storagedude shares a report from the Cyber Express: Some of the most widely used web and social media applications could be vulnerable to three newly discovered CocoaPods vulnerabilities -- including potentially millions of Apple devices, according to a report by The Cyber Express, the news service of threat intelligence vendor Cyble Inc. E.V.A Information Security researchers reported three vulnerabilities in the open source CocoaPods dependency manager that could allow malicious actors to take over thousands of unclaimed pods and insert malicious code into many of the most popular iOS and MacOS applications, potentially affecting "almost every Apple device." The researchers found vulnerable code in applications provided by Meta (Facebook, Whatsapp), Apple (Safari, AppleTV, Xcode), and Microsoft (Teams); as well as in TikTok, Snapchat, Amazon, LinkedIn, Netflix, Okta, Yahoo, Zynga, and many more.

The vulnerabilities have been patched, yet the researchers still found 685 Pods "that had an explicit dependency using an orphaned Pod; doubtless there are hundreds or thousands more in proprietary codebases." The newly discovered vulnerabilities -- one of which (CVE-2024-38366) received a 10 out of 10 criticality score -- actually date from a May 2014 CocoaPods migration to a new 'Trunk' server, which left 1,866 orphaned pods that owners never reclaimed. While the vulnerabilities have been patched, the work for developers and DevOps teams that used CocoaPods before October 2023 is just getting started. "Developers and DevOps teams that have used CocoaPods in recent years should verify the integrity of open source dependencies used in their application code," the E.V.A researchers said. "The vulnerabilities we discovered could be used to control the dependency manager itself, and any published package." [...] "Dependency managers are an often-overlooked aspect of software supply chain security," the researchers wrote. "Security leaders should explore ways to increase governance and oversight over the use these tools." "While there is no direct evidence of any of these vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild, evidence of absence is not absence of evidence." the EVA researchers wrote. "Potential code changes could affect millions of Apple devices around the world across iPhone, Mac, AppleTV, and AppleWatch devices."

While no action is required by app developers or users, the EVA researchers recommend several ways to protect against these vulnerabilities. To ensure secure and consistent use of CocoaPods, synchronize the podfile.lock file with all developers, perform CRC validation for internally developed Pods, and conduct thorough security reviews of third-party code and dependencies. Furthermore, regularly review and verify the maintenance status and ownership of CocoaPods dependencies, perform periodic security scans, and be cautious of widely used dependencies as potential attack targets.

Keith Gill, the investor known as "Roaring Kitty" online, is being used by GameStop investors for helping spur the meme stock mania of 2021. The plaintiffs said they lost money through his "pump-and-dump" scheme, which led to a "short squeeze" that caused losses for hedge funds betting stock prices would fall. Reuters reports: A proposed class action accusing Gill of securities fraud was filed on Friday in the Brooklyn, New York federal court. Investors led by Martin Radev, who lives in the Las Vegas area, said Gill manipulated GameStop securities between May 13 and June 13 by quietly accumulating large quantities of stock and call options, and then dumping some holdings after emerging from a three-year social media hiatus. They said Gill's activities caused GameStop's share price to gyrate wildly, generating "millions of dollars" in profit for him at their expense. "Defendant still enjoys celebrity status and commands a following of millions through his social media accounts," the complaint said. "Accordingly, Defendant was well aware of his ability to manipulate the market for GameStop securities, as well as the benefits he could reap."

He had on May 12 posted a cryptic meme on the social media platform X that was widely seen as a bullish signal for GameStop, whose stock he cheerleaded in 2021. GameStop's share price more than tripled over the next two days, but gave back nearly all the gains by May 24. On June 2, Gill revealed that he owned 5 million GameStop shares and 120,000 call options, and on June 13 revealed he had shed the call options but owned 9 million GameStop shares. Investors said the truth about Gill's investing became known on June 3 when the Wall Street Journal wrote about the timing of his options trades and said the online brokerage E*Trade considered kicking him off its platform.

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered lower courts to take another look at a pair of laws from Florida and Texas that imposed restrictions on how social media companies can moderate the content posted to their platforms. From a report: Justice Elena Kagan delivered the court's opinion, which tossed out lower court rulings and sent the two cases back for additional proceedings. The court said neither lower court conducted the proper analysis of the First Amendment challenges to the laws regulating major social media platforms.

