSA last year, the House may be trying to leave its mark before the holiday break.
[House Committee on Energy and Commerce]
The platform had blocked access to users in Mississippi due to an age verification law, but in a post on Monday, Bluesky said it has upgraded its Age Assurance system to “restore access to people over 18 in Mississippi” and to comply with “upcoming laws in Australia and other regions.”
As Ted Sarandos and David Ellison play out a public spat over whose turn it is to play with Warner Bros., while trying to impress Trump and the regulators along the way, just remember that the real winners at the end will be HBO Max subscribers.
sam flynn:
It’s really fun how we all get to sit around and watch these idiots toss gold bars back and forth across Trump’s desk while waiting to see if an HBO Max subscription will be $80 or $100 a month this time next year.
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Inside the right wing’s effort to dismantle the organizations and safeguards that protect the truth.
In addition to complying with the under-16 social media ban that begins December 10th in Australia, Reddit is making changes globally for under-18s:
Teen account holders under 18 everywhere will get a version of Reddit with more protective safety features built in, including stricter chat settings, no ads personalization or sensitive ads, and no access to NSFW or mature content.
There’s some kind of news coming from the White House this week about AI regulations, after a post from the president to Truth Social saying, “You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”
The White House is planning to give Nvidia the green light to begin exporting its H200 AI GPU chips to China, according to reports from Semafor and the WSJ. As noted by the WSJ, the H200 chip is more powerful than the scaled-down H20 GPU that China has cracked down on, but it still doesn’t rival Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs.
Draft text of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes funding through 2028 for the Protect Our Children Act. The 2008 bill created a nationwide task force of law enforcement agencies skilled in investigating crimes against children facilitated by the internet. Tech industry group NetChoice applauded the provision.
The agency announced a new workshop on January 28th where it will host academics, industry reps, and advocates to discuss age verification. It comes as Congress and many states have weighed or passed laws meant to protect kids online that would require companies to adopt these kinds of technologies.
[Federal Trade Commission]
The court is hearing arguments in a case where it could overturn decades of precedent over the president’s firing of a Federal Trade Commissioner. While conservative justices worry about letting Congress’ authority run wild, liberal justices like Elena Kagan warn of creating “a president with control over everything.”
Despite Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ efforts to woo the president last month, Trump said on Sunday that plans to combine the streamer with Warner Bros. “could be a problem.” Trump said that Netflix already has a “very big market share,” which will “go up by a lot” if the $83 billion buyout goes ahead.
After the Trump administration used Carpenter’s song “Juno” in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) propaganda video, the pop star responded, calling it “evil and disgusting.” The White House account has since deleted the post — but they’ve picked this fight with musicians before.
On Friday, the handpicked CDC advisory group, containing several known vaccine critics, scrapped the three-decade-old recommendation to vaccinate all babies for hepatitis B at birth, instead delaying the recommended schedule to 2 months, if at all, for babies whose mothers test negative for the disease.
That’s a bad idea, according to medical groups and public health experts, and likely to lead to a rise in hepatitis B cases.
Frog costumes, Luigi hats, and the press frenzy at the viral murder trial.
As Russia bans Roblox for spreading “LGBT propaganda” — now along with Snapchat and FaceTime too — it leaves homophobes with yet another thing to avoid, just in case.
sam flynn:
Fellas is it gay to play Roblox?
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Earlier this week, the judge overseeing the New York state case against Mangione said he would seal all exhibits, including police body camera footage of the arrest. Mangione’s defense argues releasing the exhibits could be prejudicial — but Judge Gregory Carro just told us that some exhibits will be released soon. Journalists made a push for releasing the exhibits earlier this week, with one reporter even getting removed from court.
In court Thursday during evidence suppression hearings, prosecutors showed a hand-written note that police say they found among Mangione’s possessions. It was only briefly shown and hard to make out, but one day’s tasks included buying USBs and a digital camera from Best Buy. Journalist Lorena O’Neil reports one section of the note may have referenced archiving social media pages, which were scrutinized by the public after Mangione’s arrest.
Alex Karp — the CEO of Palantir, the not-a-surveillance company put forward by Elon Musk’s DOGE to supply the US government with software that allows ICE to track immigrants — is very offended that anyone would suggest he is running a surveillance company.
Also, please “speak up” because “everyone” who thinks he’s a fascist is speaking up, said Karp, who famously wrote a dissertation on the rhetoric of fascism. I wonder why he’s so sensitive!
The Verge’s Hayden Field joins Decoder to discuss the politically fraught climate around AI safety.
