Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Trump team throws out GOP plan and builds a ‘leaner’ 2024 operation 

2024 election latest news: Biden raising money in San Francisco, Seattle areas

Trump thinks his anti-green culture war is worth a $1 billion donation

Israel’s shameful ban on Al Jazeera

Checks, not sex, and other takeaways from Trump’s New York hush money trial

In Arizona, election workers trained with deepfakes to prepare for 2024

The urgent air defense lessons of April 16 

Are smartphones destroying childhood? It’s complicated.

In the campaign against Donald Trump, do the ends justify the means?

The case for eating at Italian gas stations

Cruise ship drags dead whale into New York, prompting investigation

5 big travel lessons from an accomplished conservationist

Photos of his mom at lunch are a balm people didn’t know they needed

Dog hit by car loses leg, is adopted by firefighter who helped her

Postal worker finds WWII-era letters, drives 5 hours to deliver them

Claire Messud turns her family’s history into a masterpiece

Kristi Noem’s dog killing is pure Southern gothic

Joseph Epstein, conservative provocateur, tells his life story in full

Vegetables star at Mita, where you get taste after taste (after taste)

To get outs with his fastball, Trevor Williams put his ego aside

4 best things to do with kids in the D.C. area this weekend

5 myths about Social Security as the program faces a funding crisis

Social Security has to be fixed. But you still need your own savings.

An I bond is now at 4.28 percent. Are they still a good deal?

What actually happens within your lawn when you don’t mow it

What Trump said in his 10 gag order violations

Find your Westminster show dog name: You may be a CH Lolly’s Marble Tuxedo MX

Google’s new ‘Find My’ device network is useful but a stalking risk

Apple apologizes for iPad ad after blowback 

Hack targeting hospital chain Ascension is impacting patient care

Battles rage around Rafah’s edge as more than 100,000 flee the city

Biden’s weapons sales to Israel breach legal limits, former officials say     

China’s latest wellness trend? Marathons. But good luck getting a spot.

Miss Manners: Why were other diners laughing at us?

Ask Amy: Man doesn’t want cancer to define him

Carolyn Hax: In-laws stalk the live stream to check couple’s attendance at church

US-POLITICS-BIDEN

Big Tech news and how to take control of your data and devices

See more coverage in your recommendations

Technology

Tips delivered to your inbox twice weekly

The Tech Friend newsletter

Business and Tech alerts

Get the weekly Campaign Moment newsletter

Set alerts for major election developments

Election 2024

The Campaign Moment newsletter

Politics alerts

Happy Tuesday! It’s mid-December, which means my household is arguing over whether any modern Christmas tunes are actually good. What say you? Send thoughts and tips to: <a href="mailto:cristiano.lima@washpost.com">cristiano.lima@washpost.com</a>. Below: Meta’s Oversight Board makes a pair of decisions over <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/israel-hamas-war/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Israel-Hamas war</a> content, and lawmakers ask the Justice Department to probe Apple. First:

States poised to lead the charge on AI policy in 2024

Glen Stubbe

State efforts to pass rules on artificial intelligence “exploded” in 2023, with at least 15 states putting 20 new laws on the books to deal with the tools, according to a <a href="https://techpolicy.unc.edu/policy-briefs/the-state-of-state-technology-policy-2023/">report</a> released Tuesday by the University of North Carolina’s Center on Technology Policy.

The finding suggests state officials are positioned to lead the way in crafting new guardrails for AI in the U.S. in 2024, as federal legislators in Washington struggle to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/08/ai-act-regulation-eu/">keep pace with their counterparts in Brussels</a>.&nbsp;

“Perhaps no topic in tech policy has attracted as much attention as AI this past year,” UNC’s Scott Babwah Brennen and Matt Perault wrote in the report, shared early with The Technology 202.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/08/state-trifectas-have-been-more-effective-setting-rules-internet-researchers-found/">For the second year</a> in a row, the authors looked at state trends across tech policymaking.&nbsp;

