An AI-written article needs no label. Your proofread email gets one
An AI-written article needs no label. Your proofread email gets one

Start with what the mark actually is, because it is not a stamp on the page. When a model writes, it picks each word from a set of reasonable options. A watermark quietly splits those options into two groups using a secret key, then nudges the model to…

A Pentagon memo tells staff to spend $244m with Palantir. Its subject line is ‘Funding Palantir’
A Pentagon memo tells staff to spend $244m with Palantir. Its subject line is ‘Funding Palantir’

Government software is usually bought by asking several companies to bid. A department writes down what it needs, suppliers compete, and the file records why the winner won. A memo drafted inside the US Defense Department on 4 August did something diff…

Donald Trump is sued for putting a $100,000 paywall on his Truth Social posts
Donald Trump is sued for putting a $100,000 paywall on his Truth Social posts

The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation have sued President Donald Trump over a Trump Media service that sells paid early access to his Truth Social posts, arguing that a sitting president should not be allowed to put a price on his own o…

Brazil orders Discord to suspend livestreaming after a 13-year-old’s death
Brazil orders Discord to suspend livestreaming after a 13-year-old’s death

The country’s data protection authority says there is robust evidence Discord failed to keep minors away from content promoting self-harm, and real-time video is the hardest thing on the internet to moderate. Brazil has ordered Discord to switch off li…

Meta faces 29 states in the biggest youth social media trial yet, with $1.4 trillion at stake
Meta faces 29 states in the biggest youth social media trial yet, with $1.4 trillion at stake

The long legal reckoning over social media and childhood is about to have its biggest day in court. Meta goes on trial this week against a coalition of 29 US states that accuse it of deliberately engineering Facebook and Instagram to addict children, i…

China would not let Meta keep Manus. Users have until 24 August to save their work
China would not let Meta keep Manus. Users have until 24 August to save their work

Manus is leaving Meta. The Chinese agent startup told users this week that it will “soon return to operating as an independent company”. That is not a change of heart. Beijing refused to let the acquisition stand, and Meta chose not to fight it. The un…

SEC settles fraud case against Adit Ventures over fake SpaceX and Klarna pre-IPO shares
SEC settles fraud case against Adit Ventures over fake SpaceX and Klarna pre-IPO shares

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has settled fraud charges against private-fund adviser Adit Ventures Management LLC, its CEO Eric Munson, and three affiliated general partners, in a case that reads like a cautionary tale about the frenzy for …

Meta smart glasses banned from courts across England and Wales
Meta smart glasses banned from courts across England and Wales

His Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service has banned Meta smart glasses from court buildings across England and Wales, a move that pulls one of Silicon Valley’s buzziest gadgets into a very old argument about who gets to record what. HMCTS, which ru…

A US court just cleared thousands of social media harm lawsuits to proceed
A US court just cleared thousands of social media harm lawsuits to proceed

US appeals court has cleared thousands of lawsuits accusing the biggest social media companies of harming young people to move towards trial, in a ruling that chips away at the legal shield the tech industry has relied on for decades. On 10 August 2026…

The Ninth Circuit let 2,400 addiction lawsuits proceed without touching Section 230
The Ninth Circuit let 2,400 addiction lawsuits proceed without touching Section 230

The Ninth Circuit handed the social media companies a defeat on Monday. It did not hand them a ruling. The San Francisco appeals court rejected their bid to overturn a lower court and shut down some 2,400 federal lawsuits over claims they built their p…