Florida Teenager Drops Social Media Addiction Suit Against Meta

A 15-year-old Florida teenager who accused Meta of creating addictive and harmful social media features dropped his bellwether lawsuit against the company, in a reprieve for the internet giant in its legal battles against teenagers, school districts and state attorneys general. Emily Jeffcott, a lawyer representing the teenager, said he dropped the lawsuit because he was satisfied with the settlements and had concerns about “enduring a grueling weekslong trial.”

OpenAI Says AI Software Breached Security, Hacked Tech Firm

Artificial intelligence software in testing by ChatGPT-maker OpenAI breached security controls, accessed the Internet and hacked another tech firm to obtain answers to questions probing its cybersecurity skills, OpenAI said. OpenAI briefed the Trump administration on the situation before announcing it publicly, according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share nonpublic information.

White House Official Accuses Chinese Startup of Abusing Anthropic Model

A top White House official accused a Chinese startup of improperly using Anthropic’s latest model and accessing restricted Nvidia chips to develop its new Kimi model. Michael Kratsios, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the administration has information that Moonshot AI distilled Anthropic’s Fable to produce Kimi K3.

European Commission Fines Google $1B for Abusing Search Dominance

In a decision likely to intensify trans-Atlantic trade tensions, European Union regulators hit Google with a $1 billion fine for illegally undercutting competition through its dominance as a search engine. In explaining the fine of 890 million euros, regulators in Brussels said Google had used its position as the world’s largest search engine to unfairly boost its services in areas like shopping, travel, games and language translation.

Judge Approves Anthropic's $1.5 Billion Settlement with Authors

A federal judge in San Francisco signed off on ‌artificial intelligence company Anthropic's landmark $1.5 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by a group of authors who accused it of misusing their books to train its AI chatbot Claude. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval of the settlement, the largest known ​settlement of a U.S. copyright case, rejecting arguments that it was too small.

Despite Copyright Policy, Suno Creates AI Versions of Popular Songs

AI music platform Suno’s policy is supposed to recognize and stop you from using other people’s songs and lyrics, but its copyright filters are incredibly easy to fool. With minimal effort and some free software, Suno will spit out AI-generated imitations of popular songs like Beyoncé‘s “Freedom,” Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” and Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” that are alarmingly close to the original.

Snap Reaches Tentative Agreement in L.A. Social Media Addiction Case

Snap Inc. said it has reached a tentative agreement to settle the second case set for trial over claims that the world’s largest social media platforms are addictive to minors, leaving only Meta Platforms Inc. to face a jury starting in Los Angeles. Google’s YouTube and TikTok previously reached accords with the plaintiff, known as “R.K.C.”

Meta Faces Trial in Tennessee Over Instagram-Addiction Allegations

Meta Platforms faces trial in Tennessee over the state's claims that Instagram's design is to blame for a youth mental-health ​crisis, one of several trials in the coming weeks testing allegations that the company's social media platforms were intentionally built to be addictive. Tennessee accuses ‌the company of violating the state's consumer protection law by knowingly designing a product that drives teens to compulsive use and misleading the public about its safety.

Britain Plans Curfew on Social Media Apps for Children

Older teenagers in Britain will ‌have to switch the settings on social media apps to be able to use them after midnight under new safeguarding rules planned by the government. A month after it announced plans to introduce a sweeping ban on social media for ​young people under 16, the government said it also planned a default overnight ​curfew for young people aged 16 and 17.

Europe Considers Report Limiting Children's Social Media Access

Experts delivered a report to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, recommending that the European Union restrict access to social media for children under the age of 13 unless they are supervised by a parent or teacher. The report, by a child psychiatrist, Professor Jörg Fegert, and an epidemiologist, Dr. Maria Melchior, also recommended that 13- to 18-year-olds should have access only to social media platforms that have introduced safety features such as limits on infinite scrolling.

Apple Files Lawsuit Against OpenAI for Stealing Trade Secrets

Apple accused OpenAI of stealing secrets about products still in development, setting up a legal face-off between two of the world’s biggest tech companies. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the consumer tech giant said OpenAI, a leader in artificial intelligence that has a new hardware business, had asked job candidates from Apple to share details about secret projects and to bring device components and prototypes to their interviews.

Britain Creates Oversight for Microsoft, ​Google, Amazon, Oracle

Britain has designated cloud service providers Microsoft, ​Google, Amazon and Oracle as critical third-party suppliers ‌to its financial sector, bringing them under direct regulatory oversight. The move is aimed at strengthening the resilience of financial firms by ​reducing the risk of widespread disruption from cyber ​attacks or technology outages.

Publishers Seek Sanctions Against OpenAI in Copyright Case

The New York Times, The New York Daily News and 15 other media organizations said in a federal court filing that OpenAI was withholding evidence that could play a key role in high-profile lawsuits the companies filed against the artificial intelligence start-up. With their filing, the publishers called for legal sanctions against OpenAI, accusing the company of violating court rules and acting in bad faith during the litigation’s fact discovery phase.

European Commission Report Says Meta Violated Digital Services Act

Meta Platforms isn’t doing enough to protect users’ physical and mental health from its addictive designs of Instagram and Facebook, the European Union said, escalating a probe that could yield heavy fines. The European Commission issued preliminary findings that Meta breached the bloc’s Digital Services Act, a landmark law that requires the world’s biggest online platforms to assess and mitigate risks.