NYC’s government chatbot is lying about city laws and regulations
Enlarge / Has a government employee checked all those zeroes and ones floating above the skyline? If you follow generative AI news at all, you’re probably familiar with LLM chatbots’ tendency to “confabulate” incorrect information while presenting that information as…
FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
Enlarge / FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at US District Court on March 30, 2023, in New York City after being hit with a criminal charge for allegedly authorizing a bribe of at least $40 million to one or more…
Biden orders every US agency to appoint a chief AI officer
The White House has announced the “first government-wide policy to mitigate risks of artificial intelligence (AI) and harness its benefits.” To coordinate these efforts, every federal agency must appoint a chief AI officer with “significant expertise in AI.” Some agencies…
Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say
Unsealed court documents have revealed more details about a secret Facebook project initially called “Ghostbusters,” designed to sneakily access encrypted Snapchat usage data to give Facebook a leg up on its rival, just when Snapchat was experiencing rapid growth in…
Starlink mobile plans hit snag as FCC dismisses SpaceX spectrum application
Enlarge / A Starlink user terminal during winter. Getty Images | AntaresNS Starlink’s mobile ambitions were dealt at least a temporary blow yesterday when the Federal Communications Commission dismissed SpaceX’s application to use several spectrum bands for mobile service. SpaceX…
Missouri AG sues Media Matters over its X research, demands donor names
Getty Images | NurPhoto Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey yesterday sued Media Matters in an attempt to protect Elon Musk and X from the nonprofit watchdog group’s investigations into hate speech on the social network. Bailey’s lawsuit claims that “Media Matters…
SCOTUS mifepristone case: Justices focus on anti-abortion groups’ legal standing
Enlarge / Demonstrators participate in an abortion-rights rally outside the Supreme Court as the justices of the court hear oral arguments in the case of the US Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine on March 26, 2024…
Lawsuit from Elon Musk’s X against anti-hate speech group dismissed by US judge
Getty Images | Dan Kitwood A US judge has struck down a lawsuit brought by X against a nonprofit group that researched toxic content on the social media platform, finding the Elon Musk-owned company’s case appeared to be an attempt…
Justice Department indicts 7 accused in 14-year hack campaign by Chinese gov
peterschreiber.media | Getty Images The US Justice Department on Monday unsealed an indictment charging seven men with hacking or attempting to hack dozens of US companies in a 14-year campaign furthering an economic espionage and foreign intelligence gathering by the…
US sues Apple, alleging it illegally monopolized the smartphone market
Enlarge / Apple CEO Tim Cook leaving the US Capitol building on Thursday, September 14, 2023, in Washington, DC. Getty Images | The Washington Post The US Department of Justice sued Apple today, alleging that the company violated antitrust laws…
After appeal to Musk, X suspends accounts that outed neo-Nazi cartoonist
iStock/Getty Images X has locked and suspended the accounts of journalists and researchers who shared the alleged identity of a neo-Nazi cartoonist known as Stonetoss after the cartoonist appealed to site owner Elon Musk. The incident, critics say, highlights once…
SBF repeatedly lied to get out of “supervillain” prison term, FTX CEO alleges
Enlarge / FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (R) departs Manhattan Federal Court after an arraignment hearing on March 30, 2023, in New York City. The CEO of FTX Trading, John Ray, sent a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan Wednesday to correct…
Users shocked to find Instagram limits political content by default
Instagram users have started complaining on X (formerly Twitter) after discovering that Meta has begun limiting recommended political content by default. “Did [y’all] know Instagram was actively limiting the reach of political content like this?!” an X user named Olayemi…
Reddit faces new reality after cashing in on its IPO
Enlarge / Steve Huffman, u/spez on Reddit, sold 500,000 of his shares in Reddit’s IPO on Thursday AFP via Getty Images In an interview on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor ahead of Reddit’s market debut on Thursday, chief…
Cable ISP fined $10,000 for lying to FCC about where it offers broadband
Enlarge / “Yes, we offer Internet at your address.” An Internet service provider that admitted lying to the Federal Communications Commission about where it offers broadband will pay a $10,000 fine and implement a compliance plan to prevent future violations….
Apple’s green message bubbles draw wrath of US attorney general
Getty Images | NurPhoto The US Department of Justice is angry about green message bubbles. Announcing today’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple, US Attorney General Merrick Garland devoted a portion of his speech to the green bubbles that appear in conversations…
World’s first global AI resolution unanimously adopted by United Nations
Enlarge / The United Nations building in New York. On Thursday, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously consented to adopt what some call the first global resolution on AI, reports Reuters. The resolution aims to foster the protection of personal…
Google balks at $270M fine after training AI on French news sites’ content
Google has agreed to pay 250 million euros (about $273 million) to settle a dispute in France after breaching years-old commitments to inform and pay French news publishers when referencing and displaying content in both search results and when training…
Michael Cohen loses court motion after lawyer cited AI-invented cases
Enlarge / Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer to former US President Donald Trump, arrives at federal court in New York on December 14, 2023. Getty Images | Bloomberg A federal judge decided not to sanction Michael Cohen and his lawyer…
Supreme Court skeptical about restricting Biden contacts with social networks
Enlarge / Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor arrive for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, in Washington, DC. Getty Images | Win McNamee Supreme Court justices yesterday expressed…
Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent
Glassdoor, where employees go to leave anonymous reviews of employers, has recently begun adding real names to user profiles without users’ consent, a Glassdoor user named Monica was shocked to discover last week. “Time to delete your Glassdoor account and…
Tesla settles with Black worker after $3.2 million verdict in racism lawsuit
Enlarge / Tesla cars sit in a parking lot at the company’s factory in Fremont, California on October 19, 2022. Getty Images | Justin Sullivan Tesla has settled with a Black former factory worker who won a $3.2 million judgment…
Dell tells remote workers that they won’t be eligible for promotion
Starting in May, Dell employees who are fully remote will not be eligible for promotion, Business Insider (BI) reported Saturday. The upcoming policy update represents a dramatic reversal from Dell’s prior stance on work from home (WFH), which included CEO…
Epic asks court to block Apple’s 27% commission on website purchases
Getty Images | Justin Sullivan Epic Games yesterday urged a federal court to sanction Apple for alleged violations of an injunction that imposed restrictions on the iOS App Store. Epic cited a 27 percent commission charged by Apple on purchases…
“Overwhelming evidence” shows Craig Wright did not create bitcoin, judge says
Enlarge / Dr. Craig Wright arrives at the Rolls Building, part of the Royal Courts of Justice, on February 06, 2024, in London, England. “Overwhelming evidence” shows that Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is not bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, a…
US government agencies demand fixable ice cream machines
Enlarge / Taylor’s C709 Soft Serve Freezer isn’t so much mechanically complicated as it is a software and diagnostic trap for anyone without authorized access. Many devices have been made difficult or financially nonviable to repair, whether by design or…
Pornhub blocks all of Texas to protest state law—Paxton says “good riddance”
Enlarge / Signs displayed at the Pornhub booth at the 2024 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at Resorts World Las Vegas on January 25, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Getty Images | Ethan Miller / Pornhub has disabled its website in…
Public officials can block haters—but only sometimes, SCOTUS rules
There are some circumstances where government officials are allowed to block people from commenting on their social media pages, the Supreme Court ruled Friday. According to the Supreme Court, the key question is whether officials are speaking as private individuals…
Security footage of Boeing repair before door-plug blowout was overwritten
Enlarge / National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy testifies about the Boeing door-plug investigation before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on March 6, 2024, in Washington, DC. Getty Images | Kevin Dietsch A government investigation into a…
“Really bad timing”: Meta is killing misinformation analysis tool on August 14
Meta is discontinuing data analysis tool CrowdTangle on August 14. The closure will come three months ahead of the next US presidential election and three years after it was reported that the platform used for spotting misinformation on Facebook and…
FCC scraps old speed benchmark, says broadband should be at least 100Mbps
Getty Images | Yuichiro Chino The Federal Communications Commission today voted to raise its Internet speed benchmark for the first time since January 2015, concluding that modern broadband service should provide at least 100Mbps download speeds and 20Mbps upload speeds….
