Judge clears states to try claim that Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram

US House passes kids online safety package, setting up a Senate fight

The US House passed the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act 267-117, a sweeping youth online safety package that bundles over a dozen bills including the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). The legislation would require default privacy settings for minors, expand parental controls, block private messaging for children under 13, impose safeguards on AI chatbots and gaming platforms, and mandate age verification on pornographic sites. However, the House stripped out the duty-of-care provision — the clause that would impose legal liability on platforms for harms to minors — which Senate sponsors consider essential. Senator Blumenthal declared the House version 'dead in the Senate,' setting up a legislative clash. Civil liberties groups have long opposed the duty-of-care clause, fearing it would incentivize platforms to over-remove lawful content. Meta has been lobbying against liability provisions amid thousands of active child-harm lawsuits. The bill's fate now hinges on whether the two chambers can reconcile their disagreement over that single deleted clause.

Threads adds new features to Live Chats as it expands access

Meta's Threads is expanding its Live Chats feature with several updates: translation support for global accessibility, co-host invitations (up to three per chat), host message deletion, and visual prominence testing for host messages. Access is being broadened to all 'Community Champions.' The platform also teased upcoming desktop support and pinned messages. Since launch, Live Chats has seen hundreds of daily chats with thousands of participants. Threads recently hit 500 million monthly active users and continues adding features to differentiate itself from X.

TikTok settles second addiction case, leaving Meta and Snap to face a jury alone

TikTok has confidentially settled a social media addiction lawsuit with a Florida teenager ahead of a July 27 trial in Los Angeles, following YouTube's settlement the previous week. Meta and Snap remain as the only defendants facing the jury. The 15-year-old plaintiff, who has been using social media since age eight, was diagnosed with anxiety and depression linked to platform use. This is TikTok's second pre-trial settlement in bellwether addiction cases. The broader litigation involves over 10,000 individual cases and nearly 800 school-district claims. Meta, which has consistently refused to settle, heads into its second consecutive trial, with the outcome potentially setting the tone for thousands of pending cases.

Australia’s teen social media ban works on paper, less so in practice

Six months after Australia enacted the world's first ban on social media for under-16s, a British Medical Journal study found 85% of 12–15-year-olds are still using the platforms. Two-thirds bypassed restrictions simply by entering a false age or submitting a selfie that age-detection algorithms accepted. Prime Minister Albanese has signaled intent to strengthen enforcement rather than revise the law, while the eSafety Commission is preparing legal action against Meta, TikTok, and YouTube for non-compliance. Platforms face fines up to A$49.5m. The experiment is being closely watched by governments in Europe and elsewhere, with Norway and the UK considering similar bans, though Italy's PM has cautioned such measures are easily circumvented. The core challenge exposed is that age limits relying on self-declaration or algorithmic guessing are inherently weak enforcement mechanisms.

Solo-maxxing: How tech taught Gen Z to monetise being alone

Solo-maxxing — the trend of deliberately maximising time alone and treating singlehood as a lifestyle goal — is examined as a symptom of how technology has commodified solitude. The term traces its roots from 1940s game theory through incel forums to mainstream TikTok culture. Young people are retreating from dating apps due to financial costs and emotional exhaustion, with Tinder losing 7% of paying users in 2024. Algorithms reward aestheticised loneliness content, pushing creators to brand themselves around permanent solitude. The deeper concern is that the same tech ecosystem that gamified intimacy now monetises the retreat from it — and is positioning AI companions as the next step. Regulatory responses like the EU AI Act, Digital Services Act, and US state-level AI companion laws are emerging but are seen as insufficient, since they address transparency rather than the deeper question of what happens to human connection when companionship becomes frictionless and on-demand.

YouTube settles ahead of California’s second social-media addiction trial

Google's YouTube has settled with a teenage plaintiff weeks before the second California bellwether trial over social-media addiction, leaving Meta's Instagram, Snap's Snapchat, and ByteDance's TikTok to face the jury on July 27. The plaintiff, R.K.C., alleges compulsive social media use caused anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. The settlement follows a March verdict in the first bellwether where a Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable and awarded $6 million. YouTube's exit mirrors the pattern set by Snap and TikTok in the first trial — companies that settled avoided public verdicts, while those that went to trial faced binding judgments. Over 3,300 individual addiction lawsuits and 2,400 additional cases are pending, making the bellwether outcomes critical reference points for valuing the broader litigation.

LinkedIn - What a dumbster fire

Bài viết chỉ trích gay gắt chất lượng nội dung trên LinkedIn, từ những bài viết kỹ thuật sơ sài lan truyền thông tin sai lệch, sự tràn ngập nội dung do AI tạo ra, các "phòng kín" thuật toán, quảng cáo ngầm của influencer, đến tác động tâm lý từ sự tích cực giả tạo và so sánh xã hội. Tác giả cho rằng LinkedIn khuyến khích những thông điệp "tuyệt đối" đơn giản, khuyến khích nội dung copy-paste, và người dùng nên giữ khoảng cách phê bình với những gì đọc được.

Những lập trình viên nên đọc bài này để tránh bị lừa bởi những thông tin sai lệch, nội dung AI giả mạo và xu hướng tiêu cực trên LinkedIn, đồng thời học cách phân tích và xác thực kiến thức kỹ thuật một cách nghiêm túc hơn.