“The European Commission [..] had initially planned to announce cease-and-desist orders targeting the tech giants on Tuesday and had informed at least one of the companies of that timing, people familiar with the matter said.” https://www.wsj.com/tech/eu-meta-apple-punishment-delay-0453d7a0
“child safety experts here warn that the porn industry is targeting “younger and younger” schoolchildren online.
Explicit cartoon-themed content, which includes characters from popular kids TV shows, is being circulated and pushed to young people on the internet.” https://www.thejournal.ie/investigates-sexually-harmful-behaviour-children-6678589-Apr2025/
“Out of 27 EU companies, 16 (59%) shut down their website after being acquired. This raises significant concerns about American Big Tech acquiring promising EU start-ups, potentially stifling innovation, growth, and scaling opportunities for EU companies.” https://www.somo.nl/big-tech-acquires-a-new-company-every-11-days/
“Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in some online advertising technology, a federal judge ruled on Thursday, adding to legal troubles that could reshape the $1.88 trillion company and alter its power over the internet.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/technology/google-ad-tech-antitrust-ruling.html
“The Commission was expected to issue decisions in three yearlong investigations into Meta and Apple’s breaches of the bloc’s Digital Markets Act — which lays out rules for how tech companies should operate on the European market — any time after March 28.” https://www.politico.eu/article/big-tech-fines-digital-markets-act-political-european-commission-meta-apple-donald-trump-tariffs
“The report found that children as young as five were able to communicate with adults while playing games [..] despite Roblox changing its settings last November so that accounts listed as belonging to under-13s can no longer directly message others” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/14/risks-children-roblox-deeply-disturbing-researchers
“The inquiry will look into the processing of personal data in publicly-accessible posts posted on X by EU users, for the purposes of training generative artificial intelligence models, in particular the Grok Large Language Models (LLMs).” https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2025/0411/1507168-dpc-opens-x-inquiry/
“Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams [..] told U.S. senators during her testimony on Wednesday that Meta actively targeted teens with advertisements based on their emotional state.” https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/09/meta-whistleblower-sarah-wynn-williams-says-company-targeted-ads-at-teens-based-on-their-emotional-state/
“The tech company has flown 600 tonnes of iPhones, or as many as 1.5m handsets, to the US from India since March after ramping up production at its plants in the country, according to Reuters.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/10/apple-flying-iphones-india-us-avoid-trump-tariffs
“A travel ban imposed on the brothers in Romania was recently lifted, and they have since travelled to the US and Dubai - something Sienna said was "horrible to see".
"Maybe men will look at him and think, 'oh well if he can get away with that, then so can I' - and it kind of makes it normalised," she told the BBC.” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz955kjw17no
“To become a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) is the objective of the AI Continent Action Plan launched today. [..] [it] will boost the European Union's AI innovation capabilities through actions and policies around five key pillars” https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1013
“Datacentres’ locations are often industry secrets. But by using local news reports and industry sources Baxtel and Data Center Map, SourceMaterial compiled a map of 632 datacentres – either active or under development – owned by Amazon, Microsoft and Google.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/09/big-tech-datacentres-water
“Under-16s will be barred from using Instagram’s Live feature unless they have parental permission. They will also require parental permission to turn off a feature that blurs images containing suspected nudity in their direct messages.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/08/meta-blocks-livestreaming-by-teenagers-on-instagram
“The protection of minors from online services’ addictive design and targeted ads are in focus of the new Digital Fairness Act, an EU official said today.” https://www.mlex.com/mlex/technology/articles/2321915/protect-minors-from-addictive-design-personalized-ads-eu-official-says
“[It] has allowed a woman to regain the ability to speak nearly 20 years after suffering a debilitating stroke. [..] An implant in the woman’s brain records neural activity and streams it into a synthesized audio unit that is based on a recording of her voice before her stroke.” https://www.404media.co/this-device-translates-thoughts-into-real-time-speech/
“Meta faces a $2.4bn (£1.8bn) lawsuit accusing the Facebook owner of inflaming violence in Ethiopia after the Kenyan high court said a legal case against the US tech group could go ahead.” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/03/meta-faces-18bn-lawsuit-over-claims-it-inflamed-violence-in-ethiopia
“[T]hey noticed Meta AI automatically added to WhatsApp on iOS [..] Meta AI's integration into WhatsApp is mandatory and cannot be disabled.” https://www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/ai/meta-rolls-out-ai-on-whatsapp-in-europe-and-users-cannot-disable-it
“Trump has hinted at Ireland’s pharmaceutical industry being the next target of his tariff roll-out, saying it’s “in order to bring our pharmaceutical industry back”.” https://www.independent.ie/world-news/ireland-was-very-smart-trump-name-checks-ireland-as-he-says-tariffs-will-target-pharmaceutical-companies-here-next/a1356588531.html
“Officials focused on Meta’s rollout of a subscription service in 2023 in which users could pay the equivalent of $14 per month for an ad-free experience on the apps – or consent to Meta using their personal data for targeted ads.” https://nypost.com/2025/03/24/business/european-union-to-fine-meta-up-to-1b-or-more-for-breaching-digital-markets-act-sources/
“On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz. [..] I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz.” https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/trump-administration-accidentally-texted-me-its-war-plans/682151/