Report from Korea JoongAng Daily In Brief – South Korea’s recent amendment to the Network Act aimed at suppressing online misinformation quickly sparked sharp criticism from the United States who argued that it risks chilling lawful speech and creates barriers for US...
Government Pressure Forces Grok to Back Down on “Sexualized” Photo Edits
Report from Reuters In Brief – Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has announced that it is preventing Grok, the AI chatbot integrated into X, from editing images of real people to put them in revealing clothing such as bikinis. The move represents a major...
Meta Announces Plans to Use Age Verification Tool Developed in Singapore
Report from Financial Times In Brief – Meta has announced plans to adopt a new age-verification credential, AgeKeys, developed by Singapore-based start-up k-ID, as it responds to intensifying global online safety regulation. The reusable, passkey-based credential is...
Apple is Appealing Big UK Court Loss on App Store Pricing
Report from Guardian In Brief – Apple has appealed the 2025 decision of the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) that the iPhone giant violated competition law by imposing excessive App Store commissions on developers, leading to overcharges being passed on to...
Tennessee Sues Roblox for Harm to Children and Teens
Report from Citizen Tribune In Brief – Tennessee is the fourth US state to sue Roblox, alleging that the company lures children into an environment it knows is dangerous but promises is safe, in violation of the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The complaint,...
EU Officials Condemn Visa Bans for European Content Moderation Advocates
Report from Reuters In Brief – Senior officials of the European Union, France and Germany condemned US visa bans imposed on five Europeans, including French former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, that have pressed large online platforms to counter what they call...
Italian Regulator Fines Apple €98 million for App Tracking Data Policy
Report from EuroNews In Brief – Italy’s competition authority has fined Apple 98 million euro for imposing its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework on third-party add developers starting in 2021. The ATT policy requires app developers to gain explicit user...
French Court Rejects Effort to Fully Ban Shein
Report from Wall Street Journal In Brief – Shein scored a win in French court with a ruling that rejected a government effort to fully suspend the ecommerce platform in France for three months. French authorities had sought the shutdown after finding third-party...
Microsoft Opposes Immediate Pentagon Blacklisting of Anthropic
Report from Reuters In Brief – Microsoft is backing Anthropic in its legal challenge to the US Department of Defense (DoD) labeling the AI developer a supply-chain risk and blocking the company’s AI services from being used on any defense contracts. The...
White House Kills Some Utah AI Bills but Several Reach Governor Cox
Report from the Transparency Coalition In Brief – Efforts by officials in Republican-dominated Utah to position the state as a leader in regulating AI faced resistance from the Trump White House, which labeled one AI safety proposal “unfixable” and warned that some...
Meta to Add Digital Services Tax Surcharge to Ad Buys in Six Countries
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Meta has announced that it will soon add a “location fee” to advertising purchases targeting users in several countries to offset the cost of national digital services taxes (DSTs). The policy will begin in May, with full billing...
AI Fears are Powering Bills Regulating “Surveillance Pricing” in US States
Report from Gizmodo In Brief – Democratic state lawmakers are increasingly proposing legislation to curb so-called “surveillance pricing,” a practice in which retailers use data and technology to help set prices, claiming that AI will be used to rapidly change prices...
Meta Proposes Allowing AI Chatbots on WhatsApp in Europe for a Fee
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – Meta has announced that it will allow third-party AI chatbots to communicate with users on its WhatsApp messaging platform for a per-message fee in response to pressure from the European Commission. The Commission...
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