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...
Google Offers to Change Anti-Spam Policies to Appease EU Regulators
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Google has reportedly made a proposal to European Commission digital regulators to change their search engine's anti-spam policy to downrank news publisher websites that engage in a practice dubbed “parasite SEO”. The move comes in...
Colorado Scales Back Its Big AI Safety Law
Report from Colorado Newsline In Brief – Colorado, which was the first state to enact comprehensive “AI Safety” legislation when it did so in 2024, was set to see it finally go into in go into effect in June, but instead the law has been frozen by a court...
Australia Opens Online Safety Push Against Top Gaming Platforms
Report from DW In Brief – Online gaming platforms Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, and Steam have been directed by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner to explain how they address risks to young users such as child grooming and the spread of extremist content. The regulator,...
Italian Regulator Challenges Booking on Unlabeled Sponsored Links
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – The Italian Competition Authority, which is both an antitrust and consumer protection regulator, has opened an investigation into Booking over concerns that the company’s “preferred partner” and “preferred plus” programs...
Another Publisher AI Copyright Suit – This Time Targeting Meta’s Zuckerberg
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Another coalition of major publishers and authors has filed a class-action lawsuit against Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, alleging the company illegally downloaded millions of copyrighted books and journal articles from pirate websites...
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