The European Commission (EC) is planning to "energetically" advance its probe into content moderation on X (formerly Twitter), potentially ordering changes at Elon Musk's social network in the coming months, Bloomberg reported.

Since 2023, the EC has been investigating X for possible violations of the Digital Services Act (DSA). Notably, it's the group's first formal probe under the DSA, which requires very large online platforms to meet strict content moderation and transparency standards to ensure user safety, reduce misinformation, prevent illegal/harmful activity, and facilitate "a fair and open online platform environment."

In a letter to European lawmakers viewed by Bloomberg, EC tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen and justice chief Michael McGrath apparently confirmed that the investigation into X will end “as early as legally possible."

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On Thursday, music publishers got a small win in a copyright fight alleging that Anthropic's Claude chatbot regurgitates song lyrics without paying licensing fees to rights holders.

In an order, US district judge Eumi Lee outlined the terms of a deal reached between Anthropic and publisher plaintiffs who license some of the most popular songs on the planet, which she said resolves one aspect of the dispute.

Through the deal, Anthropic admitted no wrongdoing and agreed to maintain its current strong guardrails on its AI models and products throughout the litigation. These guardrails, Anthropic has repeatedly claimed in court filings, effectively work to prevent outputs containing actual song lyrics to hits like Beyonce's "Halo," Spice Girls' "Wannabe," Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," or any of the 500 songs at the center of the suit.

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On Thursday, a three-judge panel struck down net neutrality rules that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had hoped would stop broadband providers from varying speeds for users when connecting to different websites.

In his opinion, US circuit judge Richard Allen Griffin wrote that the FCC lacked the authority to impose the net neutrality rules under the "telecommunications service" provision of the Communications Act.

"The core of the dispute here," Griffin wrote, "is whether Broadband Internet Service Providers" like Xfinity or Spectrum offer a "telecommunications service" or an "information service." Because judges agreed they offer the latter, the court ruled that they could not be subjected to the FCC's net neutrality policies.

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Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its voice assistant Siri routinely recorded private conversations that were then shared with third parties and used for targeted ads.

In the proposed class-action settlement—which comes after five years of litigation—Apple admitted to no wrongdoing. Instead, the settlement refers to "unintentional" Siri activations that occurred after the "Hey, Siri" feature was introduced in 2014, where recordings were apparently prompted without users ever saying the trigger words, "Hey, Siri."

Sometimes Siri would be inadvertently activated, a whistleblower told The Guardian, when an Apple Watch was raised and speech was detected. The only clue that users seemingly had of Siri's alleged spying was eerily accurate targeted ads that appeared after they had just been talking about specific items like Air Jordans or brands like Olive Garden, Reuters noted (claims which remain disputed).

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It's getting harder to access popular adult sites in the US South.

On Wednesday, Pornhub's owner, Aylo, kicked off the new year by blocking two more states that implemented age verification laws requiring ID to access porn, Florida and South Carolina. According to 404 Media, these states are now among 16 states where Aylo sites, including Pornhub, RedTube, and YouPorn, cannot be accessed. Tennessee also risked being blocked, but a court preliminarily blocked its age-verification law from taking effect.

The other blocked states are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. Mapping it out, 404 Media noted that the Aylo blackout spans nearly the entire US South, with Georgia's age verification law set to take effect in July and likely to trigger another block that would almost complete the blackout.

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Ahead of a major crackdown on illegal cryptocurrency mines in Russia next year, a power provider in Siberia has been fined for illegally leasing state land that's supposed to be used only for public utilities to an illegal mining operation.

In a social media post translated by Ars, the Irkutsk Region Prosecutor-General’s Office explained that the power provider was fined more than 330,000 rubles (about $3,000) for the improper land use. Local prosecutors will also pursue an administrative case against the power provider, the office said.

Crypto mining is popular in Siberia because of low operating costs, Crypto News noted, due to the cool temperatures and cheap power supply. But many in Siberia have blamed crypto miners for power outages and grid instability that can cause significant harms during winter months.

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In the weeks before Donald Trump takes office, he has moved to delay a nationwide TikTok ban from taking effect until he has a chance to make a deal on his own terms that he believes could allow TikTok to continue operating in the US without posing a national security threat.

On Friday, Trump's lawyer filed a brief, urging the Supreme Court to stay enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act that would either ban TikTok on January 19 or force TikTok to sell the company to prevent China's alleged covert control of content on the app.

The Supreme Court had previously denied TikTok's request for an injunction that would have delayed enforcement until Trump takes office, instead planning to rush a decision on whether the Act violates the First Amendment before the deadline hits.

