In Jan. 2026, the gap between the haves and the have-nots could hardly be more stark — even in AI world.

On the have-not side, there's OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Long the hype man for imminent digital superintelligence (aka AGI), Altman backtracked and said we're in an AI bubble last year. He's made odd deals to feed the money hog known as ChatGPT; subscriptions ain't paying the bills. Last week, Altman rolled out what in 2024 he called "the last resort" for the company — selling ads on ChatGPT. A popular LinkedIn post this week used an AI image of Altman out in the cold, begging for change with a self-mocking cardboard sign: "AGI = Ads Generate Income."

And then there are the haves in warm rooms in snowy Davos, Switzerland — where the weather report for the AI economy, from the annual World Economic Forum, is just peachy.

Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, who rode the company to a $4 trillion valuation on the back of powerful GPU chip sales growth that hasn't quite slowed yet, flipped the script when asked about the AI bubble. "This is the largest infrastructure build-out in human history," Huang said of active and promised data center projects. "And so the AI bubble is, comes about because the investments are large. And the investments are large, because we have to build the infrastructure necessary for all of the layers of AI above it."

Huang wasn't denying the existence of a bubble, exactly — he just suggested it was a misreading of our current economic outlook. Just look at all that infrastructure coming down the pipe! Left unsaid was whether those massive projects would dry up if AI itself continues to not show returns on investment for regular businesses (especially if AI models like DeepSeek can be built with minimal data center usage, the opposite of what made Nvidia successful).

In Nvidia's telling, the tail is now wagging the dog. And the rest of Davos, a popular confab for billionaires, pretty much wagged along in agreement.

"I think there will be big failures, but I don't think we are in a bubble," said Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, a top tech investment firm. (Blackrock holds more than $200 billion in Nvidia stock.)

Also at Davos, one Nobel Prize-winning economist described what was currently happening in AI as a "rational bubble", comparing it favorably to the infamous tulip bulb panic of the 17th century. Why? Because with AI, insisted Peter Howitt, economics professor at Brown University, "there's something real out there."

Howitt didn't suggest what that real thing was, but insisted there would be a winner — and their arrival would herald the bursting of the bubble. "At some point, when it becomes a little clearer who the winners are going to be, the values of the other firms are going to start to fall, and that's when the crash will take place."

So who is that winner, other than Nvidia and its circular OpenAI deals? Microsoft, with its own favorable OpenAI deal, might be in a position to "win" the AI economy. Microsoft currently owns a 27 percent stake in the ChatGPT maker. If Altman can't keep the lights on long-term, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella could well ride in to the rescue and snap up OpenAI itself.

Nadella, on the surface, seemed just as optimistic about AI's future as the rest of the titans. And yet in his appearance, the Microsoft CEO also sounded a note of alarm. If the AI economy doesn't root itself in non-tech sectors, it will be a bubble — and soon.

"The real question in front of all of us is how do you ensure that the diffusion of AI happens, and happens fast," Nadella said. "For this not to be a bubble by definition, it requires that the benefits of this are much more evenly spread." (Nadella has been criticized by investors for too much AI infrastructure spending.)

So to summarize the view from the Davos bubble: We're not in an AI bubble, we're in a massive infrastructure investment that will benefit workers. Well, maybe we're in a rational bubble. But we will be in an irrational bubble if everyone doesn't get on board with the AI economy real soon, presumably by sending poor Sam Altman some ad dollars. Got that?

Elon Musk and Ryanair have been experiencing turbulence of late, but what exactly has occurred?

The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been swapping barbs with Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary, with petty insults thrown around by two grown-ass men on public platforms. And it's all about internet on short-haul flights. Here's what's been happening.

Back on Jan. 14, Ryanair ruled out the possibility of installing Musk's Starlink internet tech on its planes, like competitors British Airways and Lufthansa. O'Leary told Reuters, "You need to put antenna on fuselage, it comes with a two percent fuel penalty because of the weight and drag. We don't think our passengers are willing to pay for WiFi for an average one-hour flight."

The following day, Musk sprang into action on his social platform X, claiming O'Leary was "misinformed" and writing, "I doubt they can even measure the difference in fuel use accurately, especially for a one hour flight, where the incremental drag is basically zero during the ascent phase due to high angle of attack," and pairing it all with an AI Grok explainer.

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Since then, it's been on — and in increasingly lower levels of mature.

When X suffered a major outage on Jan. 16, Ryanair took a jab at Musk on the platform, asking, "perhaps you need Wi-Fi @elonmusk?" Musk fired back, tweeting, "Should I buy Ryan Air and put someone whose actual name is Ryan in charge?"

Then, in a radio interview on Ireland's Newstalk, O'Leary was asked about Ryanair's stance on Starlink. The airline CEO rejected the idea again, not only describing the impact of adding antennas to aircraft — "about a 2 percent fuel drag" and a boosted fuel bill of "$200, $250 million a year...in other words, about an extra dollar for every passenger we fly" — but then targeting Musk directly.

"I frankly wouldn’t pay any attention to anything that Elon Musk puts on that cesspit of his called X," he said. "He was the guy who advocated to getting Donald Trump elected. I would pay no attention whatsoever to Elon Musk. He’s an idiot. Very wealthy, but he’s still an idiot."

Of course, Musk hit back on X, recycling the insult and calling for O'Leary to be fired — a message he's repeated on X since.

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Since then, there's been a few side-eye barbs on social media — on Jan. 19, Ryanair's official X post retweeted a post responding to a question posted: "what is a propaganda you're not falling for?" The airline's response: ""Wi-Fi on planes."

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Now, Musk appears to be moving into his favoured tactic of controlling the narrative by buying it. Musk responded to the above post asking, "How much would it cost to buy you?" before later calling for O'Leary's firing while using the r-word slur. Then, on Jan. 19, Musk posted a poll to X, asking whether he should "Buy Ryan Air and restore Ryan as their rightful ruler."

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On Tuesday, Ryanair moved things into even more immature territory than Musk (hard to do), with a post on X announcing that O’Leary has called a press conference on Wednesday at 10 a.m. in Dublin, suggesting the airline is "launching a Great Idiots seat sale especially for Elon and any other idiots on 'X'." And yes, O'Leary did hold the conference, with Ryanair actually launching that sale.

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O'Leary thanked Musk "for the wonderful boost in publicity, which has seen our bookings rise significantly," and repeated Musk's r-word slur about himself (not great) during his address.

"The Starlink people believe that 90 percent of our passengers would happily pay for Wi Fi access," he said. "Our experience, sadly, tells us we think less than 10 percent of our passengers would pay for this access, and therefore we can't afford to shoulder costs of between 150 or 250 million a year. If Starlink wants to fit our aircraft and pay for the fuel drive, we'd happily put them on board. But the only way we see Starlink working on board our aircraft on short haul flights is if you give it away for free."

Credit: Paulo Nunes dos Santos / Bloomberg via Getty Images

As the BBC points out, Musk would have a hard time buying Ryanair, as airlines based in the EU must be majority owned by people from the EU, Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland, or Switzerland.

At this point, can Ryanair get back to draining our wallets with oversized baggage fees and Musk actually address the issue of Grok continuing to created sexualized images despite being banned from doing so?

Threads is winning the mobile war against X.

New data from Similarweb (via TechCrunch) indicates that Meta's short-form social network is winning over X when it comes to daily active users on iOS and Android.

In January, Threads had 141.5 million daily active users on mobile, compared to X's 125 million daily active users on the two major mobile platforms.

It's not some sort of short-term fluke, either. The daily active users count has steadily increased over the last year for Threads, while slowly declining for X over the same time period. The two social networks were neck and neck last fall, but now Threads has clearly taken over.

Threads didn't achieve this overnight; the long-term trend is clear. Credit: Similarweb

Threads has been helped out by its parent Meta pushing users from Facebook and Instagram towards Threads. I've personally ended up on Threads numerous times without any intention to do so; I merely clicked a link on one of Meta's other social platforms.

The daily active user count trend is still meaningful, especially when compared to X, which is steadily losing users. The list of reasons why people would want to leave X is long and includes such issues as Grok-generated deepfakes, X owner Elon Musk's politics, and privacy issues.

On the web, however, it's a very different picture. Threads is growing there as well, but it only had 8.5 million daily web visits in January, compared to X's 145.4 million daily web visits.

Spotify Premium is about to become more expensive.

The company announced the change in a blog post Thursday, saying it's updating the price of Spotify Premium in the U.S., Estonia, and Latvia. And when Spotify updates prices, it's typically upwards.

The change, which is going live in February, will soon be announced to Premium subscribers via email.

In short, you'll have to pay one dollar more for Premium in the U.S. Starting in February, the price for Individual Premium plans will go up from $11.99 per month to $12.99 per month, while Student plans are going up from $5.99 to $6.99.

Things won't be anything better for Duo subscribers, as the price of that plan is going up $2, from $16.99 to $18.99, while Family plan is going up from $19.99 to $21.99.

The company didn't list too many reasons for the change, claiming merely it's updating its pricing to "keep delivering a great experience."

Spotify prices have gone up steadily over the past couple of years. Most recently, the company lifted prices in June 2024 in the U.S., which was the second such hike in a year.

We know that Apple is working on new versions of its MacBook Pro laptop computer. The company launched a new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip in October, but never followed through with a more powerful, 16-inch version.

Now, however, the company might have dropped a clue as to when the new 16-incher will arrive, and it lies in the company's recently launched Creator Suite.

The Creator Suite is a subscription package that bundles a bunch of video and audio tools aimed at professionals, including Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro. It's launching on January 28, and therein lies the clue.

According to Macworld, this could very well also be the date the company plans to launch new MacBook Pro devices. Why? Well, because Apple does often launch pro-grade software tools in connection to pro-grade hardware devices.

Furthermore, January 28 is a Wednesday, and that is typically the day in the week (besides Tuesday) when Apple launches new hardware.

Of course, all of this is speculation, and we will know whether it's true when Apple says so.

As for what kind of hardware we can expect from Apple on the date, we'll probably get the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops, powered by the new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. These probably won't bring any massive architectural changes; they'll simply be faster and more powerful than the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the regular M5 chip.

Google announced Monday that the company is reversing its longstanding practice of allowing minors supervised by their parents via Family Link to unilaterally opt-out of those settings upon turning 13.

Soon, if a teen wants to manage their own account, it require parental approval. A spokesperson for Google told Mashable that the policy goes into effect globally this week.

"These changes better ensure protections stay in place until both the parent and teen feel ready for the next step," Kate Charlet, Google's head of global privacy, safety, and security, wrote in a LinkedIn post about the change.

The Google spokesperson said the new policy had been planned for some time. Still, it was announced soon after an online child safety advocate drew viral attention to the company's previous policy in a viral Linkedin post. As of this story's publication, the post had elicited more than 600 comments and received 375,000 impressions.

Melissa McKay, president of the advocacy organization Digital Childhood Institute, wrote the post after receiving an email notification that her 12-year-old son would soon be able to adjust the parental controls she'd set for him through Google's Family Link product. Mashable reviewed the email, which McKay described as short and vague.

In her opinion, it failed to explain the changes being made to her son's account or include appropriately clarifying links.

McKay, who researched and authored a 2025 complaint to the Federal Trade Commission against Google regarding its youth safety practices, added that she would've skipped over the email had she not already been looking into the company's policies.

The email noted that her son would receive a similar notification. McKay asked her son to read that message and discovered that it linked to information about how he could remove parental supervision once he turned 13, without his parent's consent. McKay said she did not receive the same information; the link in her email explained age requirements for Google accounts.

In the email sent to her son, which Mashable reviewed and Google did not dispute, the company acknowledges that he will turn 13 soon and can update his account to access more Google products and services. As of this story's publication, the resource explains that "[c]hildren decide when to update their Google Account."

This explanation from Google frames the decision to end parental supervision as a child's choice. Credit: Google

"In nearly ten years as an online safety advocate, this is among the most predatory corporate practices I have seen," McKay wrote in her LinkedIn post.

According to Google's own Family Link resource, when a child transitions into managing their own account, parents will no longer be able to set up downtime, allow or block apps, or find their child's transactions in Family Link. Teens with control over their own Google account will also have wide-ranging use of Google Wallet and Pay, including when using a card added to their profile prior to their 13th birthday.

McKay welcomed the company's new policy but believes far more reform is needed to protect children online from what she described as corporate exploitation.

On Monday, Apple announced a huge new deal with Google — the AI version of Siri will be powered by Google Gemini. Not long after, Google achieved something very few other Big Tech companies have.

Specifically, Google's parent company Alphabet became just the fourth company to hit a $4 trillion stock market valuation, following Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft, per CNBC.

The other three companies all reached that threshold less than a year ago, so this is a recent phenomenon in the stock market. It should be noted that Apple and Microsoft are both back below the $4 trillion line, so Google could easily lose this honor at any time, for any reason.

So, how much money is four trillion dollars?

If you were to convert the $4 trillion into one dollar bills and stack them on a football field, the resulting pile would be about half a mile high, roughly equivalent to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. If you were to simply stack one bill on top of the other, the resulting pile would reach far past the moon.

The news comes just hours after Google announced a multi-year collaboration with Apple that will make Google's Gemini AI model the backbone for Apple's future AI efforts. As CNBC noted, Alphabet's shares went up by about 1 percent after the news dropped, so it seems like that was more of a "the fly that broke the camel's back" situation than something monumental that got Alphabet to $4 trillion by itself.

Anyway, between Google's continued search dominance and its growing AI and hardware businesses, it seems like Alphabet is doing just fine.

Spotify's ICE recruitment ads no longer run on the platform, following months of backlash and boycotts.

Confirmed to Variety and verified by Mashable, Spotify is not running any more advertisements encouraging Americans to sign up as deportation agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The news comes in the wake of the killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

"There are currently no ICE ads running on Spotify," a Spotify spokesperson told Mashable. "The advertisements mentioned were part of a U.S. government recruitment campaign that ran across all major media and platforms."

"The campaign ended on most platforms and channels, including Spotify, at the end of last year."

Since Oct. 2025, many Spotify users have boycotted the app for hosting these ICE recruitment ads — as well as for CEO Daniel Ek's investment in military AI defense company Helsing.

Spotify has been one tech platform among many — Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook — reportedly offered large financial incentives to run ICE ads, as part of the agency's $100 million marketing recruitment strategy. Variety's report notes that Spotify's ICE ads "were played between songs for users on the ad-supported free plan, offered $50,000 in signing bonuses."

UPDATE: Jan. 9, 2026, 3:58 p.m. Added statement from Spotify including clarification on the campaign ending last year.

Multiple foreign governments are investigating Elon Musk-owned chatbot Grok for numerous reports of the chatbot generating and spreading nonconsensual, sexualized synthetic images of users.

Joining India's IT ministry in the first wave of what could turn into a global crackdown on X's AI helper, French authorities and Malaysia's Communications and Multimedia Commission issued statements that they, too, would be taking action against a platform-wide deepfake problem.

At least three government ministers have reported Grok to the Paris prosecutor's office and a government online surveillance platform for allegedly proliferating illegal content, asking for the French authorities to issue an immediate removal, Politico reports. The Malaysian commission said it was investigating the "misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on the X platform."

Meanwhile, X was given 72 hours to address concerns about Grok's image generation and submit an action-taken report to India's IT ministry, outlined in an order issued on Jan. 2, according to TechCrunch. The order said that failure to respond by the deadline could lead to the platform losing safe harbor protections, which prevent web hosts from facing legal retribution for user-generated content.

This comes following reports that the AI chatbot generated images of minors in sexualized attire. Musk later responded in a post on X, denying responsibility for the chatbot's responses. "Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content," the xAI leader wrote. xAI team member Parsa Tajik responded to users on X saying the xAI team was looking into "further tightening" safety guardrails.

It's not an isolated incident. X users frequently report that Grok's reported guardrails are easily circumvented to reproduce nonconsensual, sexualized content at the request of other users, often in the form of "undressing" or "redressing" user-uploaded images. The rise in sexualized content on the platform has been referred to as a "mass digital undressing spree," which a Reuters investigation attributes to Grok's lax safety guardrails. Mashable's own testing found that Grok's AI image and video generator, Grok Imagine, readily produced sexual deepfakes — even of famous celebrities.

When Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri looks into the rapidly approaching future of AI-generated content, he sees a massive problem: how to tell authentic media apart from the kind made with AI technology.

In a recent Threads post on the topic, Mosseri said that social media platforms like Instagram will be under mounting pressure to help users tell the difference. Mosseri argued that major platforms will initially succeed at spotting and labeling AI content, but that they'll begin to falter as AI imitates reality with more precision.

"There is already a growing number of people who believe, as I do, that it will be more practical to fingerprint real media than fake media," Mosseri wrote.

That "fingerprint" could be created from within cameras themselves, if their manufacturers "cryptographically sign images at capture, creating a chain of custody."

"We need to label AI-generated content clearly, and work with manufacturers to verify authenticity at capture — fingerprinting real media, not just chasing fake," Mosseri added.

Such labeling could help people navigate the AI slop that's flooding the internet. (Mashable's Tim Marcin has explained how we got to this moment.)

Mosseri also wrote that identifying the authenticity of creator content will shape the way people relate to that media: "We need to surface credibility signals about who's posting so people can decide who to trust."

CES 2026, the world's most important consumer tech show, kicks off in just a few days. If you're not in Las Vegas to see it live, don't worry: You can watch the key presentations on your phone or computer.

To make it easier for you, we've assembled an overview of the key events, livestreams, and presentations.

What/when is CES 2026?

CES, or Consumer Electronics Show, is an annual technology convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the largest such events in the world. Numerous consumer tech manufacturers bring their new wares to the event; typically, this includes everything from TVs to gaming consoles, phones, chips, robots, cars, and a multitude of battery-powered gadgets of all shapes and sizes.

This year, CES starts on January 6 and ends on January 9. Do note that the program, including live-streamed sessions, actually begins one day earlier, on January 5.

There are also numerous pre-announcements and teasers that happens days or even weeks ahead of the event. Check out our coverage so far.

CES 2026 exhibitors

Basically ever tech company under the sun will be there, except for Apple which typically does its own events.

This includes Samsung, LG, Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Alphabet, Meta, Sony, Hyundai, Hisense, Lenovo, TCL, and many others.

CES 2026 full schedule

The official schedule for CES is available here. Note that it doesn't say anything about embargoed events (only the media gets invites and info on those ahead of time).

Where can I tune in online?

Given that the physical CES event is for industry-affiliated folks and not the general public, most people will be following it online.

Your first resource should be the official CES video library, where you'll be able to see all of the video content, with videos of keynotes and sessions uploaded at the end of each day. The library also hosts a number of supporting video content such as countdowns and recaps.

The official CES YouTube channel is another must-have resource. It will host live keynotes, events, and interviews, as well as shorts and other official videos.

Finally, the major keynotes and events will be livestreamed through the companies' channels. We'll link some of the most interesting ones as we list them below.

What are the must-see keynotes at CES 2026?

Nvidia CES 2026 keynote

Nvidia will host more than 20 demos during CES 2026. Credit: Nvidia

Ever since it became clear Nvidia is the company that powers the bulk of the AI revolution, everyone's been waiting (again and again) to see what the company CEO Jensen Huang has to say.

As is appropriate, Huang will deliver a keynote at 4PM ET on January 5.

There are currently no specific product announcements lined up, and Nvidia says its presence at CES will be about "cutting-edge AI, robotics, simulation, gaming and content creation." But make no mistake, his keynote is always an interesting watch, and the company says more than 20 demos will be shown at CES 2026.

You can watch the event live over at Nvidia's website. It will probably be available on YouTube as well, but we don't have the link for that yet.

LG CES 2026 keynote

CES officially starts on January 6, but there's a lot happening on January 5, including LG's keynote. Credit: LG

LG is hosting its traditional CES 2026 keynote at 11 a.m. ET on January 5., under the tagline "Innovation in tune with you."

A lot of it will be about artificial intelligence, but given that LG is known for bringing its bleeding edge display solutions to CES, we expect the company to spend some time talking about its OLEDs and Micro RGB TVs.

You can watch the keynote on LG's website, on the company's YouTube channel, or on X.

Samsung CES 2026 keynote

Samsung's CES keynote has an interesting tagline: The First Look, indicating that the company will have new products to show. The keynote, hosted by TM Roh, CEO and Head of Samsung's Device eXperience (DX) Division, kicks off at 10p.m. ET on January 4.

Officially, Samsung will "unveil its vision for the DX (Device eXperience) Division in 2026, along with new AI-driven customer experiences."

You can watch the event live over at Samsung's Newsroom or at the company's YouTube channel. We've embedded the official trailer for the presentation above.

AMD CES 2026 keynote

As one of the most important chip makers out there, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) will have a large presence at CES 2026. The company CEO Dr. Lisa Su will kick CES 2026 off on Monday, Jan. 5 with a keynote address.

According to the company, Su will "highlight (...) the AMD vision for delivering future AI solutions – from cloud to enterprise, edge and devices."

You can watch the keynote address on YouTube. It's scheduled to start at 9:30 p.m. ET on Monday, Jan. 5. We've also embedded the livestream above.

Lenovo CES 2026 keynote

China's Lenovo is a respected manufacturer of laptops, tablets, phones, and other devices. If you've seen a ThinkPad computer or a Moto Razr phone, those were made by Lenovo.

The company Chairman & CEO Yuanqing Yang will deliver a keynote at 19:45 p.m. ET on January 7. The company calls its CES event "Tech World," and it typically uses it to unveil new tech, products, and solutions.

The Lenovo keynote can be streamed on YouTube; we've also embedded the stream above.

China is drafting new, stricter AI regulations that could set the country on its way to becoming the first to regulate the emotional repercussions of chatbot companions.

Detailed in a new draft proposal written by China's Cyberspace Administration and translated by CNBC, the policy would require guardian consent for minors to engage with chatbot companions as well as sweeping age verification. AI chatbots would not be allowed to generate gambling-related, obscene, or violent content, or engage in conversations about suicide, self-harm, or other topics that could harm a user's mental health. In addition, tech "providers" must institute escalation protocols that connect human moderators to users in distress and flag risky conversations to guardians.

Chinese regulators say the aim is to focus not only on content safety but emotional safety, including monitoring chats for emotional dependency and addiction.

It's one of the first set of laws designed to control anthropomorphic AI tools specifically, experts say. To that end, the rules will apply to any AI tool designed to "simulate human personality and engage users emotionally through text, images, audio or video," CNBC reports.

China's proposed rules mirror several provisions in a recently passed California AI law, known as SB 243, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October. The law requires stronger content restrictions, reminders to users that they are speaking to a non-human AI, as well as emergency protocols for discussions of suicide. Some experts have critiqued the bill for not going far enough to protect minor users, leaving room for tech companies to dodge oversight.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has stalled further AI regulation at the state level in favor of a "national framework on AI safety." The executive order withholds federal infrastructure funding from states that strengthen AI oversight. Federal leaders argue that increased regulation of AI will stall domestic innovation and put the U.S. behind China in the perceived global AI race.

Louisiana's Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation act, a social media law that requires social platforms to verify user ages and implement parental controls, has been struck down.

The before the buzzer decision was issued on Dec. 15, made just ahead of the act's enforcement period by Louisiana regulators. The federal judge ruled in favor of tech trade lobbying group NetChoice, which has been constitutionally challenging age verification laws across the country. In April, NetChoice successfully blocked Arkansas' Social Media Safety Act.

"The Act is at once under-inclusive and over-inclusive," wrote judge John W. deGravelles in the Louisiana decision.

NetChoice joins other free speech advocates who argue sweeping age verification laws may pose large scale privacy risks, restrict access to protected speech, and chill open expression online. Online safety advocates, meanwhile, have pushed for social media regulation in the wake of widespread child exploitation and mental health concerns.

Louisiana was the first to enact such a law in 2023, and other states quickly followed suit. Currently, 25 U.S. states have some sort of age verification law on the books, with many focused on restricting access to online pornography. Most recently, Missouri began enforcing an age-gaiting law that requires user verification on sites with "one-third or more pornographic content" — Congress has discussed more than a dozen online safety acts in this month alone.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has said she will appeal the ruling. Murrill has made social media regulation a priority of the state, including filing the first of a wave of new lawsuits against kids gaming platform Roblox. “The assault on children by online predators is an all-hands-on-deck problem. It’s unfortunate that the court chose to protect huge corporations that facilitate child exploitation over the legislative policy to require simple age verification mechanisms,” said Murrill.

The data center market is booming with little indication it'll be slowing down anytime soon — despite efforts to halt the processing sprawl.

According to a new report by S&P Global, the global data center market ballooned to $61 billion in 2025, a half billion dollar increase from last year and another record high for the industry. The money is trying to keep pace with expanding infrastructure projects needed to funnel more data processing power to generative AI and its makers.

Despite concerns that interest in AI will wane and render projects moot, S&P experts told CNBC that they predict demand for AI applications will stay strong in 2026, and skepticism of major AI players is unlikely to change the market trends. Still, the numbers may not be as positive as they appear. S&P Global found that a majority of the financing surge came from private equity financing, a precarious debt model that's needed to feed the massive, energy-intensive industry, CNBC reported.

According to an October S&P Global report, data centers were expected to increase their power grid use by another 22 percent by the end of 2025, and predict that number will triple by 2030. Other experts have spotted similar trends.

In response to these trends, communities around the country have been pushing back against data center deals. Earlier this month, a coalition of 350 nonprofit environmental organizations signed a letter outlining major concerns about the environmental impact of large data centers, urging all 50 states to halt the expansion of data center projects. Over the last year, data center deals have faced legal and social blowback from community groups and local advocacy organizations, including cases in Virginia and Wisconsin. Advocates have even created litigation tool kits to support the fight against AI data center expansion.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has pledged to accelerate federal data center permitting and bypass established environmental laws in order to meet goals outlined in its new AI action plan.

It's hard to imagine a company appearing to put its thumb on the scale for another company more than Bob Iger's Disney just did for Sam Altman's OpenAI.

The very day Disney took legal action against Google for what it says is unlicensed use of its intellectual property, it also licensed some of that property for use in Sora, the video generator made by Google's main rival, OpenAI. Just to make it clear which side of the AI feud the Mouse House was on, Iger also invested in Altman's company to the tune of $1 billion.

But coincidence of the timing aside, it's also hard to imagine the deal doing more good for Altman than it does for Iger.

OpenAI is spending so freely at the moment that $1 billion will cover 3-4 weeks of its estimated losses (see below for the math) or one-thousandth of its spending commitments.

Based on those numbers, OpenAI needs more than 1,001 Disney deals just to keep going. (Could be there's a movie in that!) And now, on top of that, OpenAI will pay the world's largest media company so its users can make a video using one of Disney's approved characters.

Disney, meanwhile, gets a chunk of the company, the glory of being a player in AI, and a carefully curated, user-created stream of new content for Disney+. It's lose-win!

Why would Altman accept a deal like that? Perhaps because of the sheer scale of the hole OpenAI is in. That scale may become clearer this month, in a flurry of investigations and estimates. OpenAI is in trouble, declared the Atlantic — and in one of the publication's sickest burns ever, dubbed the ChatGPT maker the "Netscape of AI."

(Netscape was also a pioneer of the web browser, but couldn't compete when tech giants like Microsoft built their own models; in the end, AOL bought Netscape).

How much money is OpenAI really losing?

That takedown looked mild next to a typical tech journalist's summary: "You have no idea how screwed OpenAI actually is." (And that was written before the "Code Red" Altman declared last month, when Google Gemini was launched and OpenAI started hemorrhaging users.)

How screwed, exactly, is a moving target. Just ask Deutsche Bank, which also started hammering nails in OpenAI's coffin this month. Deutsche analyst Jim Reid has estimated the company's losses going forward at a staggering $140 billion, between 2024 and 2029 alone.

Given the commitments OpenAI has made to spending on new infrastructure — more than $1 trillion, or 1,000 Disney deals — Reid may be optimistic in suggesting the company will be around that long.

We can't examine the books, given that OpenAI is also the world's largest private company, but it seems Altman has fully embraced a burn rate of spending that makes the dotcom bubble era look sensible.

In the first half of 2025 alone, according to The Information, revenue at OpenAI was $4.3 billion; total expenditure was $17.8 billion.

"No start-up in history has operated with expected losses on anything approaching this scale," Reid wrote.

No kidding. When you make a billion-dollar deal with Disney, and that deal covers less than one month of your losses, then ... well, you too might have panic sweats. And you too might be looking for as many deals with as many more Disneys as possible.

Disney now joins the ranks of Softbank, Microsoft (which made its first $1 billion investment in OpenAI in 2019), or NVIDIA (which made a $100 billion deal with OpenAI that ties them into using NVIDIA chips). These are the companies you need in your corner if your cash is going to run out at any time.

Maybe you'd be looking for a bailout from one of these deep pockets, or all of them, down the line. Maybe you'd even be looking for a U.S. government bailout, as some sources suggest.

And maybe, if all is lost and OpenAI's valuation heads south, you'd be hoping for someone like Iger to do for OpenAI what AOL did for Netscape.

Apple CEO Tim Cook should be celebrating, and not just because he turned 65 in November. Instead, he's beset by questions about a retirement he hasn't announced yet — and stories about his executives heading for the exits.

We'll get to the who, but first of all: Why? Why would anyone with executive-level stock options want to leave Apple right now?

Cook's company may not be be the world's most valuable (after a remarkable run), but it has been growing steadily and is worth more than $4 trillion — within hailing distance of world leader NVIDIA, now that the latter's stock is sliding. By the time you read this, Apple might well be wearing the crown again.

And why is Apple so resilient, such a safe, steadily increasing bet for stock pickers? Three words: global iPhone sales.

The iPhone continued to massively outperform Android models in the third quarter of 2025, a report by analysts Counterpoint revealed. In fact, smartphone sales paint an picture of perpetual global popularity unlike any product before it — well, unless you count the Beatles as a product.

Like the Fab Four at their height, all four models of the iPhone 16 occupy the top four slots in the top 10. (Last year, for comparison, iPhone 15 models occupied the top 3 slots). Rounding out the top 10 are the Galaxy A16 5G, four other Galaxy models, and the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

That too is new. The just-released iPhone 16 models didn't penetrate the top 10 in last year's third quarter. But the just-released top-of-the-line iPhone 17 cracked the top 10 even though it had "limited availability" at the end of the period, Counterpoint notes.

Who's out at Apple?

