Reading view

There are new articles available, click to refresh the page.

If algorithms radicalize a mass shooter, are companies to blame?

In New York court on May 20th, lawyers for nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety argued that Meta, Amazon, Discord, Snap, 4chan, and other social media companies all bear responsibility for radicalizing a mass shooter. The companies defended themselves against claims that their respective design features - including recommendation algorithms - promoted racist content to a man who killed 10 people in 2022, then facilitated his deadly plan. It's a particularly grim test of a popular legal theory: that social networks are products that can be found legally defective when something goes wrong. Whether this works may rely on how courts interpret Section 230, a foundational piece of internet law.

In 2022, Payton Gendron drove several hours to the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, where he opened fire on shoppers, killing 10 people and injuring three others. Gendron claimed to have been inspired by previous racially motivated attacks. He livestreamed the attack on Twitch and, in a lengthy manifesto and a private diary he kept on Discord, said he had been radicalized in part by racist memes and intentionally targeted a majority-Black community.

Everytown for Gun Safety brought multip …

Read the full story at The Verge.

T Brand Studio, Dagne Dover and MyShop are shortlisted for the 2025 Future Leader Awards

The Future Leader Awards, presented by Digiday, Glossy, Modern Retail and WorkLife, recognize the next generation of leaders making a big impact in their industry, with 10 years of experience or less. 

This year’s finalists stand out for their bold innovation, measurable impact and deep connection to the audiences they serve. Each has harnessed data to shape strategy, delivered campaigns that drive real results or pushed creative boundaries within their roles. From cultural relevance to community engagement, these leaders are not just keeping pace with the industry — they’re setting it.

Alice Severs, for example, associate strategy director at T Brand Studio of New York Times Advertising, is nominated as a Digiday Future Leader in the publisher category for her standout work shaping how financial brands communicate with audiences. 

Continue reading this article on digiday.com. Sign up for Digiday newsletters to get the latest on media, marketing and the future of TV.

Asigna raises $3M to launch v2 smart multisig vault for Bitcoin DeFi and layer-2 ecosystem

Asigna, the project behind a non-custodial smart multisig vault for Bitcoin and its Layer-2 protocols, has rolled out a major v2 upgrade and secured $3 million in fresh funding to push it forward. The round was led by Hivemind Capital […]

The post Asigna raises $3M to launch v2 smart multisig vault for Bitcoin DeFi and layer-2 ecosystem first appeared on Tech Startups.

RFK Jr. revokes COVID shot recommendations for kids, during pregnancy

Anti-vaccine advocate and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has unilaterally revoked federal recommendations for healthy children and pregnant people to get COVID-19 booster shots.

The abrupt change, announced on social media, could make it yet more difficult, if not impossible, for healthy children and pregnant people to have access to the seasonal vaccines, which have proven safe and effective at protecting both of those groups from severe illness.

In a regulatory meeting last week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Ruth Link-Gelles presented 2023–2024 data showing that COVID-19 boosters effectively protected children and teens from needing urgent or emergency care due to COVID-19 (slide 36). In children 9 months to 4 years old in that season, the boosters provided 52 percent added effectiveness over background immunity from past vaccination and illness. The boosters were 64 percent effective in kids ages 5 to 17.

Read full article

Comments

© Getty | Kevin Dietsch

Falcon 9 sonic booms can feel more like seismic waves

The Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara, California, serves military space launch missions as well as launches for NASA and commercial entities like SpaceX. But how do all those launches affect residents living along the Central Coast? People might marvel at the spectacular visual display, but as launch activity at the base has ramped up, so have the noise complaints, particularly about the sonic booms produced by Falcon 9 launches, which can reach as far south as Ventura County. The booms rattle windows, frighten pets, and have raised concerns about threats to the structural integrity of private homes.

There have been rockets launching from Vandenberg for decades, so why are the Falcon 9 launches of such concern? "Because of the Starlink satellites, the orbital mechanics for where they're trying to place these in orbit is bringing [the trajectories] closer to the coast," said Brigham Young University's Kent Gee, who described his research into sonic boom effects on neighboring communities in a press briefing at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in New Orleans. And the launches are occurring much more frequently, from two to three launches per year in the 1980s to between five and seven launches each month today. There were 46 Falcon 9 launches out of the Vandenberg base in 2024 alone, per Gee.

Gee joined a project called ECOBOOM (Environmental and Community Observation of Sonic Booms) to study the factors that can impact just how jarring those sonic booms might be, conducted jointly by BYU and California State University, Bakersfield, with cooperation from the Space Force. "Space Force is interested in this because they feel a sense of stewardship," said Gee. "These rockets from SpaceX and other providers are launched from the base for a variety of missions and they want to understand the effects both on and off base, trying to understand how they can complete the mission while minimizing [negative] impacts."

Read full article

Comments

© NASA/Jim Ross

Remakes of the first two Dragon Quest games launch in October

More upgraded blue slimes are on the way: Square Enix just announced that remakes of Dragon Quest 1 and its sequel are launching on October 3oth. The two games will be bundled together under the name Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake and will be available on the PS5, Xbox, PC, and both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

This is good news if you’re a fan of the series, given that the remake of DQIII turned out excellent, marrying the classic RPG gameplay with incredible visuals and sound, along with some welcome quality-of-life tweaks. For the new remakes, Square Enix says that “in addition to beautiful HD-2D graphics, a refined battle system, numerous quality-of-life updates, and major story additions, both remakes will feature a variety of new content.” As for what that new content is, details “will be revealed at a later date.”

And if you’re wondering why this remake series kicked off with the third entry in the franchise, it’s because that’s how the storylines play out chronologically. DQIII is set years before its predecessors, and in DQI and II players take control of the descendants of the hero from the third game. It’s a little complicated, but in October newcomers will finally be able to complete the story.

To that end, Square Enix will also be launching a digital-only collection with all three games, called Dragon Quest HD-2D Erdrick Trilogy Collection. It’ll be available for $99.99.

Nintendo partners with third-party websites to stop Switch 2 scalpers

It is as inevitable as a sunrise that in the hours after the Switch 2 launch next week, third-party sites like Ebay will be filled with listings for the new console. But in Japan, Nintendo has announced a new partnership with Japanese third-party retail sites to combat fraudulent Switch 2 listings.

Mercari, Yahoo Auctions and Yahoo Flea Market, and Rakuten Rakuma are the participating websites that will, according to a machine translation of Nintendo’s announcement, “proactively remove listings” and establish “a collaborative system for sharing information.” Nintendo says only “fraudulent listings” that violated the sites’ terms of service agreement would be targeted for removal.

In a translated statement on Yahoo Japan’s website, the retailer stated that there will be a probationary period for the Switch 2 starting June 5th in which Yahoo Japan will remove listings for the console or suspending the accounts selling them. According to Yahoo Japan, it will revise the probationary period as necessary.

Scalpers are the bane of any console launch. Bots flood online buying queues to snap up units before real humans can click “Add to Cart.” Bot users then take advantage of consumer FOMO by listing consoles for exorbitant prices. Meanwhile, other sellers use deception to trick people into buying what they think is a console but is actually a picture of a box or some other worthless item. (Anti-scalpers would later use a version of this practice for the Switch 2.)

Hopefully, Nintendo’s plan with third-party sites in Japan works well enough to expand it to other regions.

To cut down on scalpers during the Switch 2 preorder window, Nintendo sent out preorder invitations to users with over 50 hours of gameplay and a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.

❌