Congress

ADL’s report on racist Steam Community posts prompts a letter from Virginia senator
17 Nov

ADL’s report on racist Steam Community posts prompts a letter from Virginia senator

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A damning report from the Anti-Defamation League published Thursday on the “unprecedented” amount of racist and violent content on Steam Community has prompted a US Senator to take action. In a letter spotted by The Verge, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) asked Valve CEO Gabe Newell how he and his company are addressing the issue.“My concern is elevated by the fact that Steam is the largest single online gaming digital distribution and social networking platform in the world with over 100 million unique user accounts and a user base similar in scale to that of the ‘traditional social media and social…
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What Donald Trump’s Win Will Mean for Big Tech
07 Nov

What Donald Trump’s Win Will Mean for Big Tech

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The most raucous cheers of the night were prompted by Trump’s promise to fire Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a regulatory agency that has brought a volley of lawsuits against crypto businesses under the Biden administration.Separately, Trump has promised to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of darknet marketplace Silk Road, who is currently serving life in prison. Silk Road, through which people bought and sold drugs and other contraband, was among the first online services to accept bitcoin as payment. The severity of Ulbricht’s sentence is widely considered to be disproportionate by bitcoiners,…
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A new report raises concerns about the future of NASA
16 Sep

A new report raises concerns about the future of NASA

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from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) expresses some serious concerns about the future of America’s space exploration agency.The NASEM report was written by a panel of aerospace experts and lays out what it sees as a possible "hollow future” for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It addresses issues of underfunding due to “declining long-term national emphasis on aeronautics and civil space,” that NASA itself is aware of and agrees with. The report also notes that NASA’s problems extend far beyond having enough funding to carry out its missions and operations.Some of the report’s “core…
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The US Needs Deepfake Porn Laws. These States Are Leading the Way
05 Sep

The US Needs Deepfake Porn Laws. These States Are Leading the Way

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Last year, WIRED reported that deepfake pornography is only increasing, and researchers estimate that 90 percent of deepfake videos are of porn, the vast majority of which is nonconsensual porn of women. But despite how pervasive the issue is, Kaylee Williams, a researcher at Columbia University who has been tracking nonconsensual deepfake legislation, says she has seen legislators more focused on political deepfakes.“More states are interested in protecting electoral integrity in that way than they are in dealing with the intimate image question,” she says.Matthew Bierlein, a Republican state representative in Michigan, who cosponsored the state’s package of nonconsensual deepfake…
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Trump Suggests Avoiding Google in Interview With Gamer Adin Ross
05 Aug

Trump Suggests Avoiding Google in Interview With Gamer Adin Ross

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Republican nominee Donald Trump called for his supporters to stop using Alphabet Inc.’s Google, calling the search engine “illegitimate” as he doubled down on his criticisms of large technology companies.“Something’s wrong with Google,” Trump said in an interview with controversial video-game celebrity Adin Ross on Monday. “Everybody should maybe just go off Google, not use it.” Source link lol
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The Controversial Kids Online Safety Act Faces an Uncertain Future
05 Aug

The Controversial Kids Online Safety Act Faces an Uncertain Future

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After passing the Senate nearly unanimously last week, the future of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) appears uncertain. Congress is now on a six-week recess, and reporting from Punchbowl News indicates that the House Republican leadership may not prioritize bringing the bill to the floor for a vote when legislators return.In response to Punchbowl’s reporting, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement saying, “Just one week ago, Speaker Johnson said that he’d like to get KOSA done. I hope that hasn’t changed. Letting KOSA and [the Children and Teens’ Online Protection Act] collect dust in the House would…
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Pressure Grows in Congress to Treat Crypto Investigator Tigran Gambaryan, Jailed in Nigeria, as a Hostage
11 Jul

Pressure Grows in Congress to Treat Crypto Investigator Tigran Gambaryan, Jailed in Nigeria, as a Hostage

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When Tigran Gambaryan was first invited in February to meet with the Nigerian government in order to settle a dispute with his employer, the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Nigerian officials detained him against his will, stripped him of his passport, and told him he was a “guest” of the state. He's since been charged with financial crimes and jailed for months as a criminal suspect.Pressure is now mounting within the US Congress for the Biden administration to treat him as what his supporters argue he has been all along: a hostage, held illegally by an unaccountable foreign country.On Wednesday, US congressman…
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Surprise! The Latest ‘Comprehensive’ US Privacy Bill Is Doomed
27 Jun

Surprise! The Latest ‘Comprehensive’ US Privacy Bill Is Doomed

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Dozens of civil rights organizations had been urging Democrats (some of whom had puzzlingly signed off on those changes) to sink the bill, arguing that the changes were both “immensely significant and unacceptable.”The new text, engineered to appease conservative lobbyists representing the interests of big business, omitted, for instance, a key section referencing “civil rights.” The deleted section aimed to prevent businesses from trafficking in people’s data “in a manner that discriminates in or otherwise makes unavailable the equal enjoyment of goods or services on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or disability.” For reasons that at…
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Congress passes sweeping pro-nuclear energy bill
19 Jun

Congress passes sweeping pro-nuclear energy bill

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The United States has taken a significant step towards becoming a nuclear reactor hub. On Tuesday, June 18, the Senate passed the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act in an 88 to 2 vote. A version also garnered bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, passing 365 to 33 earlier this year, leaving the path clear for the bill to reach President Biden's desk.The past decade has seen over a dozen reactor closures and only two new ones open — a pair that launched last month in Georgia to the tune of over $30 billion…
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