Platforms

“This is one of the least visited places on planet Earth and I got to open the door,” Matty Jordan, a construction specialist at New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica, wrote in the caption to the video he posted to Instagram and TikTok in October 2023. In the video, he guides viewers through an empty, echoing hut, pointing out where the men of Ernest Shackleton’s 1907 expedition lived and worked—the socks still hung up to dry and the provisions still stacked neatly in place, preserved by the cold. Jordan, who started making TikToks to keep family and friends up to date with his life in Ant

Social media companies have long made their own rules about the content they allow on their sites. But a pair of cases set to be argued before the Supreme Court on Monday will test the limits of that freedom, examining whether they can be legally required to host users’ speech. The cases, Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, deal with the constitutionality of laws created in Florida and Texas, respectively.

After a divisive investigation into the “Twitter Files” that Republicans decried as “harassment,” the Federal Trade Commission has found no evidence that the social network violated the terms of a government order that placed sweeping restrictions on the company’s data security practices. “Longtime information security employees at Twitter intervened and implemented safeguards to mitigate the risks,” the FTC said.

A new Pew Research Center study matching the survey responses and on-site behaviors of US adult TikTok users finds that a minority of avid posters create the vast majority of content on the site. And most users post seldom, if at all—instead using TikTok primarily to view and consume content made by others. Among our key findings about how the American public is using TikTok:

Volker Türk, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, was in Silicon Valley last week to deliver a simple message to tech companies: Your products can do real harm and it's your job to make sure that they don't. Technologies like artificial intelligence hold enormous potential for addressing a range of societal ills, but without effort and intent, these same technologies can act as powerful weapons of oppression, said Türk. New regulations are often where the tech debate lands, but Türk tells Axios that the firms should already be ensuring their products comply with the existing 

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) announced the establishment of a bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to explore how Congress can ensure America continues to lead the world in AI innovation while considering guardrails that may be appropriate to safeguard the nation against current and emerging threats. Speaker Johnson and Leader Jeffries have each appointed twelve members to the Task Force that represent key committees of jurisdiction and will be jointly led by Chair Jay Obernolte (R-CA-23) and Co-Chair Ted Lieu (D-CA-36).

Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel appointed members of the Consumer Advisory Committee for the CAC's 12th term. The CAC is organized under, and operated in accordance with, the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) and provides advice and recommendations to the Commission on a wide array of consumer protection related matters specified by the FCC. The membership consists of a diverse mix of non-profit organizations representing consumers, communications companies and trade associations, and individuals serving on their own behalf and function

At the Munich Security Conference, leading technology companies pledged to help prevent deceptive AI content from interfering with the 2024 global elections in which more than four billion people in over 40 countries will vote. The “Tech Accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections” is a set of commitments to deploy technology countering harmful AI-generated content meant to deceive voters.

The message that emerged from Comcast Converge was that everything the company does—mobile, video, sports streaming, security and, of course, broadband—relies on the performance of its network infrastructure. By extension (given the fact that no one has plugged anything into a router to connect to the internet in ages), that means Wi-Fi. The way Comcast is thinking about convergence is probably best exemplified with this statistic: The first NFL playoff game which was exclusively streamed on its Peacock service in January accounted for a whopping 30 percent of all US internet traffic.

A California lawmaker introduced a bill aiming to force companies to test the most powerful artificial intelligence models before releasing them—a landmark proposal that could inspire regulation around the country as state legislatures increasingly take up the swiftly evolving technology. The new bill, sponsored by Sen Scott Wiener (D-CA), who represents San Francisco, would require companies training new AI models to test their tools for “unsafe” behavior, institute hacking protections and develop the tech in such a way that it can be shut down completely.