Meta sues “brazenly disloyal” former exec over stolen confidential docs
A recently unsealed court filing has revealed that Meta has sued a former senior employee for “brazenly disloyal and dishonest conduct” while leaving Meta for an AI data startup called Omniva that The Information has described as “mysterious.” According to…
Bitcoin Fog operator convicted of laundering $400M in bitcoins on darknet
A US federal jury has convicted a dual Russian-Swedish national, Roman Sterlingov, for operating Bitcoin Fog, “the longest-running bitcoin money laundering service on the darknet,” the Department of Justice announced yesterday. Sterlingov ran Bitcoin Fog from 2011 to 2021, moving…
Apple to allow iOS app installs from websites, but small devs don’t qualify
Getty Images | NurPhoto Apple will let European app developers distribute iPhone and iPad applications to users directly from a website, instead of through an app store. It’s the latest app-installation option announced by Apple as it seeks to comply…
IRS has launched its free tax filing service, Direct File, in 12 states
Enlarge / Internal Revenue Service (IRS) headquarters building on January 30, 2024, in Washington, DC. Getty Images | J. David Ake The Internal Revenue Service’s free tax filing service, Direct File, is now available in 12 states for taxpayers with…
Airbnb bans creepy surveillance cameras inside rentals starting April 30
Airbnb, like hotels and rival vacation rental site Vrbo, will no longer allow hosts to record guests while they’re inside the property. Airbnb previously allowed hosts to have disclosed cameras outside the property and in “common areas” inside, but Airbnb’s…
50 injured on Boeing 787 as “strong shake” reportedly sent heads into ceiling
Enlarge / A LATAM Airlines Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner taxiing at Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Chile on March 20, 2019. Getty Images | SOPA Images About 50 people were injured on a LATAM Airlines flight today in which a…
Op-ed: Charges against journalist Tim Burke are a hack job
Caitlin Vogus is the deputy director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation and a First Amendment lawyer. Jennifer Stisa Granick is the surveillance and cybersecurity counsel with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. The opinions in this…
Law enforcement doesn’t want to be “customer service” reps for Meta any more
Enlarge / Meta has a verified program for users of Facebook and Instagram. Getty Images | Chesnot Forty-one state attorneys general penned a letter to Meta’s top attorney on Wednesday saying complaints are skyrocketing across the United States about Facebook…
US gov’t announces arrest of former Google engineer for alleged AI trade secret theft
Enlarge / A Google sign stands in front of the building on the sidelines of the opening of the new Google Cloud data center in Hesse, Hanau, opened in October 2023. On Wednesday, authorities arrested former Google software engineer Linwei…
Florida middle-schoolers charged with making deepfake nudes of classmates
Jacqui VanLiew; Getty Images Two teenage boys from Miami, Florida, were arrested in December for allegedly creating and sharing AI-generated nude images of male and female classmates without consent, according to police reports obtained by WIRED via public record request….
Russia’s Starlink use sparks probe into SpaceX compliance with US sanctions
Enlarge / A Starlink terminal used by the Ukraine army for drone operations in May 2023. Getty Images | Pacific Press Democratic lawmakers are probing SpaceX over Russia’s reported use of Starlink in Ukraine, saying that recent developments raise questions…
Tesla drivers who sued over exaggerated EV range are forced into arbitration
Enlarge / Tesla Superchargers. Getty Images | NurPhoto Tesla drivers who say the carmaker “grossly” exaggerated the ranges of its electric vehicles have lost their attempt to sue Tesla as a class. They will have to pursue claims individually in…
“Disgraceful”: Messy ToS update allegedly locks Roku devices until users give in
Enlarge / A promotional image for a Roku TV. Roku customers are threatening to stop using, or to even dispose of, their low-priced TVs and streaming gadgets after the company appears to be locking devices for people who don’t conform…
US lawmakers vote 50-0 to force sale of TikTok despite angry calls from users
Enlarge / TikTok ad at a Metro station in Washington, DC on March 30, 2023. Getty Images | Bloomberg The House Commerce Committee today voted 50-0 to approve a bill that would force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the company…
Microsoft accused of selling AI tool that spews violent, sexual images to kids
Microsoft’s AI text-to-image generator Copilot Designer appears to be heavily filtering outputs after a Microsoft engineer, Shane Jones, warned that Microsoft has ignored warnings that the tool randomly creates violent and sexual imagery, CNBC reported. Jones told CNBC that he…
On DMA eve, Google whines, Apple sounds alarms, and TikTok wants out
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images For months, some of the biggest tech companies have been wrapped up in discussions with the European Commission (EC), seeking feedback and tweaking their plans to ensure their core platform services comply with the Digital…
Bitcoin price hits record $69K after SEC approvals fueled $7B in investments
Bitcoin’s price hit a record high Tuesday, surging above $69,000 and notching past its prior peak price of $68,991.85 recorded in 2021. After bitcoin’s price sunk in 2022 amid a cryptocurrency industry crash, bitcoin’s comeback began in early 2023, Bloomberg…
Microsoft argues Supreme Court’s VCR ruling should doom NYT’s OpenAI lawsuit
Getty Images | Aliaksandr Litviniuk Microsoft urged a federal court to dismiss part of The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against itself and OpenAI, claiming that the NYT lawsuit is similar to the movie industry’s attempts to kill the VCR…
Spotify wins as EU orders Apple to pay $2B and change App Store rules
The European Commission (EC) has sided with Spotify, fining Apple nearly $2 billion for abusive App Store restrictions on developers that it found violated antitrust laws by degrading music streaming apps (other than Apple Music) and spiking prices. “Apple applied…
Discord leaker Jack Teixeira pleads guilty, seeks light 11-year sentence
Enlarge / This photo illustration created on April 13, 2023, shows the Discord logo and the suspect, national guardsman Jack Teixeira, reflected in an image of the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Jack Teixeira, the National Guard airman who leaked confidential…
A big boost to Europe’s climate-change goals
Enlarge / Materials such as steel, cement, aluminum, electricity, fertilizer, hydrogen, and iron will soon be subject to greenhouse gas emissions fees when imported into Europe. Monty Rakusen/Getty The year 2023 was a big one for climate news, from record…