"[T]he question in such a case is whether a law's unconstitutional applications are substantial compared to its constitutional ones. To make that judgment, a court must determine a law's full set of applications, evaluate which are constitutional and which are not, and compare the one to the other," Kagan wrote. "Neither court performed that necessary inquiry."

Commercial space efforts continue around the world, as the Chinese company Space Pioneer fired up a partially-fueled rocket engine Sunday for a short-duration test of its reusable rocket on the ground. But Space News reports that the test "ended in catastrophic failure and a dramatic explosion."

"Amateur footage captured by Gongyi citizens and posted on Chinese social media shows the nine-engine test stage igntiing and then, exceptionally, taking off." Hold-down clamps and other structures are typically used to securely keep stages in place. The stage is seen climbing into the sky before halting, apparently with its engines shutting off, and returning to Earth. The stage impacted the ground around 50 seconds after it took off, apparently with much of its kerosene-liquid oxygen propellant remaining, causing a large explosion.

The Tianlong-3 first stage would likely fire for a number of minutes on an orbital flight. Space Pioneer was conducting its test as a buildup to an orbital launch of the Tianlong-3, which is benchmarked against the SpaceX Falcon 9, in the coming months. The company announced earlier this month that it has secured $207 million in new funding.

Shanghai-based digital newspaper The Paper reported Henan officials as saying there were no casualties reported. Space Pioneer issued its own statement later, stating there was a structural failure at the connection between the rocket body and the test bench. The rocket's onboard computer automatically shut down the engines and the rocket fell 1.5 kilometers southwest. It reiterated earlier reports that no casualties were found. The company said the test produced 820 tons of thrust.
The article speculates on whether the event will delay the development of the rocket — or the planned launches for a Chinese megaconstellation of satellites. "Space Pioneer says it will conduct an analysis and restart testing with new hardware as soon as possible."

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from the Verge: Threads will now let people like and see replies to their Threads posts that appear on other federated social media platforms, the company announced on Tuesday.

Previously, if you made a post on Threads that was syndicated to another platform like Mastodon, you wouldn't be able to see responses to that post while still inside Threads. That meant you'd have to bounce back and forth between the platforms to stay up-to-date on replies... [I]n a screenshot, Meta notes that you can't reply to replies "yet," so it sounds like that feature will arrive in the future.
"Threads is Meta's first app built to be compatible with the fediverse..." according to a Meta blog post. "Our vision is that people using other fediverse-compatible servers will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads profile, and vice versa, connecting communities..." [If you turn on "sharing"...] "Developers can build new types of features and user experiences that can easily plug into other open social networks, accelerating the pace of innovation and experimentation."

And this week Instagram/Threads top executive Adam Mosseri posted that Threads is "also expanding the availability of the fediverse beta experience to more than 100 countries, and hope to roll it out everywhere soon."

An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed for Slate, written by Amanda Chen: In August 2009, Wired magazine ran a cover story on Craigslist founder Craig Newmark titled "Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess." The opening paragraphs excoriate almost every aspect of the online classifieds platform as "underdeveloped," a "wasteland of hyperlinks," and demands that we, the public, ought to have higher standards. The same sentiment can found across tech forums and trade publications, a missed opportunity that the average self-professed LinkedIn expert on #UX #UI #design will have you believe that they are the first to point out. But as sites like Craigslist increasingly turn into digital artifacts, more people, myself included, are starting to see the beauty that belies those same features. Without them, where else on the internet could you find such ardent professions of desire or loneliness, or the random detritus of a life so steeply discounted?

The site has changed relatively little in both functionality and appearance since Newmark launched it in 1995 as a friends and family listserv for jobs and other opportunities. Yet in spite of that, it remains a household name whose niche in the contemporary digital landscape has yet to be usurped, with an estimated 180 million visits in May 2024. Though, it's certainly not for a lack of newcomers attempting to stake their claims on the booming C2C market; in the U.S., Facebook Marketplace, launched in 2016, is its closest direct competitor, followed by platforms like Nextdoor and OfferUp. Craigslist's business model is quite simple: Users in a few categories -- apartments in select cities, jobs, vehicles for sale -- pay a small but reasonable fee to make posts. Everything else is free. Its Perl-backed tech is straightforward. The team is relatively lean, as the company considers functions like sales and marketing superfluous. This strategy has allowed Craigslist to stay extremely profitable throughout the years without implementing sophisticated recommendation algorithms or inundating the webpage with third-party advertisements. Its runaway success threatens decades-old industry gospels of growth, disruption, and innovation, and might force tech evangelists to admit they don't fully understand what people want. [...]

