Fortnite developer Epic Games says the account some people believed to be linked to Jeffrey Epstein is a “ruse.” In a reply on X, the developer writes, “an existing Fortnite account owner changed their username” to “littlestjeff1,” an alias spotted in several emailed receipts from YouTube in the Epstein files. The email suggests that “littlestjeff1” […]
There are bold-faced tech names all over the Epstein files. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, Reid Hoffman, Steven Sinofsky, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, on and on and on. These men (and they’re pretty much all men) had wildly varying degrees of interaction with Epstein, and the details matter […]
He might be dead, but it sure seems like Jeffrey Epstein won. Sure, Epstein was arrested on charges of sex trafficking minors. Sure, he died in jail. (I am not going to wade into the debate about how.) But he subscribed to a racist, misogynist ideology that meant rich white men like him could do […]
Is the long freeze on Chinese automakers selling cars in the US finally starting to thaw? China is the largest auto market in the world and now the largest car exporter, too. But high tariffs and geopolitical tensions have kept Chinese automakers away from US customers. Many of those cars are ready for primetime and […]
A federal jury in Phoenix has found Uber to be liable for the sexual assault of one of its passengers, potentially setting a precedent for more than 3,000 similar cases consolidated in US federal court. As part of the verdict, Uber has been ordered to pay $8.5 million in damages to the victim, Jaylynn Dean, […]
EU regulators have declared that TikTok’s “addictive design” may put it in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA), in the preliminary results of an ongoing investigation into the social media app. If those findings are confirmed, TikTok could face a major fine and be required to “change the basic design of its service” in […]
When Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos entered the Senate office building on Tuesday, he got thrown a curveball. What started as a standard antitrust hearing relating to the Warner Bros. merger quickly devolved into a performative Republican attack about the spread of “woke” ideology on the streaming service. At the same time, arguably a much more […]
One day after The Wall Street Journal published a blockbuster story about Meta’s own dismal findings about teen girls’ mental health on Instagram, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wondered whether Meta should change how it studies its platforms’ potential harms. “Recent events have made me consider whether we should change our approach to research and analytics around […]
Kamala Harris’ social media strategy in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election was filled with Gen Z dog whistles: viral branding based on pop music, memes, camo hats that were a double entendre. It was an effective way to get attention and news coverage, as well as a mountain of user generated content online. […]
After a federal judge ruled that Meta was not an illegal monopolist in a blow against the Federal Trade Commission, the agency issued what was in part a typical statement of disappointment. Another part of the statement was anything but: a political attack on the judge himself. “The deck was always stacked against us with […]