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| Here’s a look at today's tech briefing: - EU investigating Instagram and Facebook addiction in children.
- TikTok creators sue U.S. over divest-or-ban law.
- Microsoft offers to relocate up to 800 China-based workers.
- MIT brothers charged with stealing $25M of crypto.
- Meta testing a TweetDeck-like feature for Threads.
- Microsoft greenhouse gas emissions rise 30% since 2020.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | European lawmakers are investigating whether Meta's Instagram and Facebook encourage addiction and "rabbit-hole effects" in children. The European Commission, the EU's executive body, opened formal proceedings to determine if Meta violated the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA). More: - The law requires most online platforms to take more action to tackle illegal and harmful content.
- On Thursday, EU regulators said Facebook and Instagram's systems may foster behavioral addictions in children, violating the DSA.
- The European Commission is also concerned about Meta's age verification methods for children related to accessing inappropriate content.
- In response, Meta said it has developed over 50 tools and policies to protect children online, adding that it will share details of its work with the EU.
- DSA violations can result in fines of up to 6% of a company's global annual revenue.
Zoom out: - In a separate probe, the EU is looking into Meta's "pay or consent" model, which charges EU users for an ad-free subscription to Facebook or Instagram unless they allow their data to be used for ad targeting.
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| 2 | | Eight TikTok creators sued the U.S. government, claiming the TikTok divest-or ban law violates their First Amendment rights. Last month, President Joe Biden signed the law to ban U.S. TikTok unless Chinese owner ByteDance divests it in nine months. More: - The creators filed the lawsuit this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
- Their suit argues the U.S. law is "unconstitutionally overbroad" and would deprive TikTok users of a "distinctive means of expression and communication."
- The creators come from many states and backgrounds, including a rancher, baker, book reviewer, football coach, and rapper.
Zoom out: - TikTok is covering the legal costs for the creators' lawsuit, echoing its past successful legal defenses against TikTok bans in 2020 and in Montana last year.
- Last week, TikTok and ByteDance also sued to block the law on First Amendment grounds, arguing that a forced sale would effectively shut down the app in the U.S.
- According to a recent YouGov/The Economist survey, nearly half of U.S. adults support a forced sale or ban of TikTok, while 28% disapprove. The issue is divided along party lines.
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| 3 | | Microsoft has offered to relocate up to 800 China-based employees out of the country amid U.S.-China tensions, per The Wall Street Journal. The employees, primarily engineers of Chinese nationality, work on machine learning and cloud computing. More: - Microsoft gave the staffers the option to relocate to the U.S., Ireland, Australia, or New Zealand.
- The company confirmed offering voluntary relocations to some employees, adding that internal transfers are routine in its global operations.
- Microsoft's Asia-Pacific R&D group, primarily based in China, employs about 7,000 engineers.
- The company said it remains committed to operating in China.
Zoom out: - The move comes as the U.S. government restricts China's access to advanced AI chips and technology, slowing Beijing's military development and fueling tensions between the countries.
- The U.S. Commerce Department is now weighing new rules to curb exports of closed-source AI models to China, such as those from OpenAI and Google.
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| 4 | | The U.S. Justice Department charged two brothers for allegedly exploiting the Ethereum blockchain to steal $25M in cryptocurrency. Anton Peraire-Bueno, 24, and James Peraire-Bueno, 28, attended MIT and are the sons of Jaime Peraire, an MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics. More: - The brothers were arrested Wednesday on charges of money laundering and wire fraud.
- Prosecutors allege the men exploited an Ethereum blockchain flaw to intercept pending crypto transactions.
- The two allegedly plotted over months and executed the plan in April 2023, stealing $25M from traders in only 12 seconds.
- Foreign law enforcement froze about $3M, but the brothers converted the remaining funds to the DAI stablecoin token.
Zoom out: - Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, whose office is prosecuting the case, described the scheme as unprecedented and said it "calls the very integrity of the blockchain into question."
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| 5 | | Meta is testing a TweetDeck-like feature for Threads, its text-focused social network. The tool allows testers to view multiple content feeds on a single screen. More: - Users chosen for the test can create customizable, column-stacked feeds in Threads.
- They can choose a single feed or add separate columns for searches, tags, accounts, saved posts, and notifications.
- Users can pin up to 100 feeds to their homepage.
- The experience is currently limited to Threads on the web.
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| 6 | | Microsoft's greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 30% since 2020, despite its pledge to become carbon-negative by 2030. Microsoft released its 2024 Environmental Sustainability Report this week, detailing its climate efforts. More: - In fiscal 2020, Microsoft emitted 11.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
- That number has since jumped to 15.4 million metric tons in fiscal 2023, five times Seattle's annual emissions.
- Microsoft leadership said the company still remains committed to its environmental goals.
- The company is investing in renewable power, developing over 80 new strategies to curb carbon use in areas like construction and travel, and requiring high-volume suppliers to use carbon-free electricity by 2030, it said.
Zoom out: - Rising demand for AI will only add to Microsoft's energy consumption, likely hindering its climate targets as it spends heavily on data processing.
- The OpenAI investor plans to spend over $50B this fiscal year to expand AI data centers in multiple countries, with even higher expenditures expected next year.
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 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
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