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.
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Every US federal agency must hire a chief AI officer
New guidance from the Office of Management and Budget also require a yearly inventory of all AI systems used by federal agencies.
New York City welcomes robotaxis — but only with safety drivers
Mayor Eric Adams announced a new permitting process for companies hoping to test driverless vehicles in the city. But the city won’t allow vehicles without safety drivers.
Both sides came to an agreement on Wednesday that would end a nearly two-year-long legal battle over the self-governed special district that DeSantis took over from Disney.
Disney agreed to recognize its last-minute rule change in the district in 2023 as “null and void.” The company also agreed to drop its public records lawsuit against the district.
[POLITICO]
It’s not just TikTok — other apps like Shein, Temu, and WeChat are popular in the US, too. The TikTok ban focuses on ByteDance-owned subsidiaries including CapCut and Lemon8, but includes a carve out for popular shopping apps, The Washington Post reports. On the other hand, “everything app” WeChat could be in a gray area.
[Washington Post]
The proposed settlement, which stems from a years-long legal battle, will require Visa and Mastercard to lower swipe fees for merchants by 0.04 percentage points for three years, while capping these rates into 2030.
Even though it may seem like the deal will lower fees for customers, that may not be the case for everyone. The settlement will allow retailers to charge more when customers use premium cards that offer cashback rewards and other perks, as these come with higher swipe fees.
The Free Speech Coalition, which represents the adult entertainment industry, has asked the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to keep the Texas age verification law from taking effect while it appeals it to the Supreme Court.
Pornhub disabled its site in the state earlier this month, displaying a message that said providing an ID for an adult website “is not an effective solution for protecting users online.”
The independent body funded by Meta recommended it change its approach to moderating the term “shaheed.” The word “is sometimes used by extremists to praise or glorify people who have died while committing violent terrorist acts,” says the board. But it says there are alternate meanings, not intended to glorify.
The group was finalizing the opinion before the October 7 Hamas attack, but paused publication. Further research confirmed the recommendation “held up.”
A decade ago, San Jose broke up “The Jungle,” reportedly the biggest homeless encampment in the US; the feds estimate San Jose still has the highest proportions of unsheltered homeless and homeless youth. It’s not unusual to see a sidestreet filled with sunbaked RVs, or tents lining a creek or underpass.
Now, under new pressure to solve the homelessness emergency that’s never gone away, San Jose is quietly training AI to detect lived-in vehicles. More:
Binance executives Nadeem Anjarwalla and Tigran Gambaryan were detained in Nigeria last month after visiting the country amid concerns about crypto’s effect on local currency.
However, Binance tells CNBC it has been “made aware” that Anjarwalla is no longer in Nigerian authorities' custody. The Nigerian government has since accused Binance of four counts of tax evasion, including failure to file tax returns.
In an indictment unsealed on Monday, the US government said that seven Chinese nationals were charged with conspiracy to committee computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Law enforcement said the hackers were part of a China-based group that targeted “thousands of U.S. and foreign individuals and companies” over 14 years.
[www.justice.gov]
In an interview with ABC News, the vice president said the goal of the bill recently passed by the House is to force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell:
We need to deal with the owner, and we have national security concerns about the owner of TikTok, but we have no intention to ban TikTok... It’s an income generator for many people, what it does in terms of allowing people to share information in a free way, in a way that allows people to have discourse, it’s very important.
Police investigating suspected Bitcoin money laundering wanted info on viewers of certain tutorial videos viewed over 30,000 times, Forbes reported.
The court orders show the government telling Google to provide the names, addresses, telephone numbers and user activity for all Google account users who accessed the YouTube videos between January 1 and January 8, 2023. The government also wanted the IP addresses of non-Google account owners who viewed the videos.
The documents reportedly don’t reveal whether Google gave over the information.
US v. Apple: everything you need to know
It’s all about Apple’s vise grip over the smartphone market and the iPhone’s locked-down ecosystem.
When I suggested you should challenge the FCC’s new broadband maps — which still let ISPs lie about coverage — some readers told me it was pointless. Well... a small ISP in Ohio is now getting fined $10,000 after it was caught lying! Here’s hoping we can make bigger lying ISPs feel the heat, too.
Why the DOJ’s case against Apple has everything to do with Microsoft in the ’90s
What goes around comes around.
This New York Times article provides an overview of Kanter’s career in criticizing competition, from representing Microsoft’s offensive against Google during the Obama administration to leading the DOJ’s Antitrust Division.
“In some ways, he’s still looking for that more prominent trophy to go on the mantelpiece,” said former FTC chair William Kovacic. “You win one of these monopolization cases, you can take the rest of the decade off.”
Apple’s antitrust fight begins
On The Vergecast: the case against Apple as a monopoly, how super apps became part of an antitrust fight, and why your Apple Watch can’t hang on Android.
Governor Bill Lee signed the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act, which updates the state’s right of publicity laws that dictate how a person’s likeness can be used. The ELVIS Act expands the law to protect voice, too, in the age of AI clones.
In 2023 I wrote about the patchwork system of right of publicity laws in the US. Tennessee — with its significant entertainment industry — has some of the strongest laws in the country.
For a fast and clear explanation, deputy editor Alex Cranz spells out the antitrust lawsuit filed today in just under five minutes.