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It feels like tech workers have caught very few breaks over the past several years, between ongoing mass layoffs, stagnating wages amid inflation, AI supposedly coming for jobs, and unpopular orders to return to office that, for many, threaten to disrupt work-life balance.

But in 2024, a potentially critical mass of tech workers seemed to reach a breaking point. As labor rights groups advocating for tech workers told Ars, these workers are banding together in sustained strong numbers and are either winning or appear tantalizingly close to winning better worker conditions at major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

In February, the industry-wide Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) noted that "the tech workers movement is far more expansive and impactful" than even labor rights advocates realized, noting that unionized tech workers have gone beyond early stories about Googlers marching in the streets and now "make the headlines on a daily basis."

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A brave YouTuber has managed to defeat a fake Nintendo lawyer improperly targeting his channel with copyright takedowns that could have seen his entire channel removed if YouTube issued one more strike.

Sharing his story with The Verge, Dominik "Domtendo" Neumayer—a German YouTuber who has broadcasted play-throughs of popular games for 17 years—said that it all started when YouTube removed some videos from his channel that were centered on The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. Those removals came after a pair of complaints were filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and generated two strikes. Everyone on YouTube knows that three strikes mean you're out and off the platform permanently.

Suddenly at risk of losing the entire channel he had built on YouTube, Neumayer was stunned, The Verge noted, partly because most game companies consider "Let's Play" videos like his to be free marketing, not a threat to their business. And while Nintendo has been known to target YouTubers with DMCA takedowns, it generally historically took no issues with accounts like his.

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OpenAI has finally shared details about its plans to shake up its core business by shifting to a for-profit corporate structure.

On Thursday, OpenAI posted on its blog, confirming that in 2025, the existing for-profit arm will be transformed into a Delaware-based public benefit corporation (PBC). As a PBC, OpenAI would be required to balance its shareholders' and stakeholders' interests with the public benefit. To achieve that, OpenAI would offer "ordinary shares of stock" while using some profits to further its mission—"ensuring artificial general intelligence (AGI) benefits all of humanity"—to serve a social good.

To compensate for losing control over the for-profit, the nonprofit would have some shares in the PBC, but it's currently unclear how many will be allotted. Independent financial advisors will help OpenAI reach a "fair valuation," the blog said, while promising the new structure would "multiply" the donations that previously supported the nonprofit.

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Under Joe Biden's direction, the US Trade Representative (USTR) launched a probe Monday into China's plans to globally dominate markets for legacy chips—alleging that China's unfair trade practices threaten US national security and could thwart US efforts to build up a domestic semiconductor supply chain.

Unlike the most advanced chips used to power artificial intelligence that are currently in short supply, these legacy chips rely on older manufacturing processes and are more ubiquitous in mass-market products. They're used in tech for cars, military vehicles, medical devices, smartphones, home appliances, space projects, and much more.

China apparently "plans to build more than 60 percent of the world's new legacy chip capacity over the next decade," and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said evidence showed this was "discouraging investment elsewhere and constituted unfair competition," Reuters reported.

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For months, popular fighting game YouTubers have been under attack. Even the seemingly most cautious among them have been duped by sophisticated phishing attacks that hack their accounts to push cryptocurrency scams by convincingly appearing to offer legitimate sponsorships from established brands.

These scams often start with bad actors seemingly taking over verified accounts on X (formerly Twitter) with substantial followings and then using them to impersonate marketing managers at real brands who can be easily found on LinkedIn.

The fake X accounts go to great lengths to appear legitimate. They link to brands' actual websites and populate feeds with histories seemingly spanning decades by re-posting brands' authentic posts.

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Amazon workers at seven warehouses walked out Thursday morning, launching a strike ahead of the holidays after Amazon failed to meet a bargaining deadline set by the Teamsters union representing the workers.

In a press release, Teamsters declared it "the largest strike against Amazon in US history." Teamsters general president, Sean O'Brien, warned shoppers of potential delays, saying "you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed."

"We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it," O’Brien said. "These greedy executives had every chance to show decency and respect for the people who make their obscene profits possible. Instead, they’ve pushed workers to the limit and now they’re paying the price. This strike is on them."

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On Wednesday, the Supreme Court confirmed it would review whether a federal law that could ban or force a sale of TikTok is unconstitutional.

The announcement came just one day after TikTok and its owner ByteDance petitioned SCOTUS for a temporary injunction to halt the ban until the high court could consider what TikTok claimed is "a massive and unprecedented speech restriction" ahead of a change in US presidential administrations.

