Meta Settles Addiction Trial with Kentucky School District

Meta Platforms reached a settlement with a Kentucky school district over accusations that social-media companies intentionally designed their platforms to addict young people, becoming the last major platform to resolve the case and avert a coming trial. The settlement spares the companies from a June jury trial that was poised to be the first among more than 1,200 lawsuits brought by school districts alleging student mental-health harms caused by Meta, TikTok, Snap and Alphabet’s YouTube.

Bill Would Increase U.S. Specialists Combating Child Sex Abuse Online

Senate Republicans included in their reconciliation bill a significant increase in funding to fight child sexual trafficking and exploitation, adding to a drumbeat in Congress to better protect children online. The measure, championed by Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, would increase the number of specialists combating child sexual abuse material and child trafficking at the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations division to 200 from seven.

Hacking Fears Created by Anthropic's Mythos Appear Overstated

Early fears that Anthropic’s new AI model, Mythos, could dramatically turbocharge hacking are looking overstated a month after its release. The company warned at launch in April that Mythos had uncovered thousands of software ​vulnerabilities — including flaws across every major operating system and browser — and said the fallout from its spread could be severe.

Appeals Court Hears Pentagon's Case Against Anthropic

Anthropic and the Pentagon squared off in a federal appeals court, where the artificial intelligence firm faced an uphill battle in convincing three Republican-appointed judges that Secretary Pete Hegseth’s supply chain risk label violated the law. Lawyers for the Defense Department and Anthropic faced intense questioning from a three-judge panel in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously rejected the AI firm’s bid to temporarily halt the supply chain risk designation.

Law Requiring Removal of Some Intimate Images Goes Into Effect

Online platforms are now required by law to remove non-consensual intimate images within 48 hours of reporting, as a federal law criminalizing the sharing of such content goes into full effect. President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act into law last year, which makes it illegal to publish online nonconsensual intimate visual depictions, real or artificially generated.

  • Read the article: CNN

Security Researcher Finds Exposed Credentials for Government Access

U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA may have escaped a sizable security breach, thanks to a good-faith security researcher who identified publicly exposed credentials that allowed access to government cloud and internal agency systems. As first reported by independent security reporter Brian Krebs, GitGuardian security researcher Guillaume Valadon found reams of exposed plaintext credentials listed in spreadsheets, which had been made publicly accessible in a GitHub repository by an employee working for a CISA contractor.

Children's Advocacy Groups Ask FTC to ​Investigate Roblox

Two children's advocacy groups asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to ​investigate gaming platform Roblox, according to a letter ‌shared with Reuters saying its design features and marketing techniques are “unfair and deceptive.” The groups Fairplay and the National Center ​on Sexual Exploitation asked the FTC to ​investigate whether Roblox violated the Federal Trade Act’s ⁠section 5, according to the letter.

Snap, Google, TikTok Settle Lawsuit Over School Disruptions

Snap Inc., Google’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok reached agreements to settle the first lawsuit headed to trial over claims that addiction to top social media platforms has disrupted learning and pushed public schools to spend massive sums fighting a mental health crisis, according to court filings. The trio of settlements announced leaves only Meta Platforms Inc. to face off with a rural Kentucky school district in a trial set to begin June 12 in federal court in Oakland, California.

Maker of Canvas School Software Reaches Deal with Hackers

The maker of Canvas, the software used by thousands of schools and universities around the world, said that it had reached a deal with the hackers that recently breached its systems for the return of stolen data and the destruction of any copies. The agreement, Instructure said in a statement, involved the return of the stolen data and confirmation that the data had been destroyed at the hackers’ end.

Parents Sue OpenAI After Death from Drugs Allegedly Encouraged by ChatGPT

The parents of a man who died of an accidental drug overdose ​last year sued OpenAI and its founder and CEO Sam Altman in a California court, alleging the man was coached ‌to take a dangerous combination of substances by ChatGPT. Leila Turner-Scott and Angus Scott say their son, Sam Nelson, 19, was using a chatbot for guidance on combining different drugs.