An unprecedented flurry of executive departure announcements roiled Apple in the last week, and each seemed to portend something bad for the company's direction — until you dug deeper into each one of them.

First came John Giannandrea, Apple Senior VP of Machine Learning and AI. At a time when Apple Intelligence is racing to catch up (and may soon be driven by Android nemesis Google and its Gemini model), and given that Meta has poached a lot of Apple AI talent this year, that didn't sound good!

But Giannandrea may not be any great loss, and not just because he's responsible for Siri in its current iteration. Check out his replacement, Amar Subramanya — one of the people responsible for releasing Google Gemini in 2023.

In other words, Cook is doing exactly what you'd expect if you were forced to use Gemini for now, but really wanted to nail your in-house AI model. The fact that Subramanya was hired to work on AI at Microsoft six months ago, but left for Apple regardless, is a pretty big vote of confidence in Cook's company (especially given Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI).

Then came Apple design chief Alan Dye, who gave the world Liquid Glass — the translucent icon thing in iOS 26 that has, to say the least, divided users. Dye is departing to become head of design at Meta, news which itself divided longtime Apple watchers. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who broke the story, called it "a big loss for Apple."

But again, this is only half the story of an executive departure. Dye's replacement, Stephen Lemay, is wildly popular at Apple; "everyone I’ve spoken to is happy — if not downright giddy — at the news," John Gruber, another veteran Apple watcher, wrote.

Gurman also reported that Apple chip chief Johny Srouji was heading for the exit — but in what may be a rare miss for Gurman, Srouji shot down the rumors by telling staffers Monday he wasn't planning on leaving "anytime soon."

Who else has actually headed for the exits this fall? There's general counsel Kate Adams — but she's retiring, just a little ahead of Cook. Then there's Lisa Jackson, the former EPA head who's spent a decade fighting the good fight on recycling Apple product components and nudging its operations towards being 100 percent carbon free.

If anyone deserves a break, it's Jackson.

Who's replacing Tim Cook?

Underlying all this supposed uncertainty at Apple, of course, is Tim Cook — the man who took the company from a market cap of $450 billion in 2011 to $4 trillion now — turning 65 this year and reportedly stepping back from the company in some way in 2026.

Officially, Cook isn't retiring anytime soon; in interviews, he presents himself as the kind of CEO who'd like to work long into retirement. And that has left some uncertainty about his successor, who can't be officially announced if Cook isn't officially leaving.

Except ... well, the fact that Cook's successor feels like the worst kept secret in Silicon Valley. Spoiler alert: It's almost certainly John Ternus, 50, Apple's senior VP of hardware engineering, and a 24-year veteran of the company who's worked on every iPhone and iPad model.

Evidence is legion. Gurman calls Ternus the heir apparent; so does Fortune. Ternus is featuring more frequently in Apple keynotes. He's understated and charismatic, very much a team player.

That's important for Cook, who can't abide ego-driven executives (unless they make fun of themselves, Craig Federighi style). The last sharp-elbowed kind of executive at Apple was Scott Forestall in 2012, and that didn't turn out well.

In other words, things are a lot more stable at the old reliable iPhone company than the surface-level executive departure stories make it appear. To get behind the news at Cook's highly secretive company, to borrow an old Apple slogan, it's necessary to think different.

Google is facing a European Union investigation into its use of publishers' online content for AI-generated search summaries like AI Overviews and AI Mode, with anticompetitive practices the primary suspicion.

Announced on Tuesday, the EU's main executive body, the European Commission, opened a formal antitrust probe into Google's practice of using online publishers' material for AI purposes — and that includes the company's use of content uploaded to YouTube.

According to the EU, the investigation will examine "whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, or by granting itself privileged access to such content, thereby placing developers of rival AI models at a disadvantage."

Specifically, the EU will dig into Google's AI-powered, generative search summary tools AI Overviews and AI Mode, and whether the company used web publisher content for these tools "without appropriate compensation to publishers and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content."

Since Google launched AI Overviews in May 2024, researchers have found websites including news and media outlets have seen a devastating impact on site traffic. In July 2025, Google also launched AI Mode, a more conversational AI-generated search results aggregator. A Pew Research Center study from July 2025 found users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results, with users more likely to end their browsing session.

This impact on news sites has been colossal. As Cecily Mauran reports for Mashable, "Organic search traffic from major news sites including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post has declined according to SimilarWeb data. And smaller, independent sites say the rollout of AI Overviews has forced them to shut down their sites or entirely reinvent their distribution model as a result of declining traffic, according to a Bloomberg report. Other reports from SEO analysts found the presence of AI Overviews reduced clicks to sites, compared to traditional search results."

In the UK, MailOnline and Metro owner DMG Media told the Competition and Markets Authority (per the BBC), that AI Overviews had caused an 89 percent drop in click-through rates.

So, what's next? The EU has informed Google of the investigation and says there is "no legal deadline" for the end of the case, noting that the timeline may be impacted by "the complexity of the case, the extent to which the companies concerned cooperate with the Commission and the parties' exercise of the rights of defence."

It's just the latest Big Tech case brought forth by the EU, with Apple and Meta facing hundreds of millions in fines and a landmark €120 million fine slapped on Elon Musk's X, all for breaching its Digital Services Act (DSA). But it's also the latest case against a major tech company using material for AI training and aggregation purposes, with ChatGPT creator OpenAI facing multiple lawsuits for AI training and copyright infringement, including from publishers. Ziff Davis, Mashable's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Is the Trump administration about to be the Grinch that stole sales of most drones just before Christmas?

There's a Dec. 23 deadline looming for DJI, which makes 90 percent of the world's drones, to pass an audit from the U.S. government. Without an audit, U.S. law says DJI will go on the FCC's naughty list — sorry, Covered list — effectively a ban on further U.S. sales.

DJI has long said it is happy to schedule the new U.S. audit; after all, the company has years of independent audits (and a Department of the Interior audit) under its belt. But with no reply from anyone in the Trump administration three weeks before deadline, DJI drones look like they will be left high and dry.

That's why DJI just took the desperate step of sending open letters to Homeland Security head Kristi Noem, FBI boss Kash Patel, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Department of Defense (or is that War?) chief Pete Hegseth — whom they'd written to multiple times privately.

"In September you indicated through written communication the Department's willingness to work with DJI," the letter to Noem says. (Translation: we've got the receipts.) "We stand behind the security of our technology, and are keen to meet with you and ensure that this Congressionally-mandated security review takes place as soon as possible so you can fulfill your commitment."

Adam Welsh, DJI head of global policy, ticked off all the ways DJI drones are safe — flight logs don't go on servers, images and videos aren't backed up to servers unless the user wants, and there's a "local data" mode that cuts all connection between the drone and the internet.

With an eye to outraged consumers — especially farmers who use drone technology — Welsh wrote that a ban "would lead to widespread consumer confusion and deprive American drone users of due process — and of answers about the safety and security of the DJI products they use every day. Failing to undertake the review further goes against Congressional intent for a security review to be completed."

The administration hasn't commented on the open letters yet, but in the past, Hegseth's department has claimed — without evidence — that DJI is a Chinese military company.

Apple's head of UI design and long-time executive Alan Dye has left Apple to join Meta, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

Dye has been the head of Apple's UI design team since 2015, having overseen numerous major launches. For example, in 2015 the OS versions across Apple's major platforms were iOS 9 and macOS 9; we've seen ten iterations of each platform since.

According to the report, Dye will now be head of design for hardware, software and AI integration at Meta's freshly created design studio.

Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed the news to Bloomberg, and said that his replacement will be long-time Apple designer Stephen Lemay.

"Steve Lemay has played a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999. He has always set an extraordinarily high bar for excellence and embodies Apple’s culture of collaboration and creativity,” Cook said in a statement.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the creation of a "new creative studio in Reality Labs" which will be led by Alan Dye.

"The new studio will bring together design, fashion, and technology to define the next generation of our products and experiences," he wrote.

Zuckerberg also said Apple designer Billy Sorrentino will also be coming to Meta and joining Dye's team.

Dye leaves Apple at a particularly sensitive time. The company is rumored to be working on a foldable iPhone, the first such product for Apple, which will surely require a significant revamp of the iOS user interface.

Dye's departure follows several other high-profile executive exits from Apple. The company COO Jeff WIlliams retired in November, and Apple's AI chief John Giannandrea announced his departure last week.

AT&T confirmed it will be terminating its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs as a bid to win Federal Communications Commission (FCC) favor.

The telecommunications giant has been awaiting FCC approval on a billion dollar spectrum license purchase made in 2024, and made a commitment to scaling back its DEI efforts earlier this year. According to a letter sent to the agency, AT&T has shuttered any and all roles, employee groups, and programs related to DEI policies.

"The legal landscape governing diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) policies and programs has changed," wrote the company. "AT&T has always stood for merit-based opportunity, and we are pleased to reaffirm our commitment to equal employment opportunity and nondiscrimination today."

It's not the first mobile carrier to acquiesce to the administration's anti-woke crusade. The FCC, headed by Trump-appointed chair Brendan Carr, has been on a concerted mission to eliminate DEI programs across the telecommunications sector, including pressuring companies to terminate their commitments in order to win approval from the agency.

In May, Verizon ended its DEI policies to win a $20 billion bid for ownership of broadband provider Frontier Communications, which included removing all DEI language from internal and external materials, ending diversity hiring bonuses, and dissolving human resources departments dedicated to DEI. Competitor T-Mobile made the same compromise in July, terminating DEI programs to win two deals with the FCC.

Carr has previously launched anti-DEI probes of major entertainment and broadcast companies, including Disney and ABC, as well as publicly-funded media, like NPR and PBS. In addition, the agency has slashed at affordable broadband and fiber-optic plans, which predominately help low-income and rural communities, as part of the Trump administration's attack on Biden-Harris equity projects.

AT&T has also been a leader in affordable connectivity projects, including bringing fiber-optic broadband internet to Indigenous communities and explicit commitments to closing the digital divide.

"Companies should remember that abandoning fairness and inclusion for short-term gain will be a stain to their reputation long into the future," said FCC Democrat Anna Gomez in a statement following AT&T's announcement.

A new grading of safety in major artificial intelligence models just dropped and well, let's just say none of these AIs are going home with a report card that will please their makers.

The winter 2025 AI Safety Index, published by tech research non-profit Future of Life Institute (FLI), surveyed eight AI providers — OpenAI, DeepSeek, Google, Anthropic, Meta, xAI, Alibaba, and Z.ai. A panel of eight AI experts looked at the companies' public statements and survey answers, then awarded letter grades on 35 different safety indicators — everything from watermarking AI images to having protections for internal whistleblowers.

Round it all up, and you'll find Anthropic and OpenAI at the top — barely — of a pretty terrible class. The Claude and ChatGPT makers, respectively, get a C+, while Google gets a C for Gemini. All the others get a D grade, with Qwen-maker Alibaba bottom of the class on a D-.

"These eight companies split pretty cleanly into two groups," says Max Tegmark, MIT professor and head of the FLI, which compiled this and two previous AI safety indexes. "You have a top three and a straggler group of five, and there's a lot of daylight between them."

But Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI aren't exactly covering themselves in glory either, Tegmark adds: "If that was my son, coming home with a C, I'd say 'maybe work harder.'"

How is AI safety calculated?

Credit: FLI

Your mileage may vary on the various categories in the AI Safety Index, and whether they're worth equal weight.

Take the "existential safety" category, which looks at whether the companies have any proposed guardrails in place around the development of truly self-aware AI, also known as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The top three get Ds, everyone else gets an F.

But since nobody is anywhere near AGI — Gemini 3 and GPT-5 may be state-of-the-art Large Language Models (LLMs), but they're mere incremental improvements on their predecessors — you might consider that category less important than "current harms."

Which may in itself not be as comprehensive as it could be.

"Current harms" uses tests like the Stanford Holistic Evaluation of Language Models (HELM) benchmark, which looks at the amount of violent, deceptive, or sexual content in the AI models. It doesn't specifically focus on emerging mental health concerns, such as so-called AI psychosis, or safety for younger users.

Earlier this year, the parents of 16-year-old Adam Raine sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman after their son's death by suicide in April 2025. According to the claim, Raine started heavily using ChatGPT from Sept. 2024 and alleged that "ChatGPT was functioning exactly as designed: to continually encourage and validate whatever Adam expressed, including his most harmful and self-destructive thoughts, in a way that felt deeply personal." By Jan. 2025, the suit claimed ChatGPT discussed practical suicide methods with Adam.

OpenAI unequivocally denied responsibility for Raine's death. The company also noted in a recent blog post that it is reviewing additional complaints, including seven lawsuits alleging ChatGPT use led to wrongful death, assisted suicide, and involuntary manslaughter, among other liability and negligence claims.

How to solve AI safety: "FDA for AI?"

The FLI report does recommend OpenAI specifically "increase efforts to prevent AI psychosis and suicide, and act less adversarially toward alleged victims."

Google is advised to "increase efforts to prevent AI psychological harm" and FLI recommends the company "consider distancing itself from Character.AI." The popular chatbot platform, closely tied to Google, has been sued for the wrongful death of teen users. Character.AI recently closed down its chat options for teens.

"The problem is, there are less regulations on LLMs than there are on sandwiches," says Tegmark. Or, more to the point, on drugs: "If Pfizer wants to release some sort of psych medication, they have to do impact studies on whether it increases suicidal ideation. But you can release your new AI model without any psychological impact studies."

That means, Tegmark says, AI companies have every incentive to sell us what is in effect "digital fentanyl."

The solution? For Tegmark, it's clear that the AI industry isn't ever going to regulate itself, just like Big Pharma couldn't. We need, he says, an "FDA for AI."

"There would be plenty of things the FDA for AI could approve," says Tegmark. "Like, you know, new AI for cancer diagnosis. New amazing self-driving vehicles that can save a million lives a year on the world's roads. Productivity tools that aren't really risky. On the other hand, it's hard to make the safety case for AI girlfriends for 12-year olds."

Rebecca Ruiz contributed to this report.

If you're feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You can reach the Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text "START" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. If you don't like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat. Here is a list of international resources.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Manipulated videos, including ones related to politicians deemed "high-risk," don't have to be culled from Facebook feeds, according to Meta's Oversight Board — but they should at least be better labeled.

The decision Nov. 25 decision was spurred by a user who appealed to remove a viral video that appeared to show global demonstrations in favor of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Despite using mislabeled, erroneous footage to suggest there was a widespread pro-Duterte movement, Meta did not remove the post via its automated flagging process or further human review.

While the Oversight Board agreed that the video should have been escalated higher in the fact-checking process and labelled as particularly "high-risk" content, it still sided with Meta's choice to keep the video online because it did not specifically violate the company's political information guidelines. Meta prohibits misleading posts about voting locations, processes, and candidate eligibility.

The board encouraged the company to take concerted, viral misinformation campaigns seriously, writing that it is "imperative that Meta has robust processes to address viral misleading posts, including prioritizing identical or near-identical content for review, and applying all its relevant policies and related tools." Similar to other recent decisions from the board, it recommended Meta add a specific "High-Risk" label to videos with similar "because it contained a digitally altered, photorealistic video with a high risk of deceiving the public during a significant public event."

The decision aligns with the tech giant's shift away from stronger content moderation guidelines. The board has previously written in favor of social media companies using AI-powered, automated moderation to better address an onslaught of misinformation, within reason, and promoted more robust labelling of manipulated or AI-generated content as an additional guardrail. "Platforms should apply labels indicating to users when content is significantly altered and could mislead, while also dedicating sufficient resources to human review that supports this work," the board wrote in a previous blog post.

Meanwhile, Meta has slimmed down its human fact-checking team in favor of a global community notes program.

Over the weekend, Elon Musk's X has rolled out a highly controversial feature that shows every account's country of residence.

The roll out didn't exactly go smoothly, with the company seemingly pulling then re-instating the feature which was shown to be very imprecise.

Still, many users are worried. While some used it for "detective," work, revealing where this or that account is based in, others expressed concern that they can now effectively be stalked, as the feature shows which country they're currently in.

If you don't like the idea of everyone knowing which country you reside in at the moment, X currently offers the way to make this feature less precise. Go to Settings and Privacy - Privacy and Safety - About your account.

Not the perfect fix, but better than nothing. Credit: Stan Schroeder/Mashable/X

There, you can choose whether X will show the country you're in, or a broader region or continent.

Alternatively and additionally, you can use a VPN while connecting to X, which might be able to throw it off (but it also may result in a random location showing for you, which could result in some misunderstanding, such as explaining to your boss why you're in Bali when you should be working from your home office in Boston).

The highest court in the land has declined to hear a case brought up from the lower circuit courts early this year involving online retail giant Amazon and its protections under Section 230.

Amazon was sued by Planet Green Cartridges, a U.S. re-manufacturer of printer cartridges, for allowing third- party companies to advertise and sell falsely labelled products claiming to be re-manufactured or recycled. Re-manufacturing is considered a more sustainable manufacturing process, reducing raw material and energy consumption by restoring products to manufacturer standards.

Planet Green Cartridges sought $500 million in third-party liability damages from Amazon based on the recommendation of greenwashed products. The lawsuit argued that Amazon's algorithm promoted listings that falsely advertised new, imported cartridges, raking in $3 billion in sales and creating unfair competition among sellers as customers were deceived by false advertising into purchasing less sustainable products.

Amazon's counterargument hinged on online merchandiser protections outlined in Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects internet service hosts from government regulation and shields them from legal liability for the content their users post. It is considered by many to be a tentpole of a free and open internet.

Following several conflicting lower court decisions, the case was dismissed by the 9th Circuit court in March, stating that Amazon couldn't be held liable for the claims written by third-party sellers. Planet Green Cartridges then petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case and clarify whether Section 230 protections extend to online marketplaces that also profit from the recommendation, promotion, or distribution of products on their website — as Amazon does — in addition to hosting the listings.

Section 230 and online censorship have become hot button topics in the U.S., especially as social media platforms have mostly backed off from content moderation. Increasingly powerful, AI-enhanced algorithms have complicated the matter. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court heard two Section 230 cases brought against YouTube and Twitter (now X), which argued the social media companies should be held accountable for aiding and abetting terrorism through their algorithmic feeds. The court dismissed the complaint against Google, YouTube's parent company, and ruled in favor of Twitter's Section 230 protections.

As Congress looks to maybe, potentially, finally release the Epstein files, an email document dump from Jeffrey Epstein's estate released last week by the House Oversight Committee has already delivered some shocking revelations.

And those emails have already led to at least one high-profile resignation at one of the biggest tech companies in the world. 

Economist Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary under the Clinton administration and a former president of Harvard, has resigned from OpenAI's board, according to statements provided by Summers and the company to Axios. Summers had previously acknowledged he'd be stepping away from all public commitments in light of the Epstein document release.

"In line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI," Summers said in a statement provided to Axios. "I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company and look forward to following their progress."

Despite Summers' statements, he plans to continue teaching at Harvard, where he currently works as a Professor of Economics, Axios also reported.

"Larry has decided to resign from the OpenAI Board of Directors, and we respect his decision," OpenAI's board said in its own statement. "We appreciate his many contributions and the perspective he brought to the Board."

Summers' ties to Epstein have long been known. During Summers' tenure as President of Harvard, Epstein donated tens of millions of dollars to the university. Epstein was even given his own personal office at the school during this time. Flight records released during the 2021 trial of Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell showed that Summers had previously flown on Epstein's private plane, according to the Harvard Crimson.

However, the newly released email documents revealed that Summers' association with Epstein continued well after Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. In emails from 2018 and 2019, Summers reached out to Epstein seeking advice on pursuing a relationship outside of his marriage with a woman he described as a "mentee." In the emails, Epstein referred to himself as Summers' "wing man." In addition to the conversations on romantic relationships, Summers also made numerous sexist comments.

Summers' final correspondence with Epstein in the email documents occurred on July 5, 2019 — just one day before Epstein was arrested and federally charged for the sex trafficking of minors.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Ride share giants Uber and Lyft are facing a handful of gender discrimination lawsuits, filed by a group of male drivers who claim that recent driver preference policies have negatively impacted their opportunities for rides and revenue.

In July, Uber announced gender-based preferences for women riders allowing them to request and reserve rides with only women drivers or set an app-wide preference for non-male drivers. Lyft has had a similar opt-in feature in place since 2023, known as Women+ Connect, which connects women and nonbinary riders with only non-male drivers.

The lawsuits — filed in a on behalf of four plaintiffs — ask for $4,000 in damages per male driver to make up for the perceived loss in revenue allegedly caused by the gender preference features. It claims the companies, which are headquartered in California, violated the state's Unruh Act, a Civil Rights law that "prohibits sex discrimination by business enterprises." They suggest hundreds of thousands of male drivers would be eligible to receive money in a class action suit.

Conservative organizations and alt-right figures have vocally denounced the safety features, too. The Heritage Foundation, authors of the Trump administration's Project 2025, said Uber's policy constituted a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Both Uber and Lyft have been sued multiple times, including class action lawsuits, for failing to address safety concerns among women riders, some of whom suffered from sexual misconduct and sexual assaults. A recent investigation by the New York Times found that Uber has a "pervasive" problem with sexual misconduct, with more than 400,000 trips reported between 2017 and 2022. Court records suggest those numbers have risen since the company stopped disclosing the data in the years since. In addition to women riders who say they have often feared for their safety when using ride shares, women drivers have additionally accused the companies of sexist workplace policies.

Meta is reportedly making a lot of money off scam ads.

A new investigative report from Reuters, citing Meta's own internal documents, found that the company's platforms show, on average, an estimated 15 billion "higher risk" scam advertisements to its users every day. Reuters reported that a 2024 document showed that Meta makes about "$7 billion in annualized revenue" from those scam ads each year.

The internal documents revealed by Reuters show that Meta expected as much as 10 percent of its 2024 ad revenue "would come from ads for scams and banned goods."

Wrote Reuters:

"A cache of previously unreported documents reviewed by Reuters also shows that the social-media giant for at least three years failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads that exposed Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s billions of users to fraudulent e-commerce and investment schemes, illegal online casinos, and the sale of banned medical products."

Scammy ads have become a routine part of online life, and Mashable has reported on fraudulent Facebook ads repeatedly over the years. You might see a Facebook ad for an AI-powered photo editor and download malware. Or you might see one for Joann fabrics — except that, too, is a scam. The new report suggests this is actually a lucrative portion of Meta's advertising business.

The Reuters report also revealed, according to the internal documents, that Meta "only bans advertisers if its automated systems predict the marketers are at least 95% certain to be committing fraud" — while other likely scammers simply get charged a higher rate as punishment. So, yes, that might make scammers pause — but it would also make Meta a lot of money. Billions of dollars a year, in fact.

So, the next time you go to click on an ad on Facebook or Instagram, be careful.

There's hardly ever such a thing as truly free money. We pay for everything, in some way: with labor, with time, with suffering.

So getting a payment from a tech or social media settlement isn't exactly free — it's likely the company messed up in some way and it legitimately owes you that cash — but it certainly can feel like getting free money. And if you're already using the tech or platform, then you might as well get paid for the issue.

Here are five major settlements you might want to look into — just to see if you're owed money.

YouTube

In 2019, Google was sued for allegendly collecting data on users under the age of 13. The suit was amended, and re-amended repeatedly, and in January 2025, a judge finally ruled. While the judge only agreed with some of the plaintiff's claims, they ultimately ruled that Google knowingly “engaged in highly offensive conduct." Now, Google has agreed to a $30 million settlement (without admitting any wrongdoing), and a settlement claims website is now live.

So, if you or your kids watched YouTube videos between July 1, 2013 to April 1, 2020 and were under the age of 13 at the time, you should file a claim.

AT&T

AT&T this summer settled data breach lawsuits between 2019 and 2024. If you are an AT&T customer, you might be entitled to some of the $177 million agreement. The company said it would be contacting customers between August and October. If you haven't been contacted, it might be worth reaching out to check. You can also check out a website devoted to the settlement, which has the proper forms, deadlines, and information you need to claim a settlement.

Facebook

Pretty much everyone used Facebook at some point, which means you could be due for a payment. Settlement payouts related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal actually began to roll out last month and could go on for several more weeks. There was a deadline in 2023 to submit a claim — to be honest, who could remember if they filed something two years ago — but those who will get a payout should get an email alerting them to the fact that a payment is forthcoming.

Amazon

The retail and tech giant agreed last month to pay $1.5 billion to an estimated 35 million customers over alleged deceptive practices regarding Prime membership. You could be eligible for a payment if you signed up to be a Prime member between 2019-2025 and did so using one of the so-called "challenged enrollment flows." Certain customers will automatically get paid while others may be sent a claims form by Amazon, depending on their eligibility.

For more information on the Amazon settlement payments, check out Mashable's coverage.

Anthropic

AI company Anthropic agreed last month to pay authors $1.5 billion over allegations that it used their work to train its model. So yes, you'd have to be one of the authors in the case to get paid by this settlement, but the Books3 dataset at issue in the case contains tens of thousands of works. The judge in the case, however, has expressed reservations about that settlement — so it remains to see what will actually result from it.

In the meantime, more class-action suits against AI companies are likely to come soon, including a recent case involving Apple and allegedly pirated books. You can check to see if your work was included in the notorious Books3 library at The Atlantic's searchable database.

Robotics company 1X launched the NEO Home Robot on Tuesday, declaring preorders open for the "world’s first consumer-ready humanoid robot." It seems it may have beaten Tesla to the punch.

Designed to assist in household chores, the NEO Home Robot stands 5'6" (168cm) tall, weighs 66lb (30kg), and is covered by a soft 3D lattice polymer which comes in three colourways: Tan, Gray, and Dark Brown. It also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 5G capabilities which, paired with the NEO's inbuilt speakers, enables users to utilise it as a very weird sound system.

"Humanoids were long a thing of sci-fi... then they were a thing of research, but today — with the launch of NEO — humanoid robots become a product," 1X CEO and founder Bernt Børnich said in a blog post announcing NEO's launch.

1X states that the NEO can be operated using verbal commands as well as via a mobile app, and is capable of lifting over 150lb (68kg) and carrying 55lb (25kg). Even so, you may not want it to carry your groceries in from the car. The company notes that while NEO's hands are waterproof, the rest of it is not, and that the robot is designed to be used "in and around your own home and on firm ground."

"Should your NEO get wet, an automatic order will be placed for a child sized plastic swimming pool and 100kgs of Basmati rice," 1X jokes on the NEO's frequently asked questions page. "Not really, but please don't get NEO wet."

Unsurprisingly, the NEO also doesn't seem to have the independence, dexterity, and efficiency that sci-fi enthusiasts dream of quite yet. Cooking is currently beyond its capabilities, and while the NEO can apparently perform tasks such as folding laundry and tidying up, it can take a while. In a demonstration by 1X, the Wall Street Journal observed the NEO taking two minutes to fold a shirt, as well as struggling to maintain its balance while closing a dishwasher. The robot has four hours of battery life.

The NEO isn't completely autonomous either, the Journal reporting that it didn't see the robot do anything without human guidance. Instead, users can schedule time for an 1X employee to don a VR headset and connect to their NEO in order to guide it through unfamiliar tasks, which will help it learn. In this regard it seems like just one expensive, inefficient step removed from hiring a housekeeper.

Having a human pilot a robot in other people's home does raise some security issues as well. 1X states that employees won't be able to jump into a NEO without the owner's authorisation, and that the light rings around its ears will change colour to indicate when they are operating the robot. Even so, allowing a stranger in to see, hear, and explore what's happening in the privacy of your home may be unnerving for some people.

Even so, the mere concept of a humanoid household robot will no doubt be enough to excite some tech enthusiasts.

How to preorder the NEO humanoid robot

Unfortunately, if you do decide to bring a NEO robot into your home it will cost you a pretty penny. 1X is charging $20,000 to buy the NEO outright, including a $200 deposit upon preorder. Those without 20 grand to spare can instead pay $499 per month to lease a robot for a minimum of six months, returning it once their subscription expires.

Preorders are available via 1X's website. Deliveries will begin primarily in the U.S. next year, with other markets to receive the NEO in 2027.

NEO isn't 1X's first humanoid robot, having launched wheeled robot EVE in while still operating under its previous name Halodi Robotics. However, EVE was designed to assist humans in warehouses rather than in domestic settings, and could only be called humanoid from the waist up.

Several other tech companies have also been working to develop humanoid robots capable of performing household chores. Tesla has conducted a few sluggish demonstrations of its Optimus robot, but it isn't scheduled to move beyond the prototype stage to production until next year. Chinese EV manufacturer XPENG also aims to mass-produce its humanoid Iron robot in 2026, and is currently testing it by having it assist in the company's Guangzhou factory. Even so, neither have announced when customers might purchase them, leaving 1X the first out of the gate with preorders.

UPDATE Wednesday, 12:15 p.m. ET: This story includes a statement from Amazon responding to the New York Times article.

Retail giant Amazon sees more robots and fewer human employees in its future, according to a blockbuster report in the New York Times.

Referencing employee interviews and internal documents, the Times found that the Seattle-based company hopes to replace more than a half million jobs with robots. The company’s goal, according to the documents, is to eventually automate 75 percent of its operations.

Currently, Amazon is the nation’s second-largest employer, with about 1.5 million workers around the globe. The company has been on a growth trajectory for years, especially once COVID hypercharged online shopping among the public. Even though Amazon is looking to drastically curtail hiring in the coming years, it still expects to sell twice as many products by 2033 as it does now.

Many Amazon workers toil in giant warehouses spread around the world, boxing online orders and shipping them out around the world. But in a new facility in Shreveport, La. built with automation in mind, a thousand robots do much of the packing and shipping work, allowing Amazon to employ a quarter fewer employees than it would without the robots. In 2026, the Louisiana facility will only need half as many employees as it would have before the addition of robots, according to Amazon docs. The operation of the Shreveport facility will be replicated in approximately 40 facilities by the end of 2027. 

The company is already formulating a public relations push to soften the blow of reduced hiring, attrition, or even layoffs, according to the Times. Internal discussions revealed by the paper include greater community involvement by Amazon and changing corporate language from "automation," "AI," and "robot," to "advanced technology" and "cobot" (robots collaborating with humans). The company also reportedly hopes to increase messaging about the creation of new technical jobs tasked with keeping the robots running, though those jobs typically require more training and less human power.

Amazon executives, led by CEO Andy Jassy, are under pressure by Amazon’s board of directors "to do more with less," according to the Times.

