The SEC charged Abraham Shafi with fraud and “concealing his and his fiancée’s extensive use of company credit cards to pay for personal expenses,” according to a press release.

IRL was shuttered in June 2023 after its board of directors found that 95 percent of the app’s users were fake. Two months before that, Shafi had been suspended by the board after reported misconduct.

Masters last ran (and lost) against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for his senate seat; this cycle he was angling for a House seat in Arizona.

The other notable Peter-Thiel-protege-turned-politician is, of course, JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president.

The statement was included in a larger Associated Press report about the controversies MrBeast is dealing with:

“When Jimmy was a teenager he acted like many kids and used inappropriate language while trying to be funny,” a spokesperson for the YouTuber said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Over the years he has repeatedly apologized and has learned that increasing influence comes with increased responsibility to be more aware and more sensitive to the power of language. After making some bad jokes and other mistakes when he was younger, as an adult he has focused on engaging with the MrBeast community to work together on making a positive impact around the world.”

Peacock is no longer developing the Battlestar Galactica reboot from Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail, Variety reports. The show is apparently being shopped around, but given that it’s already been in the works for years, I’m not getting my hopes up for an imminent release.

While I wait, I’ll just have to watch the best moment of the show on YouTube again, darn.

CNN has a rare inside look at the Supreme Court deliberations that led to the (bad!) Texas and Florida social media regulations being put on hold and sent back to the lower courts to figure out how they would affect other kinds of websites and services. It almost went the other way, until Samuel Alito went too far in his first draft and Amy Coney Barrett flipped, eventually joining the 6-3 majority opinion.

[Alito] questioned whether any of the platforms’ content-moderation could be considered “expressive” activity under the First Amendment.

Barrett, a crucial vote as the case played out, believed some choices regarding content indeed reflected editorial judgments protected by the First Amendment. She became persuaded by Kagan, but she also wanted to draw lines between the varying types of algorithms platforms use.

The ruling is already having an impact on other moderation cases.

That growth puts it on track to becoming “another major social app,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s earnings call today. Threads reached 175 million users earlier this month.

Android Authority details Google’s G4 Tensor chip with seemingly minor changes from the previous generation, along with the addition of Samsung’s Exynos 5400 modem that could enable satellite connectivity for Pixel 9 phones.

It looks like the upcoming lineup may start with 128GB of storage as well, with options for up to 1TB on the pricier Pixel 9 Pro, according to Android Headlines.

There were reportedly only 150 pairs made and distributed in 2006 / 2009, but NiceKicks and SneakerNews report the PlayStation x Nike Air Force 1 Low will be re-released next year, according to unnamed sources.

Nike revisited the concept with a 2018 edition and a Paul George collaboration, but the originals are by far the best and have gone for as much as $6,000 on StockX,

Is the new Jamie xx single about KOSA? Probably not, but it’s a bop.

The US Copyright Office spent a good chunk of last year soliciting comments from the public about AI and intellectual property, and it’s out today with the first part of the resulting report. The takeaway? Digital replicas and deepfakes of people are a big problem, and the patchwork of existing IP laws won’t be enough to solve it.

Based on all of this input, we have concluded that a new law is needed. The speed, precision, and scale of AI-created digital replicas calls for prompt federal action. Without a robust nationwide remedy, their unauthorized publication and distribution threaten substantial harm not only in the entertainment and political arenas, but also for private individuals. 

Notable timing here: we just saw the No Fakes Act reintroduced in the Senate earlier today.

You can watch all 34 minutes of the interview here.

The principles have helped define Amazon and many of the company’s huge successes. But how the principles are used may be shifting, according to a report from Fortune:

Several longtime managers told Fortune that they felt the overall intent of the leadership principles has now shifted in many situations from guidelines on how to make the right decision, to more punitive usages that come across mainly intended to point out flaws.

Amazon reports its latest earnings tomorrow.

Here’s Guide to Computing, a loving collection of photos of giant computers from 1945 to 1990 by James Ball, who publishes as Docubyte. Sounds like a book is in the works; sign me up.

The change, which goes into effect as of today, gives creators seven days to appeal a suspension for “certain policy violations” before that suspension goes into effect, according to “Rob” on the YouTube team.

“This won’t be available for all suspensions to start with, but we hope to expand this over time,” Rob says.

Maybe the fears around AI are overblown, but if you’re going to argue that the human mind is more creative than a computer, then maybe you want to write sentences that are less embarrassing than what GPT might spit out.

As a copyeditor would say: watch for repetition.

Ford CEO Jim Farley announced the European Commission’s approval of its hands-free BlueCruise driver-assist tech (despite an ongoing NHTSA investigation), which means Mustang Mach-E buyers in 15 EU countries can now get the feature (and some current owners can get it through a software update).

BlueCruise has been driven for more than 213 million miles globally, according to Ford — up from 200 million in June.

If you have the latest Steam client beta, you may notice a new Steam Deck icon in your friends list indicating who is on the handheld.

That should make it easier to figure out which of your friends is on the Steam Deck or Big Picture mode, as Steam previously used the gamepad icon for both.

Now that the first season of The Acolyte has wrapped, Lucasfilm is shifting attention to the next Star Wars spinoff, Skeleton crew. In addition to revealing the first images for the coming-of-age series, the studio also confirmed that it’ll start streaming on Disney Plus on December 3rd.

The Italian software company, which notably acquired — and limited free access to — Evernote, has added WeTransfer to its growing portfolio. WeTransfer CEO Alexandar Vassilev says the company will “continue to serve your creative tooling needs” following the acquisition.

The anime Terminator Zero hits Netflix next month as part of a busy summer of streaming sci-fi. Now we have our first full trailer for the series, which takes place in 1997 just as the Skynet AI becomes self-aware. If nothing else, the new clip will likely get the Smashing Pumpkins stuck in your head.

Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) updated their discussion draft that seeks to prevent debacles like that between Scarlett Johansson and OpenAI. It’s gained the support of SAG-AFTRA and the Recording Industry Association, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which counts tech companies among its donors, previously raised concerns that the draft bill was overly broad.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook and Instagram are still running ads that promote online marketplaces for illegal drugs — including cocaine, hallucinogens, and prescription opioids — months after the publication first noted that Meta was facing a federal investigation for doing so.

Meta says it will continue working with law enforcement, and will “invest resources and further improve our enforcement” to combat this type of activity.

In a fascinating post, developer Toby Fox laid out what still needs to happen before the launch of Deltarune’s third and fourth chapters. It’s a great look at some of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into launching a video game nowadays.

Ahead of its debut on October 25th, Apple TV Plus has released a series of new images from Before — executive producer Billy Crystal’s new supernatural drama in which he also stars a child psychiatrist mourning the death of his wife (Judith Light) who seems to be haunting a young boy (Jacobi Jupe.)