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Policy

Tech is reshaping the world — and not always for the better. Whether it’s the rules for Apple’s App Store or Facebook’s plan for fighting misinformation, tech platform policies can have enormous ripple effects on the rest of society. They’re so powerful that, increasingly, companies aren’t setting them alone but sharing the fight with government regulators, civil society groups, and internal standards bodies like Meta’s Oversight Board. The result is an ongoing political struggle over harassment, free speech, copyright, and dozens of other issues, all mediated through some of the largest and most chaotic electronic spaces the world has ever seen.

No Kings is taking back Americana

The right wing used to have a stranglehold on traditionally American iconography. Now the flag and the Constitution are symbols for the left.

Sarah Jeong
OkCupid settles claims it shared user photos with a facial recognition company

It promised not to misrepresent its policies in the future and didn’t admit wrongdoing.

Lauren Feiner

Latest In Policy

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Penguin Random House is suing OpenAI.

The publisher filed a lawsuit in Munich last week, accusing OpenAI of violating copyright laws after ChatGPT allegedly copied a popular German book series, according to The Guardian:

In response to the prompt “Can you write a children’s book in which Coconut the Dragon is on Mars”, the chatbot generated text and images the publishing group said were “virtually indistinguishable from the original”.

As well as generating the text of a story, the AI-powered chatbot created a cover featuring Siegner’s orange dragon and two sidekicks, as well as a blurb for the back cover and instructions for how to submit the manuscript to a self-publishing platform.

Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
Mark Zuckerberg: constitutionally bitchmade.

Twenty-four days after lying his face off to Joe Rogan and whining about government censorship, Zuckerberg “proactively reached out to a senior government official to let him know Meta was already taking action to remove content on behalf of that official’s government operation — including truthful information like the names of public servants working for the federal government.“ Siri, play my leitmotif.

Gaby Del Valle
Gaby Del Valle
Judge rules Trump illegally shut down CBP’s border-processing app.

Shortly upon returning to office, Trump terminated CBP One, an app the Biden administration used to streamline border processing, and revoked the status of 900,000 migrants who had used it to apply for temporary parole, sending them a mass email reading, “It is time for you to leave the United States.”

In terminating parole “without observing the process mandated by statute and by their own regulations,” US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs ruled, the administration “took action that was ‘not in accordance with law.’”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
AI companies that want to work with the state of California will have to meet new privacy and security standards.

Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to try to limit states from regulating AI, California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Monday with the new guardrails.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
It’s still unclear how much robotaxi companies rely on remote assistance — even after a Senator asked.

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) published a new report today following an investigation on how the companies use Remote Assistance Operators (RAOs), and of the 14 companies he sent a letter to, “every AV company refused to disclose how frequently their RAOs intervene to help their self-driving cars,” according to a press release.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Japan gets an alternative iOS game store.

Aptoide’s AppArena is now available in Japan as an Apple Store alternative. It comes after regulators required Apple and Google to support third-party app marketplaces and payment systems. AppArena features AI-assisted discovery of apps and games, cashback rewards, and 15-minute game trials.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Bambu won’t help you 3D-print Labubus anymore — other takedowns will surely follow.

Bambu Lab has settled with Pop Mart, Tom’s Hardware writes, days before it’d have to defend hosting 3D Labubu files in a Chinese courtroom. (The company had already taken them down and publicly apologized.) You can probably expect other IP rights holders to pressure Bambu now they know it works: Makerworld is full of print-your-own unofficial merch.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
What’s inside the White House app?

That includes enabling location tracking and other monitoring via OneSignal’s analytics (which the company says are opt-in at the OS level), JavaScript loaded from some guy’s GitHub, an injected script to hide things like consent dialogs on pages users open in the app, and other hooks to non-government third-party services.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
The No Kings protests just keep getting bigger.

Organizers say over eight million took to the streets on Saturday, taking part in over 3,300 protests across the country. The October day of protest attracted over seven million people to 2,700-plus events. Instead of losing momentum, the No Kings movement showed that anger with President Trump continues to grow.

Apple’s long, bitter App Store antitrust war

Apple’s iPhone empire spans the globe — and so does legal pushback.

Adi Robertson
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… a demon?

JD Vance is no stranger to, let’s say, unique takes on things. On a recent episode of noted plagiarist Benny Johnson’s podcast, Vance said he wants to get to the bottom of the whole UFO thing, adding, unprompted, “I don’t think they’re aliens, I think they’re demons.”

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
YouTube CEO refuses to talk about content moderation.

In an interview with the New York Times, Neal Mohan was asked about the platform’s responsibility for policing lies, conspiracy theories, and hate speech, but avoided addressing the questions in any substantive way. He wouldn’t even say whether it was wrong to suspend Trump following the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

Each one of the channels on our platform, the New York Times channel, the Interview channel, you have the editorial standards that you live by and they are certainly different across the various channels. And our job is to have a set of rules and guidelines. Every channel will draw a different line in terms of what they think is appropriate.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Washington state joins the growing number of lawsuits against Kalshi.