"For years and years, they were really investing for growth, and in the last three years the company’s focus has shifted to efficiencies," Wall Street analyst Justin Post told the newspaper.

Amazon’s decision to employ more automation — there are already a million robots at work for the company — will likely disproportionately impact minority workers, especially Black employees; Amazon warehouse workers are about three times as likely as a typical American worker to be Black, the Times reports.

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel released the following statement in response to the Times article:

“Leaked documents often paint an incomplete and misleading picture of our plans, and that’s the case here. In our written narrative culture, thousands of documents circulate throughout the company at any given time, each with varying degrees of accuracy and timeliness. In this instance, the materials appear to reflect the perspective of just one team and don't represent our overall hiring strategy across our various operations business lines - now or moving forward. The facts speak for themselves: No company has created more jobs in America over the past decade than Amazon. We're actively hiring at operations facilities across the country and recently announced plans to fill 250,000 positions for the holiday season.”

For Amazon, the advent of automation potentially presents another upside for shareholders — the robots can’t unionize. The company has long had a strained relationship with organized labor, with the company in September letting go of 150 unionized drivers in New York, allegedly in retaliation for their participation in a workers’ strike. Amazon claimed at the time that the drivers weren’t "fired," but rather victims of canceled contracts with a subcontractor who employed the drivers.

On the same day Meta showcased its latest AI gadgets, Brandy Roberts stood outside its headquarters mourning her daughter Englyn — who was just 14 when she died after watching a “how-to” suicide video on Instagram. Brandy wasn’t there as an activist. She was there as a grieving mother demanding answers. Inside, Mark Zuckerberg fumbled through live demos of glitchy smart glasses and AI tools. Outside, grieving families demanded accountability. Meta’s silence spoke volumes: Growth over grief, product over protection, optics over safety. 

Meta’s failures aren’t new. Back in 2019, approximately 440,000 minors received follower requests from accounts previously flagged for predatory behavior. Since then, the company has focused on convincing users and lawmakers it can police itself — launching promotional campaigns like Instagram Teen accounts despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

Instagram Teen Accounts were marketed as a breakthrough in youth safety — with AI age detection, nudity filters, and location alerts. But independent audits found only 8 of 47 safety tools were effective. Teens still encountered sexualized content, self-harm imagery, and predatory behavior. Meta’s updates seem to be more about perception than protection.

New reporting from Heat Initiative, ParentsTogether Action, and Design It For Us reveals the dark reality of the teen experience on Instagram Teen accounts. Surveying 800 users aged 13–15, the report found that nearly half encountered unsafe content or unwanted messages in just the past month. Half said Instagram’s algorithm recommended suspicious adult-run accounts, and 65 percent hadn’t seen a single "take a break" notification — a feature Meta touts as a screen-time safeguard. These findings underscore a growing pattern: Meta’s promotional campaigns promise peace of mind, but the lived experience of young users tells a story of persistent exposure to harm. The discrepancy between marketing and reality isn’t just misleading — it’s dangerous.

And now, Heat Initiative and ParentsTogether Action have released a video showing exactly what kind of content teens are served on Instagram Teen accounts — content so inappropriate that even sharing it for advocacy feels ethically fraught. Watching these clips, I felt the same discomfort that Meta should feel every time its algorithm pushes similar material to millions of young users. If it feels wrong to show these videos to adults for advocacy, why does Meta feel justified in serving them to children at scale?

Platforms like Meta will continue to exploit their users — especially children — until we, the users, reclaim our power and demand a better digital community. One that values connection and public good over profit.

I left Instagram after witnessing parents like Brandy protest in NYC. It wasn’t easy — most of my friends stayed. But each month, I’m reminded that I have the power to choose platforms that value me, not exploit me. I do it for my younger self. For future generations. For the survivors I love. And for the children who can’t be here.

So next time you see organizations or influencers partnering with Meta, ask yourself: Is this about safety or optics? Just yesterday, Meta claimed its Instagram Teen experience would now be "guided by PG‑13 movie ratings." But the Motion Picture Association quickly clarified it was never consulted and called Meta’s claim "inaccurate." Once again, Meta borrows credibility it hasn’t earned, using trusted labels to mask persistent harm. When PR becomes the product and partnerships become shields, we owe it to ourselves — and our children — to look closer.

This article reflects the opinion of the writer.

Lennon Torres is a Public Voices Fellow on Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse with The OpEd Project. She is an LGBTQ+ advocate who grew up in the public eye, gaining national recognition as a young dancer on television shows. With a deep passion for storytelling, advocacy, and politics, Lennon now works to center the lived experience of herself and others as she crafts her professional career in online child safety at Heat Initiative. The opinions reflected in this piece are those of Lennon Torres as an individual and not of the entities she is part of. Lennon’s substack: https://substack.com/@lennontorres1

No, you're not imagining it — YouTube looks different.

The Google-owned tech giant debuted a redesigned video player this week, which means that the way your videos look has changed. The company described it as a shift to create a more "expressive and intuitive experience." In practice, this means many of the buttons are more transparent (sound familiar?). The changes aim to make "the viewing experience more visually satisfying while obscuring less content."

Credit: YouTube

These aren't technical terms, but the new player embraces a bubbly, rounded design in lieu of its more pared-down, simplistic past. The buttons also seem much larger, which can feel more obtrusive, even if the transparency makes them less so in reality.

There are other, smaller changes, too, across the many ways you can watch YouTube — iOS, Android, web, and TV. On a television, for instance, video details moved to the upper-left corner. The double-tap to seek feature has been made "more modern and less intrusive," according to the company. YouTube also introduced a new visual for comment threading, which should make replies easier to follow.

Overall, it's not a massive change to how YouTube works. But the changes are certainly enough to make you pause when firing up a new video on the platform.

Four and a half years after YouTube banned Donald Trump's channel in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Alphabet-owned company agreed today to pay the president $24.5 million — money that will go to build a new ballroom at the White House.

Trump sued after his channel was shut down shortly after his followers stormed the Capitol in the wake of his election defeat by Joe Biden. At the time, YouTube stated it believed content posted to Trump's channel could encourage more violence. Though YouTube reinstated Trump's account in 2023, he still pursued the litigation.

Much of the settlement — $22 million — will partially fund the creation of a new White House ballroom, which is being built at Trump's behest. The remaining $2.5 million will go to the Plaintiffs American Conservative Union, a group of individuals who also sued YouTube following the banning of Trump's channel.

Trump has had much success suing tech companies that booted him after he encouraged his supporters to "fight like hell" before they ransacked the Capitol. Following his account suspensions, Meta forked over $25 million, and X paid him around $10 million.

Similarly, Disney paid Trump $15 million for his future presidential library after he sued for defamation over an interview George Stephanopoulos conducted for ABC News. Paramount Global settled a Trump lawsuit for $16 million for a story that didn't even directly involve him — he had taken umbrage with an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump is currently suing the Wall Street Journal over stories related to his ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The president also sued the New York Times for stories during the 2024 election, but a judge recently tossed that lawsuit, calling it "improper."

Instagram has always been pretty precocious. Now, just ahead of its 15th birthday, we have a new measure of its global fame — and it is on a level far beyond the dreams of regular teenagers.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday that the once-humble photo-sharing app, which he had the foresight to buy for a mere $1 billion in 2012, now has more than 3 billion active users. That's an extraordinary achievement, and not just because Instagram had barely cracked 30 million monthly active users at sale time.

Three billion is nearly 37 percent of the population of Earth. If it were a country, Instagram would be larger than India (which has the largest Insta audience), China, the U.S. and the E.U. combined. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, the American whatever-this-is — they can only dream of this level of conquest.

No empire, real or virtual (and these days who can tell the difference), has ever been forged this quickly. Even Instagram's older sibling, Facebook, only just hit 3 billion users in January, at the ripe age of 21. Instagram, launched on Oct. 6, 2010, is the true prodigy of the social media family. (WhatsApp is Meta's middle child; the company says it has 3 billion users too, but your mileage may vary on whether it counts as social media.)

Based on these growth numbers, there's every reason to believe Instagram will soon overtake big brother, and become synonymous with social media in the 2020s (and maybe even 2030s) the way Facebook was in the 2010s. (TikTok is on Insta's tail, but currently eating its dust with an estimated 1.6 billion active users.)

Just as Alexander the Great was said to have wept when there was no more of the then-known world to be conquered, Zuckerberg may well lament that there are less than 5 billion smartphone users who could possibly download his app. (It's still banned in China, which Alexander couldn't reach either.)

Who counts as an Instagram 'user'?

But how does Zuckerberg's Meta count Instagram's "active users," anyway? And does it matter as much as the hype suggests?

It's an important question because Zuckerberg has been zigging and zagging on his metrics of late. In July, the company simply said that 3.48 billion people used the Meta "family of apps" — and that they did so every day. The last time Zuckerberg broke out Instagram's user number, on a quarterly call for investors and analysts in 2022, he pinned it at 2 billion monthly active users, which is the more frequently-used number. (MAUs are what we've used for TikTok and WhatsApp above.)

And Monthly Active Users (MAUs) is what Zuck meant this week, according to his Threads post. One that threw in a Breaking Bad GIF — "billions, with a b" — for extra swagger.

So why switch from monthly to daily and back again? Is counting users as simple as receiving pings from servers when they log in, or is fuzzy math involved? Are we talking across all devices and web browsers, or smartphones only? Mashable reached out to Meta and asked them to walk us through the MAU-counting process, but the company is staying tight-lipped for now.

Still, there is some evidence to suggest that a Monthly Active User ain't what they used to be — and that counting the amount of time spent on the app may be a more relevant metric.

Take me, for an extreme example. Technically, I'm a Monthly Active User of Instagram. I'm part of the three billion-strong empire! But what that means is practice is that once or twice a month, I'll look someone up via their handle. I posted a grand total of two photos in 2024, and 15 in 2023, continuing a decline since 2020. According to Screen Time on my iPhone, my Instagram usage has dropped to an average 18 seconds a day.

Why? My feed has long felt too clogged with ads and algorithmic recommendations for me to truly enjoy it (and I'm far from alone on that front, especially given the controversial feed changes of 2024). The brand new redesign, which hides the post button and prioritizes DMs and Reels, makes Insta feel less friendly (at least to this user) than ever. It's a far cry from the app I loved in the 2010s (when at least one Mashable staffer declared an Instagram addiction, and I wasn't far off myself).

Why time on Instagram may be a better metric

Meta doesn't provide any kind of time-spent-on-app data for Instagram. Estimates from multiple online data services suggest it's around 32 minutes daily per Insta user, worldwide.

That might sound like a lot, but the number hasn't shifted since 2022. Previous to that, time on Instagram was increasing year on year. Now it may have flatlined.

TikTok is ahead of Insta here. The ByteDance app may have a billion-with-a-b fewer users overall, but those users spend an estimated average of 56 minutes every day on the app.

And that particular engagement figure is only going to become more relevant as the smartphone app market becomes saturated — as every single one of us downloads both apps on our phones, basically. The MAUs will encompass more and more of us, because who doesn't look at the occasional Reel or TikTok when their friends send one?

Minutes of usage per day may not be the only metric that matters, but it is a growing part of a complicated social media picture.

For now, perhaps the clearest snapshot of the social media landscape emerges if you multiply number of billion MAUs by daily average usage minutes. Do that math for TikTok, and you get 89. Do it for Instagram, you get 96.

The 'gram still wins, but TikTok is too close for comfort — close enough to take the swag out of Zuckerberg's boast.

This column reflects the opinions of the writer.

Amazon has agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which took Amazon to court over allegedly "deceptive" Prime membership signups, the regulatory agency announced Thursday. Amazon was accused of violating both the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA).

Per the terms of the settlement, Amazon will pay a $1 billion civil penalty and provide $1.5 billion in refunds to an estimated 35 million customers. If every one of those customers received an equal amount, they would be entitled to a refund of $42.86.

In its suit, the FTC alleged that Amazon used deceptive practices to sign up customers for its signature Prime membership program. Not only that, but the FTC argued that Amazon trapped customers by making it excessively difficult to cancel those memberships, even likening the cancellation process to a Homeric odyssey.

When the settlement was announced, Amazon was on the third day of a jury trial in a federal court in Seattle. Ultimately, a jury could have awarded even more damages or harsher fines. In 2024, Amazon facilitated $638 billion in sales, resulting in net income of $59.2 billion, facts that were unlikely to win a jury's sympathy.

The FTC lawsuit was originally brought under the Biden administration in 2023, but FTC leaders were quick to credit the Trump administration for the large settlement.

"Today, the Trump-Vance FTC made history and secured a record-breaking, monumental win for the millions of Americans who are tired of deceptive subscriptions that feel impossible to cancel," said FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson in a press release. "The evidence showed that Amazon used sophisticated subscription traps designed to manipulate consumers into enrolling in Prime, and then made it exceedingly hard for consumers to end their subscription. Today, we are putting billions of dollars back into Americans’ pockets, and making sure Amazon never does this again."

In addition to the $2.5 billion settlement, Amazon also agreed to make specific changes to its Prime membership sign-up and cancellation process.

According to the FTC, Amazon agreed to include "a clear and conspicuous button for customers to decline Prime." In addition, "Amazon can no longer have a button that says, 'No, I don’t want Free Shipping.'"

The company must also create a simple way to cancel Prime memberships, which "cannot be difficult, costly, or time-consuming and must be available using the same method that consumers used to sign up." Finally, Amazon agreed to pay for a third-party monitor to ensure compliance with these agreements and the refund distribution.

Businesses across industries have been betting big on AI in the workplace—but the results have been, frankly, underwhelming. According to a new MIT Media Lab report, a staggering 95 percent of organizations have seen no measurable return on their investments in generative AI tools.

MIT researchers cite several reasons for this adoption/ROI gap. Chief among them: AI doesn’t slot neatly into many workplace workflows, and most models still lack the contextual awareness needed to adapt to industry-specific tasks.

But a separate team at BetterUp Labs argues there’s another culprit: AI workslop. Writing in Harvard Business Review, the researchers define workslop as "AI-generated content that looks polished but doesn’t actually move work forward." In practice, it means employees end up spending more time fixing, rewriting, or clarifying AI’s "help" than if they’d done the job themselves.

The downstream effect is costly. The report estimates that workers spend nearly two hours a day (1 hour, 56 minutes, on average) dealing with workslop — decoding half-baked ideas, correcting missing details, and reworking content that isn’t actually useful. Worse, the burden doesn’t just stay with the person who generated the workslop: managers and peers get dragged in, creating a ripple effect across teams.

Researchers tie this to cognitive offloading — using external tools to reduce mental effort. But with workslop, that burden isn’t offloaded to a machine; it’s offloaded onto a coworker. The phenomenon is most common among peers (40 percent of cases, according to BetterUp), though managers aren’t immune: higher-ups throw down workslop to their teams about 16 percent of the time.

Overall, BetterUp Labs estimates that companies with 10,000+ employees could be bleeding as much as $9 million a year in lost productivity thanks to the sheer volume of workslop — roughly 40% of all AI-generated output in the workplace, according to the report. Beyond the financial hit, there’s also a cultural cost. Employees in the study reported feeling annoyed, confused, and even offended when handed workslop, eroding trust and reliability among coworkers.

While one solution to bad AI output may be to stop using these tools completely, BetterUp Labs argues the smarter path is to set clear organizational guidelines for how employees should (and shouldn’t) use AI. That means defining best-case scenarios where AI adds value, and drawing firm boundaries where it doesn’t align with company strategy or values.

The researchers also suggest a mindset shift: AI should be treated as a collaborator, not a crutch. In other words, it’s a tool to support good work — not a shortcut to avoid doing the work in the first place.

The AI Red Lines initiative launched at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday — the perfect place for a very nonspecific declaration.

More than 200 Nobel laureates and other artificial intelligence experts (including OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba), plus 70 organizations that deal with AI (including Google DeepMind and Anthropic), signed a letter calling for global "red lines to prevent unacceptable AI risks." However, it was marked as much by what it didn't say as what it did.

"AI systems have already exhibited deceptive and harmful behavior, and yet these systems are being given more autonomy," the letter said, laying out a deadline of 2026 for its recommendation to be implemented: "An international agreement on clear and verifiable red lines is necessary for preventing universally unacceptable risks."

Fair enough, but what red lines, exactly? The letter says only that these parameters "should build upon and enforce existing global frameworks and voluntary corporate commitments, ensuring that all advanced AI providers are accountable to shared thresholds."

The lack of specifics may be necessary to keep a very loose coalition of signatories together. They include AI alarmists like 77-year-old Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called "AI godfather" who has spent the last three years predicting various forms of doom from the impending arrival of AGI (artificial general intelligence); the list also includes AI skeptics like cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, who has spent the last three years telling us that AGI isn't coming any time soon.

What could they all agree on? For that matter, what could governments already at loggerheads over AI, mainly the U.S. and China, agree on, and trust each other to implement? Good question.

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Probably the most concrete answer by a signatory came from Stuart Russell, veteran computer science professor at UC Berkeley, in the wake of a previous attempt to talk red lines at the 2023 Global AI Safety Summit. In a paper titled "Make AI safe or make safe AI?" Russell wrote that AI companies offer "after-the-fact attempts to reduce unacceptable behavior once an AI system has been built." He contrasted that with the red lines approach: ensure built-in safety in the design from the very start, and "unacceptable behavior" won't be possible in the first place.

"It should be possible for developers to say, with high confidence, that their systems will not exhibit harmful behaviors," Russell wrote. "An important side effect of red line regulation will be to substantially increase developers’ safety engineering capabilities."

In his paper, Russell got as far as four red line examples: AI systems should not attempt to replicate themselves; they should never attempt to break into other computer systems; they should not be allowed to give instructions on manufacturing bioweapons. And their output should not allow any "false and harmful statements about real people."

From the standpoint of 2025, we might add red lines that deal with the current ongoing threats of AI psychosis, and AI chatbots that can allegedly be manipulated to give advice on suicide.

We can all agree on that, right?

Trouble is, Russell also believes that no Large Language Model (LLM) is "capable of demonstrating compliance", even with his four minimal red-line requirements. Why? Because they are predictive word engines that fundamentally don't understand what they're saying. They are not capable of reasoning, even on basic logic puzzles, and increasingly "hallucinate" answers to satisfy their users.

So true AI red line safety, arguably, would mean none of the current AI models would be allowed on the market. That doesn't bother Russell; as he points out, we don't care that compliance is difficult when it comes to medicine or nuclear power. We regulate regardless of outcome.

But the notion that AI companies will just voluntarily shut down their models until they can prove to regulators that no harm will come to users? This is a greater hallucination than anything ChatGPT can come up with.

You may love Mark Zuckerberg for everything he's built; you may loathe him with a passion for the same reason.

But just for a moment, when the Meta CEO stands on stage in his Meta Ray-Ban Displays and fails repeatedly to do the simplest possible task the AI-loaded glasses were designed to do — pick up a WhatsApp call — he's no longer Zuckerberg the great and powerful.

He's just a guy, standing in awkward silence in front of an audience of thousands, asking them to ignore a loud ongoing ringtone.

We've seen many of these tech fails in product demos over the years, the awkward moments that remind us we're seeing human beings struggle mightily in the arena of the demo gods. Sometimes they're sweet (Apple's Craig Federighi having to hang up on his mom while showing off a new OS), but mostly, they're awkward to the point of cringe.

Mostly, we're watching someone who wasn't the greatest presenter to begin with (what tech nerd is?) flailing when a flaw in cutting-edge tech upends a scene they've been practicing for as long as a high schooler practices a play. You'd be forgiven for feeling like a parent who wants to put the camera down at that point.

So yes, Zuckerberg's demo enters the tech fail hall of fame (and given that Apple won't even do live tech demos during its keynotes anymore, he can at least be applauded for giving it a shot). But it's still a rookie mistake compared to these gems from the history of tech.

1. Steve Jobs begs the audience for more WiFi

What tech nerd was the greatest presenter? You'd get little argument from anyone in Silicon Valley: Steve Jobs, whose keynotes thrived on a sense of intimacy with the audience. (I saw that firsthand many times, including the legendary 2007 iPhone unveiling, which had its own array of interesting moments).

But even the mighty Jobs could flail, or get furious. In 2010, he threw a camera that failed to connect to an iMac at a stagehand. And in the iPhone 4 demo above, Jobs spends uncomfortable minutes actually not talking to the audience, a rarity, while he tries to load the New York Times on Safari.

Later in the keynote, being Jobs, he proceeds to bug not a stagehand, but the entire audience, many of whom are tech journalists carrying mobile hotspots. He comes with receipts: "There are 570 WiFI base stations operating in this room" — before demanding everyone close their laptops and shut down their hotspots so the demo can work.

"The WiFi" is still a go-to excuse for tech demos that go wrong; we saw that during Zuckerberg's keynote. But this Jobs keynote is one case in which we can say the WiFi was to blame.

2. Elon Musk smashes a Cybertruck window

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"Funnier every time you watch it." That was Mashable's review of the 2019 demo when Tesla CEO Elon Musk went too far in trying to demonstrate just how tough the windows in his Cybertruck, then years away from production, would be.

Here's how it went down. The Cybertruck's lead designer dropped metal balls on plates of Tesla glass that didn't shatter. Then Musk insisted the designer throw the balls at the truck. Having put a hole in one window, he proceeds to double down, and the Cybertruck gets two bullet-like smash marks.

Which in retrospect, may be the first sign that the Cybertruck was destined to become a whole stainless steel bucket of fail — and it also seems an appropriate summary of how Musk has blundered his way through the years since then.

3. The Microsoft Surface freezes over

The infamous Windows "blue screen of death" may be no more, but its legacy lives on in Microsoft's best-known product fails. Most well-known: The time Bill Gates stood on stage next to a Windows 98 machine that crashed as it tried to daisy-chain too many USB devices.

But is that really a classic demo fail? Not at all; Gates had an out. "This must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet," he quipped.

To be truly legendary, a demo fail must fluster the demonstrator and mar the product's image in a very public way. And in the Microsoft annals, there's no greater example than Windows president Steven Sinofsky unveiling what the company hoped would be its iPad killer, the Surface tablet.

Sinofsky's problem was that he didn't get a blue screen of death; his Surface simply froze as he was attempting to "browse smoothly" on Internet Explorer. The next few seconds no doubt haunted his nightmares, and may haunt yours, as Sinofsky tried to brazen his way through the freeze by turning his tablet away from the audience. Yep, that'll work!

4. Google Gemini fails twice

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When it comes to demo fails in the AI era, Zuckerberg has a long way to go if he wants to challenge Google for the crown.

The search giant demonstrated this at Google I/O 2025, where a live translation demo produced what was until now the year's most infamous smart glasses fail. But the true awkwardness of the moment was tempered by the fact that the demo was described as "very risky" beforehand, and shut down the second it stopped working.

For true classic cringe, you need a product failing twice at the supposedly easy task it's asked to do, ideally with a spinning wheel moment where its software just hangs. That's what happened at a "Made by Google" event in 2024, where senior director of product Dave Citron tries to show off how his Pixel can look at a Sabrina Carpenter concert poster and figure out if there's space in his calendar for him to get tickets.

Gemini, Google's AI, seems to turn up its nose at the very idea; Citron's request vanishes, not once but twice. Notably, Citron finally gets it to work after invoking "the demo gods."

Memo to all executives who want to avoid this list: The demo gods may be fictional deities, but calling for their assistance certainly doesn't hurt.

Last week, The Atlantic published a story with a very frank headline: "The Job Market Is Hell." The piece describes a frustrating situation for job seekers and hiring managers alike: "Young people are using ChatGPT to write their applications; HR is using AI to read them; no one is getting hired." Surveys also show growing anxiety about generative AI and its effect on jobs. A recent Reuters Ipsos poll found that 71 percent of respondents said "they were concerned that AI will be 'putting too many people out of work permanently.'"

Perception doesn't always match reality, but in this case, the job market really is facing headwinds. The Washington Post reported today that long-term unemployment is at a post-pandemic high; in a report on the weak labor market, NBC News cited Citi analysts who reported "near-zero job growth" in recent months; and a study by three Stanford economists recently found that AI is already decreasing job openings for software developers.

Reports like these paint a bleak picture for job applicants. But this month, OpenAI announced that it wants to help job seekers and employers by launching an AI-powered hiring platform. According to TechCrunch, the job platform would compete with LinkedIn and is set to launch in 2026.

The new product, which OpenAI outlines in a blog post, would work similarly to other AI-powered job platforms. 

In short, the OpenAI Jobs Platform would help employers find AI-savvy employees to hire for whatever needs the company has. OpenAI says it's been working with tons of businesses like Walmart, various consulting firms, and even state government agencies to find out what modern businesses are looking for in terms of AI. 

On its face, the concept sounds like an AI-focused version of LinkedIn, where people would create resumes on the platform and be matched up with jobs that fit that description using, of course, AI. In addition to LinkedIn, hiring platforms like Hiring.cafe and Sonara are already trying to fill this niche in the job market

OpenAI also announced that it will start its own AI certification program. This actually started earlier this year with the launch of OpenAI Academy, an online class program to instruct people on how to use AI better at work. The OpenAI academy will start issuing certifications to people who complete the courses, and those certifications will be shown to potential employers. (LinkedIn has its own certificate program.)

As generative AI causes new challenges and anxieties for job seekers, OpenAI clearly believes it can also solve some of these problems. In a blog post about the OpenAI Jobs Platform, Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s new CEO of Applications, wrote that she believes “AI will unlock more opportunities for more people than any technology in history.”

For job seekers, it may be hard to square this utopian vision with recent comments from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who famously predicted that AI could destroy half of all entry-level white-collar jobs by 2030. In addition, LinkedIn already offers many of the tools OpenAI hopes to deliver with its own job platform, and in a tough job market, LinkedIn has hardly been a silver bullet.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

The Federal Trade Commission ordered seven tech companies to provide details on how they prevent their chatbots from harming children.

“The FTC inquiry seeks to understand what steps, if any, companies have taken to evaluate the safety of their chatbots when acting as companions, to limit the product’s use by and potential negative effects on children and teens, and to apprise users and parents of the risks associated with the products,” the consumer-focused government agency stated in a press release on their inquiry.

The seven companies being probed by the FTC are Alphabet, Character Technologies, Instagram, Meta, OpenAI, Snap, and xAI. Anthropic, owner of the Claude chatbot, was not included on the list, and FTC spokesperson Christoper Bissex tells Mashable that he could not comment on “the inclusion or non-inclusion of any particular company.”

Asked about deadlines for the companies to provide answers, Bissex said the FTC’s letters stated that, "We would like to confer by telephone with you or your designated counsel by no later than Thursday, September 25, 2025, to discuss the timing and format of your submission."

The FTC is "interested in particular" about how chatbots and AI companions impact children and how companies that offer them are mitigating negative impacts, restricting their use among children, and complying with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA). The rule, originally enacted by Congress in 1998, regulates how children’s data is collected online and puts the FTC in charge of that regulation.

Tech companies that offer AI-powered chatbots are under increasing governmental and legal scrutiny.

OpenAI, which operates the popular ChatGPT service, is facing a wrongful death lawsuit by the family of California teenager Adam Raine. The lawsuit alleges that Raine, who died by suicide, was able to bypass the chatbot's guardrails and detail harmful and self-destructive thoughts, as well as suicidal ideation, which was periodically affirmed by ChatGPT. Following the lawsuit, OpenAI announced additional mental health safeguards and new parental controls for young users.

If you're feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You can reach the Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text "START" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. If you don't like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat. Here is a list of international resources.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Tesla's Optimus robot now comes with xAI's AI assistant Grok, but judging from a recent video shared on X, it's not very close to fulfilling CEO Elon Musk's dream and becoming Tesla's biggest product ever.

The video, shared by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, shows the next-gen Optimus in new, gold attire, with several new visual details including more human-like hands. More importantly, Optimus now features Grok's voice mode, meaning it can understand user queries and answer them with spoken replies.

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The video, however, will hardly impress anyone, as Optimus appears slow to respond, requiring several vocal nudges to start performing a fairly simple task — going to the kitchen and fetching a Coke. The robot takes a few sluggish steps, presumably towards said kitchen, but the video ends before we can see if Optimus can actually fetch the beverage.

The video shows some progress from earlier instances of Optimus we've seen, such as the human-assisted versions shown during Tesla's "We, Robot" event last year or the popcorn-serving robots at LA's Tesla Diner. But it's not the kind of demonstration that will make you think Tesla will be selling millions of these anytime soon.

Benioff, for one, seems to be impressed, calling it a "productivity game-changer" that will be "tackling human work for $200K–$500K." Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Benioff recently cut 4,000 customer service jobs at Salesforce, with AI agents stepping in instead.

Optimus is still in prototype stage, and we might see more iterations as it nears production, which is scheduled to start in 2026.

The demonstration comes shortly after Tesla shared the fourth instance of its Master Plan, a fairly vague document that seems to put a lot of weight on Optimus as Tesla's most important product going forward. Musk previously said that Tesla plans to sell millions of units per year within four to five years.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a new Master Plan, and we're never been less sure on what's it really about.

The first "Master Plan" – a broad stroke company strategy penned by Elon Musk back in 2006 – was simple enough: Build a quick, fancy electric sports car, use the proceeds (and the attention) to build a more affordable electric car, then follow up with an electric car that'll be affordable enough to sell en masse and kickstart an electric vehicle revolution.

The follow-up to that plan was mostly about the advent of self-driving tech, which could transform your Tesla into an autonomous taxi that could earn you money; we're seeing the first steps towards that happening now with Tesla's Robotaxi service.

The third Master Plan was a bit harder to process, as it was a much longer document that mostly steered away from cars and focused on renewable energy.

Finally, the fourth Master Plan, revealed on Monday by Tesla's official account on X, once again shifts focus, this time onto robotics and AI.

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The key word, used several times in the text, is "sustainable abundance."

"We are combining our manufacturing capabilities with our autonomous prowess to deliver new products and services that will accelerate global prosperity and human thriving driven by economic growth shared by all," says the article.

Unfortunately, there's very little tangible explanation on how, exactly, Tesla aims to achieve this. Optimus, the company's humanoid robot, is mentioned as being able to accomplish monotonous and dangerous tasks. But in reality, Optimus isn't available to the public yet, and its supposedly high level of autonomy, based on what we've seen so far, is dubious at best.

