A lawsuit filed Wednesday against Meta argues that US law requires the company to let people use unofficial add-ons to gain more control over their social feeds. It’s the latest in a series of disputes in which the company has tussled with researchers and developers over tools that give users …
Read More »Elizabeth Warren Calls for Crackdown on Crypto’s Role in Child Sexual Abuse
US senators Elizabeth Warren and Bill Cassidy have called for the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to redouble efforts to stop the use of cryptocurrency to pay for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online, a problem they claim has worsened. In a letter sent on Thursday, addressed …
Read More »Can the First Amendment Save TikTok?
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed a law that could effectively ban TikTok if the company does not divest from ByteDance, its Chinese owner, in the next 12 months. But the law, which sped through the House and Senate, could face a significant uphill battle in US courts for potentially …
Read More »A Breakthrough Online Privacy Proposal Hits Congress
Congress may be closer than ever to passing a comprehensive data privacy framework after key House and Senate committee leaders released a new proposal on Sunday. The bipartisan proposal, titled the American Privacy Rights Act, or APRA, would limit the types of consumer data that companies can collect, retain, and …
Read More »OpenAI’s GPT Store Is Triggering Copyright Complaints
For the past few months, Morten Blichfeldt Andersen has spent many hours scouring OpenAI’s GPT Store. Since it launched in January, the marketplace for bespoke bots has filled up with a deep bench of useful and sometimes quirky AI tools. Cartoon generators spin up New Yorker–style illustrations and vivid anime …
Read More »The US Sues Apple in an iPhone Antitrust Blockbuster
The US Department of Justice, along with more than a dozen state attorneys general, has filed a lawsuit against Apple that takes direct aim at the iPhone and the company’s lucrative iOS ecosystem. Claiming that Apple had established an “iPhone monopoly,” the suit argues that the company’s allegedly anticompetitive behavior …
Read More »Apple Could Be the First Target of Europe’s Tough New Tech Law
Europe changed the rules of the internet this week when the Digital Markets Act took effect, holding the biggest tech companies to tough new standards. Now the world is waiting to see which giant will be first to fall foul of the law. One of the architects of the DMA …
Read More »The One Internet Hack That Could Save Everything
It no longer makes sense to speak of free speech in traditional terms. The internet has so transformed the nature of the speaker that the definition of speech itself has changed. The new speech is governed by the allocation of virality. People cannot simply speak for themselves, for there is …
Read More »Joe Biden Wants US Government Algorithms Tested for Potential Harm Against Citizens
The White House issued draft rules today that would require federal agencies to evaluate and constantly monitor algorithms used in health care, law enforcement, and housing for potential discrimination or other harmful effects on human rights. Once in effect, the rules could force changes in US government activity dependent on …
Read More »Here's a New Plan to Rein In the Gilded Tech Bros
When I first heard in 2013 that Barack Obama had chosen Tom Wheeler to head the crucial tech regulator that is the US Federal Communications Commission, my first thought was … what a sell-out! The new FCC boss had previously been head lobbyist for not one, but two industries: cable …
Read More »