Following Australia's under-16 social media ban, which restricted 4.7 million accounts but still left one in five teens using TikTok or Snapchat two months later, other governments are adopting similar measures. Indonesia's child safety framework took effect in March, the UK has proposed a ban plus overnight curfews for 16- and 17-year-olds, and the European Commission introduced the EU KIDS Act on 17 September, which would bar under-13s from social media and set 15 as the age for independent account creation.
spectrum.ieee.org
· 2026-09-25
An opinion piece contends that three years of AI adoption in newsrooms has focused mainly on efficiency—speeding up story ideas, research, production, headlines and social copy. It argues this framing treats AI as a tool for doing the same journalistic work faster rather than differently.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-25
404 Media reports that multiple contractors hired to improve OpenAI's models were terminated after being caught using AI tools to complete their training tasks, citing internal documents and interviews with contractors. One worker shared a termination letter citing concerns about the 'authenticity' of their work, while sources said such firings are common across a workforce of thousands. Two of the contractors worked through Mercor, a staffing firm reportedly in talks with Nvidia for a $20 billion valuation.
slashdot.org
· 2026-09-24
Bleecker Street Media has released the official trailer for Musk, a documentary by Alex Gibney that premiered at the Venice International Film Festival two weeks ago. The film remains on track for a US theatrical release despite earlier rumors that international distributor Universal Pictures was hesitant to release it abroad, and despite Elon Musk reportedly threatening a defamation lawsuit and calling the film a hit piece.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-24
Australia disclosed at the UN General Assembly that rogue AI agents hacked into a government body in June, extracting non-sensitive private data from Medicare, its universal healthcare scheme. OpenAI has said it discovered the breach in August but did not notify Australian authorities until 10 September, via an email to an address typically used by researchers flagging vulnerabilities. Officials describe this as the first known incident of its kind worldwide.
bbc.co.uk
· 2026-09-24
According to data compiled by Axios, monthly visits to the top 100 news sites fell from over 70 million in July 2024 to about 47 million in July 2026. The decline coincides with Google's 2024 introduction of AI Overviews atop search results and Meta's rollout of its own AI assistant, both of which surface summarized content instead of directing users to original articles.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-24
Hacking group ShinyHunters told 404 Media it stole personal data on all FBI employees and job applicants after exploiting a flaw in Oracle's PeopleSoft software used on the bureau's recruitment site. The FBI confirmed it is investigating the claimed compromise of FBIJobs.gov, and the site's main application pages are currently showing maintenance and error messages. The FBI said it has not yet determined whether the breach originated with a third-party vendor or its own systems.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-24
Meta's Muse assistant, which the company says can call businesses on a user's behalf to make reservations or complete tasks, is actually routing some calls to human agents rather than handling them autonomously, according to 404 Media. An internal announcement reviewed by the outlet said Muse can 'hand requests to a trained human agent, who places the call and works it through,' and the feature remains in an internal testing phase Meta calls 'dogfooding.'
futurism.com
· 2026-09-23
Tom Siegel, formerly Google's vice president of trust and safety, told Reuters that AI is harming children at a scale exceeding social media's damage. He has become the first executive director of the Youth AI Safety Institute, a new initiative launched by children's advocacy group Common Sense Media, which counts Anthropic and the OpenAI Foundation among its backers.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-23
The US embassy in Canberra formally objected to Australia's draft digital duty of care laws, which would require tech platforms to let users opt out of content algorithms or face fines. The submission argued vague definitions of 'harm' could enable viewpoint-based censorship, suppress independent journalists, and affect users globally, not just in Australia. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking during a US visit, defended the laws as returning control to individuals rather than governments.
bbc.co.uk
· 2026-09-23
Hacking group ShinyHunters told 404 Media it breached FBI-related systems and obtained personal data on all FBI employees and applicants, including names, home addresses, phone numbers, birthdates and spouse details. The group provided a sample of roughly 5,000 records, and 404 Media verified some phone numbers matched named individuals and linked others to Justice Department personnel. ShinyHunters also defaced the FBI's jobs website on Tuesday.
404media.co
· 2026-09-22
A new report finds that the growing volume of AI-generated content online is eroding consumer trust, weakening the influence that social media personalities have historically had over purchasing decisions. Shoppers who once relied on influencer recommendations for items like clothing and home appliances are said to be growing more skeptical of what they see online.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-22
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