Elon Musk’s X is trying to stop people using its AI chatbot Grok to undress women amid intensifying outrage and legal scrutiny over the deluge of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes flooding the site. It’s not trying very hard: it took us less than a minute to get around its latest attempt to rein in the chatbot. […]
The United Kingdom has walked back plans to make its upcoming digital ID scheme a mandatory requirement for working adults. While the UK government remains “committed to mandatory digital right-to-work checks,” an unspecified government spokesperson told The Times, digital ID will now be optional when the initiative is introduced sometime in 2029. The national digital […]
Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about the technology, broligarchs and brainrot rapidly transforming politics and civic society. Not subscribed to The Verge yet? You should! It can materially improve your life. Last week was a grim reminder that no matter what sort of horror is being perpetrated or how many […]
President Donald Trump made an unconventional pick for his nomination to the Federal Trade Commission: WeatherTech founder and CEO David MacNeil. MacNeil founded the company, which makes weather-resistant car floor mats, in 1989, according to its website, and he owns 100 percent of the company. WeatherTech has made it a mission to keep its manufacturing […]
The Senate passed a bill that could give people who’ve found their likeness deepfaked into sexually-explicit images without their consent a new way to fight back. The Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act (DEFIANCE Act), would let victims sue the individuals who created the images for civil damages. The bill passed with unanimous […]
The Trump administration announced last week that it wants Americans to consume more protein, churning out a colorful illustration of an inverted food pyramid that prominently features a big, red steak, a wedge of cheese, and a carton of whole milk at the top and claiming it’s “ending the war on protein.” It may seem […]
Verizon can keep phones locked to its network for longer after the Federal Communications Commission agreed to waive the carrier’s 60-day unlocking requirement, as reported by Ars Technica. Following this decision, Verizon must follow a looser set of guidelines set by the CTIA wireless trade group, which says carriers should only unlock a customer’s postpaid […]
Former NYC Mayor Eric Adams has come under fire after his new cryptocurrency token crashed just hours following its launch on Monday. As reported by CoinDesk, Adams’ “NYC Token” hit a $580 million market capitalization at its peak before plummeting to around $130 million at this time of writing. Data from the blockchain analysis platform, […]
The UK is bringing a law into force that makes creating non-consensual intimate deepfake images, like the ones that have proliferated on X because of the Grok AI chatbot, a criminal offense, as reported by the BBC. “The Data Act, passed last year, made it a criminal offence to create – or request the creation […]
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is making kids’ online safety a cornerstone of her administration, and she’s eyeing a platform that has often flown under the radar: Roblox. As progress in Congress has stagnated, states have become the primary drivers of internet reforms meant to protect kids, including age verification laws and new requirements for […]