These days I find myself casually browsing Craigslist in lieu of Instagram. Like readers of a local paper, I use it to keep a pulse on what's happening around me, even if I'll never know who these people are. That's beside the point. Perhaps Craigslist's single greatest cultural contribution, and my favorite place to lurk, is the "missed connections." The feature has inspired countless copycats, artistic reinterpretations, human interest stories, and analyses (one in particular extrapolated that Monday evenings are the most lovelorn time across the country). There is something deeply comforting about seeing those intangible threads of yearning which permeate a city so plainly laid out, as confirmation that you're not alone in wanting to be seen by others alive in the same place and time as you. Sometimes I'll peruse random job listings or the "free" section. This leads to the ever-amusing exercise, which I'll often invite friends to participate in, of speculating about the motivations and circumstances behind an object's acquisition and imminent relinquishment. I'll even visit the clunky, dial-up era-style discussion forums, subdivided into topics labeled things like "death and dying" or "haiku hotel," where a unique penchant for whimsy and romance can be felt deeply throughout. On Craigslist, a post can be a shout into the void that may or may not be returned, an affirmation of life, but regardless, in 45 days it's gone. Positioned somewhere in between digital ephemera and archive, the site's images and language are often utilitarian, occasionally unintelligible, and just when you least expect it, absurd, poetic, and profound. "Frequently, technologists remain convinced that the market will eventually reveal a solution for all of our deep-seated societal problems, something that we can hack if only granted access to better tech," writes Chen, in closing. "From the start, the industry has advanced the idea that change is inherently good, even if only for its own sake, which can be viewed as symptomatic of the accelerating conditions of late-stage capitalism. Of course, there are many ways in which change is desperately needed in this moment, but when it comes to the particular case of Craigslist, it hardly seems necessary."

For the first two decades of the social internet, lurkers ruled. Among Gen Z, they're in the minority, according to survey data from YouTube. From a report: Tech industry insiders used to cite a rule of thumb stating that only one in ten of an online community's users generally post new content, with the masses logging on only to consume images, video or other updates. Now younger generations are flipping that divide, a survey by the video platform said. YouTube found that 65 percent of Gen Z, which it defined as people between the ages of 14 and 24, describe themselves as video content creators -- making lurkers a minority.

The finding came from responses from 350 members of Gen Z in the U.S., out of a wider survey that asked thousands of people about how they spend time online, including whether they consider themselves video creators. YouTube did the survey in partnership with research firm SmithGeiger, as part of its annual report on trends on the platform. YouTube's report says that after watching videos online, many members of Gen Z respond with videos of their own, uploading their own commentary, reaction videos, deep dives into content posted by others and more. This kind of interaction often develops in response to videos on pop culture topics such as "RuPaul's Drag Race" or the Fallout video game series. Fan-created content can win more watch time than the original source material, the report says.

Fujifilm's X100 digital camera, once a niche product, has become an unexpected cash cow, driven by surging demand from young social media users. The retro-styled $1,599 camera has boosted Fujifilm's imaging division to its biggest profit contributor, accounting for 37% of operating profit in fiscal 2023, up from 27% the previous year.

Despite doubling production in China for the latest model, Fujifilm struggles to meet demand. The camera's popularity on platforms like TikTok has transformed it into a coveted accessory. The surge marks an unexpected reversal for Fujifilm, which had pivoted towards healthcare after the decline of traditional film photography.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: In recent weeks, as so-called cheap fake video clips suggesting President Joe Biden is unfit for office have gone viral on social media, a Kremlin-affiliated disinformation network has been promoting a parody music video featuring Biden wearing a diaper and being pushed around in a wheelchair. The video is called "Bye, Bye Biden" and has been viewed more than 5 million times on X since it was first promoted in the middle of May. It depicts Biden as senile, wearing a hearing aid, and taking a lot of medication. It also shows him giving money to a character who seems to represent illegal migrants while denying money to US citizens until they change their costume to mimic the Ukrainian flag. Another scene shows Biden opening the front door of a family home that features a Confederate flag on the wall and allowing migrants to come in and take over. Finally, the video contains references to stolen election conspiracies pushed by former president Donald Trump.