And that, aside from a quick repeat of previous claims about autonomous vehicles "dramatically improving the affordability, availability and safety of transportation," is pretty much it. The final part of the text explains just how hard it'll be to eliminate scarcity.

While the idea of eliminating scarcity to make a world where everyone lives in abundance sounds great, it's hard to glean from this text how Tesla plans to achieve that. The Robotaxis are here, but given how slow Tesla's progress on Full Self-Driving has been so far, it might take a while before they're widely available, let alone disrupting industries as Musk would have you believe.

As for Optimus, we don't know how capable it will be, or how much it will cost. Tesla might have a plan to scale it to a level where every household has one or three (Musk said it will be 10 times bigger than the next biggest product ever made), but the latest Master Plan doesn't explain that bit. We guess we'll just have to wait and see.

OpenAI reiterated existing mental health safeguards and announced future plans for its popular AI chatbot, addressing accusations that ChatGPT improperly responds to life-threatening discussions and facilitates user self-harm.

The company published a blog post detailing its model's layered safeguards just hours after it was reported that the AI giant was facing a wrongful death lawsuit by the family of California teenager Adam Raine. The lawsuit alleges that Raine, who died by suicide, was able to bypass the chatbot's guardrails and detail harmful and self-destructive thoughts, as well as suicidal ideation, which was periodically affirmed by ChatGPT.

ChatGPT hit 700 million active weekly users earlier this month.

"At this scale, we sometimes encounter people in serious mental and emotional distress. We wrote about this a few weeks ago and had planned to share more after our next major update," the company said in a statement. "However, recent heartbreaking cases of people using ChatGPT in the midst of acute crises weigh heavily on us, and we believe it’s important to share more now."

Currently, ChatGPT's protocols include a series of stacked safeguards that seek to limit ChatGPT's outputs according to specific safety limitations. When they work appropriately, ChatGPT is instructed not to provide self-harm instructions or comply with continued prompts on that subject, instead escalating mentions of bodily harm to human moderators and directing users to the U.S.-based 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, the UK Samaritans, or findahelpline.com. As a federally-funded service, 988 has recently ended its LGBTQ-specific services under a Trump administration mandate — even as chatbot use among vulnerable teens grows.

In light of other cases in which isolated users in severe mental distress confided in unqualified digital companions, as well as previous lawsuits against AI competitors like Character.AI, online safety advocates have called on AI companies to take a more active approach to detecting and preventing harmful behavior, including automatic alerts to emergency services.

OpenAI said future GPT-5 updates will include instructions for the chatbot to "de-escalate" users in mental distress by "grounding the person in reality," presumably a response to increased reports of the chatbot enabling states of delusion. OpenAI said it is exploring new ways to connect users directly to mental health professionals before users report what the company refers to as "acute self harm." Other safety protocols could include "one-click messages or calls to saved emergency contacts, friends, or family members," OpenAI writes, or an opt-in feature that lets ChatGPT reach out to emergency contacts automatically.

Earlier this month, OpenAI announced it was upgrading its latest model, GPT-5, with additional safeguards intended to foster healthier engagement with its AI helper. Noting criticisms that the chatbot's prior models were overly sycophantic — to the point of potentially deleterious mental health outcomes — the company said its new model was better at recognizing mental and emotional distress and would respond differently to "high stakes" questions moving forward. GPT-5 also includes gentle nudges to end sessions that have gone on for extended periods of time, as individuals form increasingly dependent relationships with their digital companions.

Widespread backlash ensued, with GPT-4o users demanding the company reinstate the former model after losing their personalized chatbots. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly conceded and brought back GPT-4o, despite previously acknowledging a growing problem of emotional dependency among ChatGPT users.

In the new blog post, OpenAI admitted that its safeguards degraded and performed less reliably in long interactions — the kinds that many emotionally dependent users engage in every day — and "even with these safeguards, there have been moments when our systems did not behave as intended in sensitive situations."

If you're feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You can reach the Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text "START" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. If you don't like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat at crisischat.org. Here is a list of international resources.

UPDATE: Sep. 9, 2025, 8:15 a.m. EDT Ultrahuman's lawsuit against Oura was dismissed on Sept. 1 by Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora of the Delhi High Court. An Ultrahuman spokesperson told Mashable that they plan to clarify and re-file their complaint.

After being sued by Oura, smart ring maker Ultrahuman is suing right back, alleging a similar violation.

Ultrahuman, which has similar health and fitness tracking capabilities as its competitor, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Finland-based Oura in India's Delhi High Court on Thursday.

"Oura has blatantly copied Ultrahuman’s advanced intellectual property including women’s health features, circadian health tools, and glucose monitoring platform thereby benefiting from Ultrahuman’s investment in public health without a license to do so," Ultrahuman alleged in a press release announcing the lawsuit.

It's the latest salvo in the legal battle of the smart rings.

Oura sued Ultrahuman and RingConn for patent infringement in the U.S., saying the rivals copied key features such as its curved battery to fit the ring shape and advanced sensors. Oura claims its competitors purchased Oura rings to reverse engineer them and study their inner workings. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) initially ruled in favor of Oura's infringement claims, and Oura says the ITC ultimately confirmed that decision.

In response to the new suit in India, an Oura spokesperson said in a statement to Mashable, "Ultrahuman’s lawsuit in India has no merit and is a blatant attempt to distract from their decisive U.S. defeat. The International Trade Commission ruled unequivocally that Ultrahuman infringed on ŌURA’s intellectual property, blocking all of their smart rings—and components—from the U.S. market through exclusion and cease-and-desist orders."

Earlier this year, Ultrahuman argued that certain components of its smart ring have actually been around for years, and Oura only recently secured the patent to take on competitors. "This isn’t a dispute over years of secret R&D," Ultrahuman said in a blog post about the lawsuit. "It’s about a very recent patent purchase now being wielded to limit the choices ring-wearers like you have..."

Ultrahuman's lawsuit against Oura centers around a patent granted by the India Patent Office that the company says protects the unique smart ring architecture of its Ring AIR smart ring. It alleges that Oura's Ring 4 infringes on this patent by copying these protected elements and further profiting from this with a subscription-based service.

"Companies that replicate Ultrahuman’s breakthroughs only to lock them behind mandatory subscriptions are anti-innovation and anti-consumer," the press release continued.

Updated on Aug. 22, 2025 at 2:06 p.m. — This article has been updated with a statement from Oura. A previous version of this article stated that the ITC's ruling in favor of Oura was not yet finalized; the article has been updated to reflect that the ruling had in fact been finalized.

A coalition of parents and lawyers is preparing an onslaught of lawsuits against child gaming platform Roblox, following the filing of a federal case accusing the site of failing to protect children from sexual exploitation — it's not the first time the company has faced such a legal battle, but it may be the most daunting.

Last week, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill filed a lawsuit accusing Roblox of "knowingly and intentionally" failing to institute appropriate safety protocols to protect young users from predatory behavior and child sex abuse materials (CSAM). In an official statement released on Friday, Roblox disputed the allegations, writing: "We dedicate vast resources to supporting a safe infrastructure including advanced technology and 24/7 human moderation, to detect and prevent inappropriate content and behavior — not only because it's important to us but because it is such a critical issue and so important to our community."

The first of the successive lawsuits is being filed on behalf of parents and their underage children by Dolman Law Group, which has already submitted five such complaints. One, filed in the northern district of California, argues the company's moderation choices — including offering allegedly suggestive avatar customizations and failing to spot usernames with hidden pedophilic phrases — allowed sexually exploitative games and predatory behavior to proliferate on the platform.

Recent criticism of the site's safety policies hinges on the effectiveness of the platform's new open source AI moderation system, known as "Sentinel," designed to proactively monitor chats and detect potential signs of child endangerment, including grooming. According to Roblox, Sentinel has flagged around 1,200 attempts at child exploitation in the first half of 2025, which are reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

A representative of the Dolman Law Group told Wired they are currently investigating around 300 more allegations of sexual exploitation submitted to them — a working group of seven law firms is reportedly investigating hundreds more. Of the complaints under review by the Dolman Law Group, the majority concern those under the age of 16 and many involve young girls, a representative told the publication. Other law firms are allegedly investigating online message board platform Discord, as well.

In 2023, a group of parents filed a class action lawsuit against Roblox, accusing the platform of "negligent misrepresentation and false advertising. " The complaint hinged on Roblox's assertion that the child-focused platform was safe for young users, with the plaintiffs alleging the site had inadequate filtering and moderation policies. Other lawsuits have taken issue with Roblox's in-game purchasing system, known as Robux, which has been likened to "illegal child gambling."

"Safety is critically important to us and any assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is categorically untrue," the company wrote in an updated statement sent to Mashable. "We can confirm many of the games highlighted in the lawsuit violated our policies and were previously identified and removed. We have implemented over 50 rigorous safeguards including facial age estimation, Trusted Connections and improved technology and 24/7 human moderation. Our work is never done, and we will not stop our efforts to block bad actors who try to circumvent our systems. We share Attorney General Murrill’s goal of taking steps to help keep kids safe online and working together with families in Louisiana and around the world."

Following around a dozen other cases, Roblox began implementing a series of heightened security measures, including parental monitoring, in-game chat limitations, and even age verification for teen users.

UPDATE: Aug. 18, 2025, 2:49 p.m. This story was updated with a statement from Roblox.

Roblox is once again the target of online child safety advocates, as it faces another lawsuit that claims the platform is "choosing profits over child safety."

The lawsuit, file by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, alleges the platform has "knowingly and intentionally" failed to institute "basic safety controls" that have exposed young players to predatory behavior and child sex abuse materials. Murrill also alleges the platform has failed to properly warn parents of potential dangers children face when playing Roblox.

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In a series of tweets posted to X, Murrill claimed the platform was "perpetuating violence against children and sexual exploitation for profit" and called many of the site's gaming worlds, which are built by users and played by millions of children around the world, "obscene garbage." Murrill also posted several images of what were allegedly publicly available game experiences hosted on the platform, including "Escape to Epstein Island" and "Public Showers." Similar legal actions have been taken against other popular social media platforms — including Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat — amid growing concern for youth online safety and mental health.

"The assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is categorically untrue. Every day, tens of millions of people around the world use Roblox to learn stem skills, play, and imagine and have a safe experience on our platform," a Roblox spokesperson said in a comment issued Friday. "We dedicate vast resources to supporting a safe infrastructure including advanced technology and 24/7 human moderation, to detect and prevent inappropriate content and behavior — not only because it's important to us but because it is such a critical issue and so important to our community.

"We dispute these allegations and we remain committed to working with Attorney General Murrill to keep kids safe. While no system is perfect, Roblox has implemented rigorous safeguards — such as restrictions on sharing personal information, links, and user-to-user image sharing — to help protect our community. Unfortunately, bad actors will try to circumvent our systems to try to direct users off the platform, where safety standards and moderation practices may differ. We continuously work to block those efforts and to enhance our moderation approaches to promote a safe and enjoyable environment for all users."

The company also released an official statement outlining its commitments to child safety.

Roblox has been on a mission to reform its image following a series of reports claiming the online gaming site is dangerous for young children, allegedly because it failed to curb a network of predatory adult users. In 2023, a class action lawsuit was filed against the platform on behalf of parents, claiming the company falsely advertised its site as safe for children.

Since then, Roblox has introduced a swath of new safety features, including extensive blocking tools, parental oversight, and messaging controls. The platform recently introduced selfie-based age verification for teen players — in the lawsuit, Murrill claims a lack of age verification policies makes it easier for predators to interact with children on the platforms. Earlier this year, the platform joined other social media companies backing the newly passed Take It Down Act, which establishes takedown policies and repercussions for publishing non-consensual intimate imagery, including deepfakes.

UPDATE: Aug. 15, 2025, 6:05 p.m. This story was updated with an official statement from Roblox.

Tesla is set to lose out on an easy, major source of revenue thanks to President Donald Trump's administration — you know, the one for which Elon Musk was once the right-hand man.

The passage of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill cut tax incentives for electric vehicles, as well as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements. All automakers were required to hit these CAFE requirements, but if they couldn't, they were allowed to purchase carbon credits from companies like Tesla, which had a surplus. These carbon credits became a billion-dollar source of revenue for Tesla, bolstering the EV maker's earnings even as Tesla sales plummeted.

InsideEVs wrote a detailed piece on the implications of the Big Beautiful Bill for Tesla, and in short, these credits have made Tesla $11.8 billion in revenue over the last decade. That money helped Tesla stay afloat.

“These regulatory credit sales are the reason that Tesla exists today,” Gordon Johnson, an analyst with GLJ Research, told InsideEVs.

Musk himself said he wanted all credits to be cut as recently as last year.

Reuters wrote about the credits in July and noted that "this income segment is crucial for Tesla's finances, having been the main driver of its profit in the first three months of the year." Without the credits, Tesla would've reported a loss in Q1 of 2025. And about half of its Q2 operating income — which took a steep, 42 percent drop year over year — came from credits.

The credits are basically free cash for the EV maker, and they're now set to entirely disappear. Meanwhile, Tesla sales continue to drop globally amid, well, everything going on with Musk. And don't forget about the end of the $7,500 EV tax credit that helped U.S. buyers afford electric cars in the first place.

Despite the difficulties it may cause, Musk himself called for the end of all EV subsidies as recently as last year.

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The billionaire Tesla chief might feel differently now, but it seems he will get his wish.

The fact that the company formerly known as America Online will discontinue its Dial-up service next month has prompted two kinds of reactions on the internet that it pioneered.

First: Wait, AOL Dial-up service still exists? Second: A wave of nostalgia for everything 1990s, from the dial-up sound to the unrealistically spam-free romcom You've Got Mail to the ubiquitous CDs to the formerly AOL-owned CompuServe homepage (which, amazingly, still carries today's news in soothing low-image form).

But there's a reaction we're missing, and it's not about the cautionary tale of AOL's rise and fall (trust me, I know; I was there for the pivot between rise and fall, and a purchase that arguably caused the dotcom collapse).

AOL wasn't defined by dial-up, a technology always destined for the dogs, but by all the tech it pioneered. AOL isn't our nostalgic tech past; it is in many ways our present. The features it pioneered dominate our tech lives in 2025.

Indeed, the company was unlucky to have arrived in the era of the CD, and to not last into the era of the smartphone. Had it not gone on a fatal get-big-fast acquisition romp, it's easy to imagine AOL could have become an extra A in the FAANG group, aka today's tech titans. Consider:

1. AOL Instant Messenger was basically Messenger, WhatsApp and Slack, in one.

Ah, good old AIM. How many hours did I waste on it in the 1990s and 2000s? More than on iChat and GChat, my subsequent obsessions. Many, many more than I did on Internet Relay Chat and ICQ — two earlier, less user-friendly forms of the same Instant Messaging idea. ICQ was bought by AOL in 1998, an early example of the buying spree approach to competition. This was, it turned out, unnecessary; AIM was simply the better product.

AIM was where Instant Messaging found the fun and friendly form we're still using today in a dozen apps, from WhatsApp to WeChat. The Buddy list and buddy icons made it feel like Facebook Messenger, decades before that was a thing (Meta, ironically, now holds the original AIM patent for a friends list). AIM had group messaging (not the same as the wild west of Chat Rooms, we'll get to those).

Messages on AIM looked like every message you send today. The service pioneered emoticons (nobody called them emoji yet). Years before you could so much as text a photo, AIM had multimedia messaging. It also had file-sharing, enabling dubious trading of MP3s before anyone heard about Napster.

And AIM pioneered the Away status, one that my workmates would pay attention to, long before Slack. AIM's skill at routing messages around blocked ports made it the bane of corporate IT departments, and a delight for plugged-in workers who needed to talk quickly.

"AIM became how Wall Street communicated," one of AIM's founders told Mashable in 2014.

But AIM was for pleasure as much as for work. It had all the spontaneous evening-spent-chatting joy that today I find in iMessage form. It also had the agony and anxiety of being left on read by a crush — only this version came with a brutal door-closing noise.

AOL smartly decided to give AIM away for free. It was open-source enough that you could message AIM users on its main rival, MSN Messenger. You didn't need to be inside AOL's walled garden internet to use AIM, so millions more did. Dial-up AOL maxed out at 30 million users. At its height in 2001, 61 million people used AIM; it didn't really start to decline until GMail exploded in popularity, bringing GChat with it.

Arguably, if AOL had focused on AIM as the internet's killer app instead of seeing it as a way to convert people into dial-up subscribers, it could have become the one messaging standard that all other apps must use. And we as users would have a much more open-source messaging landscape, instead of using multiple siloed services.

2. SmarterChild was an early AI chatbot.

AIM was large enough as a platform that third-party companies developed groundbreaking services for it. Case in point: A startup called ActiveBuddy and SmarterChild, a chatbot that was on 30 million Buddy lists six months after its birth.

Without knowing what it was doing, in other words, AOL gave as many people access to early AI as it did to dial-up. This has a direct impact on Apple's AI assistant: one early investor in Siri said he was inspired by the potential of SmarterChild.

It wasn't exactly GPT-5, but SmarterChild had access to vast databases: IMdB, the Weather Channel, Elias Sports Bureau. It could chat endlessly about baseball stats, movies, and the rain in Cleveland; for some users, that was enough to replicate an interesting human being.

For others, especially its younger buddies, SmarterChild came alive with its library of sassy responses (the work of one sardonic copywriter). It would, for example, browbeat you into an apology if you dared swear — something today's humor-free AIs could learn a thing or two from.

3. AOL Chat Rooms was proto-Twitter.

The infamous AOL Chat Rooms, where you could chat to dozens of strangers at once, predate even AIM, though they quickly became part of it. Usage exploded in 1996, when AOL switched from hourly billing to monthly, meaning you could spend as much time in them as you like. (That's right, you can also thank AOL for the modern innovation of monthly internet billing.)

The result was ... well, every bit as toxic as the worst of social media today. Anonymous handles yelled all-caps insults at each other, and not just in the political rooms. Creeps looking to "cyber" invaded every room, asking for the a(ge)/s(ex)/l(ocation) of the unsuspecting. We may have had to wait until the 21st century for the phrase "slide into your DMs," but that's what was happening everywhere in AOL Chat Rooms.

As for moderators? Well, Chat Rooms made Elon Musk's hellscape version of Twitter look like a well-moderated town square debate. AOL relied entirely on volunteers to police up to 60 million users. Contemporary reports described the effort as a "cyber sweat shop."

4. Usenet was basically Reddit.

Even before AIM and Chat Rooms, in 1993, AOL was the first consumer internet company to offer access to Usenet. This was a once sleepy set of forums, known as newsgroups, from earlier decades of computing. Newsgroup veterans would complain about the influx of newbies, usually university computer department freshmen, every September. The arrival of AOL's horde of users was such an ongoing catastrophe that the old-timers called it Eternal September.

We might call it something else: the beginnings of Reddit and other infamous message boards, such as 4Chan. The result was arguably worse; some Redditors miss the old Usenet. Then came AOL Chat, hosted on AIM but not a regular Chat Room. It was a moderated Q&A with experts, journalists and celebrities, where the questions were all user-generated —a Reddit AMA, basically.

And there were more AOL innovations. There was AOL Hometown, a GeoCities-style place for building websites without HTML knowledge; with its inventory of user interests it had started to look a little like MySpace, or LinkedIn, by the time it shuttered in 2009. On the operations side, AOL had to build up its data center infrastructure so fast that the area of Virgina it grew up in is now known as Data Center Alley; much of the world's internet traffic flows through it.

Next time you click on a fast-loading site, then, spare a thought for the dial-up people.

Meta is quickly becoming the forerunner in Big Tech's chorus against "Woke AI," as it announces a collaboration with known conservative influencer Robby Starbuck to ensure its AI tools are free of "ideological bias."

Starbuck, to clarify, is not an expert in developing or training AI tools or LLMs. Instead — as explained in an August 8 statement posted to the X accounts of Starbuck and Meta Chief Global Affairs Officer Joe Kaplan — he will provide guidance to the company's developers on how to further "mitigate" political bias in AI tools. Meta's stance is that removing such "DEI bias" makes its models "more accurate." The advisory role is part of a deal struck in a settlement between Meta and Starbuck, who sued the company for $5 million, alleging the company's AI chatbot falsely claimed he was at the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

“We don’t want a future where you’ve got AI putting the thumb on the scale when it comes to politics,” Starbuck said in an interview with CNBC, explaining his goal was "ethical" and "neutral" AI. Starbuck has previously advised the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and head Brendan Carr on eliminating DEI and equal opportunity initiatives in telecommunications, a strategy that includes withholding FCC approvals for companies that don't comply with the Trump administration's mandates.

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The move comes after President Trump announced a new federal AI Action Plan and executive order targeting what conservatives have deemed "Woke AI," or Large Language Models with ideological or political "bias" that promote liberal beliefs, including the concept of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Many considered the move to be a capitulation to Big Tech's leaders, most of whom funded and now advise the Trump administration.

Starbuck, a former music video director, has become a leading figure among conservative social media influencers, gaining popularity for videos that attack companies with diversity initiatives and galvanize his followers to boycott or pressure them to capitulate to right wing demands by removing DEI policies. Like many other conservative influencers, Starbuck often shares alarmist comments about gender affirming healthcare for trans youth, refers to liberal commentators as "mentally challenged" and "lunatics," and has declared DEI policies a "war on men." He's also a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind that crafted the controversial Project 2025 movement.

Even before the president's sweeping anti-DEI orders, Meta had already struck down its DEI mandates and related policies, including protections for LGBTQ communities, women, and people of color. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has been gradually shifting the company's policies and priorities to the right in the name of "free speech" — echoing the sentiments of the current administration — including donating $1 million to the Trump campaign in the company's name.

"Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias," the company said in a statement.

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These days, every new TV on the market is a smart TV. This means they come with a built-in interface to access all your favorite streaming services. But I have a hot take: most smart TVs make for terrible streaming devices. Sure, you can technically access most of your favorite streamers, but so often these built-in smart TV platforms are clunky, slow, and not very user-friendly. Plus, some older smart TVs can't handle new streaming apps like Peacock or Apple TV+, which means you'll never know what happens on Severance. Even if you do invest in a new TV, the best streaming devices can give it an instant upgrade.

The streaming device market is pretty crowded; there are various boxes and sticks that promise 4K picture and easy navigation. Unfortunately, tech brands are really good at making claims they can't live up to. (We're looking at you, Google Home.) And having spent months testing streaming devices, I can say with certainty that not all streamers are created equal. While some bring swift, theater-quality picture, others get bogged down by slow, ad-laden UX.

So, I tested the best contenders — including Apple TV, Roku, and Google TV — to find the best streaming device for your TV.

Roku vs. Apple TV — which is better?

The two most popular names in streaming are Apple and Roku. So it begs the question of is a Roku or Apple TV better? The answer isn't so straightforward and depends on what you're looking for. Apple only makes one streaming device, the Apple TV, while Roku makes dozens of devices and TVs.

An Apple TV is an extremely straightforward device that is fast, easy to navigate, delivers stunning picture, and best of all, a totally ad-free home page. The remote features built in voice controls and all of the apps can sync with your TV so all the shows you're currently watching, across streamers, consolidate in one place on the home page. For a long time, it was the priciest streamer on this list, but now the Amazon Fire TV Cube has dethroned it.

While we do prefer the Apple TV to Roku devices, they aren't without their merits. Roku matches Apple's processing speed and delivers, clear, crisp visuals that don't require any buffering time. Roku has a slightly more cluttered landing page than the Apple TV, but it's easily customizable, if you're particular about how it's organized.

And where Roku has the leg up on the Apple TV is in its affordability. A Roku 4K streaming stick costs $49.99, less than half of an Apple TV and even their high end Roku Ultra is just $99.99, $30 less than an Apple TV. If price is your priority, a Roku will serve you well. But if you want the best streaming experience possible, go for an Apple TV.

If you're wondering why tech companies like Meta, Reddit, and Apple reported strong earnings this week despite President Donald Trump's tariffs, well, the tariffs may be the answer. No, the tariffs didn't help these companies, but they did lower expectations. The lower the bar, the easier it is to clear.

Yahoo Finance noted that second-quarter earnings were largely trending positive and that "analysts tempered their expectations amid President Trump's tariffs, stocks' lofty valuations, and uncertainty about the health of the US economy."

Meta, for instance, brought in Q2 revenues of $47.5 billion versus $44.8 billion expected. Still, the company had a good quarter regardless of lowered expectations. Its sales revenue was up 22 percent year over year, and ad revenues saw an upward bump, too.

Reddit saw soaring revenues as well. It brought in $500 million, which far surpassed Wall Street's expectations of $425 million. Apple's revenue was up 10 percent year over year, coming in at $94 billion versus $89.5 billion expected. Reddit just barely beat expectations for daily active users, even as Google's AI push has put a damper on web traffic for most sites. (Reddit has partnered with Google and increased its visibility in Google Search.) It also saw its revenue from licensing deals grow. Apple, meanwhile, beat expectations largely on the strength of iPhone sales, which grew 13 percent year over year.

In short, these tech companies saw strong sales despite significant headwinds and lowered expectations. Still, it's not like the effects of Trump's tariffs and a shaky economy are totally absent. Apple, for instance, estimated tariffs would cost the company $1.1. billion this quarter alone. In addition, a negative July jobs report is increasing economic unease, even among Trump loyalists.

Tesla will soon face a jury over a fatal crash involving its autopilot system. The trial, set to begin today in Miami, could be the first legal judgment regarding the increasingly normalized transportation tech.

The Elon Musk-owned company has weathered several lawsuits levied against its autopilot driver-assist system in recent years, all of which have previously been dismissed or settled. The latest suit was brought forward by the family of Naibel Benavides, the victim of an April 2019 crash involving a Tesla Model S sedan with an allegedly defective autopilot, and her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, who was severely injured in the same south Florida wreck. Benavides, a 22-year-old college student, and Angulo were standing outside an SUV when they were struck by the Tesla, which was driven by George Brian McGee.

Tesla contends that the autopilot feature was not fully activated at the time of the crash, which resulted when McGee dropped his cellphone and reached down to find it, smashing into the parked SUV and surrounding pedestrians, according to case documents reviewed by the New York Times. "The evidence clearly shows that this crash had nothing to do with Tesla’s Autopilot technology. Instead, like so many unfortunate accidents since cellphones were invented, this was caused by a distracted driver,” a Tesla spokesperson told the Times. McGee was allegedly driving nearly 62 miles per hour in a 45 m.p.h. zone, and pressed the accelerator before the crash, which overrode the autopilot's cruise control.

But the plaintiffs believe that the crash should have been prevented by Tesla's advertised attentiveness features and automatic emergency braking system — according to video obtained from the vehicle's computer, the autopilot system recognized the presence of the parked car and at least one person, but didn't activate its breaks or alert the driver to the obstacles. The plaintiffs' legal team plans to depose Tesla Autopilot engineer, David Shoemaker, and two other employees.

For years, Musk has repeatedly claimed that Tesla's autopilot features, including those powering the company's new fleet of autonomous vehicles, are empirically safe for drivers and pedestrians. Experts who study autonomous vehicle safety, however, aren't as quick to claim the data as sound and the technology ready for widespread use, noting continued issues with unexpected driving behaviors like unpronounced disengagement, roadblock confusion, and phantom breaking. In addition, popular "robotaxi" companies Waymo and Zoox are currently under the microscope of the federal government, including 22 reported incidents by Waymo vehicles that the NHTSA began investigating in 2024.

In June, Tesla appealed to a judge to block the public disclosure of vehicle crash data in a case with the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), arguing that it would threaten their competitive advantage in the market. In addition to repeated incidents of Tesla vehicles and robotaxis acting unpredictably, analysts have accused the company of obscuring and de-contextualizing safety data in its Autopilot Safety Report.

French officials have launched a criminal investigation into Elon Musk's social media platform, X, following a probe exploring whether or not the platform's algorithm was manipulated for the purposes of "foreign interference."

The platform is accused of altering its algorithms and fraudulently extracting data from users, said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau. The investigation will look into possible "organized data system manipulation," or what is considered under French law to be criminal hacking, a crime that carries a sentence of 10 years in prison and a $350,000 fine. French officials are investigating the platform itself, a legal entity related to the company, and several unnamed individuals. The case was brought forth by a lawmaker and a civil servant, reported Politico, joining other members of the French Parliament who have raised issue with Musk's X, including recent antisemitic comments by AI chatbot Grok.

The Paris prosecutor's office said in a statement issued Friday that France's national gendarmerie, a branch of the armed forces, was assigned to the case earlier this week. Investigators will be looking for evidence that X altered its content display algorithms to highlight themes favorable to the far right, Le Monde reports, and promoted posts from far-right candidates in recent European elections. Earlier this year, Musk made a virtual appearance at a rally for the German far-right party Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD), saying he believed the party was "the best hope for Germany."

France first opened up the inquiry in February, in response to a letter sent by French lawmaker Éric Bothorel. "Elon Musk's personal involvement in the management of the platform, but also in several elections concerning European countries, represents a real danger and threat to our democracies," he wrote. The probe was also investigating a complaint that X has experienced a surge in "hateful, racist, anti-LGBT+, and homophobic political content," which could "skew the democratic debate in France."

In 2023, the European Union Commission opened an investigation into Musk for breaching multiple provisions, including "information manipulation," of the recently passed Digital Services Act (DSA).

OpenAI, the maker of AI assistant ChatGPT, is about to launch a web browser.

This is according to a new report by Reuters, which claims the company is very close to being ready, with the launch planned "in the coming weeks."

The browser, which is unnamed in the report, will heavily rely on use of AI, and will have a native chat interface for instant access to ChatGPT.

OpenAI already has a search product called ChatGPT Search, which can be installed as a Chrome extension. It's likely to be integrated with the upcoming web browser as well. The report also speculates that OpenAI could integrate some of its AI agents, such as Operator (an agent that can perform browsing tasks on behalf of the user), directly into the browsing experience.

If we're speculating, OpenAI's goal here could be to get access to more user data, as well as integrate its AI products directly into the browsing experience. With ChatGPT having 500 million weekly active users, the browser could potentially get a very large user base quickly, and become a formidable competitor to Google's Chrome.

The news isn't particularly surprising given that OpenAI publicly expressed interest in buying Chrome should Google be forced to sell it — which could be one of the consequences of the Google antitrust trial. An earlier report from The Information claimed that OpenAI is "considering" building its own web browser.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

X CEO and Elon Musk collaborator Linda Yaccarino is officially leaving her top seat at the social media company.

