Politics

As lawmakers consider a slate of bills focused on protecting children on the internet, Apple CEO Tim Cook had a closed-door meeting today to push for his preferred solutions, as reported by Bloomberg:

Back in the mists of time, in ancient 2009, the European Union fined Intel €1.06 billion ($1.2 billion) for anticompetitive behaviors. The two have been in court ever since, and after Intel got the fine cut to €376 million, it’s now dropped again to €237.1 million ($275 million). How low can it go?

A key committee scheduled a markup of 18 bills, including the revised Kids Online Safety Act, for Thursday. That’s just over a week since holding a hearing to first consider the package. After killing KOSA last year, the House may be trying to leave its mark before the holiday break.

As Ted Sarandos and David Ellison play out a public spat over whose turn it is to play with Warner Bros., while trying to impress Trump and the regulators along the way, just remember that the real winners at the end will be HBO Max subscribers.

There’s some kind of news coming from the White House this week about AI regulations, after a post from the president to Truth Social saying, “You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”

The White House is planning to give Nvidia the green light to begin exporting its H200 AI GPU chips to China, according to reports from Semafor and the WSJ. As noted by the WSJ, the H200 chip is more powerful than the scaled-down H20 GPU that China has cracked down on, but it still doesn’t rival Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs.

Draft text of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes funding through 2028 for the Protect Our Children Act. The 2008 bill created a nationwide task force of law enforcement agencies skilled in investigating crimes against children facilitated by the internet. Tech industry group NetChoice applauded the provision.

The court is hearing arguments in a case where it could overturn decades of precedent over the president’s firing of a Federal Trade Commissioner. While conservative justices worry about letting Congress’ authority run wild, liberal justices like Elena Kagan warn of creating “a president with control over everything.”

Despite Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ efforts to woo the president last month, Trump said on Sunday that plans to combine the streamer with Warner Bros. “could be a problem.” Trump said that Netflix already has a “very big market share,” which will “go up by a lot” if the $83 billion buyout goes ahead.

After the Trump administration used Carpenter’s song “Juno” in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) propaganda video, the pop star responded, calling it “evil and disgusting.” The White House account has since deleted the post — but they’ve picked this fight with musicians before.

On Friday, the handpicked CDC advisory group, containing several known vaccine critics, scrapped the three-decade-old recommendation to vaccinate all babies for hepatitis B at birth, instead delaying the recommended schedule to 2 months, if at all, for babies whose mothers test negative for the disease.

As Russia bans Roblox for spreading “LGBT propaganda” — now along with Snapchat and FaceTime too — it leaves homophobes with yet another thing to avoid, just in case.

Alex Karp — the CEO of Palantir, the not-a-surveillance company put forward by Elon Musk’s DOGE to supply the US government with software that allows ICE to track immigrants — is very offended that anyone would suggest he is running a surveillance company.

UK regulator Ofcom announced it’s fined a porn provider £1 million (around $1.3 million) under the Online Safety Act because while it has age verification measures, they aren’t “highly effective.” That’s just a little more bite than the £20,000 ($27,000) fine it handed 4Chan earlier in the year.

The brief panic caused by an attempt to shoehorn AI preemption into a must-pass defense bill is over. But this won’t be the last you hear of this. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told reporters “we’re still looking at other places” to work it in, saying there’s still interest.

President Trump is expected to announce a major rollback of Biden-era standards on Wednesday for 2022-2031 model-year vehicles, Reuters reports. Since stepping into office, his administration has worked to dismantle efficiency regulations meant to cut down pollution and save consumers money.

Along with pro-AI, pro-pollution, and pro-surveillance plans, the spending bill signed in July introduced investment accounts for children with $1,000 contributed for US citizens born from 2025 through 2028. Today, Michael and Susan Dell announced they would also contribute:

Some Democrats on the panel and one witness warn that a politicized and weakened Federal Trade Commission could undermine enforcement of any laws passed. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) recalls an earlier hearing derailed by the president’s firing of two Democratic commissioners — the subject of a Supreme Court hearing Monday.

Ahead of the hearing, global head of privacy Hilary Ware shared Apple’s guiding principles for any app store-based age assurance laws with subcommittee leaders. The company may see the writing on the wall as such laws that have swept states are now getting a shot in Congress.

That’s the message from E&C Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY), defending the gutting of the duty of care in KOSA. It’s also one of the central tensions playing out in today’s hearing: Could KOSA withstand judicial scrutiny with the duty of care? And can a version without it protect kids?

I’m in the hearing room where House lawmakers are discussing 19 bills they say will make kids safer online. Subcommittee Chair Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) begins by defending the massive rework of KOSA. “Don’t mistake durability for weakness,” he says. I’ll share more updates in the stream below.

A Department of Corrections officer at the Pennsylvania prison where Mangione was held after his arrest told the court that he and Mangione discussed how traditional media and social media was reacting to the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The corrections officer told Mangione that from his perspective, mainstream media focused on the crime, whereas social media users discussed the wrongdoings of the healthcare industry.