The video was created by Little Bug, a group that mimics the style of Little Big, a real Russian band that fled the country in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The video features several Moscow-based actors -- who spoke with Russian media outlet Agency.Media -- but also appears to use artificial intelligence technology to make the actors resemble Biden and Trump, as well as Ilya Prusikin, the lead singer of Little Big. "Biden and Trump appear to be the same actor, with deepfake video-editing changing his facial features until he resembles Biden in one case and Trump in the other case," says Alex Fink, an AI and machine-vision expert who analyzed the video for WIRED. "The editing is inconsistent, so you can see that in some cases he resembles Biden more and in others less. The facial features keep changing." An analysis by True Media, a nonprofit that was founded to tackle the spread of election-related deepfakes, found with 100 percent confidence that there was AI-generated audio used in the video. It also assessed with 78 percent confidence that some AI technology was used to manipulate the faces of the actors.

Fink says the obvious nature of the deepfake technology on display here suggests that the video was created in a rush, using a small number of iterations of a generative adversarial network in order to create the characters of Biden and Trump. It is unclear who is behind the video, but "Bye, Bye Biden" has been promoted by the Kremlin-aligned network known as Doppelganger. The campaign posted tens of thousands of times on X and was uncovered by Antibot4Navalny, an anonymous collective of Russian researchers who have been tracking Doppelganger's activity for the past six months. The campaign first began on May 21, and there have been almost 4,000 posts on X promoting the video in 13 languages that were promoted by a network of almost 25,000 accounts. The Antibot4Navalny researchers concluded that the posts were written with the help of generative AI technology. The video has been shared 6.5 million times on X and has been viewed almost 5 million times.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected to impose limits on the way President Joe Biden's administration may communicate with social media platforms, overturning a lower court decision in a case brought by Missouri, Louisiana, and five individuals. In a 6-3 ruling, the court found plaintiffs lacked legal standing to sue, unable to show a "concrete link" between officials' conduct and harm suffered.

The case centered on whether the administration coerced platforms to censor disfavored speech when alerting them to content violating their policies, particularly regarding elections and COVID-19. The administration argued it sought to mitigate online misinformation hazards. Plaintiffs claimed platforms suppressed conservative-leaning speech under government pressure. The Justice Department contended that government officials have long used their platform to express views on public matters.

Passant Rabie reports via Gizmodo: A video circulating online appears to show debris from a Chinese rocket falling above a populated area, with residents running for cover as a heavy cloud of dark yellow smoke trails across the sky in a frightening scene. The suspected debris may have come from China's Long March 2C rocket, which launched on Saturday, June 22, carrying a joint mission by China and France to study Gamma-ray bursts. The launch was declared a success, but its aftermath was captured by videos posted to Chinese social media sites.

The videos show what appears to be the first stage rocket booster of the Long March 2C rocket tumbling uncontrollably over a village in southwest China, while local residents cover their ears and run for shelter from the falling debris. There are no reports of injuries or damage to property. That said, unverified video and images show a gigantic cloud erupting at the site of the crashed rocket, and the booster itself seemingly next to a roadway. The first stage of the rocket can be seen leaking fuel, the color of which is consistent with nitrogen tetroxide. The chemical compound is a strong oxidizing agent that is used for rocket propulsion but it can be fatally toxic, according to Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center.

"It's known in the rocket industry as BFRC, a big fucking red cloud," McDowell told Gizmodo. "And when you see a BFRC, you run for your life." Nitrogen tetroxide was accepted as the rocket propellant oxidizer of choice in the early 1950s by the U.S.S.R. and the United States, however it became less commonly used over the years because it is extremely toxic, according to NASA (PDF). If it comes in contact with skin, eyes, or respiratory system, it can destroy human tissue, and if inhaled through the lungs, it can lead to a build up of fluids or, in extreme cases, death. "It's pretty scary, but this is just how the Chinese do business," McDowell told Gizmodo. "They have a different level of acceptable public risk." "I think over a 10 year period, we may see the older rockets phased out but they're not in any hurry to do so," added McDowell. "They're still launching one a week or something like that, and they are really quite dangerous."

An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple rejected overtures by Meta Platforms to integrate the social networking company's AI chatbot into the iPhone months ago, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The two companies aren't in discussions about using Meta's Llama chatbot in an AI partnership and only held brief talks in March, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the situation is private. The dialogue about a partnership didn't reach any formal stage, and Apple has no active plans to integrate Llama.

[...] Apple decided not to move forward with formal Meta discussions in part because it doesn't see that company's privacy practices as stringent enough, according to the people. Apple has spent years criticizing Meta's technology, and integrating Llama into the iPhone would have been a stark about-face.