Lawmakers in <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/artificial-intelligence-legislation-tracker">both Washington</a> and <a href="https://www.bsa.org/news-events/news/bsa-analysis-state-ai-legislation-surges-by-440-in-2023#:~:text=A%20total%20of%20over%20190,at%20least%20one%20state%20chamber.">state capitals </a>have introduced a flurry of proposals to rein in or boost AI development as surging tools like ChatGPT have entered the national spotlight and ushered in fresh regulatory scrutiny. But the findings show that, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/06/ai-policy-eu-act-us-regulation/">unlike officials on Capitol Hill</a>, state legislators are increasingly converting on those efforts.

That movement has included new laws in Minnesota, Michigan and Washington limiting the use of generative AI tools and “deepfakes” in political ads as well as measures in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Louisiana directing state governments to assess their own AI use.

Still, states have yet to rally around ways to “comprehensively regulate AI,” the researchers wrote. Instead, most laws impose “very targeted restrictions” or focus on how to “build capacity for the government to better understand AI.”

Perault, a former Facebook public policy director, said in an interview that states’ approach partly “aligned” with President Biden’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/10/30/biden-artificial-intelligence-executive-order/">executive order on AI</a> by eschewing major restrictions on companies and “focusing instead on developing data that will enable regulators to make smarter decisions in the future.”

Still, state officials are continuing to outpace federal legislators in passing laws in several key areas, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/15/privacy-kids-safety-are-dominating-state-tech-rules-2023/">including data privacy and children’s online protection</a>.&nbsp;

States were “most active” on the children’s safety front overall in 2023, with 13 passing 23 new laws during the year, the researchers found.&nbsp;

Republican-led states, many of which set new age limits or require parental consent for children to access social media and other sites, were particularly productive.

“Both parties ramped up efforts on child safety, but Republican-led states passed four times the number of new laws as Democrat-led states,” they wrote.

That’s a trend that’s likely to continue into 2024, an election year, Babwah Brennen argued.&nbsp;

“Both sides have seen that this is good election material and so I wouldn't be at all surprised if we continued to see what we've seen so far this past year,” he said.

States were also particularly active on privacy, with eight states passing in 2023 what the researchers called “comprehensive” approaches.&nbsp;

Due to the similarities between those laws, the authors wrote, “state privacy law is developing not as a patchwork, but instead as a de facto national standard.”

One potential explanation for the flurry of legislative activity on tech is the “historic” number of states where one party controlled both houses of its legislature and the governor’s mansion, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/State_government_trifectas">known as a “trifecta,”</a> the authors argued.

“Trifecta governments correlated to the passage of tech reform: of the tech bills enacted in 2023, 86% were enacted in states with trifectas,” they wrote.

Oversight Board tells Meta to support free expression over Israel-Hamas war

Clodagh Kilcoyne

Meta’s Oversight Board has overturned two decisions by Meta to take down posts with two graphic videos related to the Israel-Hamas war, as part of its revamped process to quickly issue opinions during crisis situations, our colleague Naomi Nix reports for The Technology 202.

In one case, Meta’s automated systems had removed a Facebook post with a video showing a woman begging her kidnappers not to kill her as she is being driven away during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. While the caption urged others to watch the video to understand the attack, the company took it down for violating its policy against support for dangerous individuals or organizations.

The second video, which was posted on Instagram in November, showed what appeared to be people lying on the ground lifeless, injured or crying during the aftermath of a strike on or near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City amid Israel’s ground offensive in the north of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/09/gaza-strip-israel-hamas-explained/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Gaza Strip</a>. Meta’s automated systems had taken down the video for violating its policy against violent and graphic content.

After the board — an international panel of human rights advocates, politicians and academics that oversees Meta’s thorniest content moderation decisions — selected these cases, the company restored both posts but placed a warning label on them. The board disagreed with Meta’s original decision to remove the posts and said the company was right to apply a warning screen. But the board also argued that even after the content was restored the company shouldn’t have demoted it.