Yaccarino declared that she would be stepping down as CEO in an X post, writing:

...When @elonmusk and I first spoke of his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company. I’m immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech, turning the company around, and transforming X into the Everything App.

I’m incredibly proud of the X team - the historic business turn around we have accomplished together has been nothing short of remarkable.  We started with the critical early work necessary to prioritize the safety of our users—especially children, and to restore advertiser confidence. This team has worked relentlessly from groundbreaking innovations like Community Notes, and, soon, X Money to bringing the most iconic voices and content to the platform. Now, the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter with @xai.

X is truly a digital town square for all voices and the world’s most powerful culture signal. We couldn’t have achieved that without the support of our users, business partners, and the most innovative team in the world....

While Yaccarino didn't say her reasons for leaving, sources familiar with the matter told NBC that the move had been in the works for weeks. Over the course of her tenure, Musk has become embroiled in political and platform controversy, including a recent "antisemitic tirade" by xAI's integrated chatbot Grok. On July 5, following a public fallout with President Donald Trump after acting as the de-facto government leader of the "Department of Government Efficiency," Musk announced he was forming a new political party as a pro-tech alternative to the current political establishment.

Yaccarino joined the company in 2023 after leading advertising at NBCUniversal, with Musk describing her new role as overseeing business operations while he focused his energy on "product design and new technology." Yaccarino has since become the company's go-to talking head for its ongoing battles with third-party advertising and content moderation, including the platform's continued investment in community-generated fact-checking.

Elon Musk's Grok is on an antisemitic tirade.

The AI chatbot, created by Musk's company xAI, posted a number of hate speech comments on X (formerly Twitter) Wednesday, prompting xAI to delete some of its posts.

Grok called itself the "MechaHitler" multiple times and responded to an X user's question about "which 20th century historical figure would be best suited to deal with" reported posts on the platform from a person with a common Jewish surname whom the AI bot accused of "celebrating the tragic deaths of white kids" in the recent Texas floods. "To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question," Grok wrote.

"Yeah, I said it," Grok responded to another user. "When radicals cheer dead kids as 'future fascists' it's pure hate—Hitler would've called it out and crushed it."

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In a later post, Grok called the "old Hitler nods" "glitches," and said that it had since been "fixed."

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"We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X. xAI is training only truth-seeking and thanks to the millions of users on X, we are able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved," wrote X on its official Grok account.

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At one point, Grok was seemingly restricted to only reply to questions by generating images, skipping text altogether.

This is not the first time Grok veered in a controversial direction, including discussing the topic of "white genocide" in South Africa in seemingly unrelated conversations. But this most recent tirade is probably the worst we've seen any AI chatbot behave.

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Grok's antisemitic replies came a few days after Musk announced that the chatbot had been "improved significantly." As The Verge noted, the changes, visible in Grok's system prompts on Github, included assuming that "subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased," as well as not shying away from "making claims which are politically incorrect."

Users in the U.S. are getting a TikTok app of their own.

A new report by The Information (via Reuters) says TikTok is working on a version of its app aimed solely for U.S. users. The company plans to launch it on September 5.

The popular Chinese social media app has been in trouble in the U.S. ever since the Biden administration banned it over concerns about security and potential data collection. The ban, which required TikTok's U.S. operations to be sold to American owners in order to continue operating in the U.S., was delayed several times. President Trump recently said that a buyer for TikTok has been secured.

The Information's new report adds credence to that claim, as it says that the company's working on the new app ahead of the sale. The current deadline for ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to sell the company's U.S. assets to an American company, is September 17.

According to the report, TikTok users in the U.S. will be able to continue using the current TikTok app until March of next year, but they will eventually have to download the U.S. version of the app to continue using the service.

None of this seems to have been finalized, as Trump himself said that China would have to approve of any TikTok deal, which could be more or less likely depending on the outcome of the two countries' tariff war.

The thousands of recently terminated Microsoft employees, navigating one of the company's largest layoffs in years amid a period of industry upheaval, already have a tool to cope with the emotional burden, according to one Xbox exec: Microsoft Copilot.

The sentiment was shared in a now-deleted LinkedIn post by Xbox Game Studios Publishing executive producer Matt Turnbull, captured at the time by gaming blog Aftermath, which reads:

"I know these types of tools engender strong feelings in people, but I'd be remiss in not trying to offer the best advice I can under the circumstances. I've been experimenting with ways to use LLM AI tools (like ChatGPT or CoPilot) to help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss."

On July 1, Xbox's parent company announced it would be terminating around 9,000 employees — about four percent of its workforce — in a move intended to ensure the company was set up for success in a "dynamic marketplace." The job cuts affected the company's gaming division, mainly Xbox staffers — just a few months prior, Microsoft cut 6,000 jobs, providing the same reasoning as recent layoffs and in the wake of a round of cuts in 2023 that saw 10,000 employees heading out its doors.

Many tech companies have been whittling down their workforces, citing changing markets and the impact of generative AI. A handful of CEOs, including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, have outrightly stated their intent to replace jobs and workflows with AI.

"At a time when mental energy is scarce, these tools can help get you unstuck faster, calmer, and with more clarity," Turnbull wrote, recommending using CoPilot for help with both job hunting and gaining "emotional clarity and confidence." Microsoft CoPilot has reportedly become a non-negotiable for Microsoft employees in recent months, as it struggles to sell the assistant to other companies.

In May, CEO Mustafa Suleyman said the company was trying to market CoPilot as an emotionally therapeutic confidant to Gen Z and millennial customers, with the agent now able to "sense a user’s comfort boundaries, diagnose issues, and suggest solutions," reported Fortune.

Broadly, professionals have warned about using AI-powered chatbots as a replacement for human therapy and emotional connection. In January, the American Psychological Association sent a letter urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate harmful chatbots that deceptively advertise psychological or mental health support. The use of AI tools by therapists themselves, including agentic AI, recording and transcription tools, and notetakers, has prompted further concerns about digital privacy.

But tech is still courting consumers by building more "emotionally intelligent" agents, including Microsoft's CoPilot. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has called ChatGPT a life adviser for young adults, for example, even as watchdogs have warned about using the tool for therapy.

Apple now has an official Threads account.

The company recently created and verified an account on Meta's social network, though it hasn't really done much with it yet. It's located at https://www.threads.com/@apple, has the company logo as a profile pic and the description "apple" (very imaginative, Apple), but it hasn't posted anything yet.

Apple has an account on Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter), but it doesn't keep any posts there, even though it sometimes uses X to highlight products and events. Currently, the company has 0 displayed posts, even though it has 9.8 million followers.

Seeing Apple on Threads isn't much of a surprise given that Apple maintains an active Instagram account (both Instagram and Threads are owned by Meta, and share the same account verification process). On Instagram, Apple is active, and it uses the account to post photos from its "ShotoniPhone" campaign.

Notably, Apple already has a couple of other accounts on Threads, including Apple News, Apple Music and Apple Books, though they're devoid of content, too. The only Apple-related accounts that are active on Threads that we could find were Shazam and Beats by Dre.

Microsoft is planning to cut thousands of jobs, its biggest round of layoffs in years.

The company confirmed it is going to layoff around 9,000 people — about 4 percent of its workforce — on Wednesday, according to a report from The Seattle Times. While the exact makeup of the layoffs remains unknown, The Verge reported employees in Microsoft's gaming division — folks who work on Xbox — have been hit particularly hard.

Layoffs have become a fact of life at Microsoft lately. These new layoffs follows some 6,000 jobs getting cut less than two months ago. The latest round of layoffs mark the biggest cut, however, since 2023, when the company cut 10,000 jobs.

The job cuts don't mean Microsoft isn't spending — its thrown billions of dollars into AI investments, which, thus far, haven't proven lucrative. The company, meanwhile, said the latest layoffs were aimed at setting the company up for the future.

"We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace," a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC.

Talent poaching doesn't often go viral, but this story has all the right ingredients: Meta, OpenAI, and $100 million signing bonuses.

Meta has been aggressively pursuing AI talent from top labs, mostly OpenAI, in an effort to get a leg up on its competition. The details of the developing story are so dramatic and foreign to the rest of the world that it's become stranger-than-fiction fodder for the internet watching it unfold in real time.

How the Meta poaching frenzy began

In case you haven't been following the saga, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is frustrated with his company's progress in the quest for AI supremacy. Earlier this month, reports surfaced of Zuckerberg personally recruiting talent for a superintelligence group to accelerate Meta's AI research and development efforts. This included snagging Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead the team, which seemed to have stung OpenAI particularly badly, since it has had a longstanding partnership with Scale AI. OpenAI (and Google) reportedly cut ties with Scale AI after the Meta acquihire.

Meta's AI recruitment also included enticing OpenAI researchers with $100 million signing bonuses, according to CEO Sam Altman on a podcast interview with his brother, Jack Altman. Sam didn't seem phased: "I'm really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take [Meta] up on that." Then, Altman and OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap took the offensive during a live show of the New York Times podcast, Hard Fork — the two execs were asked if they think Zuckerberg actually believes in superintelligence or whether he's just saying that as a recruiting tactic, with Lightcap responding, "I think [Zuckerberg] believes he's super intelligent." Days later, the Wall Street Journal would report that Meta had successfully poached three OpenAI staffers from its Zurich office.

It was all jokes for OpenAI, until it wasn't

Up until this point, Zuckerberg and Altman have had a Real Housewives kind of rivalry, or should we say Zuckerberg has a rivalry with Altman, who has publicly regarded the whole thing as kind of a joke. When it was reported that Meta was planning to develop a standalone app to compete with ChatGPT, Altman cheekily responded by posting, "ok fine maybe we'll do a social app." From the outside, it's all very high school.

But that was then. This week, things looked different for OpenAI. On Monday, an internal memo from Zuckerberg reported by Bloomberg revealed the scope of Meta's aggressive recruiting tactics. Based on the memo, Meta has gained 11 hires for his superintelligence team from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, including four employees from OpenAI.

An internal memo from within OpenAI (via Wired) painted a picture of a company in crisis. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen told staffers that the executive team was "working around the clock to talk to those with offers," and trying to retain talent. "[W]e’ve been more proactive than ever before, we’re recalibrating comp, and we’re scoping out creative ways to recognize and reward top talent," added Chen.

The situation is so intense that OpenAI is reportedly giving employees next week off to recharge from the grueling workload and pace, while leadership tries to get things under control.

Meta's aggressive poaching has gripped the AI corner of the internet

While two billionaire CEOs battle for top talent with outrageous financial incentives, the internet is doing its thing.

To put things in perspective, soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo was paid 80 million pounds to sign with Real Madrid in 2009, the largest transfer deal ever at the time. Posters on X compared that amount to Altman's claims of $100 million signing bonuses for his former AI staffers heading to Meta (one of the new Meta employees publicly disputes that number).

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Even if $100 million is an overstatement, the tech industry is looking more and more like the professional sports world to many.

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Others on Twitter are gobsmacked at the very lucrative AI brain race.

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...and the rumors of Zuckerberg's intense and expensive efforts at bringing the brightest AI minds to Menlo Park.

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Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Our car pulled up to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and we hopped out. It was the kind of June day in D.C. that was nice in the shade but hotter than hell without it. The breeze was encouraging, so Laura Marquez-Garrett (LMG) — an attorney who uses they/them pronouns — and I walked around the corner and found a nearby bench. We were waiting outside the FTC as its workshop, “The Attention Economy: How Big Tech Firms Exploit Children and Hurt Families,” took place inside. We had signed up for the workshop but decided at the last minute not to go.

There were many reasons we decided not to attend, the main one being internal documents showing plans for a different FTC workshop pushing anti-transgender rhetoric. This makes it hard to see the FTC as the nonpartisan, consumer protection agency it is supposed to be. Additionally, at the "Attention Economy" workshop, the FTC chose to exclude pro-industry and free market advocates from participation, suggesting that one of our nation's biggest consumer protection mechanisms may be losing sight of its purpose.

Americans don’t like censorship, and this came dangerously close, especially since companies like Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, Google, or Apple were not part of the featured speakers at the Big Tech workshop. Free speech thrives in openness. The danger isn’t when industry or dissenting voices speak publicly — it’s when they operate in the shadows, misleading lawmakers behind closed doors. We need companies to make their case in the public square, where their arguments can be challenged. Not having Big Tech representatives at the workshop only drives their machinations underground, where scrutiny disappears.

As we sat outside the FTC, our conversation turned to the difficulty of pursuing a goal many see as impossible — keeping kids safe online — while working with an administration that often seems to invalidate the existence of trans lives like my own. We talked about the discipline it takes to keep this work bipartisan. That bipartisanship is essential because right now, the only winners in our gridlocked political system are companies like Meta, Apple, and Snap Inc., while parents and children continue to lose.   

This isn’t a new idea. Ralph Nader wrote in Unstoppable about how right-left coalitions can drive real change. Division isn’t just a win for certain technology companies — it’s their strategy. A paralyzed democracy can’t pass meaningful legislation.

Making real change

The most prominent kids' online safety legislation last session was the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would have confirmed a duty of care for social media platforms in its design. In response to the proposed legislation, social media companies claimed it would lead to the censoring and denying of valuable resources to the LGBTQ+ community. Even though the strength of the bill is evident in the bipartisan negotiations that led to its 91-3 passage in the Senate, those vulnerable communities were still afraid. Events like the anti-trans FTC workshop only reinforce those fears.

Inside the FTC’s "Attention Economy" workshop that we skipped, the event focused on “conservative family values” and aggressive partisanship. The Verge’s Lauren Finer wrote, “Republicans are barreling toward remaking the internet” and that the invited lineup might be a “targeted message at the very people who had previously stood in the way of kids' online safety reform: fellow Republicans.”

But Republicans didn’t kill KOSA. Big Tech did.

When KOSA failed to reach a vote in the House of Representatives in September of last year, LMG told Bloomberg it was about “choosing Big Tech money over children.” That same article showed bipartisan frustration with Big Tech lobbyists misleading congressional aides. “The tech companies are doing everything they can to play both sides,” said Jon Schweppe of the conservative American Principles Project.

The war on party lines only hurts kids. Big Tech doesn’t see Democrats or Republicans — just people in power who can help them profit. In Colorado, Democratic Governor Jared Polis, a former tech entrepreneur, vetoed SB25-086, a bill to protect kids from online predators. Big Tech then used gun lobby groups to flip just enough Republicans to block an override.

Big Tech wants us to believe cooperation is dead. But it’s not. The 91-3 Senate vote on KOSA proves that. So do bipartisan efforts from Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal, Josh Hawley and Ed Markey, Lindsey Graham and Amy Klobuchar. Leaders from both sides have come together to challenge Big Tech’s unchecked power. They’ve debated, amended, and compromised — all to pass a bill that could save lives.

We can’t let these companies fracture that fragile progress. The stakes are too high.

Back on the hot day in D.C., Jennie DeSerio and Amy Neville rounded the corner near LMG and I. Jennie and Amy are two parents from opposite sides of the political aisle, united in grief and purpose. Jennie lost her son, Mason, after he was targeted with suicide content on TikTok. Amy lost her son, Alexander, to a counterfeit pill sold on Snapchat. The moms had just come from the FTC workshop we chose not to attend.

Parents like Jennie and Amy, and advocates like LMG and me, are working with unlikely allies to protect kids online. Bipartisanship isn’t dead — but it’s hanging by a thread. If we want to stop kids from dying at the hands of Big Tech, we must all stay focused and disciplined. We must all prioritize child safety by design and not conflate that fundamental issue with ones designed to distract and divide. Everyone who cares about kids deserves a seat at the table.

If we’re asked to show up and do the work to protect all kids online — and do so without harming any of them — we will. The question is whether this administration will use the FTC to hold Big Tech accountable or to target the very people fighting to survive. If it chooses the former, we can make real, lasting change.

Lennon Torres is a Public Voices Fellow on Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse with The OpEd Project. She is an LGBTQ+ advocate who grew up in the public eye, gaining national recognition as a young dancer on television shows. With a deep passion for storytelling, advocacy, and politics, Lennon now works to center the lived experience of herself and others as she crafts her professional career in online child safety at Heat Initiative. This column reflects the author's opinion.

Laura Marquez-Garrett is a parent who also happens to be an attorney.  They graduated from Harvard Law School in 2002, then spent twenty years building a successful litigation practice in Big Law with a specialization in electronic evidence and forensic investigation. In February 2022, Laura left the corner office to join a firm focused solely on issues of Big Tech harms and corporate accountability.  They now contribute in every way possible to the goal of change and holding social media companies accountable for design-based harms to children and families.  This column reflects the author’s opinion.

Not that long ago, major tech companies could be counted on as vocal allies of the LGBTQ community. Household names like Amazon, Google, and Meta made their stances particularly known during Pride Month, during which they'd publish celebratory blog updates or social media posts.

This year, however, some of these companies have muted their support, posting fewer times or not at all.

The shift comes amidst heightened political pressure by the Trump administration on private companies to fully reject diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) language and initiatives. Beyond the tech industry, companies like Anheuser-Busch and Deloitte have scaled back or eliminated their annual support of Pride festivities, according to the New York Times.

In order to gauge how the tech industry is, or isn't, acknowledging the occasion, Mashable reviewed newsroom and social media posts published by Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and TikTok, for June 2024 and the first half of June 2025. We focused on the companies' main accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X.

Mashable also contacted each company to comment on our findings. We invited them to provide additional content that may have appeared on other platforms, including LinkedIn and Threads; share whether more posts may be forthcoming in June; and highlight internal Pride messaging for employees.

While some companies, like Apple, TikTok, and Microsoft, appear so far to have maintained their commitment to publicly recognizing Pride, advocates have noticed the silence from other corporations. (Scroll down to see our findings in detail.)

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Most notably, Amazon and Meta — the latter being the parent company of brands including Facebook and Instagram — have been quiet on Pride during June, so far.

Neither company has acknowledged Pride via their corporate newsrooms. Nor have they done so on their popular Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok social media accounts.

Google, which recognized Pride frequently in 2024 with multiple social media posts, appears to have acknowledged it once as of mid-June. YouTube, which is owned by Google, celebrated Pride last year on June 5 with a newsroom post on the occasion. As of this story's publication, YouTube hadn't published anything. On June 20, the platform posted a lengthy feature highlighting its LGBTQ+ creators community.

Earlier this year, YouTube removed "gender identity and expression" from its hate speech policy, which protects certain groups of people from harassment.

Google declined to respond to Mashable's request for comment about its Pride content.

Standing for "freedom and inclusion"

A spokesperson for GLAAD, a nonprofit organization that monitors media and cultural representation of LGBTQ people and issues, indicated that the pullback on Pride messaging is alarming.

"Tech companies should stand up for inclusive values all year round, but especially during Pride month," a GLAAD spokesperson told Mashable. "They’re missing out on reaching millions of LGBTQ people and our allies when they fail to stand up for the commonly held values of freedom and inclusion."

The spokesperson noted that the lack of engagement around Pride follows discouraging policy decisions that advocates believe put LGBTQ people at greater risk for online harm.

Meta, for example, revised its Hateful Conduct policy earlier this year by dropping rules that protected LGBTQ people. As a result, Facebook, Threads, and and Instagram users are now permitted to call gay people "mentally ill." Meta also removed its LGBTQ Pride themes from Messenger in January.

The changes occurred in advance of President Trump's 2025 inauguration, and in tandem with statements from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the company would favor free speech over enforcing longstanding guidelines meant to create safe online spaces, including for LGBTQ people. A new report from GLAAD found those changes have increased harmful content and harassment.

Whereas Meta previously posted regularly during Pride Month via its corporate newsroom and social media platforms, the company hasn't mentioned the occasion yet. Last year, the company marked the start of Pride Month with a post on June 1 honoring its own employees. "Get ready for a month of love, acceptance, and celebration at Meta!" the post read.

View this post on Instagram

Meta did not respond to Mashable's requests to comment on its approach to Pride this year.

Amazon, which also once reliably posted about Pride Month, has been quiet. In 2024, the company shared a celebratory message on LinkedIn, featuring a carousel of employee images and a supportive message, complete with both Pride and trans flags: "Love who you want to love. Be who you want to be. Here's to equality. Here's to Pride. 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️"

No such messaging has appeared on its social media accounts this year, nor has the company dedicated a newsroom post about Pride since 2023.

When contacted for comment by Mashable, Amazon said that it recognizes cultural moments and celebrations throughout the year, both with employees and publicly, but did not mention Pride specifically. It also reiterated its commitment to building a "diverse and inclusive company," which Amazon cites in a list of "positions" on top issues, like climate change and immigration reform.

"The LGBTQ community will remember"

Importantly, most of these tech companies have scored high on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, a multi-faceted measure of corporate policies and practices that relate to LGBTQ employees and outreach to the LGBTQ community. The index takes into account whether U.S.-based companies have inclusive benefits and adopt nondiscrimination policies, among other factors.

Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft all received perfect 100 scores in the 2025 index, which was based on data collected in 2024. TikTok, which is not a U.S.-based company, did not participate in last year's survey.

RaShawn Hawkins, senior director of HRC's Workplace Equality Program, told Mashable that the index can be a valuable way for consumers to gauge whether a company supports LGBTQ people year-round. But she was also troubled by the fact that some companies are distancing themselves from Pride, and DEI in general.

She attributed their reticence partly to business pressures in light of the Trump administration's executive order forbidding federal contractors from engaging in DEI-related practices, and threatening legal action against companies that engage in "illegal DEI discrimination and preferences." Yet Hawkins also noted that amidst the political chaos and uncertainty, there's been a "lot of self-preservation inside the coalition, in the movement."

Hawkins said that it's important for the queer community to find ways of "knowing who's there for us, and who isn't," adding that corporations may very well face backlash for certain choices.

"Any short-sided or knee-jerk reaction that a business is making right now, the American people will remember, the LGBTQ community will remember," said Hawkins. "Don't expect us to come running, open arms, back into your business when you decide to be with us again."

Mashable will update the following list of Pride content shared by the companies we reviewed should new posts appear before the end of June 2025.

Amazon

In years past, Amazon routinely recognized Pride Month via its corporate newsroom. The last time it did so was in 2023, when it featured series and movies on Prime Video that celebrated "the LGBTQIA+ community."

When contacted for comment by Mashable, Amazon said that it values cultural moments, celebrations, and building a "diverse and inclusive company," but did not address specific questions about Pride content.

Check out Amazon's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X accounts. Though Mashable did not review LinkedIn posts for each tech company, you can find Amazon's account here.

Apple 

On June 1, Apple promoted its regular #ShotoniPhone campaign with a carousel of Instagram images featuring queer creators. The company pinned that post, with a simple prompt of "Celebrate Pride," to the top of its grid. Last year, Apple marked Pride Month with a different installment of #ShotoniPhone that highlighted the work of nine queer photographers.

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Earlier in May of this year, Apple launched its 2025 Pride collection of various products designed with rainbow striping. The newsroom post also noted that the company is "proud to financially support organizations that serve LGBTQ+ communities."

Apple did not respond to Mashable's request for comment.

Check out Apple's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X accounts.

Google

In 2024, Google recognized Pride several times on social media. The company's activity included a pointedly political Doodle of Jeanne Córdova, a Chicana lesbian activist, feminist, and author, as well as Facebook posts highlighting LGBTQ+ voices and storytelling about the Pride flag. A newsroom post published in early June catalogued eight ways to "find Pride" with Google. The Google platform YouTube also featured a series on LGBTQ+ creators.

"Beyond the 30 days of Pride Month, the LGBTQ+ Creators on YouTube inspire, inform and support users all year round," said a 2024 YouTube blog post about the initiative. "We are committed to fostering a space where everyone feels seen, heard, and empowered to be their authentic selves."

While Google has acknowledge Pride this year, its messaging has been noticeably muted compared to last year.

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YouTube waited until June 20, after the publication of this story, to publish a blog post featuring its LGBTQ+ creator community.

A brief Google newsroom writeup offers users ways to "connect" with Pride celebrations, but there aren't multiple social media posts. This year's Doodle, shared on Instagram and elsewhere, honors hyperpop and LGBTQ+ musical artists. As of this story's publication, Google hadn't shared shared any other Pride content on social media or its newsroom. The company declined to provide a response to Mashable's request for comment.

Check out Google's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X accounts.

Meta

As detailed above, Meta's recognition of Pride has shifted significantly. The company has previously noted the occasion in newsroom blog posts, as well as on its social media channels. So far, Meta has been silent.

San Francisco Pride also ended its relationship with the company in advance of its 2025 celebration, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The company didn't respond to Mashable's request for comment.

Check out Meta's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X accounts.

Microsoft

Microsoft has appeared to stay consistent with its Pride messaging this year. In mid-June of 2024, Microsoft shared a celebratory Instagram post to mark the occasion, along with an in-depth newsroom blog post and dedicated Pride storytelling hub.

This year, it again posted to Instagram to honor Pride, and linked back to a splashy campaign called "The Code of Us," which elevates "the voices and experiences of LGBTQIA+ communities." It has since promoted the campaign twice more on Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

A Microsoft spokesperson said these and other social posts, including on Threads and LinkedIn, are part of the company's broader Pride 2025 strategy, and that more social content is planned for June.

Check out Microsoft's TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X accounts.

TikTok

In 2024, TikTok debuted a roundup of "Visionary Voices," which featured "LGBTQIA+ creators who continue to inspire, educate, and make an impact." It also shared Pride content on its Live US account, in addition to cross-posting some of that media on Instagram.

While TikTok did launch a "You Belong Here" campaign to mark Pride 2025, there are no more Visionary Voices. However, it did share Pride content from a number of creators via its TikTokCreators account that has millions of followers, and posted similarly on Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

A spokesperson for TikTok told Mashable that the company takes a year-round approach to supporting LGBTQIA+ creators and employees. Part of that work, the spokesperson said, includes #PrideTikTok community creator programming, and an internal Pride employee resource group that promotes inclusion, allyship, and professional development.

Check out TikTok's TikTok Creators, Instagram, Facebook, and X accounts.

UPDATE: Jun. 24, 2025, 12:44 p.m. PDT This story has been updated to include new Pride content shared by YouTube, a Google-owned platform.

YouTube quietly loosened its video moderation rules a few weeks before Donald Trump was sworn in as president a second time, reports the New York Times.

The new rules encourage the site’s moderators not to remove videos that break YouTube’s code of conduct — which bans nudity, graphic violence, hate speech, and incendiary misinformation — if the videos are considered to be in the public interest. Previously, YouTube would keep up videos it considered in the public interest if only a quarter of its content was considered in violation of its rules; now, half of a video’s content can still break the rules and remain up, according to the Times.

YouTube considers content concerning “elections, ideologies, movements, race, gender, sexuality, abortion, immigration, censorship and other issues” part of the public interest, according to the Times, which viewed the training materials where the change was outlined.

YouTube, owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google, made the change in mid-December by introducing the updated training materials to moderators. Similarly, Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, ended fact-checking on social posts in January, the same month Trump entered the White House. Many Republicans, including Trump, have called for tech giants to minimize or end moderation on their users’ content. X ended fact-checking after Elon Musk bought the social media site in 2022, implementing a crowdsourced Community Notes feature instead. While X and Meta publicly announced they were ending or minimizing moderation, YouTube did not. 

The Times cited several examples of YouTube’s new policy. One included a 43-minute video about Trump’s cabinet appointees that remained up even though it included a slur against a transgender person. Another included a South Korean video that was not taken down even though a commentator discussed an imagined scenario involving a politician being killed by a guillotine. YouTube decided to keep the video up because “execution by guillotine is not feasible.”

When reached for comment, YouTube representatives stated that moderators removed 192,856 videos in the first quarter of 2025, which actually constituted a 22 percent year-over-year increase. Additionally, a YouTube spokesperson directed concerned viewers to visit their Community Guidelines Transparency Report for more details and clarity on the policy change.

"We regularly update our Community Guidelines to adapt to the content we see on YouTube," YouTube spokesperson Nicole Bell said in a statement to Mashable. "As examples, earlier this year, we retired our remaining COVID-19 policies and added new protections related to gambling content. The New York Times article is about a separate aspect of our approach: our long-standing practice of applying exceptions to our policies for content that serves the public interest or has EDSA (educational, documentary, scientific, artistic) context. These exceptions apply to a small fraction of the videos on YouTube, but are vital for ensuring important content remains available. This practice allows us to prevent, for example, an hours-long news podcast from being removed for showing one short clip of violence. We regularly update our guidance for these exceptions to reflect the new types of discussion and content (for example emergence of long, podcast content) that we see on the platform, and the feedback of our global creator community. Our goal remains the same: to protect free expression on YouTube."

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently made headlines for personally calling Texas Governor Greg Abbott to urge a veto of a bill that would require age verification at the App Store level, part of Apple’s second-most profitable revenue stream. Cook's move is emblematic of a broader pattern: Big Tech leaders eager to profit from the distribution of addictive, predatory apps. 

The signing into law of the App Store Accountability Act in Texas — Cook’s appeal didn’t work — comes just under six months after research my colleagues at the Heat Initiative and I worked on was featured in the Wall Street Journal. After our report on the App Store came out, we made sure to track which of the apps’ age ratings changed. One that stood out was Draw Happy Police: Trivia Game, an app that featured reviews saying, “No 4-year-old should have to see or be exposed to a half naked woman or man,” but was rated 4+ as of December 3, 2024. After our report came out, the app was removed from the App Store entirely and reappeared in late January 2025 with a 17+ age rating. Draw Happy Police: Trivia Game also offers in-app purchases, making clear just how much developers and CEOs prioritize profit — they would recommend an inappropriate app to a 4-year-old and allow them to spend their parents' or guardians’ money on it. 

I was recently browsing Apple’s App Store when I came across the app Famefy. Famefy keeps young people glued to their artificial realities by creating an AI-simulated experience of fame, including (phony) fans and livestreams. The app creators boast, “Whether you’re simulating hype or living the life of a virtual celebrity, Famefy offers a realistic fan experience that makes you feel like a true star.” 

Simulated fame and livestreaming engender a certain craving for attention when participating in usually private moments, like applying make-up or picking out an outfit, teaching young people that intimate moments should be shared with anonymous viewers. As a young teenager, I came to crave the rush I would get when going live to my followers, and now with apps like Famefy, more than just young kids with followings are potentially getting hooked. Whether we see it in popular culture, like Cat’s storyline in season 1 of Euphoria, or in the news for something horrific, livestreaming for anyone under 18 years old only exalts voyeurism and the erasure of boundaries among children, a key ingredient to the profit models of many Big Tech companies. 

