Report from the New York Times In Brief – More than four-and-half years after blocking Epic Games’ highly popular Fortnite gaming app from its app stores in a massive antitrust dispute, Apple has allowed the app to again be in the US App Store. The move came after...
OpenAI Wins Dismissal of AI Hallucination Defamation Lawsuit
Report from Reuters In Brief – OpenAI has won the dismissal of a defamation lawsuit filed by a conservative radio host in Georgia who alleged that the ChatGPT chatbot made false claims that he embezzled money from a gun-rights organization. Judge Tracie Cason of the...
California and Google Cut Funds Pledged to In-State Media Companies
Report from The Hill In Brief – Following California Governor Gavin Newsome’s (D) decision to scale back the state money promised to a new fund to pay California media companies, Google, the one big online company that also promised to contribute millions of dollars,...
Big House Tax Bill Massively Raises Ante in International Digital Tax Standoff
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The massive budget reconciliation tax and spending bill passed by the House of Representatives includes a tax provision that aggressively penalizes foreign countries that impose “unfair” taxes on US companies, bringing the House...
Federal Judge Questions Whether Chatbots Engage in Speech in Character AI Lawsuit
Report from The Verge In Brief – Federal District Judge Anne Conway rejected the efforts of AI companion chatbot service Character AI and Google to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the mother of a teenage user of the service who committed suicide. Conway, who largely...
Missouri AG Regulating Content Moderation Under Consumer Protection Law
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced a rule under Missouri’s Merchandising Practices Act that bans social media platforms from setting their own content moderation standards. The rule states that it is an unfair,...
Big House Tax Bill Massively Raises Ante in International Digital Tax Standoff
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The massive budget reconciliation tax and spending bill passed by the House of Representatives includes a tax provision that aggressively penalizes foreign countries that impose “unfair” taxes on US companies, bringing the House...
Missouri AG Regulating Content Moderation Under Consumer Protection Law
Report from MediaPost In Brief – Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced a rule under Missouri’s Merchandising Practices Act that bans social media platforms from setting their own content moderation standards. The rule states that it is an unfair,...
Appeals Court Demands More Scrutiny of Social Media Law Challenge
Report from MediaPost In Brief – A three-judge panel of US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a district court decision siding with NetChoice, a digital company trade group, that imposed a temporary injunction blocking a Mississippi law requiring “digital...
State Department Closes Its International Anti-Disinformation Office
Report from the Washington Post In Brief – The State Department is closing an office designed to counter foreign online disinformation that was plagued by conservative criticism that it was part of US Government efforts to block conservative viewpoints online. The...
Department of Justice and State AGs Appeal Google Search Remedies Order
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – The US Department of Justice has announced that it notified the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that it will appeal US District Judge Amit Mehta’s remedies order in the federal antitrust lawsuit that found Google...
France Pushing Digital Sovereignty Directing Ministries Off Zoom and Teams
Report from ZDNET In Brief – French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has directed all French government officials and civil servants to stop using American-owned video conference software such as Teams and Zoom by 2027 in favor of a new French-made application called...
Governor Newsome Drops Funding for Media from California State Budget
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...
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