CenturyLink left customers without Internet for 39 days—until Ars stepped in
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images When a severe winter storm hit Oregon on January 13, Nicholas Brown’s CenturyLink fiber Internet service stopped working at his house in Portland. The initial outage was understandable amid the widespread damage caused by the…
Elon Musk sues OpenAI and Sam Altman, accusing them of chasing profits
Elon Musk has sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman for breach of contract, alleging they have compromised the start-up’s original mission of building artificial intelligence systems for the benefit of humanity. In the lawsuit, filed to a San…
Judge mocks X for “vapid” argument in Musk’s hate speech lawsuit
It looks like Elon Musk may lose X’s lawsuit against hate speech researchers who encouraged a major brand boycott after flagging ads appearing next to extremist content on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. X is trying…
Report: Boeing may reacquire Spirit at higher price despite hating optics
Amid safety scandals involving “many loose bolts” and widespread problems with Boeing’s 737 Max 9s, Boeing is apparently considering buying back Spirit AeroSystems, the key supplier behind some of Boeing’s current manufacturing problems, sources told The Wall Street Journal. Spirit…
WhatsApp finally forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code
WhatsApp will soon be granted access to explore the “full functionality” of the NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware—sophisticated malware the Israeli Ministry of Defense has long guarded as a “highly sought” state secret, The Guardian reported. Since 2019, WhatsApp has pushed…
X quietly revived anti-misgendering policy that Musk dropped last year
Last April, Twitter quietly edited its abuse and harassment policy to no longer explicitly ban deadnaming (calling transgender people by a former name) or misgendering (purposely using non-preferred pronouns or gender labels). Twitter’s decision came after Elon Musk suggested that…
Tesla must face racism class action from 6,000 Black workers, judge rules
Enlarge / Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on September 18, 2023. Getty Images | Justin Sullivan Tesla must face a class-action lawsuit from nearly 6,000 Black people who allege that they faced discrimination and harassment while working at the company’s…
SBF asks for 5-year prison sentence, calls 100-year recommendation “grotesque”
Enlarge / Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried arrives for a bail hearing at US District Court on August 11, 2023, in New York City. Getty Images | Michael Santiago Convicted FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded for a lenient prison sentence…
Amazon refuses to pay screenwriter for the right to reboot Road House
The screenwriter who penned the original screenplay for the 1989 cult classic film Road House, R. Lance Hill, is suing Amazon over its remake due out this March. Hill, whose Hollywood pen name is David Lee Henry, has alleged that…
Judge issues restraining order keeping DOE from tracking bitcoin miners
Earlier this month, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced its intention to gather basic information about the energy consumed by bitcoin mining. In making the decision, the DOE noted that the share of bitcoin mining happening in the US…
OpenAI accuses NYT of hacking ChatGPT to set up copyright suit
OpenAI is now boldly claiming that The New York Times “paid someone to hack OpenAI’s products” like ChatGPT to “set up” a lawsuit against the leading AI maker. In a court filing Monday, OpenAI alleged that “100 examples in which…
Kagan: Florida social media law seems like “classic First Amendment violation”
Enlarge / The Supreme Court of the United States in Washington D.C. in May 2023. Getty Images | NurPhoto The US Supreme Court today heard oral arguments on Florida and Texas state laws that impose limits on how social media…
Unsealed court doc shows why Apple rejected Microsoft’s offer to buy Bing
After failing for almost a decade to convince Apple to ditch Google and set Bing as Safari’s default search engine, Microsoft quietly changed tactics and offered to sell Bing to Apple in 2018, unsealed court documents showed Friday, confirming a Bloomberg…
Reddit admits more moderator protests could hurt its business
Reddit filed to go public on Thursday (PDF), revealing various details of the social media company’s inner workings. Among the revelations, Reddit acknowledged the threat of future user protests and the value of third-party Reddit apps. On July 1, Reddit…
How your sensitive data can be sold after a data broker goes bankrupt
In 2021, a company specializing in collecting and selling location data called Near bragged that it was “The World’s Largest Dataset of People’s Behavior in the Real-World,” with data representing “1.6B people across 44 countries.” Last year the company went…
Avast ordered to stop selling browsing data from its browsing privacy apps
Getty Images Avast, a name known for its security research and antivirus apps, has long offered Chrome extensions, mobile apps, and other tools aimed at increasing privacy. Avast’s apps would “block annoying tracking cookies that collect data on your browsing…
Yelp: It’s gotten worse since Google made changes to comply with EU rules
Anjali Nair; Getty Images To comply with looming rules that ban tech giants from favoring their own services, Google has been testing new look search results for flights, trains, hotels, restaurants, and products in Europe. The EU’s Digital Markets Act…
Vending machine error reveals secret face image database of college students
Aurich Lawson | Mars | Getty Images Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting facial-recognition data without their consent. The scandal started when a…
India’s plan to let 1998 digital trade deal expire may worsen chip shortage
India’s plan to let a moratorium on imposing customs duties on cross-border digital e-commerce transactions expire may end up hurting India’s more ambitious plans to become a global chip leader in the next five years, Reuters reported. It could also…
ISPs keep giving false broadband coverage data to the FCC, groups say
Getty Images | Andrey Denisyuk Internet service providers are still providing false coverage information to the Federal Communications Commission, and the FCC process for challenging errors isn’t good enough to handle all the false claims, the agency was told by…
Snapchat isn’t liable for connecting 12-year-old to convicted sex offenders
A judge has dismissed a complaint from a parent and guardian of a girl, now 15, who was sexually assaulted when she was 12 years old after Snapchat recommended that she connect with convicted sex offenders. According to the court…
Report: 75K loyal Redditors can snag shares before Reddit goes public