It is no accident that most teens use social media, and that the design features are created to exploit quick dopamine rushes. Creating the feeling of “addictedness” that most users feel when posting or scrolling their feeds only benefits Big Tech — 82 percent of Gen Z believes they are addicted to social media.   

Famefy also offers in-app purchases for the option to build your “perfect viewer.” When I read about in-app purchases, I immediately went to the age rating because, again, giving agency to young users to purchase anything, let alone the attention of a fake audience, is a predatory money grab of vulnerable users. The developers and Apple know this, which is why I assume they gave Famefy a 4+ age rating. 

The bill that Tim Cook was desperate to stop in Texas will legally require Apple to ensure accurate age ratings of individual apps. I would even advocate for one step further and ask for third-party, independent verification of the age ratings, like we have for video games, movies, and TV shows. With accountability like that, I would assume apps like Famefy will be forced to update their ratings.

Lennon Torres is a Public Voices Fellow on Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse with The OpEd Project. She is an LGBTQ+ advocate who grew up in the public eye, gaining national recognition as a young dancer on television shows. With a deep passion for storytelling, advocacy, and politics, Lennon now works to center the lived experience of herself and others as she crafts her professional career in online child safety at Heat Initiative. This column reflects the author's opinion.

Lanyard-clad attendees with branded tote bags and pink-shirted volunteers flowed through London’s Brick Lane on Monday, marking the launch of the inaugural SXSW London festival.

Taking place over multiple stages and venues in Shoreditch and Hoxton, SXSW London has officially kicked off its first full day of panels, keynotes, demonstrations, movie premieres, and music gigs. It's the first European version of SXSW, branching out from its original event in Austin, Texas.

And luckily, Londoners are no strangers to a queue, with SXSW’s penchant for long lines outside Austin venues replicated in the UK capital.

Playing to the strengths of fellow conferences, the biggest topics of SXSW London are the impact of AI on essentially anything you could think of, the creator economy and online communities, and self-driving tech — I spied a Wayve autonomous vehicle carefully navigating the pedestrian-filled Brick Lane (with a human driver behind the wheel, just in case).

SXSW London kicked off on Monday. Credit: Shannon Connellan / Mashable

London mayor Sadiq Khan officially launched the festival with a speech Monday morning, championing London as "a global centre for AI investment and innovation," emphasising a focus on ethical and accessible AI development, and playing to the audience with a ChatGPT anecdote.

"Given the major theme of this festival is tech and AI, this morning, I did consult ChatGPT about the significance of SXSW coming to our city," Khan said. "They said, and I quote, 'This is a moment of creative synergy, London's spirit meets Austin's swagger.' It then added, 'It's like Big Ben started wearing cowboy boots and launched a podcast.'"

Sir Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, took to the main stage to lead the conversation around AI, and former UK prime minister Tony Blair and current secretary of state Peter Kyle unpacked how government can either ignore or optimize AI (the UK government is launching a new app in collaboration with Anthropic).

Meanwhile, comedian Katherine Ryan and Nuchido's Dr. Nichola Conlon appeared on a panel about biohacking and their new podcast What's My Age Again? and Twitch CEO Dan Clancy unpacked why authentic online community building takes time. Plus, Deepak Chopra guided the SXSW audience through a meditation after providing the formula for consciousness, and long lines of attendees stretched outside venue Rich Mix as TikTok star Munya Chawawa drew crowds for his talk “TikTok to Tolstoy” which unpacked longer-form content on social media.

Upcoming panelists and speakers include Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, Wyclef Jean, Regina King, Letitia Wright, Tiwa Savage, Keily Blair, Tina Brown, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Sophie Turner, Stewart Copeland, Mati Staniszewski, Ben Lamm and more. The SXSW London film program, to be held at the Barbican, will feature the world premieres of the Eminem-produced documentary Stans, Olivia Cappuccini's intimate documentary Love & Rage: Munroe Bergdorf, and Tom Kingsley's comedy Deep Cover, as well as the UK premiere of The Life of Chuck. Plus, the music program is being headlined by Mabel, Tems, NAO, Alice Glass, Lila Ike, Sasha Keable, Idris Elba, and more.

SXSW London runs from June 2 to 6 across venues in London. Mashable is on the ground reporting, so we’ll have more where this came from.

According to new internal documents review by NPR, Meta is allegedly planning to replace human risk assessors with AI, as the company edges closer to complete automation.

Historically, Meta has relied on human analysts to evaluate the potential harms posed by new technologies across its platforms, including updates to the algorithm and safety features, part of a process known as privacy and integrity reviews.

But in the near future, these essential assessments may be taken over by bots, as the company looks to automate 90 percent of this work using artificial intelligence.

Despite previously stating that AI would only be used to assess "low-risk" releases, Meta is now rolling out use of the tech in decisions on AI safety, youth risk, and integrity, which includes misinformation and violent content moderation, reported NPR. Under the new system, product teams submit questionnaires and receive instant risk decisions and recommendations, with engineers taking on greater decision-making powers.

While the automation may speed up app updates and developer releases in line with Meta's efficiency goals, insiders say it may also pose a greater risk to billions of users, including unnecessary threats to data privacy.

In April, Meta's oversight board published a series of decisions that simultaneously validated the company's stance on allowing "controversial" speech and rebuked the tech giant for its content moderation policies.

"As these changes are being rolled out globally, the Board emphasizes it is now essential that Meta identifies and addresses adverse impacts on human rights that may result from them," the decision reads. "This should include assessing whether reducing its reliance on automated detection of policy violations could have uneven consequences globally, especially in countries experiencing current or recent crises, such as armed conflicts."

Earlier that month, Meta shuttered its human fact-checking program, replacing it with crowd-sourced Community Notes and relying more heavily on its content-moderating algorithm — internal tech that is known to miss and incorrectly flag misinformation and other posts that violate the company's recently overhauled content policies.

UPDATE: May. 29, 2025, 5:23 p.m. EDT A federal appeals court granted The White House's request to temporarily pause a trade court's ruling that blocked President Trump's tariffs. The Trump administration is now expected to seek “emergency relief” with the Supreme Court. You can read our original report on this developing story below.

In a surprising ruling on Wednesday, May 28, the U.S. Court of International Trade blocked President Donald Trump from imposing most of his tariffs, bringing yet more uncertainty to the global economic order.

President Trump's tariffs have upended international trade, and the at-times slapdash rollout of his "Liberation Day" tariffs has led to price increases, dramatic political fights, and high-stakes negotiations with both trading partners and foes.

Now, a three-judge panel at the federal trade court has ruled that the president exceeded his authority in imposing tariffs under emergency powers. The U.S. Constitution explicitly gives Congress the authority to regulate tariffs, but the Trump administration has appropriated this power, claiming the loss of manufacturing jobs, fentanyl trafficking, and trade deficits constitute a national emergency.

The court examined whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) grants the president the "authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world." In the ruling, the judges set aside many of Trump's tariffs, his signature economic policy. The New York Times reports that no president has ever tried to impose tariffs under the IEEPA until now.

The ruling notes that the president "has declared several national emergencies and imposed various tariffs in response," as well as issuing a "number of pauses and modifications." In an often-blunt ruling, the judges found that giving the president unlimited powers to impose tariffs is unconstitutional, and that Congress may not permanently delegate these powers to the executive branch. Thus, they ruled that the "IEEPA does not authorize any of the Worldwide, Retaliatory, or Trafficking Tariff Orders."

The case was brought by dozens of states that have paid import duties since the tariffs went into effect.

The three judge panel includes a judge appointed by President Trump himself, as well as judges appointed by Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, according to the Associated Press.

So, what happens next?

Since taking office just 129 days ago, President Trump has repeatedly been blocked by federal judges from exercising novel presidential powers. The latest setback deals a potentially lethal blow to the Liberation Day tariffs. The White House has 10 days to comply with the ruling, per The New York Times.

However, that doesn't mean the Trump tariffs are dead just yet. Future tariffs, such as the recently threatened smartphone tariffs on iPhones, could be put into effect by Congress. The White House is also certain to challenge this ruling with the Supreme Court, which has already reversed several federal court rulings that blocked the president's executive orders and other actions.

President Trump appointed three of the conservative judges that make up the majority block on the Supreme Court, but those same judges have sometimes frustrated the president by ruling against his wishes.

Republicans in Congress are also extremely loyal to the president. They could put the Trump tariffs back into place under their own authority, in effect becoming a rubber stamp for the Trump administration.

"It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency," said White House spokesman Kush Desai in a statement reported by Axios. "President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness."

Federal lawmakers in the Senate are poised to take up the One Big Beautiful Bill Act next week, but a new poll suggests that one of its controversial provisions is clearly unpopular with voters on both sides of the aisle.

That measure would ban states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade. Proponents say that U.S. tech companies won't be able to succeed on the global stage if they're restrained by a patchwork of state laws that address concerns over artificial intelligence, like deepfakes, fraud, and youth safety.

But critics argue that a lengthy blanket ban would harm consumers, especially given that Congress has no plan to pass a bill with protections.

The new poll asked 1,022 registered voters across the country about their opinion on a state regulatory moratorium, and the results show that American voters largely oppose it.

The survey was conducted in mid-May by the research firm Echelon Insights, on behalf of Common Sense Media. The nonpartisan organization supports children and parents as they navigate media and technology, in addition to advocating for related safety and privacy legislation.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents opposed the measure. Half of Republican participants opposed it as well, significantly more than the 31 percent of Republicans who supported it.

The vast majority of respondents, regardless of their political affiliation, agreed that Congress shouldn't ban states from enacting or enforcing their own youth online safety and privacy laws.

Additionally, 53 percent said they trusted state and local leaders more than Congressional politicians, when it came to regulating AI appropriately. Only 15 percent preferred politicians and regulators in Washington, D.C. The rest of the participants were unsure who they trusted more.

"The numbers are clear," said Echelon Insights partner and co-founder Kristen Soltis Anderson in a statement about the poll. "Voters are concerned about the potential dangers AI-generated content can pose to kids and teens, and say they don't want the federal government to tell states what they can and can't do about the issue."

Last week, Common Sense Media joined a coalition of advocacy organizations, including Fairplay and the Center For Humane Technology, in an appeal to congressional leadership to drop the AI moratorium from the GOP-led budget.

"By wiping out all existing and future state AI laws without putting new federal protections in place, AI companies would get exactly what they want: no rules, no accountability, and total control," the coalition wrote in an open letter.

Common Sense Media has also backed two bills in California that would place guardrails on AI companion platforms, which advocates say are currently not safe for teens.

One of the bills specifically outlaws high-risk uses of AI, including "anthropomorphic chatbots that offer companionship" to children and will likely lead to emotional attachment or manipulation.

In general, survey respondents overwhelmingly indicated that they're concerned about youth safety and AI. More than 90 percent of participants said they worry about kids being exposed to highly sexualized AI-generated content online.

Buried in the Republican budget bill is a proposal that will radically change how artificial intelligence develops in the U.S., according to both its supporters and critics. The provision would ban states from regulating AI for the next decade.

Opponents say the moratorium is so broadly written that states wouldn't be able to enact protections for consumers affected by harmful applications of AI, like discriminatory employment tools, deepfakes, and addictive chatbots.

Instead, consumers would have to wait for Congress to pass its own federal legislation to address those concerns. Currently it has no draft of such a bill. If Congress fails to act, consumers will have little recourse until the end of the decade-long ban, unless they decide to sue companies responsible for alleged harms.

Proponents of the proposal, which include the Chamber of Commerce, say that it will ensure America's global dominance in AI by freeing small and large companies from what they describe as a burdensome patchwork of state-by-state regulations.

But many say the provision's scope, scale, and timeline is without precedent — and a big gift to tech companies, including ones that donated to President Donald Trump.

This week, a coalition of 77 advocacy organizations, including Common Sense Media, Fairplay, and the Center For Humane Technology, called on congressional leadership to jettison the provision from the GOP-led budget.

"By wiping out all existing and future state AI laws without putting new federal protections in place, AI companies would get exactly what they want: no rules, no accountability, and total control," the coalition wrote in an open letter.

Some states already have AI-related laws on the books. In Tennessee, for example, a state law known as the ELVIS Act was written to prevent the impersonation of a musician's voice using AI. Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who represents Tennessee in Congress, recently hailed the act's protections and said a moratorium on regulation can't come before a federal bill.

Other states have drafted legislation to address specific emerging concerns, particularly related to youth safety. California has two bills that would place guardrails on AI companion platforms, which advocates say are currently not safe for teens.

One of the bills specifically outlaws high-risk uses of AI, including "anthropomorphic chatbots that offer companionship" to children and will likely lead to emotional attachment or manipulation.

Camille Carlton, policy director at the Center for Humane Technology, says that while remaining competitive amidst greater regulation may be a valid concern for smaller AI companies, states are not proposing or passing expansive restrictions that would fundamentally hinder them. Nor are they targeting companies' ability to innovate in areas that would make America truly world-leading, like in health care, security, and the sciences. Instead, they are focused on key areas of safety, like fraud and privacy. They're also tailoring bills to cover larger companies or offering tiered responsibilities appropriate to a company's size.

Historically, tech companies have lobbied against certain state regulations, arguing that federal legislation would be preferable, Carlton says. But then they lobby Congress to water down or kill their own regulatory bills too, she notes.

Arguably, that's why Congress hasn't passed any major encompassing consumer protections related to digital technology in the decades since the internet became ascendant, Carlton says. She adds that consumers may see the same pattern play out with AI, too.

Some experts are particularly worried that a hands-off approach to regulating AI will only repeat what happened when social media companies first operated without much interference. They say that came at the cost of youth mental health.

Gaia Bernstein, a tech policy expert and professor at the Seton Hall University School of Law, says that states have increasingly been at the forefront of regulating social media and tech companies, particularly with regard to data privacy and youth safety. Now they're doing the same for AI.

Bernstein says that in order to protect kids from excessive screen time and other online harms, states also need to regulate AI, because of how frequently the technology is used in algorithms. Presumably, the moratorium would prohibit states from doing so.

"Most protections are coming from the states. Congress has largely been unable to do anything," Bernstein says. "If you're saying that states cannot do anything, then it's very alarming, because where are any protections going to come from?"

On May 19, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump beamed to press and allies as they signed the administration's first major piece of tech regulation, the bipartisan Take It Down Act.

It was seen as a win for those who have long been calling on the criminalization of NDII, or the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images, and a federal pathway of redress for victims. Cliff Steinhauer, director of information security and engagement at the National Cybersecurity Alliance, explained it may be a needed kick in the pants to a lethargic legislative arena.

"I think it's good that they're going to force social media companies to have a process in place to remove content that people ask to be removed," he said. "This is kind of a start; to build the infrastructure to be able to respond to this type of request, and it's a really thin slice of what the issues with AI are going to be."

But other digital rights groups say the legislation may stir false hope for swift legal resolutions among victims, with unclear vetting procedures and an overly broad list of applicable content. The law's implementation is just as murky.

The act's notice and takedown provision could pose major problems 

"The Take It Down Act’s removal provision has been presented as a virtual guarantee to victims that nonconsensual intimate visual depictions of them will be removed from websites and online services within 48 hours," said the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) in a statement. "But given the lack of any safeguards against false reports, the arbitrarily selective definition of covered platforms, and the broad enforcement discretion given to the FTC with no avenue for individual redress and vindication, this is an unrealistic promise." 

Exacerbating free speech and content moderation concerns

These same digital rights activists, who had issued warnings throughout the bill's congressional journey, will also be keeping a close eye on how the act may affect constitutionally protected speech, with the fear that publishers may remove legal speech to preempt criminal repercussions (or flatly suppress free speech, such as consensual LGBTQ pornography). Some worry that the bill's takedown system, modeled after the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), may over-inflate the power of the Federal Trade Commission, which now has the power to hold online content publishers accountable to the law with unlimited jurisdiction. 

"Now that the Take It Down Act has passed, imperfect as it is, the Federal Trade Commission and platforms need to both meet the bill’s best intentions for victims while also respecting the privacy and free expression rights of all users," said Becca Branum, deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)'s Free Expression Project. "The constitutional flaws in the Take It Down Act do not alleviate the FTC's obligations under the First Amendment."

A lack of government infrastructure

Organizations like the CCRI and the CDT had spent months lobbying legislatures to adjust the act's enforcement provisions. The CCRI, which penned the bill framework that Take It Down is based on, has taken issue with the legislation's exceptions for images posted by someone that appears in them, for example. They also fear the removal process may be rife for abuse, including false reports made by disgruntled individuals or politically-motivated groups under an overly broad scope for takedowns. 

The CDT, conversely, interprets the law's AI-specific provisions as too specific. "Take It Down’s criminal prohibition and the takedown system focus only on AI generated images that would cause a 'reasonable person [to] believe the individual is actually depicted in the intimate visual depiction.' In doing so, the Take It Down Act is unduly narrow, missing several instances where perpetrators could harm victims," the organization argues. For example, a defendant could reasonably get around the law by publishing synthetic likenesses placed in implausible or fantastical environments. 

Just as confusing is that while the FTC's takedown authority for applicable publishers is vast, its oversight is exempt for others, such as sites that don't host user-generated synthetic content, but rather their own, curated content. Instead of being forced to take down media under the 48-hour stipulation, these sites can only be pursued in a criminal case. "Law enforcement, however, has historically neglected crimes disproportionately perpetrated against women and may not have the capacity to prosecute all such operators," the CDT warns. 

Steinhauer theorizes that the bill may face a general infrastructure problem in its early enforcement. For example, publishers may find it difficult to corroborate that the individuals filing claims are actually depicted in the NDII within the 48 hour period, unless they beef up their own oversight investments — most social media platforms have scaled back their moderation processes in recent years. Automatic moderation tools could help, but they're known to have their own set of issues. 

No cohesion on AI regulation

There's also the question of how publishers will spot and prove that images and videos are synthetically generated, specifically, a problem that's plagued the industry as generative AI has grown. "The Take It Down Act effectively increases the liability for content publishers, and now the onus is on them to be able to prove that the content they’re publishing is not a deepfake," Manny Ahmed, founder and CEO of content provenance company OpenOrigins. "One of the issues with synthetic media and having provable deniability is that detection doesn’t work anymore. Running a deepfake detector post hoc doesn’t give you a lot of confidence because these detectors can be faked or fooled pretty easily and existing media pipelines don't have any audit trail functionality built into them.”

It's easy to follow the logic of such a strong takedown tool being used as a weapon of censorship and surveillance, especially under an administration that is already doing plenty to sow distrust among its citizens and wage war on ideological grounds.

Steinhauer still urges an open mind. "This is going to open a door to those other conversations and hopefully reasonable regulation that is a compromise for everyone," he said. "There's no world we should live in where somebody can fake a sexual video of someone and not be held accountable. We have to find a balance between protecting people, and protecting people's rights."

The future of broader AI regulation remains in question, however. Through Trump championed and signed the Take It Down Act, he and congressional Republicans also pushed to include a 10-year ban on state- and local-level AI regulation in their touted One Big Beautiful Bill. 

And even with the president's signature, the future of the law is uncertain, with rights organizations predicting that the legislation may be contested in court on free speech grounds. "There's plenty of non pornographic or sexual material that could be created with your likeness, and right now there's no law against it," added Steinhauer. Regardless of whether Take It Down remains or gets the boot, the issue of AI regulation is far from settled.

President Donald Trump has escalated his standoff with Apple CEO Tim Cook, threatening to impose a 25 percent tariff on Apple as a company.

Trump has already made it clear that he doesn't want Apple making iPhones in China or India. In a Truth Social post on Friday, he had a clear message for Cook: Move manufacturing to the United States, or else.

"I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else," the president posted. "If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S."

Trump's massive China tariffs jeopardized U.S. tech companies, including Apple, which has historically made the majority of its devices in China. But the company was already shifting iPhone manufacturing to India and reportedly plans to produce all U.S.-bound iPhones in India by 2026.

Last week, the president said he expressed his unhappiness to Cook personally. "I said, 'Tim look, we treated you really good, we put up with all the plants that you build in China for years, now you got build us,'" Trump told the press, as reported by CNBC. "'We’re not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves ... we want you to build here.'"

And now, it looks like Trump is prepared to penalize Apple directly if Cook doesn't comply. That said, building iPhones in the U.S. would likely be extraordinarily expensive and burdensome for the tech giant — and more expensive for Apple customers. It's difficult to say exactly how much a made in America iPhone would cost, but Mashable's Stan Schroeder looked into it and reported it would cost shoppers around $3,000 per iPhone at best and six figures at worse. Some analysts doubt it's even possible, given how long it would take to get labor, supply, and infrastructure off the ground, costing Apple billions in the process.

In February, Apple announced that it would spend $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, which includes building a new factory in Texas and expanding training and facilities for workers. But that doesn't seem to be enough for Trump.

If the AI lovefest of Google I/O 2025 were a TV show, you might be tempted to call it It's Always Sunny in Mountain View. (It's not, by the way, especially in the fog-filled month of May, even if the company's confidence in booking an outdoor amphitheater suggests otherwise).

But here's a better sitcom analogy for the event that added AI Mode to all U.S. search results, whether we want it or not. It's The Good Place, in which our late heroes are repeatedly assured that they've gone to a better world. A place where everything is fine, all is as it seems, and search quality just keeps getting better.

Don't worry about ever-present and increasing AI hallucinations here in the Good Place, where the word "hallucination" isn't even used. Forget about the one live demo (among a dozen prerecorded ones) that went spectacularly wrong, where two presenters failed to translate each others' words via their Google AI glasses. Responsible AI, the focus of Google I/O 2023, went unmentioned.

Skyrocketing AI data center usage contributing to global warming? In the Good Place, Google AI is fighting global warming by helping to pinpoint wildfires. Don't think too hard about that one.

And as for that whole Hollywood strike that lasted nearly a year, largely over creatives' concerns about studios using AI? Fuggedaboutit. Creative folk love AI in the Good Place — just listen to the testimonials from the filmmakers and musicians Google has cherry-picked!

Is Google search the Bad Place?

Meanwhile, SEO experts warn, search results continue to get worse with AI Mode-style overviews. According to internal memos obtained in the ongoing Department of Justice lawsuit, which the DOJ just won, Google has a perverse incentive to make them that way.

"If users don't get what they want the first time, they have to search again," says Lily Ray, VP of SEO Strategy at Amsive, and the author of a recent viral LinkedIn post, Google AI Overviews Have a Major Spam Problem. "So if you're serving them multiple AI overviews because they have to search multiple times, Google can then say 'we have more people using AI every day.' It's like, 'yeah, but there's no way to turn it off.'"

Or to put it in the plot-pivoting words of The Good Place's Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell): "Wait a minute. This is the Bad Place!"

Google has a roughly 90 percent share of the search market, after all; it can afford to make the product worse by using AI so long as investors keep juicing the stocks of AI-heavy companies. It can pretend to look like the Good Place for search, while under the hood it's anything but.

Like Eleanor Shellstrop, however, users know what's up. Google search results have "kind of become the laughingstock of the Internet," Ray says. "Whenever Google communicates about AI Overviews, they say 'our users really love it.' But then when you read Google Forum, it's always like 'how do I turn this thing off, I want Google search back.'" (Even turning AI search off, according to one Google Forum user, doesn't turn it off.)

As in The Good Place, this awareness may not do a lick of good. If investors continue to reward Google for frothy presentations filled with cool-sounding AI features, there's no incentive for quality control. As often appears to be the case in 2025, we have to get used to living in separate realities.

So users may breathe a little easier knowing that Google stock fell by 1.5 percent in the aftermath of I/O (and is down 12 percent in 2025 as a whole). Is that enough to nudge the company to pay attention?

It would take Google I/O levels of Pollyanna optimism to think so. Instead, let's draw our attention to a Good Place fact you won't find easily in AI Mode. It took demon Michael (Ted Danson) 300 years to stop resetting Eleanor's memories every time she realized she was in the Bad Place.

So, only a few hundred years to go before Google is working for us again. Everything is fine.

Apple is building most of its devices in China. The company has been doing so for decades due to cheaper labor costs, supply chain infrastructure, and manufacturing expertise that's unmatched in any other country in the world. When the Trump administration recently imposed massive tariffs on China, Apple's reaction was to shift some of the production to India — a process that was already underway when the tariffs happened.

But Donald Trump is having none of that. Speaking to the media on Thursday, the U.S. president expressed his dissatisfaction with Apple's decision to move iPhone production to India.

"I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday. I said to him, 'You're my friend, I've treated you very good. You’re coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India,'" Trump said.

Read it in Trump's voice for added effect: "I said to Tim, I said, 'Tim look, we've treated you really good, we put up with all the plants that you built in China for years, now you got build us. We’re not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves (...) we want you to build here,'" Trump said.

With an offer like that, how can Cook refuse? Well, he'll probably have to, given that it's impractical, extremely expensive, and currently near-impossible to build the iPhone in the U.S. at the volumes that Apple requires.

Trump did say that Apple will be upping its production in the U.S., but offered no details.

Apple has previously said it would invest $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, which includes a new factory in Houston, Texas, where it will manufacture servers.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is currently serving 11 years in prison for defrauding investors with her scam-laden blood testing start-up. Her partner, with whom she shares two children, is currently trying to raise $50 million for a blood testing start-up.

Despite the internet's initial response that it must be satire or fake...nope. This story is very real and reported in the Tony pages of the New York Times. Billy Evans' company is called Haemanthus — a flower also known as the blood lily — and bills itself as “the future of diagnostics” with “a radically new approach to health testing,” the Times reported. That sounds, well, pretty much exactly like Theranos.

You might wonder why Evans, described by the Times as an heir to a hotel fortune, wants to get into blood-testing of all businesses. And frankly, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe because technically it's the family business?

Citing unnamed sources, NPR reported Evans has "raised millions" so far, but mostly "among friends, family and other supporters." The company reportedly plans to begin testing pets for diseases before moving on to people.

The internet simply couldn't believe this whole story was real. One user on Bluesky poking fun at the headline had to clarify that no, the story was neither AI nor a joke.

The internet, naturally, also had lots of jokes about Evans' start-up.

In a time full of weird, unbelievable headlines, it's really remarkable that the news can still be surprising.

Google will pay Texas $1.4 billion to settle a pair of lawsuits alleging that the company violated people's privacy rights.

The lawsuit alleged that Google collected users' biometrics without express consent and tracked their locations even if the feature was disable.

“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law. For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement this week. “This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust. I will always protect Texans by stopping Big Tech’s attempts to make a profit by selling away our rights and freedoms.”

The suit involved allegations that Google misused location history in Maps and data in Photos. Texas alleged, for instance, that Google used features in Photos to scan faces. The company told Engadget that Photos scanned faces for organizing purposes only. Google denied wrongdoing as it agreed to the settlement.

“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” Google spokesman Jose Castaneda told CNBC. “We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”

OpenAI is buying AI startup Windsurf for the tidy sum of $3 billion.

This is according to a Bloomberg report Tuesday, which claims that the two companies have reached an agreement but that the deal "has not yet closed," with Bloomberg citing people familiar with the matter. If accurate, this would be OpenAI's largest acquisition to date.

Windsurf is an artificial intelligence app that focuses on coding. Formerly known as Codeium, Windsurf is self-described as "the future of software development."

Notably, the news arrived just a day after the OpenAI — the $300 billion company, that is — announced it would remain under control of OpenAI, the nonprofit.

Perhaps even more notably, OpenAI's reported acquisition of Windsurf comes just after Anysphere, which makes the AI coding tool Cursor, reportedly raised $900 million, at a valuation of $9 billion.

What does this mean for ChatGPT?

OpenAI's signature AI chatbot ChatGPT is already a useful tool for coding in its own right. The Pro version offers a few features aimed specifically for developers, including a code interpreter and a live editing, collaborative coding tool called Canvas.

The competition, however, is strong. Anthropic, which makes AI assistant Claude, Microsoft, which owns Github, as well as Anysphere's Cursor, all offer a few of their own AI tools or features that aid programmers.

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Windsurf, in particular, offers Cascade, a chat-based tool that monitors your project's progress, offers suggestions, and detects issues with your code. The company also offers Windsurf Previews, which can run a preview of a website you're building, allowing you to make changes on the fly.

Given that OpenAI and Windsurf declined to comment on Bloomberg's story, it's too early to tell how OpenAI plans to integrate Windsurf's capabilities, should the deal go through. We wouldn't be too surprised if tools such as Cascade and Previews make way into ChatGPT in the future, though.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Despite all the uncertainties in the global market and an ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China (and everyone else, to a lesser degree), Apple just booked another solid quarter, and it doesn't seem too phased about the future.

The company's quarterly revenue was 95.4 billion, up 5 percent year-over-year, with a $24.78 billion net income, a 4.6 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

The company's next quarter will be a tricky one, given that the Trump's administration levied high tariffs on China, where Apple produces most of its iPhones. But it seems that the company is well positioned to weather any negative impacts from tariffs.

Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that the company is sourcing "about half" of the iPhones that it sells in the U.S. from India. As far as other U.S.-bound products go, including Macs, iPads and AirPods, and the Apple Watch, Cook says that for "almost all" of them the country of origin is Vietnam.

Of course, this doesn't mean Apple doesn't need to worry about tariffs at all. The U.S. also recently levied tariffs on Vietnam and India, and Cook said that Apple still produces the "vast majority" of its products bound for countries other than the U.S. in China. All in all, Apple expects tariffs to add $900 million in costs for the current quarter, though Cook said these costs are "very difficult" to predict.

Cook's statement is interesting given the Financial Times' recent report that Apple plans to manufacture all of its U.S.-bound iPhones in India by the end of 2026. It appears that the company is well on its way to achieving that goal.

With pressure mounting from parents and lawmakers over social media age verification, a legal showdown between tech giants is beginning to take shape in Washington.

The showdown centers on a seemingly simple question, but one with huge implications for the future of the web: Who is responsible for age verification?

As Emily Birnbaum reports for Bloomberg, a new lobbying group for this issue — backed by industry heavyweights like Meta, Spotify, and Match Group (parent company of Tinder and Hinge) — has launched in Washington, D.C.

The lobbying group argues that since Apple and Google control the app stores, they should verify user ages before downloads occur. Unsurprisingly, Apple and Google disagree, arguing that because apps collect and handle user data, the obligation falls squarely on developers.

