Report from the New York Times In Brief – The Federal Trade Commission announced that it sent a warning letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook expressing concerns that the operations of the Apple News may favor certain political viewpoints in a way that conflicts with Apple’s...
PM Starmer Proposes Bringing AI Chatbots Under the UK Online Safety Act
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced plans to bring AI chatbots directly under the Online Safety Act (OSA) to close what he called a “legal loophole” in Britain’s online safety regime and ensure that they are designed to not...
Reddit Fined By UK ICO for Failing to Age Check 13-Year-Olds
Report from the BBC In Brief – The UK’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), has fined Reddit more than £14 million for failing to adequately enforce its rules regarding children under 13 accessing the platform. Following an...
Trump Administration Vehemently Rejects “Global Governance” of AI
Report from France 24 In Brief – Speaking at the AI Impact Summit in India, Michael Kratsios, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said that the US “totally” rejects global governance of artificial intelligence. Praising the shift...
Trump Admin Developing Website Showing Content Without National Limits
Report from Reuters In Brief – The US State Department is reported to be developing a government-run website hosted at freedom.gov to give international internet users, including in Europe, access to social media content that is available in the United States but...
California AG Requests Temporary Injunction Blocking Amazon Price Policy
Report from Reuters In Brief – California Attorney General Rob Bonta has asked a state judge to issue a preliminary injunction against Amazon blocking the company from penalizing third-party sellers who offer items on other platforms such as eBay and Walmart for lower...
AI Policy Friction Between Anthropic and the Trump Admin Spills Out at DoD
Report from the Wall Street Journal In Brief – AI policy friction between the Trump Administration and AI giant Anthropic is emerging in a reported disagreement between the creator of the Claude chatbot and the Department of Defense. Claude is the leading AI chatbot...
Irish Data Protection Regulator Using GDPR to Probe Grok-Generated Images
Report from Politico In Brief – Ireland’s data watchdog has opened an investigation into allegations that X’s Grok generative AI tool created potentially harmful, non-consensual intimate images of European individuals, including of children, improperly using their...
Virginia AG Says State Will Enforce Social Media Teen Time Limit Law
Report from Axios In Brief – Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones announced that he will “fully enforce” the state’s new law limiting minors under 16 to one hour per day on any single social media platform, even as a legal challenge brought by tech industry trade group...
German Court Orders X to Share Platform Data on Hungarian Election Activity
Report from Euractiv In Brief – The Berlin Court of Appeals has ordered social media platform X to give two Germany-based elections researchers access to data related to the reach and engagement with posts related to Hungary's April 12 election. Hungary's Prime...
X Commits to Strengthen Anti-Terror Content Moderation in the UK
Report from The Guardian In Brief – Ofcom, the UK regulator enforcing the Online Safety Act (OSA), has announced that X has agreed to strengthen its moderation of terrorist and hate-related content. The commitments stem from Ofcom’s discussions with the top social...
Meta Joins Snap, TikTok and YouTube to Settle School District Lawsuit
Report from the New York Times In Brief – Meta has reached reached a settlement agreement in the first lawsuit headed to trial in federal court over claims that addiction to social media platforms has pushed public schools to spend massive sums fighting a youth mental...
UK Antitrust Authority Investigating Microsoft Business Software Dominance
Report from Reuters In Brief – The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the country’s antitrust regulator, has announced that it will investigate Microsoft's dominance in business software using its powers to oversee big tech. The CMA is opening a "strategic...
AI Hallucination Stories Grab Bag
Context - Within weeks of Chat-GPT’s public release, the fact that chatbots make plausible and realistic sounding stuff up emerged. The AI scientists knew about the phenomenon, which they called “hallucinations”. It appears to be baked into the technology. LLMs don’t...
Texas Supreme Court Facing Online Legal Jurisdiction Question in Yelp Case
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), with a long track record of aggressive legal action against big online companies, is urging the Texas Supreme Court to reject Yelp’s attempt to block a lawsuit he filed in 2023 alleging that...
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