Since May, Meta has been labeling photos created with AI tools on its social networks to help users better identify the content they're consuming. However, as TechCrunch's Ivan Mehta reports, this approach has faced criticism as many photos not created using AI tools have been incorrectly labeled, prompting Meta to reevaluate its labeling strategy to better reflect the actual use of AI in images. From the report: There are plenty of examples of Meta automatically attaching the label to photos that were not created through AI. For example, this photo of Kolkata Knight Riders winning the Indian Premier League Cricket tournament. Notably, the label is only visible on the mobile apps and not on the web. Plenty of other photographers have raised concerns over their images having been wrongly tagged with the "Made with AI" label. Their point is that simply editing a photo with a tool should not be subject to the label.

Former White House photographer Pete Souza said in an Instagram post that one of his photos was tagged with the new label. Souza told TechCrunch in an email that Adobe changed how its cropping tool works and you have to "flatten the image" before saving it as a JPEG image. He suspects that this action has triggered Meta's algorithm to attach this label. "What's annoying is that the post forced me to include the 'Made with AI' even though I unchecked it," Souza told TechCrunch.

Meta would not answer on the record to TechCrunch's questions about Souza's experience or other photographers' posts who said their posts were incorrectly tagged. However, after publishing of the story, Meta said the company is evaluating its approach to indicate labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image. "Our intent has always been to help people know when they see content that has been made with AI. We are taking into account recent feedback and continue to evaluate our approach so that our labels reflect the amount of AI used in an image," a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. "For now, Meta provides no separate labels to indicate if a photographer used a tool to clean up their photo, or used AI to create it," notes TechCrunch. "For users, it might be hard to understand how much AI was involved in a photo."

"Meta's label specifies that 'Generative AI may have been used to create or edit content in this post' -- but only if you tap on the label. Despite this approach, there are plenty of photos on Meta's platforms that are clearly AI-generated, and Meta's algorithm hasn't labeled them."

"A Chinese launch of the joint Sino-French SVOM mission to study Gamma-ray bursts early Saturday saw toxic rocket debris fall over a populated area..." writes Space News: SVOM is a collaboration between the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and France's Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES). The mission will look for high-energy electromagnetic radiation from these events in the X-ray and gamma-ray ranges using two French and two Chinese-developed science payloads... Studying gamma-ray bursts, thought to be caused by the death of massive stars or collisions between stars, could provide answers to key questions in astrophysics. This includes the death of stars and the creation of black holes.

However the launch of SVOM also created an explosion of its own closer to home.A video posted on Chinese social media site Sina Weibo appears to show a rocket booster falling on a populated area with people running for cover. The booster fell to Earth near Guiding County, Qiandongnan Prefecture in Guizhou province, according to another post...

A number of comments on the video noted the danger posed by the hypergolic propellant from the Long March rocket... The Long March 2C uses a toxic, hypergolic mix of nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH). Reddish-brown gas or smoke from the booster could be indicative of nitrogen tetroxide, while a yellowish gas could be caused by hydrazine fuel mixing with air. Contact with either remaining fuel or oxidizer from the rocket stage could be very harmful to individuals.
"Falling rocket debris is a common issue with China's launches from its three inland launch sites..." the article points out.

"Authorities are understood to issue warnings and evacuation notices for areas calculated to be at risk from launch debris, reducing the risk of injuries.

TikTok revealed it offered the U.S. government a "kill switch" in 2022 to address data protection and national security concerns, allowing the government to shut down the platform if it violated certain rules. The disclosure was made as it began its legal fight against legislation that will require ByteDance to divest TikTok's U.S. assets or face a ban. The BBC reports: "This law is a radical departure from this country's tradition of championing an open Internet, and sets a dangerous precedent allowing the political branches to target a disfavored speech platform and force it to sell or be shut down," they argued in their legal submission. They also claimed the US government refused to engage in any serious settlement talks after 2022, and pointed to the "kill switch" offer as evidence of the lengths they had been prepared to go.

TikTok says the mechanism would have allowed the government the "explicit authority to suspend the platform in the United States at the US government's sole discretion" if it did not follow certain rules. A draft "National Security Agreement", proposed by TikTok in August 2022, would have seen the company having to follow rules such as properly funding its data protection units and making sure that ByteDance did not have access to US users' data. The "kill switch" could have been triggered by the government if it broke this agreement, it claimed.