Thousands of the most dedicated Reddit users will have a chance to snag shares when the company goes public in 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Citing people familiar with the matter, The Journal reported that 75,000 of the…
Twitter security staff kept firm in compliance by disobeying Musk, FTC says
Enlarge / Elon Musk at the New York Times DealBook Summit on November 29, 2023, in New York City. Getty Images | Michael Santiago Twitter employees prevented Elon Musk from violating the company’s privacy settlement with the US government, according…
Court blocks $1 billion copyright ruling that punished ISP for its users’ piracy
Getty Images | OcusFocus A federal appeals court today overturned a $1 billion piracy verdict that a jury handed down against cable Internet service provider Cox Communications in 2019. Judges rejected Sony’s claim that Cox profited directly from copyright infringement…
LockBit ransomware group taken down in multinational operation
Law enforcement agencies including the FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency have dealt a crippling blow to LockBit, one of the world’s most prolific cybercrime gangs, whose victims include Royal Mail and Boeing. The 11 international agencies behind “Operation…
Report: Apple is about to be fined €500 million by the EU over music streaming
Brussels is to impose its first-ever fine on tech giant Apple for allegedly breaking EU law over access to its music streaming services, according to five people with direct knowledge of the long-running investigation. The fine, which is in the…
EU accuses TikTok of failing to stop kids pretending to be adults
The European Commission (EC) is concerned that TikTok isn’t doing enough to protect kids, alleging that the short-video app may be sending kids down rabbit holes of harmful content while making it easy for kids to pretend to be adults…
Another “patent troll” defeated by Cloudflare and its army of bounty seekers
Once again, Cloudflare has proven that its unusual defense against meritless patent infringement claims effectively works to end so-called “patent trolling.” In a blog post, Cloudflare announced that its most recent victory—defeating a lawsuit filed by Sable IP and Sable…
Backdoors that let cops decrypt messages violate human rights, EU court says
Enlarge / Building of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (France). The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that weakening end-to-end encryption disproportionately risks undermining human rights. The international court’s decision could potentially disrupt the European…
How a musician accused of fraud got his music back on Spotify, iTunes
Enlarge / Musician Benn Jordan, who performs under the alias The Flashbulb, successfully defended his music against streaming fraud allegations. Last Friday, musician Benn Jordan assumed his phone was glitching when he tried to pull up one of his albums…
Air Canada must honor refund policy invented by airline’s chatbot
After months of resisting, Air Canada was forced to give a partial refund to a grieving passenger who was misled by an airline chatbot inaccurately explaining the airline’s bereavement travel policy. On the day Jake Moffatt’s grandmother died, Moffat immediately…
Elon Musk’s X allows China-based propaganda banned on other platforms
Lax content moderation on X (aka Twitter) has disrupted coordinated efforts between social media companies and law enforcement to tamp down on “propaganda accounts controlled by foreign entities aiming to influence US politics,” The Washington Post reported. Now propaganda is…
Apple disables iPhone web apps in EU, says it’s too hard to comply with rules
Getty Images | NurPhoto Apple is removing the ability to install home screen web apps from iPhones and iPads in Europe when iOS 17.4 comes out, saying it’s too hard to keep offering the feature under the European Union’s new…
AMC to pay $8M for allegedly violating 1988 law with use of Meta Pixel
On Thursday, AMC notified subscribers of a proposed $8.3 million settlement that provides awards to an estimated 6 million subscribers of its six streaming services: AMC+, Shudder, Acorn TV, ALLBLK, SundanceNow, and HIDIVE. The settlement comes in response to allegations…
Twitter front-end Nitter dies as Musk wins war against third-party services
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images An open source project that let people view tweets without going to Twitter.com has shut down, as Elon Musk’s changes seem to have closed off all possible ways to access the Twitter network without a…
Musk’s X sold checkmarks to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups, report says
Getty Images | NurPhoto A watchdog group’s investigation found that terrorist group Hezbollah and other US-sanctioned entities have accounts with paid checkmarks on X, the Elon Musk-owned social network that still resides at the twitter.com domain. The Tech Transparency Project…
Cryptocurrency maker sues former Ars reporter for writing about fraud lawsuit
Enlarge / Image from Bitcoin Latinum’s website Bitcoin Latinum The cryptocurrency firm Bitcoin Latinum has sued journalists at Forbes and Poker.org, claiming that the writers made false and defamatory statements in articles that described securities fraud lawsuits filed against the…
Judge rejects most ChatGPT copyright claims from book authors
A US district judge in California has largely sided with OpenAI, dismissing the majority of claims raised by authors alleging that large language models powering ChatGPT were illegally trained on pirated copies of their books without their permission. By allegedly repackaging…
Apple’s iMessage is not a “core platform” in EU, so it can stay walled off
Getty Images Apple’s iMessage service is not a “gatekeeper” prone to unfair business practices and will thus not be required under the Fair Markets Act to open up to messages, files, and video calls from other services, the European Commission…
Court orders Elon Musk to testify for SEC, rejects his claim of “harassment”
Enlarge / Elon Musk leaves court in San Francisco, California Jan. 24, 2023. Getty Images | Bloomberg A federal court ordered Elon Musk to comply with a subpoena issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, rejecting Musk’s claims that the…
Amazon hides cheaper items with faster delivery, lawsuit alleges
Amazon rigged its platform to “routinely” push an overwhelming majority of customers to pay more for items that could’ve been purchased at lower costs with equal or faster delivery times, a class-action lawsuit has alleged. The lawsuit claims that a…
Some Calif. cops still sharing license plate info with anti-abortion states
Dozens of California police agencies are still sharing automated license plate reader (ALPR) data with out-of-state authorities without a warrant, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has revealed. This is occurring despite guidance issued by State Attorney General Rob Bonta last year….
