According to a study designed by the Stanford Deliberative Democracy Lab, more than 60% of newly registered voters in the US oppose requiring kids under age 16 to seek parental consent to use social media. More than 85% of young people think there should be no time limits on when they can receive social media notifications.
Parents, lawmakers, regulators and child safety advocates have spent years pushing for rules they say will ease the risks posed by heavy use of these services. But those just reaching voting age are starting to have more influence over who represents them.
Judge tells Google to brace for shakeup of app store
A US judge has indicated that he will order major changes to Google’s Android app store to punish the company for engineering a system that was declared an illegal monopoly hurting millions of consumers and app developers.
Judge James Donato made it clear that the shake-up will probably include a mandate requiring Google’s Play Store offer consumers a choice to download alternative app stores.
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In response, Google said downloading software from third-party app stores may trigger “security chaos”. But Donato repeatedly hammered on the need for a major overhaul of the Play Store, even if it causes Google headaches and huge bills that the company has estimated could run as high as $600 million, depending on what the judge orders. Donato said he is hoping to issue an order outlining the framework for the changes within the next few weeks.
US lawmakers press Meta over illicit drug ads
Members of the US Congress called on Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg to give them details regarding ads for opiods and other illicit drugs on its platforms, Facebook and Instagram.
A letter signed by 19 lawmakers wrote: “Meta appears to have continued to shirk its social responsibility and defy its own community guidelines. What is particularly egregious about this instance is that this was not user-generated content on the dark web or private social media, but rather, they were advertisements approved and monetised by Meta.”
Questions included how many such ads Meta has run on its platforms, what it has done about them, and whether viewers were targeted for such ads based on personal health information.
They asked Zuckerberg for answers by September 6.
“Our systems are designed to proactively detect and enforce against violating content, and we reject hundreds of thousands of ads for violating our drug policies,” a Meta spokesperson said.
Softbank scraps tie-up plan with Intel for chips
Japanese investor SoftBank has reportedly dropped plans of producing an artificial intelligence chip with Intel to compete with Nvidia.
The partnership did not materialise after the US chipmaker struggled to meet SoftBank’s requirements, according to reports citing people familiar with the matter.
SoftBank has blamed Intel for the collapse of the talks, claiming it was incapable of meeting its demands for volume and speed, a report said, adding that SoftBank is now focusing on discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker.