In a letter - first reported by the Washington Post - addressed to the US Department of Justice, TikTok's lawyer alleges that the government "ceased any substantive negotiations" after the proposal of the new rules. The letter, dated 1 April 2024, says the US government ignored requests to meet for further negotiations. It also alleges the government did not respond to TikTok's invitation to "visit and inspect its Dedicated Transparency Center in Maryland." Further reading: TikTok Says US Ban Inevitable Without a Court Order Blocking Law

Meta has released the Threads API for developers to build "unique integrations" into the text-based conversation app. The move could potentially result in third-party apps. The Verge reports: "People can now publish posts via the API, fetch their own content, and leverage our reply management capabilities to set reply and quote controls, retrieve replies to their posts, hide, unhide or respond to specific replies," explains Jesse Chen, director of engineering at Threads.

Chen says that insights into Threads posts are "one of our top requested features for the API," so Meta is allowing developers to see the number of views, likes, replies, reposts, and quotes on Threads posts through the API. Meta has published plenty of documentation about how developers can get started with the Threads API, and there's even an open-source Threads API sample app on GitHub.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) signed two bills into law on Thursday that aim to protect kids and teens from social media harms, making it the latest state to take action as federal proposals still await votes. From a report: One of the bills, the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act, will require parental consent for social media companies to use "addictive feeds" powered by recommendation algorithms on kids and teens under 18. The other, the New York Child Data Protection Act, would limit data collection on minors without consent and restrict the sale of such information but does not require age verification. That law will take effect in a year.

States across the country have taken the lead on enacting legislation to protect kids on the internet -- and it's one area where both Republicans and Democrats seem to agree. While the approaches differ somewhat by party, policymakers on both sides have signaled urgent interest in similar regulations to protect kids on the internet. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), for example, signed into law in March a bill requiring parents' consent for kids under 16 to hold social media accounts. And in May, Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) signed a broad privacy bill into law, as well as the Maryland Kids Code banning the use of features meant to keep minors on social media for extended periods, like autoplay or spammy notifications.

TikTok and Chinese parent ByteDance on Thursday urged a U.S. court to strike down a law they say will ban the popular short app in the United States on Jan. 19, saying the U.S. government refused to engage in any serious settlement talks after 2022. From a report: Legislation signed in April by President Joe Biden gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 of next year to divest TikTok's U.S. assets or face a ban on the app used by 170 million Americans. ByteDance says a divestiture is "not possible technologically, commercially, or legally."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia will hold oral arguments on lawsuits filed by TikTok and ByteDance along with TikTok users on Sept. 16. TikTok's future in the United States may rest on the outcome of the case which could impact how the U.S. government uses its new authority to clamp down on foreign-owned apps. "This law is a radical departure from this country's tradition of championing an open Internet, and sets a dangerous precedent allowing the political branches to target a disfavored speech platform and force it to sell or be shut down," ByteDance and TikTok argue in asking the court to strike down the law.

Facebook and Instagram users are increasingly turning to small claims courts to regain access to their accounts or seek damages from Meta, amid frustrations with the company's customer support. In several cases across multiple states, Engadget reports, plaintiffs have successfully restored account access or won financial compensation. Meta often responds by contacting litigants before court dates, attempting to resolve issues out of court.

The trend, popularized on social media forums, highlights ongoing customer service issues at the tech giant. Some users report significant financial losses due to inaccessible business-related accounts. While small claims court offers a more accessible legal avenue, Meta typically deploys legal resources to respond to these claims.

A cinema in London has cancelled the world premiere of a film with a script generated by AI after a backlash. From a report: The Prince Charles cinema, located in London's West End and which traditionally screens cult and art films, was due to host a showing of a new production called The Last Screenwriter on Sunday. However the cinema announced on social media that the screening would not go ahead. In its statement the Prince Charles said: "The feedback we received over the last 24hrs once we advertised the film has highlighted the strong concern held by many of our audience on the use of AI in place of a writer which speaks to a wider issue within the industry."

Directed by Peter Luisi and starring Nicholas Pople, The Last Screenwriter is a Swiss production that describes itself as the story of "a celebrated screenwriter" who "finds his world shaken when he encounters a cutting edge AI scriptwriting system ... he soon realises AI not only matches his skills but even surpasses him in empathy and understanding of human emotions." The screenplay is credited to "ChatGPT 4.0." OpenAI launched its latest model, GPT-4o, in May. Luisi told the Daily Beast that the cinema had cancelled the screening after it received 200 complaints, but that a private screening for cast and crew would still go ahead in London.