US funds $5B chip effort after lagging on semiconductor innovation
Enlarge / US President Joe Biden speaks before signing the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The Biden administration announced investments Friday totaling more than $5 billion in semiconductor research and development intended to re-establish the US as a global…
Over a decade later, climate scientist prevails in libel case
Enlarge / Climate scientist Michael Mann. This is a story I had sporadically wondered whether I’d ever have the chance to write. Over a decade ago, I covered a lawsuit filed by climate scientist Michael Mann, who finally had enough…
Female ex-exec told she lacked “docility and meekness” sues TikTok
One of TikTok’s senior-most female executives, Katie Ellen Puris, is suing TikTok and its owner ByteDance, alleging wrongful termination based on age and sex discrimination. In her complaint filed Thursday, Puris accused ByteDance chairman Lidong Zhang of aggressively forcing her…
Canada declares Flipper Zero public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown
Enlarge / A Flipper Zero device https://flipperzero.one/ Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has identified an unlikely public enemy No. 1 in his new crackdown on car theft: the Flipper Zero, a $200 piece of open source hardware used to capture,…
Reddit beats film industry again, won’t have to reveal pirates’ IP addresses
Getty Images | NurPhoto Movie companies have lost a third attempt to unmask Reddit users who posted comments discussing piracy. In an order on Wednesday, the US District Court for the Northern District of California rejected movie copyright holders’ demand…
These states are basically begging you to get a heat pump
Death is coming for the old-school gas furnace—and its killer is the humble heat pump. They’re already outselling gas furnaces in the US, and now a coalition of states has signed an agreement to supercharge the gas-to-electric transition by making…
Cable TV companies tell FCC: Early termination fees are good, actually
Getty Images | Jeffrey Coolidge Cable and satellite TV companies are defending their early termination fees (ETFs) in hopes of avoiding a ban proposed by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC voted to propose the ban in December, kicking off…
Texas firm allegedly behind fake Biden robocall that told people not to vote
Enlarge / US President Joe Biden speaks on the phone in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 1, 2023. Getty Images | Brendan Smialowski An anti-voting robocall that used an artificially generated clone of…
Large cryptocurrency miners in US now have to report energy use to government
Enlarge / A worker installs a row of new mining machines at the largest bitcoin mining facility in the US, located in Rockdale, Texas, on October 9, 2021. Experts say lax regulation and cheap electricity in the US are a…
Four bolts were missing from Boeing 737 before door plug blew off, NTSB says
Enlarge / Rows 25 and 26 in the Boeing plane that lost a door plug during flight. NTSB Four important bolts were missing from a Boeing 737 Max 9 that lost a passenger door plug during flight, the National Transportation…
EU right to repair: Sellers will be liable for a year after products are fixed
Getty Images | SimpleImages Europe’s right-to-repair rules will force vendors to stand by their products an extra 12 months after a repair is made, according to the terms of a new political agreement. Consumers will have a choice between repair…
4chan daily challenge sparked deluge of explicit AI Taylor Swift images
4chan users who have made a game out of exploiting popular AI image generators appear to be at least partly responsible for the flood of fake images sexualizing Taylor Swift that went viral last month. Graphika researchers—who study how communities…
SIM-swapping ring stole $400M in crypto from a US company, officials allege
The US may have uncovered the nation’s largest “SIM swap” scheme yet, charging a Chicago man and co-conspirators with allegedly stealing $400 million in cryptocurrency by targeting over 50 victims in more than a dozen states, including one company. A…
Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay plan voided as shareholders beat Tesla in court
Aurich Lawson / Duncan Hull / Getty Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $55.8 billion pay package was unfair to the electric carmaker’s shareholders and must be rescinded, Delaware Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled yesterday. Most of the board members…
Comcast reluctantly agrees to stop its misleading “10G Network” claims
Comcast Comcast has reluctantly agreed to discontinue its “Xfinity 10G Network” brand name after losing an appeal of a ruling that found the marketing term was misleading. It will keep using the term 10G in other ways, however. Verizon and…
Exploring Reddit’s third-party app environment 7 months after the APIcalypse
Last year, Reddit sparked massive controversy when it dramatically changed the prices and rules associated with accessing its API. The changes were so drastic and polarizing that they led to an epic protest from Reddit users and moderators that saw thousands of…
eBay to pay $59M after DOJ ties pill press sales to fentanyl drug rings
eBay has agreed to pay $59 million after the US Department of Justice accused the online marketplace of selling thousands of pill presses and encapsulating machines, some of which were used by rings trafficking in illegal counterfeit pills. It’s the…
Republicans in Congress try to kill FCC’s broadband discrimination rules
Enlarge / US Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) speaks to the press on June 13, 2023, in Washington, DC. Getty Images | Michael McCoy More than 65 Republican lawmakers this week introduced legislation to nullify rules that prohibit discrimination in access…
How does the Ministry of Labour handle wrongful dismissal complaints?
wrongful dismissal complaints Across Canada, laws favour dismissed workers when it comes to the process and compensation for job loss. This is because sudden income loss can put a significant financial burden on individuals, their families and society at large….
FCC to declare AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal under existing law
Getty Images | Thamrongpat Theerathammakorn The Federal Communications Commission plans to vote on making the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal. The FCC said that AI-generated voices in robocalls have “escalated during the last few years” and have “the…
Cops arrest 17-year-old suspected of hundreds of swattings nationwide
Enlarge / Booking photo of Alan Filion, charged with multiple felonies connected to a “swatting” incident at the Masjid Al Hayy Mosque in Sanford, Florida. Police suspect that a 17-year-old from California, Alan Filion, may be responsible for “hundreds of…
Elon Musk proposes Tesla move to Texas after Delaware judge voids $56 billion pay
Enlarge / Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks at Tesla’s “Cyber Rodeo” on April 7, 2022, in Austin, Texas. Getty Images | AFP/Suzanne Cordeiro Tesla CEO Elon Musk has had enough of Delaware after a state court ruling voided his $55.8…
Cops bogged down by flood of fake AI child sex images, report says
Law enforcement is continuing to warn that a “flood” of AI-generated fake child sex images is making it harder to investigate real crimes against abused children, The New York Times reported. Last year, after researchers uncovered thousands of realistic but…
Zuckerberg says sorry for Meta harming kids—but rejects payments to families
Enlarge / Mark Zuckerberg discussed Meta’s approaches to child safety at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing January 31, 2024. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing weighing child safety solutions on social media, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stopped to apologize to…
Lawsuit: Citibank refused to reimburse scam victims who lost “life savings”
Enlarge / The Citibank logo on a bank in New York City in January 2024. Citibank has illegally refused to reimburse scam victims who lost money due partly to Citibank’s poor online security practices, New York Attorney General Letitia James…
Boeing withdraws bid for safety exemption as details on missing bolts emerge
Enlarge / A hole is covered where a door plug blew off a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane used by Alaska Airlines. Getty Images Boeing is withdrawing an application for a safety exemption related to its 737 Max 7 aircraft…
Apple warns proposed UK law will affect software updates around the world
