Pinned on vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ official Instagram page is a post featuring her alongside her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz. In the comments, along with praise, criticism, and more than one “Trump 2024,” are several comments asking if Harris had offered Walz oral sex, …
Read More »Elon Musk Has Turned X Into His Personal Political Playground
Ahead of the US elections, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, has used the platform as his own personal political bullhorn. On July 26, Musk posted a video of vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in which a deepfake of her voice appears to make her say …
Read More »The Controversial Kids Online Safety Act Faces an Uncertain Future
After passing the Senate nearly unanimously last week, the future of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) appears uncertain. Congress is now on a six-week recess, and reporting from Punchbowl News indicates that the House Republican leadership may not prioritize bringing the bill to the floor for a vote when …
Read More »What Project 2025 Means for Big Tech … and Everyone Else
Anyone who has spent even 15 minutes on TikTok over the past two months will have stumbled across more than one creator talking about Project 2025, a nearly thousand-page policy blueprint from the Heritage Foundation that outlines a radical overhaul of the government under a second Trump administration. Some of …
Read More »TikTok Lite Leaves up to 1 Billion Users With Fewer Protections
In May, TikTok announced that it would automatically label AI-generated content on its platform. That's not true, though, of all versions of the app. A new report from the Mozilla Foundation and AI Forensics finds that TikTok’s Lite-Save Data version, aimed at users in poorer markets, not only leaves AI-generated …
Read More »Fortnite Has a Political Violence Problem
In the hours after former US president Donald Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, a new Fortnite game appeared: Donald Trump vs Assassin. The game was quickly removed, but several other games that include antisemitism and political violence remained on the gaming platform, according to a new report from the …
Read More »J.D. Vance Is Trump’s Pick for Vice President
On Monday, former president and current Republican nominee for president Donald Trump officially named senator J.D. Vance of Ohio as his pick for vice president and running mate. “After lengthy deliberation and thought, and considering the tremendous talents of many others, I have decided that the person best suited to …
Read More »This Is the Moment RFK Jr. Has Been Waiting For
The presidential debate on June 27 between President Joe Biden and former president and convicted felon Donald Trump was widely panned as a shit show. Trump lied about issues like abortion, taxes, and the Capitol riot on January 6, while Biden struggled to respond to questions and appeared lost or …
Read More »War Crime Prosecutions Enter a New Digital Age
In 2012, the al-Qaeda–linked jihadist group Ansar Eddine swept through Timbuktu, taking control of the Malian city. As part of the group’s imposition of sharia law over the residents, it created an Islamic police force, led by Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz. Ansar Eddine controlled the city until 2013, when …
Read More »Supreme Court Rules That US Government Can Continue Talking to Social Media Companies
Today, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6–3 decision that the plaintiffs who'd sued the US government for allegedly violating the First Amendment—by communicating with social media companies about misleading and harmful content on their platforms—did not present enough evidence to prove that they had standing to sue. The case …
Read More »