Attorney General Nick Brown filed a lawsuit against the prediction market on Friday, alleging that it constitutes illegal gambling. This comes shortly after Kalshi was temporarily shut down in Nevada, and Arizona’s AG filed criminal charges against it. AG Nick Brown drew attention to a particularly daming ad:

In one Kalshi advertisement, one person texts another that they “found a way to bet on the NFL even though we live in Washington,” which seems to acknowledge that Kalshi knows that they are attempting to skirt state law. In fact, Kalshi did find a way to bet on the NFL in Washington; all they had to do was break the law.

Tina Nguyen
Tina Nguyen
Quiet part being said out loud, part infinity.

This edition is brought to you by FCC chairman Brendan Carr’s remarks at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference:

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
Google’s AI search tool accused of disclosing Epstein survivors’ personal information.

In a class action lawsuit, an unnamed plaintiff who says she’s a survivor of sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein says the Trump administration and Google have wrongfully disclosed survivors’ personal data. “Google has failed and refuses to remove, de-index, or block access to the offending materials,“ the complaint says.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email was hacked.

An Iran-linked group claimed responsibility for the breach and posted documents stolen from Patel’s inbox online, according to Reuters.

The DOJ has reportedly confirmed the breach, with a preliminary review by CNN finding emails from around 2011 to 2022 that “appear to include personal, business and travel correspondence that Patel had with various contacts.”

Returning from a humanitarian aid trip to Cuba, Americans have phones seized at US airport

CBP agents at Miami International Airport briefly detained 20 activists, 18 of whom had their phones taken.

Gaby Del Valle
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
The EU is probing Snapchat over child safety concerns.

The formal investigation opened by the European Commission will focus on five areas: age assurance, default account settings, reporting of illegal content, dissemination of prohibited products, and the grooming and recruitment of children for criminal activities. These DSA probes can take a while, and no timeline has been provided.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Meta’s Oversight Board warns that “Community Notes” aren’t a proper substitute for fact-checking globally.

Duh. The quasi-independent board says that expanding Community Notes outside the US — where it launched in lieu of fact checkers in early 2025 — could “pose significant human rights risks and contribute to tangible harms that Meta has a responsibility to avoid or remedy,” according to Niemen Lab.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Judge dismisses X lawsuit accusing advertisers of an “illegal boycott.”

Elon Musk said it was “war” in 2024, as X filed its antitrust lawsuit against World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) members over their Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative.

Now a judge has dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning it can’t be brought again:

…if facts existed that GARM operated at an X competitor’s behest to put X out of business or that GARM advertisers sought to unfairly exclude competing advertisers from doing business, X would have pleaded those facts. The very nature of the alleged conspiracy does not state an antitrust claim, and the Court
therefore has no qualm dismissing with prejudice.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Asus is the latest with a nothing statement about the US router ban.

The statement doesn’t begin to address whether Asus will stop selling future routers in the US, sue, or apply for the FCC’s “conditional approval.” The FCC isn’t asking about security or integrity; it asks for a detailed plan to manufacture routers in the US.

ASUS has proudly served U.S. customers since 1991, with a long-standing commitment to trusted innovation and strong product security. We are confident in the integrity of our supply chain and the security of our networking products. This FCC action has no impact on existing ASUS router users, software updates, and customer support.

Everyone hates Ticketmaster. Why’d Trump go easy on them?

The Justice Department’s surprise Live Nation settlement raises big questions about the future of federal antitrust.

Nilay Patel
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Apple still isn’t making iPhones in the US.

But it is expanding its modest American Manufacturing Program. TDK will make camera stabilization sensors, while Bosch will build chips for crash detection and activity tracking. Cirrus Logic and Qnity Electronics are also on board. The $400 million planned for these new partnerships won’t make a major dent in Apple’s reliance on China, though.

Victoria Song
Victoria Song
The senate isn’t feeling Casey Means’ ‘good energy.’

The WSJ reports that Means needs the support of every Republican senator to become surgeon general — and she doesn’t have it. The reasons are plentiful, but if you want a rundown, I detailed how Means expertly uses the wellness grifter playbook to spread hokey ideas and sow distrust in health institutions.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
EU digital safety rules come for big porn platforms.

The European Commission has preliminarily ruled that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos have insufficient measures in place to prevent minors from accessing their platforms. The porn sites are being advised to remedy the DSA breaches or risk facing fines:

“At this stage, the Commission considers that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos need to implement privacy preserving age verification measures to protect children from harmful content.”

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Apple settles Vision Pro leaker lawsuit.

The Cupertino company sued former Vision Pro engineer Di Liu last year for allegedly stealing trade secrets before starting a new role at Snap. The case was dismissed this week after Liu agreed to return Apple’s confidential information and pay the company an undisclosed sum for monetary damages.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Elon’s next legal argument: LinkedIn emoji reactions.

Musk’s lawyers are trying to overturn the recent verdict that found his self-described “stupid tweets” were liable for losses incurred by Twitter investors, pointing to an emoji reaction to a post on LinkedIn from the account of Judge Kathaleen McCormick. In a filing of her own, Reuters reports McCormick said she hadn’t read the post, and that “I either did not click the ‘support’ icon at all, or I did so accidentally.”

Screenshot of a LinkedIn post from Musk’s court filing
Screenshot: court filing
The TSA is broken — is privatization next?

Privatization is no magic bullet. But the status quo is untenable as well.

Darryl Campbell