Apple is “deeply concerned” that proposed changes to a United Kingdom law could give the UK government unprecedented power to “secretly veto” privacy and security updates to its products and services, the tech giant said in a statement provided to…
Amazon’s $1.4B Roomba bid fails, leading to iRobot layoffs and CEO resignation
Getty Images Amazon will no longer pursue a $1.4 billion acquisition of iRobot, maker of Roomba robot vacuums after the companies announced today that they have “no path to regulatory approval in the European Union.” On the same day, iRobot…
Google and AT&T invest in Starlink rival for satellite-to-smartphone service
Enlarge / Illustration of AST SpaceMobile’s cellular satellite. AST SpaceMobile Google, AT&T, and Vodafone are investing $206.5 million in AST SpaceMobile, a Starlink competitor that plans to offer smartphone service from low-Earth-orbit satellites. This is the first investment in AST…
Republicans in 20 states urge Supreme Court to uphold state social media laws
Getty Images | OsakaWayne Studios Republican officials from 20 states, including 19 state attorneys general, are backing Florida and Texas in a Supreme Court battle over states’ authority to regulate how social media firms moderate user-submitted content. The states on…
Mugger take your phone? Cash apps too easily let thieves drain accounts, DA says
Popular apps like Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App aren’t doing enough to protect consumers from fraud that occurs when unauthorized users gain access to unlocked devices, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg warned. “Thousands or even tens of thousands can be…
eBay lays off 1,000 employees, about 9 percent of full-time workforce
Getty Images | Justin Sullivan eBay is laying off approximately 1,000 employees in a move that reduces its full-time workforce by 9 percent, the company announced yesterday. eBay also plans “to scale back the number of contracts we have within…
NSA finally admits to spying on Americans by purchasing sensitive data
The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to buying records from data brokers detailing which websites and apps Americans use, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed Thursday. This news follows Wyden’s push last year that forced the FBI to admit…
Facebook suffers big loss in lawsuit against data-scraping company
Getty Images | NurPhoto One year after Meta sued a data-scraping company, a federal judge this week threw out Meta’s breach-of-contract claim because the defendant obtained only public data from Facebook and Instagram. Meta sued Bright Data in January 2023,…
X can’t stop spread of explicit, fake AI Taylor Swift images
Explicit, fake AI-generated images sexualizing Taylor Swift began circulating online this week, quickly sparking mass outrage that may finally force a mainstream reckoning with harms caused by spreading non-consensual deepfake pornography. A wide variety of deepfakes targeting Swift began spreading…
Instagram stops letting random adults send messages to teenagers
Some teens will now have their Facebook and Instagram accounts defaulted to a setting that blocks strangers from sending direct messages, Meta announced on Thursday. This default setting is designed to stop teens under 16 (“or under 18 in certain…
Amazon Ring stops letting police request footage in Neighbors app after outcry
Amazon Ring has shut down a controversial feature in its community safety app Neighbors that has allowed police to contact homeowners and request doorbell and surveillance camera footage without a warrant for years. In a blog, head of the Neighbors…
Stop telling everyone that TurboTax is “free,” FTC orders Intuit
Getty Images | Bloomberg The Federal Trade Commission yesterday ruled that TurboTax maker Intuit violated US law with deceptive advertising and ordered the company to stop telling consumers that TurboTax is free without more obvious disclaimers. Intuit “engaged in deceptive…
Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional
Patreon, a monetization platform for content creators, has asked a federal judge to deem unconstitutional a rarely invoked law that some privacy advocates consider one of the nation’s “strongest protections of consumer privacy against a specific form of data collection.”…
Meta relents to EU, allows unlinking of Facebook and Instagram accounts
Meta will allow some Facebook and Instagram users to unlink their accounts as part of the platform’s efforts to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) ahead of enforcement starting March 1. In a blog, Meta’s competition and…
Robocall with artificial Joe Biden voice tells Democrats not to vote
Enlarge / President Joe Biden at a Rose Garden event at the White House on May 1, 2023, in Washington, DC. Getty Images | Alex Wong An anti-voting robocall that seems to use an artificially generated version of President Joe…
Cable firms to FTC: We shouldn’t have to let users cancel service with a click
Getty Images | RoyalFive Lobbyists for cable companies and advertisers yesterday expressed their displeasure with a proposed “click-to-cancel” regulation that aims to make it easier for consumers to cancel services. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has said that changes…
Teen sued Utah over social media law requiring curfew for minors
Enlarge / Utah high school student Hannah Zoulek sued Utah to block the Social Media Regulation Act from taking effect March 1. A Utah high school student, Hannah Zoulek, has joined a lawsuit, fighting to block Utah’s vague social media…
How a 27-year-old busted the myth of Bitcoin’s anonymity
Sam Rodriguez JUST OVER A DECADE AGO, Bitcoin appeared to many of its adherents to be the crypto-anarchist holy grail: truly private digital cash for the Internet. Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s mysterious and unidentifiable inventor, had stated in an email…
FCC chair defends broadband discounts for poor people against Republican attack
Enlarge / FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel at a Senate subcommittee hearing on September 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. Getty Images | The Washington Post FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel defended a low-income discount program against attacks from GOP lawmakers, pointing out…
Fujitsu bugs that sent innocent people to prison were known “from the start”
Enlarge / Paul Patterson, co-CEO of Fujitsu’s European division, testifies for a public inquiry in London on January 19, 2024. Getty Images | AFP Fujitsu software bugs that helped send innocent postal employees to prison in the UK were known…
Amazon’s purchase of Roomba-maker iRobot likely to be blocked by EU
Getty Images | SOPA Images European Union regulators intend to block Amazon’s attempt to purchase Roomba-maker iRobot, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. European Commission competition officials “met Thursday with representatives from Amazon to discuss the deal,” the Journal wrote,…
Apple Watch no longer sold with blood oxygen monitoring after patent battle loss
Enlarge / The Apple Watch Ultra 2. Apple Starting today, if you buy an Apple Watch Series 9 or Watch Ultra 2 it won’t be able to tell you your blood oxygen levels, a feature that Apple heavily touted when…
TSMC predicts delays, less advanced chips at second Arizona fab
Enlarge / US President Joe Biden speaks during a “First Tool-In” ceremony at the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. facility under construction in Phoenix, Arizona, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022. TSMC today announced plans to boost its investment in the…
Supreme Court may overturn precedent governing climate regulations
Getty Images | Rudy Sulgan The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments for overturning the so-called Chevron doctrine, one of the most important principles guiding federal regulation for the past 40 years. The doctrine, named for a 1984 court case…
Apple lets devs use alternate in-app payment options, still takes commissions
Getty Images | NurPhoto A chapter in the ongoing Epic v. Apple court case closed yesterday when the US Supreme Court declined to hear further arguments from either company. This decision leaves the case where it was after the 9th…
Chrome updates Incognito warning to admit Google tracks users in “private” mode
Getty Images | Anadolu Google is updating the warning on Chrome’s Incognito mode to make it clear that Google and websites run by other companies can still collect your data in the web browser’s semi-private mode. The change is being…
Climate denialists find new ways to monetize disinformation on YouTube
Content creators have spent the past five years developing new tactics to evade YouTube’s policies blocking monetization of videos making false claims about climate change, a report from a nonprofit advocacy group, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), warned…
