Google

Microsoft has teamed up with a number of tech and media companies to create a system of tracing content around the internet that could destroy online privacy and anonymity, radically transforming the nature of the web.

Following an internal revolt at Google over the integrity of its artificial intelligence research, the company has promised to change procedures for reviewing its scientists’ work.

The Australian government has reportedly passed a new law requiring Google and Facebook to pay news outlets for access to their content.

“We think we’ve absolutely got a case that will win,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Wednesday, referring to the Lone Star state’s antitrust lawsuit against Google alleging abusive monopolistic practices in the digital advertising business.

A proposed bill in the Australian parliament that would require Facebook and Google to pay news outlets for content has cleared its final hurdle, and Facebook has agreed to restore access to news pages in the country after the government agreed to small changes to the legislation.

The UK may follow the lead of Australia and Canada in forcing Facebook to pay news publishers for their content, officials have suggested.

In an extraordinary backflip, Facebook announced Tuesday it will reverse its block on Australian users sharing news on its site and accept proposed government media bargaining laws that force it to pay for content.

Australia does not plan to alter legislation that would require Facebook and Google to pay news outlets for content, according to a senior lawmaker.

Google-owned video platform YouTube mistakenly suspended the channel of a popular Croatian chess player after his discussion of “black versus white” in terms of chess strategy was flagged by the site’s algorithm as racism. The incident demonstrates that the AI tools the Masters of the Universe rely on to police their platforms are not yet up to the task.

The Biden administration is working with Facebook, Google, and Twitter to target “COVID misinformation” and overcome “vaccine hesitancy,” according to senior officials in the administration who spoke to Reuters.

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault said on Thursday that his country intends to make social media giant Facebook compensate Canadian news organizations for using their content, much as pending legislation in Australia would do.

The North Dakota state senate recently voted 36-11 against a bill that would have required tech giants Apple and Google to enable software developers to use their own payment processing software and avoid fees charged by their app stores.

The state of Maryland is reportedly set to be the first U.S. state that will impose a tax on the sale of online ads. The tax will impact the Masters of the Universe, primarily Google and Facebook which hold the ad market in a duopoly that Amazon is only beginning to gain a foothold in, but critics claim the tax will be passed on, saying “This tax increase was historically shortsighted, foolish, and harmful to countless small businesses and employees, and Marylanders will remember it that way.”

Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday hit back at Facebook’s move to block news in the country and called it ”arrogant,” warning against “Big Tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them.”

Google has struck a deal with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to pay the international media giant for the use of its premium content in the U.S., UK, and Australia, a major win for NewsCorp that could have far-reaching consequences for the relationship between news companies and the Masters of the Universe.

Former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams will be joining YouTube Originals’ Black History Celebration, “Black Renaissance.”

Celebrity doctor Drew Pinsky recently stated on social media that one of his YouTube videos received a strike from the Google-owned platform and was removed. Dr. Drew alleges that non-medical professionals at the Big Tech Masters of the Universe are now deciding what qualifies as accurate medical advice. He posed this question on social media: “Do you trust a 23yr old computer coder with your life?”

Australia’s plans to force Google and Facebook to compensate publishers for access to news content has received bipartisan support across the political aisle.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether or not to hear a case brought by Laura Loomer and Freedom Watch against Google, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter, alleging that the Masters of the Universe have been discriminating on the basis of viewpoint and coordinating with each other in an anticompetitive manner.

Tech giant Microsoft has reportedly suggested to the Biden administration that the U.S. should adopt a similar plan to Australia’s proposed law which would force Google and Facebook to pay publishers for access to their news content.

The demand by Australia’s conservative coalition government that Google and Facebook pay for news content is drawing results, with the tech giants revealing Monday they are close to deals with major news providers.

YouTube has permanently banned LifeSiteNews, a popular pro-life news outlet with some 314,000 subscribers.

Australia’s Parliament will reportedly debate making Google and Facebook pay for news after a committee recently recommended no changes to drafts of proposed laws.

Australian lawmakers agreed Friday to proceed with world-first legislation that will make Alphabet’s Google and Facebook pay publishers for content.

Apple Chief Privacy Engineer Erik Neuenschwander recently spoke out against a proposed bill in the North Dakota Senate that would prevent Apple and Google from requiring developers to use their respective app stores and payment methods, stating that it “threatens to destroy the iPhone as you know it.”

Google-owned YouTube has banned LifeSite News, one of the leading sources of pro-life news and commentary on the web.

The CEO of travel booking site Trivago believes that the attitudes towards the world’s biggest tech firms have changed. Axel Hefer believes world governments are warming to taking on Google’s stranglehold on the internet, stating: “There is an increasing understanding that you need to set some rules that are specific to the digital world, as you’ve done in the offline world a long time ago.”

The Senate, now under the control of the Democrats, is escalating efforts to reform antitrust law to target anticompetitive behavior by major tech companies.

Google has quietly escalated censorship of its market-dominating search engine, adding a range of new topics where human moderates are allowed to manually penalize websites, suppressing them in search results.

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, revealed on Saturday that the former president is considering launching his own social media platform in the not-too-distant future.