In 2023, the world has felt like it was balanced on a precipice. A United States presidential election looms, with a resurgent candidate that threatens to bring with him all the chaos of 2016 and 2020. Artificial intelligence developed so quickly that it seemed to have suddenly sprung into being, …
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It’s been 15 years since suicides overtook homicides as the second leading cause of death for children ages 10 to 14 years old. Two years since the first Meta whistleblower warned United States senators that America’s children are at risk from “disastrous” decisions being made in Silicon Valley. (And a …
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The man charged with administering Arizona’s elections isn’t concerned about the state’s ability to securely hold elections. But he’s going to have to persuade millions of other people to feel the same way. Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, was elected Arizona’s secretary of state in 2022. A lawyer who previously worked …
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Today, Meta’s Oversight Board released its first emergency decision about content moderation on Facebook, spurred by the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The two cases center around two pieces of content posted on Facebook and Instagram: one depicting the aftermath of a strike on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza and the …
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Over the summer, a political action committee (PAC) supporting Florida governor and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis uploaded a video of former president Donald Trump on YouTube in which he appeared to attack Iowa governor Kim Reynolds. It wasn’t exactly real—though the text was taken from one of Trump’s tweets, the …
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With less than a year to go before one of the most consequential elections in US history, Microsoft’s AI chatbot is responding to political queries with conspiracies, misinformation, and out-of-date or incorrect information. When WIRED asked the chatbot, initially called Bing Chat and recently renamed Microsoft Copilot, about polling locations …
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Moms for Liberty, the extremist “parental rights group,” was supposed to help the Republican Party regain the White House. In July, former president Donald Trump called the anti-LGBTQ group with 300 active chapters across the county a “grassroots juggernaut.” They are credited with forcing schools to lift mask mandates, banning …
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The US Supreme Court decided Wednesday to hear a case challenging access to abortion pills in the United States, including in states where abortion is legal. This will be the most consequential case for access to reproductive health care since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Following the …
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Two surveillance bills are barreling their way through the US House of Representatives this week. Both claim to achieve roughly the same goal: Enact sweeping reforms and save a dying surveillance program beleaguered by “persistent and widespread” abuse. Under this program, Section 702, the US government collects hundreds of millions …
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For months, GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has been dog-whistling to supporters of extremist far-right ideologies and wild conspiracy theories like QAnon. On Wednesday night, at the fourth Republican presidential debate, Ramaswamy went full tilt: After blasting the three other debaters for turning on former president Donald Trump, Ramaswamy argued, …
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