Meta verification proved useless—and my family is still locked out of Instagram
Enlarge / Meta has a verified program for users of Facebook and Instagram. Getty Images | Chesnot The trouble began three days before Christmas. When my sister-in-law Amy tried to log in to her Instagram account shortly before midnight, she…
Verizon won’t stop charging $3.30 “Telco Recovery” fee, may raise it again
Enlarge / A Verizon store in New York on July 3, 2023. Getty Images | Bloomberg Verizon Wireless customers may get up to $100 each as part of a $100 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit over Verizon’s monthly “Administrative…
US judge blocks Ohio Republicans’ “troublingly vague” social media law
Getty Images | Matt Cardy A federal judge blocked an Ohio state law that would prevent minors from using social networks without parental consent, calling it a “troublingly vague” law that likely violates the First Amendment. Ohio’s “Parental Notification by…
Actor paid to pose as crypto CEO “deeply sorry” about $1.3 billion scam
Enlarge / A screenshot from Jack Gamble’s video outing Stephen Harrison as HyperVerse’s fake CEO, posted on Gamble’s “Nobody Special Finance” YouTube channel. An actor who was hired to pretend to be the highly qualified CEO of a shady, collapsed…
Child abusers are covering their tracks with better use of crypto
For those who trade in child sexual exploitation images and videos in the darkest recesses of the Internet, cryptocurrency has been both a powerful tool and a treacherous one. Bitcoin, for instance, has allowed denizens of that criminal underground to…
eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”
eBay has agreed to pay $3 million—the maximum criminal penalty possible—after employees harassed, intimidated, and stalked a Massachusetts couple in retaliation for their critical reporting of the online marketplace in 2019. “Today’s settlement holds eBay criminally and financially responsible for…
EPA expands “high priority” probe into AT&T, Verizon lead-contaminated cables
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expanding its investigation into potential risks posed by lead-covered cables installed nationwide by major telecommunications companies, The Wall Street Journal revealed in an exclusive report Thursday. After finding “more than 100 readings with elevated…
Reddit must share IP addresses of piracy-discussing users, film studios say
For the third time in less than a year, film studios with copyright infringement complaints against a cable Internet provider are trying to force Reddit to share information about users who have discussed piracy on the site. In 2023, film…
“Such signal, much wow”: Starlink’s first texts via “cellphone towers in space”
Enlarge / Starlink satellites with direct-to-cell capability. SpaceX SpaceX is showing off the first text messages sent between T-Mobile phones via one of Starlink’s low Earth orbit satellites. “On Monday, January 8, the Starlink team successfully sent and received our…
Report: Deepfake porn consistently found atop Google, Bing search results
Popular search engines like Google and Bing are making it easy to surface nonconsensual deepfake pornography by placing it at the top of search results, NBC News reported Thursday. These controversial deepfakes superimpose faces of real women, often celebrities, onto…
SEC says X account was hacked as false post causes bitcoin price swings
Getty Images | Chesnot The Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account was hacked yesterday and briefly displayed a post falsely announcing the approval of bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), causing an abrupt swing in bitcoin’s price. “The @SECGov X account was…
Amazon lays off 500 Twitch employees, hundreds more at MGM and Prime Video
Getty Images | NurPhoto Amazon today is laying off 500 employees at Twitch and several hundred more at its MGM and Prime Video divisions, the company announced. The 500 job cuts at Twitch reportedly amount to 35 percent of the…
Facebook, Instagram block teens from sensitive content, even from friends
Meta has begun hiding sensitive content from teenagers under the age of 18 on Facebook and Instagram, a company blog announced on Tuesday. Starting now, Meta will begin removing content from feeds and Stories about sensitive topics that have been…
Consumer group wants to end $255M “gift card loophole” for Starbucks and others
Enlarge / Starbucks’ Rewards programs are a key part of their revenue. How the company deals with unspent amounts in that app could change under new Washington state proposals. Getty Images When you get a Starbucks gift card, or keep…
Elon Musk drops price of X gold checks amid rampant crypto scams
There’s currently a surge in cryptocurrency and phishing scams proliferating on X (formerly Twitter)—hiding under the guise of gold and gray checkmarks intended to mark “Verified Organizations,” reports have warned this week. These scams seem to mostly commandeer dormant X…
23andMe told victims of data breach that suing is futile, letter shows
23andMe is “shamelessly” blaming victims of a data breach impacting 6.9 million users, a lawyer representing victims pursuing a class-action lawsuit, Hassan Zavareei, told TechCrunch. Zavareei shared a letter from 23andMe lawyers that urged users suing to “consider the futility…
TurboTax maker Intuit’s $100 million tax credits challenged by US lawmakers
Getty Images | SOPA Images TurboTax maker Intuit’s tax breaks are being questioned by four US lawmakers who object to the federal research tax credits claimed by the company. A letter sent this week claims that the amount of Intuit’s…
Crypto hedge fund CEO may not exist; probe finds no record of identity
Enlarge / A still from a HyperVerse video featuring CEO Steven Reece Lewis. For years, rumors spread on social media that Steven Reece Lewis, the chief executive officer of a now-shuttered cryptocurrency hedge fund called HyperVerse, was a “fake person” who…
SpaceX charged with illegally firing workers behind anti-Musk open letter
Enlarge / Elon Musk speaks with members of the media at the AI Safety Summit on November 1, 2023 in Bletchley, England. Getty Images | Leon Neal SpaceX illegally fired eight employees who criticized CEO Elon Musk in an open…
Since Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase, firm reportedly lost 72% of its value
Getty Images | DNY59 Fidelity’s latest valuation of its stake in X implies that Elon Musk’s social network is worth about 71.5 percent less than when Musk bought the company in October 2022. Fidelity’s Blue Chip Growth Fund has a…
Vizio settles for $3M after saying 60 Hz TVs had 120 Hz “effective refresh rate”
Enlarge / A marketing image for Vizio’s P-series Q9 TV. Vizio has agreed to pay $3 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged the company misled customers about the refresh rates of its TVs. In 2018, a lawsuit [PDF],…
Google agrees to settle Chrome incognito mode class action lawsuit
Getty Images Google has indicated that it is ready to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 over its Chrome browser’s Incognito mode. Arising in the Northern District of California, the lawsuit accused Google of continuing to “track, collect, and…
FDA would like to stop finding Viagra in supplements sold on Amazon
If you were to search for a product called “Mens Maximum Energy Supplement” on Amazon, you’d be bombarded with everything from caffeine pills to amino acid supplements to the latest herb craze. But at some point last year, the FDA…
NY Times sues Open AI, Microsoft over copyright infringement
Enlarge / Microsoft is named in the suit for allegedly building the system that allowed GPT derivatives to be trained using infringing material. In August, word leaked out that The New York Times was considering joining the growing legion of…
Elon Musk will see you in court: The top Twitter and X Corp. lawsuits of 2023
Enlarge / Elon Musk speaks at the Atreju political convention organized by Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) on December 15, 2023 in Rome, Italy. Getty Images | Antonio Masiello Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter, now called X, began with a…
Adobe gives up on $20 billion acquisition of Figma
Adobe has abandoned its proposed $20 billion acquisition of product design software company Figma, as there was “no clear path to receive necessary regulatory approvals” from UK and EU watchdogs. The deal had faced probes from both the UK and…
US agency tasked with curbing risks of AI lacks funding to do the job
Aurich / Getty US president Joe Biden’s plan for containing the dangers of artificial intelligencealready risks being derailed by congressional bean counters. A White House executive order on AI announced in October calls on the US to develop new standards…