“We’re pleased with today’s Supreme Court order," TikTok said in a statement. "We believe the Court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights.”

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TikTok has asked the Supreme Court to step in before it's forced to shut down the app in the US next month.

In a petition requesting a temporary injunction, TikTok prompted the Supreme Court to block the ban and grant a review that TikTok believes will result in a verdict that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act is unconstitutional. And if the court cannot take up this review before TikTok's suggested January 6 deadline, the court should issue an administrative injunction delaying the ban until after Trump's inauguration, TikTok argued, appearing to seek any path to delay enforcement, even if only by a day.

According to TikTok, it makes no sense to force the app to shut down on January 19 if, the very next day or soon thereafter, Trump will take office and pause or otherwise intervene with enforcement.

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Just as Amazon warehouse workers are threatening to launch the "first large-scale" unfair labor practices strike at Amazon in US history, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released a report accusing Amazon of operating "uniquely dangerous warehouses" that allegedly put profits over worker safety.

As chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Sanders started investigating Amazon in June 2023. His goal was "to uncover why Amazon’s injury rates far exceed those of its competitors and to understand what happens to Amazon workers when they are injured on the job."

According to Sanders, Amazon "sometimes ignored" the committee's requests and ultimately only supplied 285 documents requested. The e-commerce giant was mostly only willing to hand over "training materials given to on-site first aid staff," Sanders noted, rather than "information on how it tracks workers, the quotas it imposes on workers, and the disciplinary actions it takes when workers cannot meet those quotas, internal studies on the connection between speed and injury rates, and the company’s treatment of injured workers."

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A bitcoin investor who went to increasingly great lengths to hide $1 million in cryptocurrency gains on his tax returns was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday.

It seems that not even his most "sophisticated" tactics—including using mixers, managing multiple wallets, and setting up in-person meetings to swap bitcoins for cash—kept the feds from tracing crypto trades that he believed were untraceable.

The Austin, Texas, man, Frank Richard Ahlgren III, started buying up bitcoins in 2011. In 2015, he upped his trading, purchasing approximately 1,366 using Coinbase accounts. He waited until 2017 before cashing in, earning $3.7 million after selling about 640 at a price more than 10 times his initial costs. Celebrating his gains, he bought a house in Utah in 2017, mostly funded by bitcoins he purchased in 2015.

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Following a pair of lawsuits alleging that chatbots caused a teen boy's suicide, groomed a 9-year-old girl, and caused a vulnerable teen to self-harm, Character.AI (C.AI) has announced a separate model just for teens, ages 13 and up, that's supposed to make their experiences with bots safer.

In a blog, C.AI said it took a month to develop the teen model, with the goal of guiding the existing model "away from certain responses or interactions, reducing the likelihood of users encountering, or prompting the model to return, sensitive or suggestive content."

C.AI said "evolving the model experience" to reduce the likelihood kids are engaging in harmful chats—including bots allegedly teaching a teen with high-functioning autism to self-harm and delivering inappropriate adult content to all kids whose families are suing—it had to tweak both model inputs and outputs.

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Photobucket was sued Wednesday after a recent privacy policy update revealed plans to sell users' photos—including biometric identifiers like face and iris scans—to companies training generative AI models.

The proposed class action seeks to stop Photobucket from selling users' data without first obtaining written consent, alleging that Photobucket either intentionally or negligently failed to comply with strict privacy laws in states like Illinois, New York, and California by claiming it can't reliably determine users' geolocation.

Two separate classes could be protected by the litigation. The first includes anyone who ever uploaded a photo between 2003—when Photobucket was founded—and May 1, 2024. Another potentially even larger class includes any non-users depicted in photographs uploaded to Photobucket, whose biometric data has also allegedly been sold without consent.

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Google reportedly wants the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to end Microsoft's exclusive cloud deal with OpenAI that requires anyone wanting access to OpenAI's models to go through Microsoft's servers.

Someone "directly involved" in Google's effort told The Information that Google's request came after the FTC began broadly probing how Microsoft's cloud computing business practices may be harming competition.

As part of the FTC's investigation, the agency apparently asked Microsoft's biggest rivals if the exclusive OpenAI deal was "preventing them from competing in the burgeoning artificial intelligence market," multiple sources told The Information. Google reportedly was among those arguing that the deal harms competition by saddling rivals with extra costs and blocking them from hosting OpenAI's latest models themselves.

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