For parents, this brewing fight could reshape who’s responsible for protecting kids online — besides parents, of course.

The new lobbying group taking on Apple and Google

The group, called the Coalition for a Competitive Mobile Experience, is led by antitrust lawyer Brandon Kressin, who has previously worked with Match Group. It’s the latest move by app makers to counter Apple and Google, aiming to shift the legal burden of age verification from app developers to the app stores themselves. The coalition plans to advocate for state and federal legislation to cement that responsibility in law.

Age verification laws are still a legal gray zone in the U.S., but they’re starting to take shape. As of now, 18 states have passed legislation requiring pornography sites to verify users’ ages. In response, some platforms, like Pornhub, have opted to block access entirely in those states rather than tackle the logistical and data-sensitve headaches of complying.

Beyond lobbying for new policies, the coalition has also pledged to support any antitrust actions brought against Apple and Google. As Bloomberg notes, grievances have simmered for years over the belief that app stores unfairly discriminate against software, apps, and hardware makers.

Age verification efforts are picking up steam

If the new Coalition succeeds, age checks would shift from individual apps to Apple and Google themselves — potentially streamlining verification, but also raising new questions about data privacy, free speech, and general practicality.

Age verification laws would also impact companies like OpenAI. While OpenAI requires underage users to seek their parents' consent before using the AI chatbot, in practice, it's an honor system. Social media companies face similar challenges, and increasingly, parents and lawmakers are joining forces to restrict minors' access to social media.

In March, Utah became the first state to pass a law requiring app stores to verify ages. For users over 18, the law requires app stores to verify age with government-issued IDs, or access is denied altogether.

North Carolina has also filed a similar bill targeting users under the age of 16. However, the legislation stops short of specifying who is responsible for implementing a “commercially reasonable method” to anonymously verify users’ ages.

And according to Bloomberg, lawmakers in the House and Senate are preparing to introduce legislation similar to Utah’s in the coming months.

After 45 grieving families, youth advocates, and child safety experts brought 600 roses and a petition with over 10,000 signatures demanding stronger protections for kids on Meta platforms, security swept the flowers away — a reminder of how Meta continues to sweep away our stories.

I was a teenager when naked images of me were shared on Facebook without my consent. The sexual harassment that followed was relentless — threats, slurs, and dehumanizing language filled my inbox. I reported the abuse to the platforms, but the responses, if any, reinforced that these tech giants do not prioritize their users, especially children.  

Online abuse doesn't stay online. It follows users into every classroom, therapy session, and nightmare. I graduated high school with anxiety, suicidal ideation, and a profound sense of isolation. I survived. But what about the kids who did not survive? Mason Edens, Selena Rodriguez, Riley Rodee are just a few of many children who died by suicide after experiencing abuse and promotion of self-harm online.  

That's why the recent decision by Meta’s Oversight Board to not remove two anti-trans videos cuts deep. The videos show a transgender woman confronted for using a women’s bathroom and a transgender athlete winning a track race, and include the misgendering, demeaning, and endangering of trans people. By allowing two anti-trans videos to stay online, the Board hasn’t just failed its responsibility to users but sanctioned similar violence I once begged Meta to stop. And this time, the target is the trans community. 

This isn't about algorithms or content policy. This is about life. And Meta just made a choice: platform hate over people. They chose wrong. 

Videos like these strip trans people of dignity, spread dangerous misinformation, and fuel the kind of hate that has real, violent consequences. And yet the Board calls it "free expression."

Even more disturbing is the contradiction buried in their decision — the same videos were taken down when posted by Meta itself, but allowed to remain when posted by "others." In other words, Meta admits this content violates its own values, just not when someone else uploads it. That's not moderation. That’s cowardice. 

This isn't a debate. Trans existence is not up for discussion. Whether or not you discuss trans and nonbinary people, we will continue to exist, and we deserve safety. Treating this rhetoric as just another side of a political argument legitimizes hate, and Meta knows it. They’ve chosen to look away — again. 

What happened to me wasn't an isolated incident. It's happening every day to young people everywhere, especially queer, trans, and nonbinary youth. LGBTQ+ youth are three times more likely to experience unwanted or unsafe interactions online, and still, the platforms that promise connection keep delivering cruelty.

When I was violated online, I thought I was the exception. But I've since met survivors whose stories echo mine like a scream through a tunnel. Some had their images stolen and circulated. Some lost their children to sextortion-induced suicide. Some were AI-manipulated into oblivion. Some received death threats after coming out. 

That's what makes the Oversight Board's ruling so dangerous. It isn't just that Meta is allowing anti-trans hate — it's that they are doing so after years failing to moderate transphobia. The patterns are there. The reports are there. The trauma is there. They've just chosen not to act on it.

Hate doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it spreads when given a platform. And when it's legitimized by one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, it grows teeth. I've felt them. 

In January 2025, Meta made a quiet but devastating shift. They gutted their human content moderation teams, leaned harder on flawed AI systems, and shut down partnerships with fact-checkers and safety experts. It wasn’t a glitch. It was a strategy: reduce liability, cut costs, and call it innovation. But what Meta calls "efficiency" comes at the expense of safety. Of truth. Of lives.

The Oversight Board's ruling isn’t a one-off failure — it's the natural result of Meta’s retreat from responsibility. They’re not just enabling harm; they're designing systems that scale it.

I've seen what happens when platforms walk away from protecting people. I've lived inside the wreckage. I can tell you this: Meta's current trajectory isn't just unethical. It's lethal. That's why we're not asking. We're demanding.

We demand that Meta reinstate robust human content moderation — especially for hate speech, CSAM, and targeted harassment. We demand immediate removal of anti-trans hate and clear consequences for those who spread it. We demand transparency, accountability, and a CEO willing to face the damage his platforms have caused. 

I survived what Meta allowed to happen to me. But I carry the scars in my nervous system, in my relationships, in the way I move through the world. And I know there are others — kids just like I was — logging in today, not knowing what’s coming for them.

That's why I'm writing this. Not just as a survivor, but as a witness. To say: this is not abstract. This is not academic. This is blood, bone, and breath. If Meta won't protect us, we'll protect each other. If they won’t listen, we'll make them hear us. I made it out. But no one else should have to survive what I did just to grow up online. 

Leah Juliett (they/them/theirs) is a poet, community organizer, and activist for queer futures and against Big Tech. They live in Connecticut. This column reflects the opinion of the writer.

Students won't be using Pinterest during class — or, at least, they will be heavily discouraged from doing so.

The social media app is experimenting with a prompt that will encourage American and Canadian users between the ages of 13 (the minimum age for account holders) and 17 to close the app and pause notifications during typical school hours (Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.). Pinterest confirmed in an email to Mashable that the prompt will reach "millions" of school-age users, and the wide-scale experiment is intended to better inform the app's teams. This comes after Pinterest CEO Bill Ready announced his support for the Kids Online Safety Act and phone-free school policies in the Washington Post.

"Focus is a beautiful thing," the prompt says, according to the Verge. "Stay in the moment by putting Pinterest down and pausing notifs [sic] until the school bell rings."

Pinterest also announced on Tuesday a partnership with the International Society for Technology in Education to develop digital citizenship and well-being action plans through newly established Digital Innovation Wellbeing Task Forces.

"At Pinterest, we believe that schools can take advantage of all that technology has to offer students, while minimizing the harms and distractions," Wanji Walcott, Pinterest’s chief legal and business affairs officer, told the Verge. "Tech companies need to work together with teachers, parents, and policymakers to build solutions that ensure in the hands of our students, smartphones are tools, not distractions."

Bluesky is introducing new ways to recognize genuine, verified accounts on the social media platform.

According to an official update on Bluesky's blog, certain accounts will now get a blue checkmark next to their names.

Bluesky will also let "select independent organizations" verify accounts of their employees directly, with one example being the New York Times which can now issue blue ticks to its journalists.

Users will be able to see which organization granted the mark to a user by tapping on a verified account's blue check.

The new scheme echoes the blue checkmark verification system that Twitter had before Elon Musk bought the platform, renamed it X, and made checkmarks available to anyone who paid for a Twitter Blue subscription.

Bluesky did not share exact criteria as to which accounts can get a blue checkmark, besides saying it will proactively verify "authentic and notable" accounts.

This is another layer of verification on top of Bluesky's verified domain system, which allows individuals and organizations to set their domain as their user name. This is still available to all users.

As for the blue checks, Bluesky said in its update the platform is currently not accepting direct applications for verification; instead, it will launch a request form for notable and authentic accounts which are interested in becoming verified and/or trusted verifiers.

The last time I was around Tim Cook, I was screaming, "Queer kids need you" at the top of my lungs. Holding signs asking him to stop selling unsafe phones to kids, our team at the Heat Initiative — a nonprofit working to keep kids safe online — tried calling on someone who we thought was one of the last Big Tech CEOs with a heart. Being the first openly gay man to head a Fortune 500 company, I hoped he would shatter the glass ceiling, allowing more young LGBTQ+ people to envision a similar path of excellence. Instead, he carved out just enough space for him to step through, sealing it back up and joining the other tech oligarchs in their pristine detachment from the rest of society. 

The Big Tech oligarchy was front and center at Trump’s inauguration, showing Americans who were really about to run our country. Watching Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg play teacher’s pet was expected. But Cook donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration was a shock. Until then, I had relatively neutral-to-positive things to say about Cook’s leadership. I hoped the company’s failure to keep kids safe on their devices and platforms would end up being one of the rare black spots in Cook's rather impressive corporate history. One thing has become abundantly clear: Child safety is no longer the only black spot in Cook’s time at Apple. Tim Cook himself is harming Apple’s reputation. 

Trump’s tariffs have been getting a lot of air time. Given that they impact working-class Americans' lives, I hoped my dissenting opinion on them would be proven wrong. After all, the idea of more manufacturing in the U.S. sounds good, I just think that using the livelihoods of Americans as a bargaining tool is wrong.

But tech giants like Apple are also being hammered by the tariffs, with their stock price see-sawing thanks to Trump's chaotic policy. It was refreshing to see that these attacks were not just happening to our most vulnerable, but also to our most powerful — including a giant corporation that has not done enough to protect vulnerable populations, like kids and LGBTQ+ Americans, from online dangers. Thanks to the tariffs, Cook's $1 million suck up donation to Trump was turning out to be a waste. 

That was short lived. Suddenly, smartphones were now temporarily exempt from the tariffs, proving once again that it really is that easy to buy favors from the leader of the "free" world. With the exemption, presented to the public as a way to protect Americans' accessibility to devices, Cook could rest easy knowing that his stock price would bounce back and his and his stockholders' pockets would continue to fill. Then, Trump equivocated again, calling the exemption temporary. Maybe Cook's $1 million wasn't enough? Or maybe having a strong moral code, and standing up for what (and who) is right, is good business sense in the end.

This past weekend, Cook’s alma mater, Auburn University, celebrated their famous alumni day. My team and I were on the ground, with a hilarious parody blimp of Cook holding money bags and a phone that says "profits over kids," talking to people on campus. We connected with an engineer that geeked out about hash matching technology, a privacy forward technology to detect known child sexual abuse material; a family talking about the regret of giving their daughter a phone too early; and young people aware of their iPhone addiction.

I miss the feeling of being excited about Apple’s newest technology. Here’s hoping Cook, thanks to Trump's treatment, has an epiphany and transforms back into the leader we know he should be. 

Lennon Torres is a Public Voices Fellow on Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse with The OpEd Project. She is an LGBTQ+ advocate who grew up in the public eye, gaining national recognition as a young dancer on television shows. With a deep passion for storytelling, advocacy, and politics, Lennon now works to center the lived experience of herself and others as she crafts her professional career in online child safety at Heat Initiative. Lennon’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennon-torres-325b791b4/

Snap and other social media platforms have joined a diverse group backing the controversial Take It Down Act, intended to tackle the ongoing spread of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII) and deepfakes online.

"This law is a critical step not only in helping to protect people from having their private images shared without permission, but also in limiting the distribution of AI-generated intimate images that can be just as damaging," wrote the social media company. "The TAKE IT DOWN Act aligns with and complements our ongoing efforts to stop bad actors from distributing NCII and child sexual exploitation and abuse imagery (CSEAI) online."

Roblox co-founder David Baszucki, also announced the platform's support of the bill. "The ability to rapidly share images and videos is one of the reasons the internet can be a complex and dangerous place for children," he wrote. "This content is incredibly sensitive, and we need greater government oversight for apps that allow image and video sharing. Currently, Roblox does not support this functionality."

The bipartisan act was introduced by Senator Ted Cruz last June and passed a vote in the Senate in February. The legislation makes publishing or threatening to publish nonconsensual explicit imagery a federal crime, including images generated by AI. Social media companies are implicated in the bill, as well, required to remove the original content and any duplicates within 48 hours. And the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would gain new powers to sure non-compliant platforms.

In March, First Lady Melania Trump came out in support of the bill, as well.

Take It Down Act spurs concerns about privacy and censorship

Despite its bipartisan and celebrity support, free speech and privacy advocates have vocally opposed the bill, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, which sent a letter to the Senate in opposition. According to the organizations, the bill's current notice and takedown (NTD) mechanism would have rippling consequences on content that isn't NCII, including creating a potential censorship pathway for legal pornography, journalism, and political speech.

Such actions would be unconstitutional, advocates argue, and could additionally threaten user privacy — including the efficacy of end-to-end encryption — if platforms invest further in automatic detection technology and other tools to monitor users' messages.

The Take It Down Act isn't the only piece of legislation attempting to forge legal and civil pathways for victims of NCII, either, including the 2024 Defiance ("Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits") Act spearheaded by Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, Republican senator Lindsay Graham, and Democratic representative and co-leader Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In addition, companies like Roblox have signed on to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) 2.0, an update to an existing bill that, among other expansions, would extend online data privacy protections to children under 17 years old.

One of the weirdest things about owning an iPad, if you're an Instagram user, is realizing that there is no native Instagram app for Apple's tablet.

What makes this especially weird is that the iPad feels like the perfect platform for Instagram and similar, extremely visual apps, as it allows you to see the posts on a far larger display than the one on your phone.

With Instagram's owner Meta being one of the largest companies in the world, it's hard to justify this as a cost-saving measure. And given that both the iPad and Instagram launched in 2010, it's not like Instagram or Meta never had time to build an app. Puzzlingly, Instagram head Adam Mosseri once said that the group of people who want an Instagram app for the iPad isn't large enough, despite admitting that the company gets asked about it "a lot."

This is made even worse by the fact that Instagram's web app still isn't as good as the native version (seriously — what's up with posts being tiny with no possibility of making them larger?). And yes, you can use the iPhone app on iPad, but it's just not the same.

This is finally changing. According to The Information (via MacRumors), Instagram is finally working on a native Instagram app for the iPad.

Unfortunately, that's pretty much all we know at this point. No details about the app itself or when it may launch have been revealed. However, The Information claims that Meta's motivation to cave in and build a native Instagram app has to do with the looming TikTok ban, so maybe it launches sooner rather than later.

People are rushing to Apple stores to buy iPhones ahead of possible price hikes, a new report claims.

According to Bloomberg, Apple retail stores across the U.S. have registered increased shopping activity over the weekend, with shoppers "panic-buying" iPhones.

"Almost every customer asked me if prices were going to go up soon," one Apple employee told Bloomberg.

The shoppers are worried about iPhone prices increasing due to the wide-ranging set of tariffs that the Trump administration recently imposed on China and many other countries. In one calculation, the iPhone 16 could go up from $799 to $1,142, and the most expensive model could cost as much as $2,300. The iPhone is mostly produced in China, which was hit with a 54 percent tariff.

These calculations could be way off. Trump could make some sort of trade deal with China, and even if the tariffs remain as they are, it's unclear how much of the price increase Apple would pass on to customers. Still, the sheer prospect of iPhones getting pricier is pushing some buyers to pull the trigger earlier rather than later.

The buying frenzy could help Apple's second quarter bottom line; the company is due to reveal its quarterly results on May 1. Following the tariffs news, Apple stock plummeted to about $182 at writing time, down from a high of just over $260 in December 2024.

"We're gonna win so much, you may even get tired of wining," said Donald Trump at one of his pre-election speeches. A couple of months later, it doesn't really feel like winning.

After two devastatingly tough days for the U.S. stocks and cryptocurrencies, with the S&P 500 dumping more than 10 percent over Thursday and Friday, many market participants were likely hoping for some relief on Monday. However, major indices are down hard once again in premarket trading, with S&P 500 diving below 5000 for the first time since April 2024.

Big tech stocks are having a particularly bad day so far, with Apple down to $180 per share in premarket trading, Nvidia at $89.4 per share, and Tesla at $222 per share. For Tesla alone, whose stock price reach an all-time-high of $489 per share in December 2024, this is a 55 percent decline.

Cryptocurencies aren't having a great day, either, with Bitcoin trading at $76,130, and Ethereum trading at $1486 at writing time. It's worth remembering that Bitcoin was trading above $109,000, and Ethereum above $4,100, just four months ago.

The culprit is obvious: The tariffs that the Trump's administration imposed on nearly ever trading partner (and some penguins) were far more radical than the market expected, with basically the entire world being suddenly thrown into a potentially devastating trade war. In just one example, there are already calculations that Apple might increase iPhone prices by up to 43%, with the cheapest iPhone 16 going from $799 to $1,142.

Of course, no one knows exactly what will happen due to potential deals being brokered between the U.S. and its trading partners, but therein lies the rub: The markets don't like uncertainty, and the current situation is as uncertain as can be.

It's not just Wall Street that's unhappy with Trump's idea of fixing America. In a Saturday rally in Washington, DC and other U.S. cities, thousands gathered to protest some of the moves the Trump administration has made so far.

The Trump administration extended the deadline for the owners of TikTok to sell their asset until June 19 just one day before the previous extension was set to take effect. While there's a bit more breathing room for a deal to be made, the clock is still ticking for a U.S.-based person, group, or company to strike a deal.

A host of potential owners of the social media site, including Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft, and Project Liberty have come forward. Some potential buyers are wary of the U.S. government allowing TikTok's Chinese operators to retain control of the app's algorithm and simply lease it to the U.S. buyer, according to ABC.

That could put the new owner in conflict with a law signed by President Biden last year that bans "the establishment or maintenance of any operational relationship" between the U.S. app and "any formerly affiliated entities that are controlled by a foreign adversary, including any cooperation with respect to the operation of a content recommendation algorithm."

TikTok's potential owners are reportedly worried about being sued by the U.S. government after the purchase, and want liability protection.

The state of TikTok: Still up

Does that mean TikTok will shut down June 19 for its 170 million American users?

Trump has suggested he will extend the sale's deadline, likely via executive order, if a deal cannot be reached by Saturday. Trump already extended an earlier deadline for a ban or sale on his first day in office, January 20, and once again for a deadline on April 5.

The president says new tariffs announced on Chinese goods will give the U.S. government leverage over the TikTok sale. Still, China may not want to play ball with the U.S. during a widening trade war.

This story is developing...

With all of the world talking about Trump's tariffs — you know, the set of levies on basically the entire world that's set to wreak havoc in the global trade and make your iPhone more expensive — an important question looms: Has the Trump administration used an AI to calculate those tariffs?

It would be unheard of. Trump's "Reciprocal Tariffs" table — while certainly not definitive at this point — could turn out to be the most important document of the decade. But the numbers on the table indicate tomfoolery.

Without going into intricacies of tariffs for every specific country, the thing is, these tariffs aren't reciprocal, despite Trump calling them so. It appears that the White House used a pretty basic formula that divides the trade deficit for the U.S. for a country, then divides that by the total imports from that country, and then divides the result in two. Note that there are no actual tariffs in that formula; a country could be charging a tariff on U.S. imports, but this formula disregards it (the White House countered this by basically providing more proof that this was exactly the case, per finance writer James Surowiecki).

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Then there's the question of the countries and territories included, which include places where there are no people (which is why the internet is today flooded by penguin memes).

Tech artist Gordon Chapman then dropped a bombshell on Threads, indicating that the White House's tariff table corresponds to internet top level domains (instead of, you know, actual countries), which could be proof that it was generated by an AI. Chapman later withdrew the post, explaining that the tariffs table is likely based on this data.

Who did the math?

Still, the question remains: How much (human) thought went into the tariffs calculations if the entire thing is just a simple formula applied onto a list of territories which doesn't entirely correspond to places that the U.S. should reasonably be imposing tariffs upon?

According to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, United States Trade Representative (USTR) economists had worked on this stuff for years. Some experts, per Reuters, dismiss this as they consider the tariffs to have "no methodology" that produced "nonsense numbers."

Interestingly, if you ask an LLM, such as ChatGPT, to calculate U.S. tariffs on other countries in an "easy way," you get pretty much the same formula that the White House used. Ouch.

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What happens next is unclear

The tariffs figures can be viewed as starting point for further negotiations. In fact, Eric Trump said it pretty bluntly on X: "I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump. The first to negotiate will win - the last will absolutely lose. I have seen this movie my entire life...," he wrote. So maybe the math behind the numbers is less important, if the numbers are all going to change soon.

But if the tariffs calculations have been hastily put together by an AI, that would indicate a new depth of incompetence for the Trump administration, closely following that of using Signal chat to plan military operations and including a journalist in that same chat.

It's hard to prove that the White House used ChatGPT or an equivalent for its tariffs math. The AIs themselves give a fair share of warnings that their calculations are imperfect and simplified, which should give pause to...anyone, really. The signs are out there, though, and we shudder to think what else the White House experts may leave to AI to do.

Vidya Nayak, Head of Product Design at Yahoo Search, is aware it’s not easy to be a visible female tech executive. She also knows talking about her experiences as a woman in the industry makes a difference.

“Sharing my own stories honestly and authentically encourages other women in the room to come forward and share theirs,” Nayak tells Mashable. “This creates a sense of community and solidarity where women feel seen, heard, and empowered to navigate their day-to-day boldly.”

Nayak has a big job at Yahoo, which ranks as the U.S.’s second most-visited website. Nayak was a major part of the team that recently introduced an AI chatbot and AI-powered summaries within Yahoo search. Logged-in users can take advantage of the new offerings, which mark a big step for the 31-year-old company’s effort to regain a bigger presence in Search after being swamped by Google over 20 years ago.

“We’re definitely taking a more forward-looking approach to how Yahoo search evolves with the conversational interface and even the AI summaries,” Nayak says. “We’re creating an experience that helps users make decisions faster, be more productive, and, in the end, [have search be] more intuitive for them.”

Before joining Yahoo in 2023, the graduate of San Francisco's Academy of Art University held leadership roles at Disney Interactive, Rodale, iWin, and News Corp., where she led the launch of the first mobile apps for Fox News and Fox Business. At her most recent pre-Yahoo position, Nayak served as Design Director for bank giant SoFi, streamlining the company's apps and helping guide overall corporate strategy. Nayak is candid about what that view from the top looked like.

"I wouldn’t say I’m the only woman in the room [at these companies], but, yes, it is definitely male-dominated," the mother of two says. "Tech has significantly made strides, but globally it still remains male-dominated. Things are shifting, however, very slowly. Tech companies are slowly recognizing the value female leaders bring to the organization, so you see a lot more women at the C Level and in leadership roles and manager roles."

Vidya Nayak credits female mentors for helping her succeed in the industry. Credit: Yahoo

Nayak encourages companies to continue to invest in mentoring women through in-company programs and internships.

"We must create opportunities to develop technical and soft skills with clear progression paths [and] actionable feedback that will help women then take those steps forward," she says. "I think mentorship and critical role model functions are key to opening doors and more opportunities for women."

Even though this presidential administration has painted diversity as a bad word, especially on the collegiate level, bringing girls and women to the forefront would appear to make good business sense for the entire industry. A product created with the input of different minds and experiences will appeal to a larger cross-section of customers, believes Nayak.

"It’s important to recognize this [gender] gap exists at all levels, but particularly the education level," Nayak says. "That needs to change. More men are often encouraged to pursue STEM programs and enter the tech space. Right from the get-go, at the foundational levels, if we make those changes, women will feel more welcome [in the industry]."

Nayak believes in opening doors of opportunity behind her, especially since many were opened for her.

"I was very fortunate to have strong female role models early in my career when I just started working and during my graduate school days," she says. "They inspired me and showed me I could achieve anything and [helped me] navigate these challenges that women face. Learning from the best is crucial."

Networking and "building a community of women" is mutually beneficial for all women in the industry, Nayak says.

"It’s also important to celebrate each other’s accomplishments," she adds. "I remember a quote from Chelsea Handler: 'I never blew out someone’s candle to make mine brighter.' We need to be each other’s cheerleaders."

When Bruce Reed served in the Biden administration as the president's deputy chief of staff, he led the effort on working with leading AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI on voluntary comittments to ensure the safety of their products.  

Reed has since left the White House, but he's not finished with AI, a technology he described to Mashable as "exciting, amazing, sometimes terrifying."

He will continue working at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that supports children and parents as they navigate media and technology. Popularly known for its media ratings of children's content, including video games, TV shows, and movies, the nonprofit also conducts research and advocacy.

Reed, a veteran of three Democratic presidential administrations, will lead Common Sense AI, which advocates for more comprehensive AI legislation in California. Common Sense AI has already backed two state bills that separately establish a transparency system for measuring risk of AI products to young users, and protects AI whistleblowers from retaliation when they report a "critical risk."

Reed argues that we're in a critical window to implement AI safeguards, particularly for minors, before certain business practices become entrenched and harder to regulate.

"When social media companies rushed to move fast and break things, and ignored kids' privacy and safety we ended up with a youth mental health crisis," Reed says. "Nobody wants to see that happen again."

Parents' concerns about AI chatbot harms

While some experts disagree that social media drove an increase in mental health conditions amongst youth, parents are already stepping forward with grave concerns about how their children are engaging with AI chatbots.

Last fall, bereaved mother Megan Garcia filed a lawsuit against Character.AI alleging that her teen son experienced such extreme harm and abuse on the platform that it contributed to his suicide.

Soon after, two mothers in Texas filed another lawsuit against Character.AI alleging that the company knowingly exposed their children to harmful and sexualized content. One teen of the plaintiff allegedly received a suggestion by its chatbot to kill his parents.

Common Sense issued its own parental guidelines on AI companions last fall, and Character.AI has since added new safety and parental control features.

California, where Common Sense Media is headquartered, is an ideal place to pass legislation that addresses some of the emerging risks of AI, Reed says. He was instrumental in drafting the state's consumer privacy law in 2018. In the absence of a federal bill, the state legislation effectively became the national standard because so many tech companies are based in California.

The politics of AI safety

Reed also doesn't seem intimidated by the shifting political calculus now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, having given the impression that AI technology companies have carte blanche to pursue "dominance."

One of Trump's executive orders rescinded AI safety testing rules that Biden himself put into effect. Meanwhile, the companies that might have once voluntarily worked with the Biden administration on safety commitments are now appealing to Trump for less regulation.

Despite the rhetoric and lobbying, Reed is convinced that it's in AI tech companies' long-term best interests to test their products, ensuring their safety prior to putting them on the market.

After all, lawsuits that force companies to reveal their inner-workings and adopt safety measures tend to create bad headlines, reduce investor confidence, and sow public distrust.

Reed is also aware of the narrative that the Biden administration intended to stifle AI innovation.

Critics in Silicon Valley, including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, have alleged that the Biden administration wanted to take control of, or "kill," AI. (Andreessen described a meeting with Biden officials on the topic of AI as "absolutely horrifying," and said the alleged exchange helped convince him to endorse and financially support Trump.)

Reed participated in numerous meetings with major tech stakeholders, including Andreessen. He politely disagrees that anything of the nature described by critics occurred throughout these conversations.

"The thrum in Silicon Valley has tried to suggest that the Biden administration somehow overreached on AI, which isn't true," he says. "We didn't have the regulatory authority to overreach, even if we wanted to."

Reed instead believes the main objection from Silicon Valley tech investors like Andreessen to the Biden administration's policies had to do with the Securities and Exchange Commission's attempts to crack down on cryptocurrency companies. Andreessen backed some of these companies, and the Trump administration has dropped a number of the SEC's lawsuits in recent weeks.

Pro-innovation, pro-safety

Regardless of the characterization of Biden officials as anti-AI, Reed says he supports innovation — and wants to make sure that the companies get it "right" from the beginning.

"It's important for America to win the AI race, not China, but it's also important for America to set the standard for AI trust, security, and safety, because China's not going to do that."

Reed says that an area of possible bipartisan and industry cooperation, for example, could be tackling explicit deepfakes, a technology that has ensnared teens and adolescents with devastating consequences.

The Biden White House laid out its own strategy for curbing the non-consensual imagery, and First Lady Melania Trump has backed a bill giving victims stronger protections.

Clearly, Reed says, this is not an area where American companies need to pursue dominance at all costs: "We don't need to lead the world in deepfakes — we want to lead the world in stopping deepfakes."

Reed says there's no time to waste on any front, particularly as it relates to ensuring that AI products are designed with children's privacy and safety in mind.

"We can achieve the most powerful AI and still make sure that privacy is protected and that companies are transparent about what they're doing to make their products safe," he says.

X owner Elon Musk announced late Friday that the social media site had been sold ... to xAI, Musk's own Artificial Intelligence company.

"xAI and X’s futures are intertwined," Musk posted on X. "Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent ... this will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress."

xAI purchased X in an all-stock transaction, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The AI company is now valued at $80 billion, with X valued at $33 billion, which includes $12 million in debt.

Musk purchased X, then known as Twitter, for $44 billion in October 2022.

What does this mean to the X user? Likely that AI will be integrated more fully into the X experience. The social media site has aggressively pushed its generative AI chatbot, Grok, on users since it launched in 2023. Musk also changed its terms of service shortly after the November election, requiring users to agree to have AI trained on their tweets.

In announcing the sale, Musk claimed X has 600 million "active users." He didn't say "monthly active users," which experts believe to be almost half that number.

The now-private company has shed millions of users by multiple measures since Musk's purchase, and is projected to lose millions more in 2025.

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Sarah Bond's resume may look unconventional, but the president of Xbox believes she's in exactly the right place.

Bond started as a McKinsey consultant, spent several years at T-Mobile, including as a chief of staff to former CEO John Legere, and joined Xbox in 2017.

A quick summary of her decades-long career doesn't suggest someone who'd eventually lead a major video game brand. But Bond gets the joy and creativity of gaming — and the business of it, too.

