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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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The Supreme Court is skeptical of restricting the White House from talking to social media platforms

Liberal and conservative justices alike seemed wary of conservative states’ arguments against the Biden administration in arguments over Murthy v. Missouri.

Opera’s mobile browser is getting a lot of new users in the EU.

The company credits the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) for the 164 percent increase in new iOS users it saw from March 5th to the 7th. Opera also saw significant user growth in specific countries, including a 402 percent spike in France and a 143 percent boost in Spain.

Apple started letting iPhone users choose their default browser as part of its compliance with the DMA earlier this month. Besides Opera, Brave and Firefox are also seeing more iPhone users in the EU.


A chart seeing user growth for Opera’s browser
Image: Opera
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Apple will face an AirTags class-action lawsuit.

Judge Vince Chhabria of California’s Northern District found that three plaintiffs had sufficiently claimed “negligence and product liability” in the suit, which alleges that AirTags “help stalkers track their victims,” Bloomberg reported Friday.

Bloomberg quotes Judge Chhabria:

“Apple may ultimately be right that California law did not require it to do more to diminish the ability of stalkers to use AirTags effectively, but that determination cannot be made at this early stage,”


How the House revived the TikTok ban before most of us noticed

TikTok mobilized users to lobby Congress, and it backfired spectacularly.

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SpaceX can reportedly block employees from selling shares over “dishonesty.”

Leaked documents viewed by TechCrunch say SpaceX can prevent former or current employees from selling shares during a tender offer if they engaged in “an act of dishonesty against the company” or violated policies.

Since SpaceX is a private company, this could prevent employees from selling their shares until SpaceX goes public — which may not even happen. SpaceX also reserves the right to buy back vested shares six months after an employee leaves the company, TechCrunch reports.


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The Verge
Prosecutors recommend a 40- to 50-year sentence for Sam Bankman-Fried.

The former crypto billionaire was found guilty on all seven charges he faced in November, and the judge is scheduled to deliver a sentence on March 28th. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers suggested a 5- to 6-year prison sentence but a filing submitted by the prosecution on Friday disagrees: 

While a Guidelines sentence – which would exceed 100 years, effectively a life sentence – is not necessary, the Government urges the Court to impose a sentence that underscores the remarkably serious nature of the harm to thousands of victims; prevents the defendant from ever again committing fraud; and sends a powerful signal to others who might be tempted to engage in financial misconduct that the consequences will be severe.

A sentence of 40 to 50 years is necessary to serve such purposes. 


Are we really going to ban TikTok?

On The Vergecast: what we do and don’t know about TikTok, why all the other apps are trying to be TikTok, and the photo scandal rocking the royals.

Supreme Court to hear case on how the government talks to social media companies

Murthy v. Missouri could change how platforms deal with covid misinfo, election threats, and more.

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The Verge
The FCC’s new US Cyber Trust Mark program is moving forward.

Described as an “Energy Star label for the IoT,” this will put the logo revealed last year on participating products that meet certain standards for security, along with a QR code customers can scan to find the latest info about how updates work, or how long the support window will be.

After voting in favor of rules and a framework to move forward, the FCC is now asking for some input:

The Commission is also seeking public comment on additional potential disclosure requirements, including whether software or firmware for a product is developed or deployed by a company located in a country that presents national security concerns and whether customer data collected by the product will be sent to servers located in such a country.


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TikTok faces a $10.9 million fine in Italy over child safety concerns.

Italian regulators imposed the fine after finding that TikTok “failed to implement appropriate mechanisms” to monitor content on its platform, “particularly those that may threaten the safety of minors.”

It cites the “French scar” challenge as one of the “potentially dangerous” types of content disseminated by TikTok’s algorithm, which involves users pinching their face so hard it leaves a mark.


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A bloc of private equity and hedge-fund types are holding talks about how to minimize SEC fines over disappearing messages.

The firms include Citadel, KKR. and Blackstone. “Their goal is to minimize any fines and ensure that if they reach a settlement, no firm is singled out for a harsher penalty,” according to Bloomberg.

The SEC is investigating whether WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal use at these companies broke disclosure rules. Citadel in particular is still willing to fight the SEC on this.


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Steven Mnuchin is working to create a buyer for TikTok.

The former Treasury Secretary said on CNBC Thursday that he’s “going to put together a group to buy TikTok.” Such a group would need to have massive buying power, since the app boasts 170 million US users, and has an estimated value in the tens of billions of dollars.

The House passed a bill Wednesday that could force TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance to sell it, or be banned from the US.


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Now AliExpress is on the EU’s naughty list.

The European Commission says it’s opened formal proceedings against AliExpress because it may have breached the Digital Services Act’s rules. For example, the Commission says AliExpress may not be enforcing its terms of service properly, and is allowing the sale of “certain products posing risks for consumers’ health (such as fake medicines and food as well as dietary supplements).” Similar investigations have already been opened into TikTok and X.


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TikTok CEO tells users to “make their voices heard” against a bill that could ban the app in the US.

Now that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act has passed in the House of Representatives, TikTok CEO Shou Chew made — what else — a short video appealing to the app’s users to speak up against a ban.

He doesn’t address the possibility of a sale, saying the bill will take away their app if it becomes a law, but that “We believe we can overcome this together.”


Why the Kate Middleton scandal just won’t die

How a bad Photoshop job turned into an existential crisis for the British monarchy.

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Nancy Pelosi is playing TikTok-toe.

The former House Speaker said passing a new bill that incentivizes China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok “is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It’s an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-tac-toe. A winner.”

After the bill passed out of the House with 352 votes, it now must clear the Senate to reach the president’s desk.


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The child influencers making other people rich.

Kids are big business for brands looking to partner with influencers — and yet, Illinois is the only state in the US where kids appearing in sponcon are entitled to a cut of earnings.

This Cosmopolitan piece illustrates the longterm psychological effects of being a child working on online content. It also shows that our legal system has a lot of catching up to do with influencer culture.


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I’ll have what she’s having!

“This is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It’s an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-tac-toe. A winner. A winner.”

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The EU has officially adopted its sweeping AI law.

After two years of debate and revisions, European Parliament members gave the Artificial Intelligence Act their final approval on Wednesday.

While the law officially comes into force 20 days after it’s published in the Official Journal (likely happening in May), some rules — like those impacting general-purpose AI systems like chatbots — will take effect 12 months later to give AI providers time to comply.


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Brave choice.

Brave says its browser is having a hockey stick moment after the release of Apple’s DMA-compliant iOS 17.4 last week, which immediately nags users to choose their default browser from a randomized list upon startup.