James Farrell
Latest from James Farrell
After confusion, FTC says it will go ahead with Amazon deceptive practices case
Following a short delay over what may or may not have been staffing shortages, the Federal Trade Commission now says it will now continue with its consumer protection trial against Amazon.com Inc. “We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on our case team,” FTC attorney Jonathan Cohen said at a status ...
Sam Altman says OpenAI has trained a fiction writing AI model that’s actually decent
So far, generative artificial intelligence models have been able to pull off only crude assimilations of fiction writing, but OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman today said his firm has trained a model for that particular purpose, and he claims it’s “really good.” “This is the first time I have been really struck by something written ...
Digital Fort Knox: Trump signs executive order for US strategic bitcoin reserve
President Donald Trump today signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and other digital currencies, an account whose value is currently worth billions of dollars. It’s estimated that there is close to 200,000 bitcoin held by the U.S. government, although that hasn’t yet ever been a comprehensive audit. The order also asks for ...
Utah passes controversial age-verification bill for app stores
Utah today became the first state to pass legislation mandating app stores verify users’ ages and require parental consent for young people to download apps. As the U.S. struggles to tackle online safety for minors, the onus so far has mostly been on social media companies to tackle the problem at their end. Utah’s new ...
Meta issues apology after Instagram started flooding people’s feeds with obscene content
Meta Platforms Inc. today had to apologize after a glitch caused its Instagram Reels feature to inundate users with videos of real-life horror. “We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. “We apologize ...
Mass resignations at DOGE after staff refuse to be part of cutting public services
A group of 21 civil servants resigned today rather than help implement changes to the federal government as requested by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, which was ...
AI will assess controversial email sent by Elon Musk asking government workers to justify their jobs
After a recent email demanding federal employees summarize their work, it’s now understood that the responses will be assessed by an artificial intelligence system to determine if their work is valuable. “Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk tweeted ...
FCC launches probe into censorship on Big Tech platforms
The Federal Trade Commission today announced that it will investigate alleged censorship on tech platforms, explaining that any wrongdoing would “have violated the law.” “Tech firms should not be bullying their users,” said FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, recently chosen by President Trump to lead the commission. “This inquiry will help the FTC better understand how ...
Trump Media and Rumble sue Brazil Supreme Court justice in censorship row
Donald Trump’s media group and the video platform Rumble today filed a joint lawsuit against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, accusing him of violating U.S. free speech protections. The suit, filed in a federal court in Tampa, Florida, came just hours after Brazil’s ex-president Jair Bolsonaro was charged with attempting a coup after ...
South Korea pauses DeepSeek downloads over privacy concerns
South Korea’s personal data protection watchdog has announced that downloads of the popular Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek have been banned in the country. The Personal Information Protection Commission said the app was removed from the local version of Apple’s App Store and Google Play over the weekend. The officials said the app will remain ...