Google Says It Thwarted AI-Backed 'Mass Vulnerability Exploitation'

Google’s Threat Intelligence Group said in a report that it thwarted an effort by hackers to use artificial intelligence models to “plan a mass vulnerability exploitation operation.” GTIG said it has “high confidence” that it recorded hackers using an AI model to find and exploit a zero-day vulnerability, or a software flaw unknown to developers, creating a way to bypass two-factor authentication.

  • Read the article: CNBC

Cruz Gives Support to Passage of Kids Online Safety Act

U.S. legislation that would require social media companies to take more responsibility for ​how their apps affect children and teens overcame ‌a key hurdle when a leading Republican senator said he would back the bill. U.S. Senator Ted Cruz ​said at an event in Washington ​that he will back the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that would require social media companies ​to "exercise reasonable care" when designing features that contribute to ​harms to minors, according to the legislation.

Data Breach at Canvas Highlights Schools' Cyber Weaknesses

The vast data breach at education platform Canvas exposed the vulnerability of student information as hackers increasingly target school systems, colleges and the tech companies they rely on in hopes of scoring big ransom payouts. The latest attack comes as a handful of big educational technology providers are managing a huge amount of information and as a backlash brews among parents who want to curb computer use in classrooms.

Advances in AI Prompt White House to Reconsider Addressing Risks

The arrival of a new generation of powerful artificial intelligence models, like Anthropic’s Mythos, has begun to crack the White House’s hard-line stance on promoting the technology, as top officials confront security risks posed by tools that can easily find flaws long buried in computer code. President Donald Trump’s team is considering an executive order to tackle those risks, and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett compared the approach this week to how the FDA tests new drugs “so that they’re released to the wild after they’ve been proven safe.”

Malaysia Considers Action Against Meta Over Fake Accounts for Royals

Malaysia is studying actions to be taken against Meta Platforms Inc. for failing to curb fake accounts involving the country’s Malay rulers, Bernama reported, citing Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil. Between January and May this year, public complaints and monitoring by the communications ministry flagged more than 15,000 fake accounts using the names of 26 royal family members, the report said, citing Fahmi.

Software Developer Rave Files Antitrust Suit Against Apple

Software developer Rave filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, alleging that the iPhone maker kicked Rave's app for shared viewing ​of video content off the Apple App Store after introducing a competing product called ‌SharePlay. Ontario, Canada-based Rave is demanding reinstatement into the App Store and "hundreds of millions of dollars" in damages, according to the complaint filed in U.S. federal court in New Jersey.

Student Software Used by Millions Unavailable Due to Cyber Incident

From Berkeley to Harvard, students at thousands of schools abruptly lost access to their coursework, after a key software provider pulled the plug to deal with a cybersecurity incident. Canvas, one of the most widely used education apps, posted a notice on its website saying its software was currently unavailable and it was investigating the situation.

Meta Asks Judge to Overturn Verdict in Social Media Danger Trial

Meta Platforms has asked a Los Angeles judge to throw out a jury’s verdict finding the company liable for a woman’s depression in a landmark trial ​over whether the company has harmed young users by designing its platforms to ‌be addictive. In the filing, Meta asked the judge who oversaw the trial to overturn the verdict and rule in its favor or order a new trial.

Google Scientist Warns EU of Privacy Risks in Sharing Search Engine Data

A top Google scientist sent a warning to EU antitrust regulators that its proposal requiring the company to share search engine data with rivals such as OpenAI risked exposing users' private information, the sternest rebuke yet in a tussle over ​Google's lucrative business model. The European Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, has in recent ​years cracked down on Big Tech via a slew of legislation to ensure that ⁠users have more choices and smaller rivals room to compete that has however triggered the ire of ​the U.S. government.

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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.