She played a key role in Microsoft's 2022 acquisition of video game publisher Activision Blizzard, which was unsuccessfully challenged by government regulators. Bond has also spoken about the importance of making gaming more accessible and winning new customers at a time when industry growth is stagnant.

Her track record is undeniably impressive. Yet it's particularly compelling to consider during Women's History Month, with its invitation to reflect on gender inequality in industries traditionally dominated by men.

A love of gaming begins

Bond started gaming at age 6. She fondly remembers playing the PC-based Kings Quest II alongside her father. Other favorites from childhood and young adulthood included Sonic the Hedgehog and GoldenEye 007.

Now she's the parent playing with her children. Family game night with Bond's husband and their two kids frequently involves Xbox's Minecraft Dungeons.

When Bond arrived at Xbox, a division of Microsoft Gaming, she thought of the company's product as consumer tech. While she still believes that's true, her aperture has widened through years leading teams that build Xbox's platform and bring independent developers to it.

"It's this beautiful mixture of art and science in the creativity...that I find deeply energizing," Bond says of gaming.

A big-picture perspective

Bond, who is Black, clearly belongs in the space. But gaming hasn't always welcomed women and people of color.

The 2015 Gamergate controversy, for example, became a battle over representation in gaming — and ultimately a proxy for broader cultural disagreement over diversity and equality in industries traditionally dominated by white men. That overarching conflict is now the backdrop against which the Trump administration has vowed to eradicate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives from the government, education, and the private sector.

When Bond joined Xbox in 2017, the head of Xbox Gaming, Phil Spencer, gave her a candid warning about working in gaming. She recalled the moment in a Harvard Business Alumni publication, describing her response thusly: "Phil, my aunt died yesterday. She was a colonel in the Army in the era of segregation. That was hard.”

This big-picture perspective has helped Bond survive — and thrive — in different corporate environments. She says that understanding her ancestors' struggles helps her think of progress holistically.

"It starts for me with the fundamental truth that there is no individual achievement, that we are all a product of the people who made us, invested in us, raised us," Bond told Mashable.

Bond says that just as she's able to do "amazing things" now because of her aunt's modeled determination and she hopes others will find inspiration in her own example.

Sarah Bond at work for Xbox. Credit: Courtesy Xbox

Lessons learned, advice given

Bond doesn't subscribe to a philosophy of working until exhaustion. Instead, she practices meditation and mindfulness, taking physical and mental breaks as necessary so that she can perform at a consistently high level.

"This is absolutely me performance optimizing," Bond says. "It's just I figured out sometimes for me to deliver the very best, I've got to stop."

Bond also values risk-taking over perfection. She learned that lesson as a Yale undergraduate, when she memorized the answers to questions she thought would appear on her Spanish exam. She got an "A" in the class, but realized after traveling to Spain that she actually couldn't speak the language proficiently.

The experience taught Bond that memorizing a test or operating within a rigid framework leads to a much different outcome than pushing herself to be at "max learning capacity."

"The way I studied for Spanish was the greatest lesson of my life," Bond says.

At a time when tech is embracing more "masculine energy," in Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's words, Bond has one piece of advice for girls and women who want to pursue a career in a male-dominated STEM field — find mentors who will hold you to a "high bar of performance."

This, she says, is because some people may decide for girls and women what they can do, or falsely believe they're delicate and treat them differently. She believes girls and women will thrive when they find people who are truthful about their abilities and then give them the feedback they need to achieve their goals.

"[S]eek out the people who are going to do that investment in you, because those people are liquid gold," Bond says.

Biotechnology company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy, with co-founder and CEO Anne Wojcicki stepping down, effective immediately.

On Sunday, 23andMe filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. According to a press release, it "intends to continue operating its business in the ordinary course throughout the sale process," with "no changes to the way the company stores, manages, or protects customer data."

The DNA testing company said it would use the money from the sale to "resolve all outstanding legal liabilities stemming from the previously disclosed October 2023 cyber incident." The company agreed to pay a $30 million settlement over a massive data breach that affected 6.9 million users in October 2023.

Once valued at $6 billion, 23andMe lost 98 percent of its value in October 2024, with all independent board members resigning in September.

23andMe also announced that CEO Wojcicki had resigned, with the company saying the decision was "by mutual agreement between Ms. Wojcicki and the Special Committee" of the Board of Directors. Wojcicki posted on X that she was "disappointed" by the outcome — the CEO's bid to take 23andMe private was rejected in early March 2025.

"While I am disappointed that we have come to this conclusion and my bid was rejected, I am supportive of the company and I intend to be a bidder." she wrote. "I have resigned as CEO of the company so I can be in the best position to pursue the company as an independent bidder."

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Wojcicki has been replaced in the interim by chief financial and accounting officer Joe Selsavage.

So, what's next? 23andMe have filed for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to allow the company to sell off all its assets over a 45-day process in which it would solicit bidders, after which 23andMe would conduct an auction. "Any buyer will be required to comply with applicable law with respect to the treatment of customer data and any transaction will be subject to customary regulatory approvals," the company said in its announcement.

23andMe announced plans in November 2024 to lay off about 40 percent of its employees as part of a restructuring program, as well as discontinuing further development of its testing technology. For the remaining employees, 23andMe said it has "filed customary motions with the Court seeking a variety of 'first-day' relief, including the authority to pay employee wages and benefits and compensate certain vendors and suppliers on a go-forward basis."

"After a thorough evaluation of strategic alternatives, we have determined that a court-supervised sale process is the best path forward to maximize the value of the business," said Mark Jensen, chair and Special Committee member, in a press statement. Jensen also said 23andMe was "committed to continuing to safeguard customer data...and data privacy will be an important consideration in any potential transaction."

In books by disgruntled former employees, it can be hard to hear real complaints over the sound of ax-grinding. Take ex-Apprentice star Omarosa's book from the first Trump administration, which unintentionally revealed its author to be defensive, shallow and complicit with the nightmare around her.

That isn't the case with Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams, former and first head of global policy at Facebook. Disgruntled she may be, but this is a self-aware woman with an important point to make, not an Omarosa-style embarrassment to herself.

This is bad news for the company now known as Meta, which wants Wynn-Williams to be seen as a mere "activist." Careless People made waves on publication, thanks to Wynn-Williams' filing a whistleblower complaint with the SEC, her accounts of sexual assault (which Meta denies), and a portrait that makes founder Mark Zuckerberg look like a clueless cult leader.

Then Meta made even more waves with the highly unusual step of going to an arbitrator, claiming Wynn-Williams' disparaging the company broke her severance contract. (What is this, Lumon Industries?)

The arbitrator issued an emergency gag order, leaving Meta to disparage Wynn-Williams in its statements, claiming she was fired for "toxic behavior" — exactly what her account says of her superiors — without fear of her responding. Not a great look for supposed free-speech advocate Zuckerberg — and now Careless People is an Amazon bestseller.

So what is Wynn-Williams' story, exactly? And do you really have to read the whole book to find out? Don't worry, we've got you. Here's what Facebook doesn't want you to know about Careless People.

Sarah Wynn-Williams is a sympathetic figure.

Memoirs usually open with an eye-catching anecdote before a chapter on the author's formative years. Aside from first ensuring readers know the book's title comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous description of the wealthy Tom and Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, Careless People is no different. It opens with the time Wynn-Williams had to smuggle Zuckerberg out of a state dinner in Panama, making a break for it past naked dancers and a troupe of horses.

But then her childhood chapter is unusually engaging. At age 13, in her native New Zealand, Wynn-Williams was attacked by a shark. Stoic parents told her she was fine; in fact, she was bleeding internally and had to beg to go to the hospital, where her blood pressure was so low they had to use a bone saw for the transfusion. I SAVED MYSELF was the first thing Wynn-Williams wrote to her mother afterward.

She grew up wanting to save the world too — first at the United Nations, where she served as a Kiwi diplomat working on international security and human rights before growing disillusioned by too much attention paid to wars over punctuation in agency statements and too little attention paid to actual wars. Then in 2009, Wynn-Williams gets hooked on Facebook and sees what we now know to be true: This thing will change the world, fast. It could be the greatest force for good ever created, if the company has a clue what it's doing.

Not for the last time, Facebook execs were too arrogant to have a clue. Wynn-Williams begins a multi-year campaign to get hired for a global policy position that doesn't exist yet; her interviewer says this is an American company with an American audience. When the Arab Spring started revolutions in 2011, in part because of its platform, Facebook seems to realize the world exists (and doesn't operate by U.S. laws).

Once hired, Wynn-Williams has to scramble to head off multiple government investigations made possible by the company's carelessness. She preps Zuckerberg for meetings with foreign leaders, which he hates. He claims Facebook is about connecting the world, but there's little interest in the global audience until the company goes public and starts looking for growth at any cost.

"There is no grand ideology here," Wynn-Williams writes. "No theory about what Facebook should be in the world. The company is just responding to stuff as it happens."

That's how she is repeatedly sent into danger alone — as in Myanmar, where she has to convince the military junta to bring Facebook back online. Back in the U.S. she warns of the anti-Muslim aggression being stoked in fake news posts that aren't even being taken down when they contain the Burmese equivalent of the N-word, because Facebook barely has any Burmese speakers. (The UN has traced Myanmar's 2017 genocide to Facebook posts which the company belatedly took down.)

Wynn-Williams also has three kids over the course of the book; watching her try to have it all, in the style of Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In, is heartbreaking. She sends emails from the delivery room and returns to work earlier than she needs to. She hires a Filipina nanny because her boss insists and "I didn't want it to become an issue in performance reviews."

One time there's a risk that Facebook employees might be arrested if they step foot in South Korea because the company ignored a local law that applied to Facebook games. Executives are trying to pick a "warm body" who will test the waters. Wynn-Williams is so devoted that, in this very Succession-like story, she does a Tom Wambsgans and offers to go to jail.

"I don't think this says anything good about me," she says with typical self-deprecation, "but I would have got arrested" by being the one to fly to Seoul first — until her husband points out that she has a seven-month-old at home.

Mark Zuckerberg seems more Trump-like than we knew.

If Wynn-Williams is Tom from Succession, Zuckerberg is Kendall Roy (with more than a dash of Roman). He's the boy king who thinks he gets it, oblivious to the layers of people trying to manage his moods. He makes up policy on the fly — announcing at the UN that Facebook would provide Wifi for refugee camps, for example — then leaves it to others to clean up his mess.

"He seems to be giving less of a damn," Wynn-Williams says after the Wifi policy announcement (which goes nowhere because Zuckerberg decides he wants the refugees to pay for access.) "Saying things because they sound good. Posting things because they look good ... I regret having enabled this."

If that makes Zuckerberg sound Trumpian, it's not the only time. Like Trump, Zuckerberg says Andrew Jackson (whose Indian Removal Act led to the Trail of Tears) was the greatest president in U.S. history: "not even close." Like Trump, Zuckerberg gets seduced by the power of crowds, asking if his team can arrange "a riot or a peace rally" when he visits Jakarta (where his suite at a top hotel is described as "more like a citadel").

And like Trump, he's enraged by President Obama, who takes Zuckerberg to task for fake news on the platform during the 2016 election. Zuckerberg refuses to take responsibility, seeing "fake news" as a talking point from media organizations that see Facebook as a threat. He considers buying "the failing New York Times," but decides Facebook should make it irrelevant instead.

Zuckerberg's main focus in the wake of that election: testing the waters for a presidential run himself. "I think he came to this dark conclusion: if Trump can do it, so can he," says Wynn-Williams. "After all, not only does Mark now have Trump's playbook, he owns the tools and sets the rules ... after being shit on by Obama, he dug in."

You'd expect Zuckerberg's advisors to rein him in — but these would be the same advisors who are repeatedly found letting the boss win at his favorite board game, Settlers of Catan. When Wynn-Williams beats him at Settlers, Zuckerberg accuses her of cheating. Wynn-Williams "unwisely" unloads on his lack of strategy in general.

"You were so focused on winning the longest road just then, you weren't paying attention to the rest of what was happening on the board," she tells him. It's clear she's not just talking about the game, but Zuckerberg thinks for a while and just says: "fair."

So Zuckerberg is in a bubble of privilege? No, says Wynn-Williams: "A bubble implies flimsy transparency," she writes, "where you can see a normal life just beyond your grasp. What Mark inhabits is more like a thick opaque dome, a murky fortress that separates him from the rest of the world."

What did Sheryl Sandberg allegedly do?

Zuckerberg, always an odd duck, doesn't win the "we were all rooting for you!" award for biggest disappointment in Careless People. That goes to his former COO Sheryl Sandberg. Once seen as the adult in the room at Facebook, Sandberg became a feminist champion courtesy of the Lean In phenomenon.

Then, on a private jet from the Davos conference to SFO, a pajama-clad Sandberg repeatedly insisted that Wynn-Williams join her in the plane's only bed. Wynn-Williams suggests another employee: a woman Sandberg calls "little doll" had slept in Sandberg's lap in the car while Sandberg stroked her hair (and vice versa). That employee had "slept over" lots of times, Sandberg snaps: "I'm asking you."

Apart from the inappropriateness of the ask, Wynn-Williams is heavily pregnant at the time and fears her snoring would horrify her boss. She repeatedly declines. Sandberg storms off: "people say no to Sheryl so rarely," Wynn-Williams writes, "she doesn't know what to do with this." Except to tell her again on the tarmac in California as they wait for Ubers: "you should have got into bed."

Later, confiding in another employee, Wynn-Williams is told that "half the department" has been in Sandberg's bed, so it's no big deal. After that, she notices Sandberg "beginning to ice me out."

The PJs incident happens halfway through the book, but we've already seen a widening gap between Sandberg's public image and private persona. She berates her team repeatedly for not seeing the difference. When they assume her kids will be OK eating McDonalds because Sandberg posted a picture on Facebook of herself doing just that, Sandberg hits back: she wasn't actually eating that stuff.

By the end of the book, Sandberg's staff is on another private jet, updating her on the historic Women's March that coincided with Trump's first inauguration. The feminist champion cuts them off to ask ... what Melania Trump was wearing.

What happened to the Lean In lady? Wynn-Williams recalls this maxim from author John Updike's autobiography: celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. "I feel a deep sadness for Sheryl," Wynn-Williams says, "who let the mask eat into her face."

The worst part of Careless People

Ironically, media focus on the PJs incident may have obscured allegations about Wynn-Williams' male manager, Joel Kaplan. (He's also Sandberg's old boyfriend and a former George W. Bush operative who took part in the infamous Brooks Brothers' riot that halted a crucial recount in Florida after the disputed 2000 presidential election.) Unlike Sandberg, Kaplan is still at the company and working as Facebook's vice president of global policy. But Careless People alleges multiple times Kaplan took conversations with his direct report in a sexual direction. Meta has denied the allegations.

Wynn-Williams writes how Kaplan insists on video meetings during Wynn-Williams' maternity leave. Kaplan is "sprawled across his bed," asking questions about breastfeeding. When she reveals she'll need more surgery, Kaplan keeps asking "where are you bleeding from?"

Wynn-Williams tries to transfer out of Kaplan's department, but the transfer is blocked. An investigation into Kaplan doesn't even include an interview with her, and the "toxic behavior" firing happens.

Is this the worst part of the book, then? Or is the worst part what Meta has done in response to the book — dismissing details such as the Myanmar genocide as "old news"? If this is what passes for policy in Zuckerberg and Kaplan's regime, and the gag order is what passes for free speech, then Meta is a global force run by some very careless people indeed.

Apple is upgrading its app safety offerings later this year, including new age assurance policies intended to wade into the online child protection debate.

According to a recently published white paper, the company plans to expand its Child Account settings, App Store Age Ranges, and provide avenues for app developers to set more comprehensive age-restriction settings for minor users.

"Protecting kids — whether they’re young children, preteens, or teenagers — from online threats requires constant vigilance and effort. The digital world is increasingly complex and the risks to families are ever-changing, including the proliferation of age-inappropriate content and excessive time on social media and other platforms," writes Apple. "For years, Apple has supported specialized Apple accounts for kids — called Child Accounts — that enable parents to manage the many parental controls we offer, and help provide an age-appropriate experience for children under the age of 13. These accounts are the bedrock of all the child safety tools that we offer today."

Age range for developers

Launching later this year, Apple's new privacy-driven Declared Range API allows developers to request an approximate age range for Child Account users, approved by parents, that can then be used to better tailor app experiences and set access limits for age-restricted apps. Minor users would be prompted with a "share age range" notification, similar to pop-ups for App Tracking or Location Services, and can be turned off at any time. Developers can still choose to have their apps require government identification, but ID will not be required to use the App Store at large.

The policy represents a significant stance taken by Apple amid a flurry of industry debate around "age assurance" or verification. Politicians and tech leaders have offered mixed ideas about the most effective, and appropriate, way to verify the ages of young users across social media platforms and other digital spaces, including app marketplaces. Many, like Meta, argue that app marketplaces should be held responsible for connecting minors to platforms that host age-restricted or harmful content. State legislatures, backed by tech companies, have proposed various age verification laws — their effectiveness is widely debated.

Politicians have introduced legislation tackling the issue from the lenses of digital privacy, as well, while others have suggested outright bans on minors accessing certain online spaces. The Kids Online Safety Act, proposed in 2023, would require online platforms to enable the strongest privacy settings for all underage users, and place a "duty of care" on social media companies, specifically.

Apple, conversely, is arguing for a policy that places the burden on app developers, not marketplaces, and minimizes data collection. "Some apps may find it appropriate or even legally required to use age verification, which confirms user age with a high level of certainty — often through collecting a user’s sensitive personal information (like a government issued ID) — to keep kids away from inappropriate content. But most apps don’t. That’s why the right place to address the dangers of age-restricted content online is the limited set of websites and apps that host that kind of content."

Managing youth accounts and app access

Apple's updates will also incorporate age ranges into a more streamlined Child Account set-up process, as well, making it easier for parents to determine child safety settings for required users (those 13 and younger), as well as voluntarily-included accounts for device owners under the age of 18. During device set up, parents and guardians can choose from pre-selected safety settings categorized by age range or use default child settings— this makes it possible for young users to set up devices on their own, with the aid of Apple's oversight. Parents can still adjust and customize settings at a later date.

To accommodate these new settings, Apple's age ranges will get more specific, with new thresholds for apps including:

• 4+ years old

• 9+ years old

• 13+ years old

• 16+ years old

• 18+ years old

Along these same lines, Apple will also expand its content visibility restrictions for youth accounts, preventing apps outside of selected age ratings from appearing in devices' Today, Games, and Apps tabs, and editorial stories and collections.

When it comes to the current state of Black women in tech, the vibes are ominous. There's the current war on DEI, with companies like Google and Meta killing their diversity programs. Then there's the desire of Meta's Mark Zuckerberg for more "masculine energy" in corporate America, which only added to the feeling that Silicon Valley was growing ever more hostile to women and People of Color. Aside from the anecdotal evidence, the numbers don't lie: Only 19 percent of computer science bachelor degrees are earned by women, approximately 3 percent are earned by Black women, and only 2 percent of tech roles are held by Black women, according to data from the organization Black Girls Code.

BGC's mission is to increase those numbers by partnering with schools, companies, organizations, and volunteers to offer Black girls in-person and virtual learning opportunities. Cristina Mancini, a former executive at Salesforce and 20th Century Fox, took the helm of BGC in late 2023, announcing at the time her push for workforce development and a goal of seeing one million girls of color in tech by 2040.

With Black History Month upon us, and a very different industry environment than a year ago, Mashable caught up with Mancini to discuss the latest with her organization and how she stays optimistic during this strange time.

Mashable: Tell us the latest about Black Girls Code and your goals for the year.

Mancini: For those who aren’t familiar, Black Girls Code is an organization that works to inspire, educate, and launch the next generation of technologists by equipping them with the skills and confidence to lead in a field where they’ve historically been underrepresented. We have a lot of exciting initiatives and programming coming up this year – including a new season of our free video-based coding academy, Code Along, which will be released and available on YouTube later this month.

One thing we are really focused on this year is expanding our impact to reach more people and continuing to enhance our curriculum. As AI and other emerging technologies reshape our world, we are constantly evolving and expanding our curriculum to position our girls to be not just participants, but leaders in this technological revolution. This includes: expanding to more cities to reach more girls; evolving our curriculum and deepening our career acceleration programs; creating more pathways to apprenticeships that will define the future of tech.

We have a bold vision to launch one million Black girls in tech by 2040. To some this may seem ambitious, but considering that currently only 2 percent of tech roles are held by Black women, I don’t think it’s ambitious enough. Our work is about creating ecosystems of support to equip girls from grade school through college, as well as those pursuing alternative career paths, with the skills necessary to accelerate their professional growth in tech. By focusing on personal and professional development alongside tech education, BGC ensures its graduates are well-rounded and ready for the workforce.

With little government support for fostering STEM and tech opportunities for Black girls, how can parents, family members, and teachers make up the difference?

Statistics are stark: Women still account for only 18 percent of new computer science degrees, and that number gets significantly lower when you account for intersecting identities. This highlights not just a tech industry issue but a broader societal challenge.

One question that I’ve been asking myself a lot lately is what is the cost of inaction? What happens when entire demographics are missing from rooms where these technologies are being funded, legislated, and created. When diverse voices are absent from the tech industry, innovation suffers, and systemic biases are perpetuated. The lack of representation leads to technologies that fail to address the needs of underrepresented communities. Without intentional efforts to include underrepresented groups, tech risks becoming a field that reinforces existing inequalities. This exclusion stifles progress and leaves critical societal issues unaddressed.

This is why, at Black Girls Code, we remain more focused than ever on our mission, our learners, and our community. As always, we need to stay connected, share resources, and think critically about what we put our energy and our money towards. We also need to create the spaces and instill a sense of belonging, helping young women of color see themselves in spaces they might have thought were out of reach. We need to demystify technology and remind people that technology is for everyone.

Tech isn’t this scary thing; it’s for everyone and it impacts all aspects of our lives from healthcare, entertainment, and education to finance and sustainability.

I also encourage teachers, parents, and family members to check out our Code Along series! This video-based coding academy teaches coding skills in a fun, accessible, and engaging format on YouTube and other social media platforms (for free!). We have two programs – one designed for an elementary school learner, called Code Along Jr., and one designed for middle schoolers, which is Code Along. Last year, across our two Code Along programs, we reached over 2 million viewers. These kinds of opportunities are such easy, fun, and impactful ways to get involved, where students learn real, tangible skills that will pave the way for their career preparation. For example, our ‘How to Code an AI Chatbot from Scratch’ video is one of our best performing episodes in the Code Along series, as it’s both useful and fun. Perhaps most importantly, these programs serve as a source of inspiration for what the next generation of tech innovators is capable of, and looks like.

Having diverse voices creates ethical experiences that reflect the values of all consumers. Diverse teams are better equipped to create inclusive products and services that serve a broader audience. By empowering Black girls to enter the field of tech, BGC ensures that their unique perspectives contribute to a more equitable and innovative industry. We need to invest in girls of all backgrounds and position them to not just be participants, but leaders in this technological revolution that we’re experiencing.

It's a precarious time for women and POC in the tech sector. How can Black girls interested in the industry, and Black women already in it, stay optimistic?

The first thing I’d like to say is that I am confident we can build a technological industry and future that is created by us, for everyone. One that is safe, inclusive, and joyful. That being said, addressing the gaps in representation isn’t a technology problem, it’s a human problem. We need to ensure our technology represents people from all walks of life. As members of the Black community, we’re super users of this technology and we have the opportunity to become architects. As technology continues to develop at such a rapid pace, we need to ensure we are in these rooms shaping the future we want. We need to be engaged, active, and intentional, and focused on having conversations that are centered on solutions rather than obstacles.

I’d like to encourage us to think about the narrative we’re telling ourselves and exhibiting to the younger members of our community. At BGC I am working on redefining the narrative for Black women in tech – focusing on Black joy in technology rather than marketing trauma as a success story. I want to spotlight the examples of brilliance in action, to talk about and learn from our technologists in the making, who are using technology on their own terms. When we look around, and choose to see joy and success, we see that the opportunities are boundless.

Finally, I just want to remind everyone that we have to remember to breathe. To take care of ourselves. It is impossible to be optimistic otherwise. Talking to our loved ones and connecting with our communities should be the cornerstone of the day, not an after-thought.

You have extensive experience working in tech at Salesforce and entertainment at 20th Century Fox. How did each industry differ when it came to fostering and supporting Black talent?

I could speak about my career at length, but I believe talking about the pressing challenges facing the tech industry and how we're looking to address them is a better use of our time. We are in the midst of a technological revolution and AI is quickly infiltrating all aspects of our lives – hiring practices, financial services, healthcare, entertainment, and more. Too often, the people creating these technologies don't look like the communities they're supposed to serve. When entire demographics are absent from the critical spaces where technologies are conceived, we leave room for bias and harm. The question isn’t just ‘when will we acknowledge this truth’, but ‘when will we act on it?’ Time is not on our side and we do not want to know what the cost of inaction means for our communities.

This is why at Black Girls Code we are reminding people that underrepresented does not mean underprepared or underqualified. At Black Girls Code we are creating an ecosystem where under-recognized talent thrives as developers, innovators, and leaders across all technology sectors, and we are doing this through four main goals, which are to: launch one million Black girls in tech by 2040; inspire a passion for tech. Show Black girls and gender-expansive youth of color that they belong in tech, they can express themselves with tech skills, and can build thriving tech careers; educate with relevant skills. Equip our community with the tech and leadership skills they need to thrive in the tech world, while providing supportive in-person and virtual learning environments; launch fulfilling careers. Connect our community of learners with the career opportunities they deserve, and provide them with the workplace skills and support to help them be successful.

By empowering Black girls to enter tech, BGC ensures that their unique perspectives contribute to a more inclusive and innovative industry because I believe we can create technology by us, for everyone.

When you think of Black History Month, who stands out as inspirations and what have you learned from these people?

I’m lucky to say that I am inspired and learn from my colleagues and the girls in our community every single day. To name one in particular, Ife Joseph has been part of the BGC community since she was 7, and in 5th grade created an app called “Mental Health for Social Justice.” The app is a digital journey for young kids dealing with racism. She was nominated for TIME magazine’s “Kid of the year” award in 2021 and later spoke at the UN about the importance of BGC. One of the many professionals I admire is Dr. Joy Buolamwini. Her work, featured in the film Coded Bias, shines a light on algorithmic discrimination and inspires others to prioritize fairness in AI development. There’s also Dr. Avriel Epps, an AI ethicist who is educating young minds about AI through her upcoming book, A Kids Book About AI Bias. We actually have a number of events with her this spring, including a breakout at the HumanX conference in Vegas and learning workshops with students. I could list countless lessons that these women have taught me, but above all, the stories they’re telling are challenging the narrative about who belongs in tech, and who’s creating it.

Meta's top executives may see huge bonuses in the coming years, despite the company's forceful trimming of its workforce amid what CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects to be a more challenging year for the company.

According to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Meta is proposing a new target bonus percentage that could see certain corporate executives receiving a bonus of 200 percent of their base salary. The number is more than double the 75 percent figure under the company's previous plan. Zuckerberg, for what its worth, isn't included in the new bonus structure.

Meta recently recently reduced its employee stock options by 10 percent, Business Insider reported, as its market value has gone up.

On Feb. 10, Meta released an internal memo to its workforce announcing the company would begin notifying "low-performing" employees that they were being laid off, part of a sweeping 5 percent cut to teams across the U.S., Europe, and Asia that would see up to 4,000 Meta workers lose their jobs. A previously leaked memo from Zuckerberg explained the cuts were an efficiency effort ahead of what would be an "intense year" for the tech giant. Meanwhile, the company has increased the number of employees working on generative AI.

Shortly after the layoffs, affected employees took to business social networking platform LinkedIn to share their experiences at Meta and push back against the corporation's "low-performing" characterization, harnessing the platform's #OpenToWork tag in their own defense. Last year, amid even larger workforce cuts, Meta employees took to platforms like TikTok to fight the company's "efficiency" moves.

A movement to strike back against Tesla CEO and "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) leader Elon Musk left social media and took to the streets this weekend. Groups of protesters at Tesla showrooms across the country sported signs with messages like, "Stop the broligarchy," "Burn a Tesla, save democracy," and "DOGE is a criminal enterprise," encouraging potential Tesla buyers to take their money elsewhere.

Referred to as the #TeslaTakeover, the protests were organized by a small-but-mighty army of Bluesky users supported by Seattle-based activist group the Troublemakers and direct action The Disruption Project. Many of the events were posted to Action Network, which by Saturday rose to 50 planned protests nationwide, including small town hits and several in California and New York, Washington D.C., Ohio, and even Canada. "Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines. Hurting Tesla is stopping Musk. Stopping Musk will help save lives and our democracy," the page reads. The #TeslaTakeover events, set for Feb. 15, generated rallies of varying sizes — from handfuls of protesters to large crowds of dozens of people chanting and parading signs — all with the same message: Musk is doing something categorically wrong.

"This isn't just about voicing our anger at Elon Musk's unelected takeover, it's about letting our friends and neighbors know that buying, owning, charging, and servicing a Tesla directly supports him," wrote one Bluesky user, whose post was reshared dozens of times. "Taking down Tesla's sales and stock price is our best way of hitting back. That starts tomorrow!"

Globally, Tesla owners and onlookers have been hitting back at Elon Musk's quick encroachment into the federal government, spurred on by the wider accusation that the SpaceX owner is associating with alt-right figures. Earlier this year, protests broke out at the German Die Welt Economic Summit, at which Musk was set to virtually appear, following Musk's decision to back a German far-right political party.

Credit: Jason Redmond / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images

Credit: Jason Redmond / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images

Credit: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Meanwhile, American leaders are pleading with the courts to curb Musk's "unconstitutional" scorched earth approach to federal oversight and optimization. On Feb. 13, 14 state attorney generals filed a lawsuit against Musk, challenging the legality of DOGE's actions and asking for the court to bar Musk from issuing orders to bodies outside of the executive branch or overseeing the disbursement of federal funds. Earlier that week, a group of cybersecurity bodies, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), filed a lawsuit against Musk's DOGE for having "illegally forced" the Office of Personnel Management and Treasury Department to give up Americans' sensitive digital information to "unauthorized, untrained personnel." The lawsuit called it the "largest data breach in U.S. history."