Banks use your deposits to loan money to fossil-fuel, emissions-heavy firms
When you drop money in the bank, it looks like it’s just sitting there, ready for you to withdraw. In reality, your institution makes money on your money by lending it elsewhere, including to the fossil fuel companies driving climate…
From CZ to SBF, 2023 was the year of the fallen crypto bro
Aurich Lawson | Getty Images (Bloomberg/Antonio Masiello) Looking back, 2023 will likely be remembered as the year of the fallen crypto bro. While celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Matt Damon last year faced public backlash after shilling for cryptocurrency, this…
After loss to Epic Games, Google announces $700M settlement with users, states
After Epic Games proved that Google’s Android app store monopoly violates antitrust law, Google has agreed to pay a $700 million settlement with US states and consumers, Reuters reported. Once a judge approves the settlement, the largest chunk—$630 million—will go…
FTC suggests new rules to shift parents’ burden of protecting kids to websites
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently seeking comments on new rules that would further restrict platforms’ efforts to monetize children’s data. Through the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the FTC initially sought to give parents more control over…
Child sex abuse images found in dataset training image generators, report says
More than 1,000 known child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) were found in a large open dataset—known as LAION-5B—that was used to train popular text-to-image generators such as Stable Diffusion, Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) researcher David Thiel revealed on Wednesday. SIO’s…
EU will hold 3 major porn sites to same regulations as Meta, X
ToolX via Getty Images Three of the world’s biggest pornography sites will be hit with new regulatory curbs including stricter requirements on age verification, after EU regulators determined the adult platforms fell within the scope of a landmark law designed…
Binance to pay $2.7 billion fine after hiding shady transactions from feds
Enlarge / Founder and CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as “CZ,” in May 10, 2022, in Rome, Italy. Now that a federal court has approved a settlement with Binance, the world largest cryptocurrency exchange is hoping to move past…
Republicans slam broadband discounts for poor people, threaten to kill program
Enlarge / Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) speaks to reporters after the weekly Senate Republican caucus lunch on November 14, 2023, in Washington, DC. Getty Images | Anna Rose Layden Republican members of Congress blasted a program that gives…
Musk’s X hit with EU’s first investigation of Digital Services Act violations
Getty Images | Chris Delmas The European Union has opened a formal investigation into whether Elon Musk’s X platform (formerly Twitter) violated the Digital Services Act (DSA), which could result in fines of up to 6 percent of global revenue….
Disgraced Nikola founder Trevor Milton gets 4-year sentence for lying about EVs
Enlarge / Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola Corp., arrives at court in New York on Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Milton is set to be sentenced on Monday after being found guilty of securities fraud and wire fraud in October 2022….
Elon Musk told bankers they wouldn’t lose any money on Twitter purchase
Elon Musk privately told some of the bankers who lent him $13 billion to fund his leveraged buyout of Twitter that they would not lose any money on the deal, according to five people familiar with the matter. The verbal…
TikTok requires users to “forever waive” rights to sue over past harms
Some TikTok users may have skipped reviewing an update to TikTok’s terms of service this summer that shakes up the process for filing a legal dispute against the app. According to The New York Times, changes that TikTok “quietly” made to…
Twitch quickly reverses policy that “went too far” allowing nudity
Just two days after updating its policy to allow for more nudity, Twitch has announced that it’s immediately “rolling back the artistic nudity changes.” “Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the…
This “smoking gun” killed the McDonald’s ice cream hackers’ startup
A little over three years have passed since McDonald’s sent out an email to thousands of its restaurant owners around the world that abruptly cut short the future of a three-person startup called Kytch—and with it, perhaps one of McDonald’s…
Marketer sparks panic with claims it uses smart devices to eavesdrop on people
We’ve all experienced it or heard about it happening: Someone has a conversation about wanting a red jacket, and then suddenly, it seems like they’re seeing ads for red jackets all over the place. Makers of microphone-equipped electronics sometimes admit…
Judge rejects Elon Musk’s attempt to avoid testifying in Twitter stock probe
Getty Images | Bet_Noire Elon Musk can’t avoid testifying in an investigation into whether he violated federal securities laws, a magistrate judge said during a court hearing yesterday. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk in October to force him…
Suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police, court rules
Getty Images | releon8211 Criminal suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police under the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, according to a unanimous ruling issued today by Utah’s state Supreme Court. The questions addressed in the…
Cable lobby and Republicans fight proposed ban on early termination fees
Getty Images | RoyalFive The Federal Communications Commission has taken a step toward prohibiting early termination fees charged by cable and satellite TV providers. If given final approval, the FCC action would also require cable and satellite providers to provide…
Trains were designed to break down after third-party repairs, hackers find
Enlarge / Dragon Sector uploaded a video to social media after discovering an “undocumented ‘unlock code’ which you could enter from the train driver’s panel” fixed “mysterious issues” impacting trains in Poland. An unusual right-to-repair drama is disrupting railroad travel…
Back to reality: COP28 calls for getting fossil fuels out of energy
Enlarge / Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber defied expectations to deliver a document that explicitly calls for limits on fossil fuel use. On Wednesday, the UN’s COP28 meeting wrapped up with a major success: Despite a bruising fight with OPEC nations,…
Ted Cruz wants to stop the FCC from updating data-breach notification rules
Enlarge / Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, November 30, 2023. Getty Images | Bill Clark Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other Republican senators are fighting a Federal Communications Commission plan to impose new…
Tesla claims California false-advertising law violates First Amendment
Enlarge / Cars parked at the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, on February 10, 2022. Getty Images | Josh Edelson Tesla is trying to use a free speech argument to defeat a complaint that it falsely advertised “Autopilot” as an…
Google’s Android app store monopoly violates antitrust law, jury finds
Enlarge / Artist’s conception of Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney jumping for joy at news of the verdict. Epic Games Epic vs. Apple/Google View more stories While Epic’s antitrust arguments against Google had many similarities to those in the company’s…
Elon Musk reverses Twitter ban of Sandy Hook shooting-denier Alex Jones
Enlarge / Infowars-founder Alex Jones speaks to the media outside Waterbury Superior Court on September 21, 2022 during one of his Sandy Hook defamation trials. Getty Images | Joe Buglewicz Elon Musk has allowed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones back on…
Apple admits to secretly giving governments push notification data
Governments have been secretly tracking the app activity of an unknown number of people using Apple and Google smartphones, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed today. In a letter demanding that the Department of Justice update or repeal policies prohibiting…
Cable lobby to FCC: Please don’t look too closely at the prices we charge
Getty Images | imagedepotpro The US broadband industry is protesting a Federal Communications Commission plan to measure the affordability of Internet service. The FCC has been evaluating US-wide broadband deployment progress on a near-annual basis for almost three decades but…