Report from SFiST In Brief – The latest budget proposal from California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) has eliminated funding for the News Transformation Fund, a state initiative to pay millions of dollars to California media companies. The fund was announced in 2024 as...
Spanish PM Announces Social Media Age Threshold Amidst Musk Tussle
Report from AP News In Brief – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has announced plans for a package of measures to regulate online companies, including banning teens under 16 from social media platforms that he called “a space of addiction, abuse, pornography,...
EU Commission Tells TikTok It Needs to Stop Being So Addictive
Report from Politico In Brief – The European Commission has announced its preliminary finding that TikTok’s design violates the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) by promoting compulsive use and failing to protect users, particularly minors, from harms including...
Amazon Sanctioned for Anticompetitive Price Fixing in Germany
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – Germany’s competition authority has ordered Amazon to stop enforcing retailer price controls on its German marketplace and has penalized the company €59 million, which it argues is excess profits it earned from its anticompetitive...
EU High Court Legal Advisor Rules Publishers Not Liable for VPN Use
Report from Courthouse News In Brief – A senior EU legal adviser to Europe’s top court has issued an advisory opinion that online publishers do not violate national copyright laws simply because users can bypass geographic restrictions using tools like VPNs. Advocate...
Court Overturns Brazilian Regulator’s Block on WhatsApp’s Chatbot Ban
Report from Reuters In Brief – In a surprising and possibly temporary turnabout, a Brazilian court has suspended a recent order imposed by Brazil’s antitrust regulator CADE that blocked Meta from restricting third-party AI chatbots from operating over WhatsApp using...
Supreme Court to Hear Video Privacy Case Bedeviling Online Advertising
Report from MediaPost In Brief – The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could clarify how a federal privacy law enacted in 1988 applies to modern online video services. The dispute centers on the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), which was enacted after a...
French National Assembly Supports 15-Year-Old Social Media Age Threshold
Report from Reuters In Brief – France’s National Assembly has approved legislation to ban children under 15 from accessing social media. Lawmakers voted 116–23 in favor of the bill, which is strongly backed by President Emmanuel Macron, and prohibits under-15s from...
Meta Proposes New Per-Message WhatsApp Fee for Chatbots in Italy
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – Meta has announced that it will charge AI companies a per message fee for running their chatbots on WhatsApp in regions where regulators force the company to allow chatbots on the platform. The policy will go into effect in Italy on...
Landmark Social Media Addiction Trial Underway in California State Court
Report from PBS In Brief – The initial “bellwether” trial testing claims that major social media platforms are liable for a wide range of mental health injuries because they intentionally designed their products to be addictive to children is underway in Los Angeles...
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Florida Sues TikTok Under Law Regulating Social Media for Young Teens
Report from Politico In Brief – Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier (R), who has staked out a reputation as an aggressive conservative critic of digital platforms, has sued TikTok alleging that the platform deceived parents, exposed minors to harmful content,...
Ohio Court Rejects Argument that Google Search is a Common Carrier
Report from MediaPost In Brief – An Ohio appeals court has thoroughly rejected former Ohio Attorney General David Yost’s effort to revive a lawsuit seeking to classify Google as a common carrier and subject its search engine to state regulation. The case, initiated in...
UK Announces Plan for Social Media Age Limit and Restrictions
Report from Reuters In Brief – UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced plans to ban social media use for children under 16 and impose new restrictions on gaming and livestreaming platforms, which could include overnight curfews and restrictions on infinite...
Illinois Legislature Includes a Social Media Tax in Its FY 2027 Budget
Report from the New York Times In Brief – European Union regulators forcefully rejected Apple’s claim that Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules are responsible for the company delaying the launch of its upgraded Siri AI assistant in Europe. Apple claimed that Commission...
Canadian Government Proposes Regulating Social Media and Chatbots
Report from Reuters In Brief – Canada has introduced a sweeping Safe Social Media Act that aims to protect children under 16 from online harms by setting an age limit for social media and creating a digital regulator to establish and enforce safety standings for...
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