The cases were the first to be decided under the board’s new “expedited review” process, in which the board issues opinions on Meta’s content moderation decision as soon as 48 hours after and up to 30 days after accepting a case.

OpenAI outlines plan for addressing potential AI dangers

Michael Dwyer

OpenAI’s “Preparedness” team will hire AI researchers, computer scientists, national security experts and policy professionals to help the ChatGPT maker continually monitor and test its systems for potential serious dangers, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/18/open-ai-preparedness-bioweapons-madry/">our colleague Gerrit De Vynck reports</a>.&nbsp;

“The popularity of ChatGPT and the advance of generative AI technology have triggered a debate within the tech community about how dangerous the technology could become,” Gerrit writes, adding: “Prominent AI leaders from OpenAI, Google and Microsoft warned this year that the tech could pose an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/30/ai-poses-risk-extinction-industry-leaders-warn/?itid=lk_inline_manual_5">existential danger to humankind</a>, on par with pandemics or nuclear weapons.”

The company, for instance, has begun discussions with entities like the National Nuclear Security Administration, according to MIT AI professor Aleksander Madry, who will be leading the team. The group will also be monitoring for cases in which users instruct OpenAI’s systems to hack into computers or develop chemical or biological weapons. &nbsp;

Lawmakers ask U.S. to probe Apple over shuttering outside iMessage apps

Carolyn Fong

A group of lawmakers has asked the Justice Department to investigate Apple over its decision to shut down third-party applications that allowed Android users to communicate with iPhones over the consumer electronic giant’s iMessage service, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-18/lawmakers-ask-doj-to-probe-apple-for-shuttering-imessage-apps?srnd=technology-vp">Bloomberg News’s Emily Birnbaum reports</a>.&nbsp;

Birnbaum writes: “The lawmakers, including Democratic Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar and Republican Utah senator Mike Lee, wrote they are ‘concerned that Apple’s recent actions to disable Beeper Mini harm competition, eliminate choices for consumers, and will discourage future innovation and investment in interoperable messaging services.’”

The Justice Department and Apple did not immediately return Bloomberg’s request for comment. Apple has argued that opening up its systems to third-party applications poses a security risk for its users. The Beeper Mini app, designed to enable iMessage texting on Android phones, stopped working last week, and the company said it would shutter apps that use “fake credentials” to access its services, according to the report.

“Eric Migicovsky, who founded Beeper, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-10/apple-shutters-third-party-apps-that-enabled-imessage-on-android">told Bloomberg News in an interview</a> last week that his company is ‘feeling good’ about bypassing Apple’s restrictions in the future,” the report later adds.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/19/google-states-settlement-fund/" target="_blank">102 million people eligible for Google’s $630M lawsuit settlement (By Eva Dou)</a>

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/18/ai-france-olympics-security/" target="_blank">AI is powering a revolution in policing, at the Olympics and beyond (Anthony Faiola)</a>

<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/parler-app-relaunch-2024-new-ownership-download-trump-rcna130287" target="_blank">Conservative social media app Parler planning to relaunch ahead of 2024 election (NBC News)</a>

<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-18/google-funds-artificial-intelligence-center-at-civil-rights-group?srnd=undefined" target="_blank">Google funds leading civil rights group’s new AI policy center (Bloomberg News)</a>

<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/adobe-figma-scrap-20-billion-acquisition-3488d5a1?mod=tech_lead_pos3" target="_blank">Adobe scraps $20 billion acquisition of Figma (Wall Street Journal)</a>

<a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/12/18/apple-watch-suspends-sales" target="_blank">Apple suspends sales of Apple Watch 9 and Ultra 2 after blood-monitor dispute (Axios)</a>

<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/18/ll-bean-joins-the-national-privacy-wars-00132120" target="_blank">L.L. Bean tips the scales in state privacy fight (Politico)</a>

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/18/european-union-x-probe-elon-musk/" target="_blank">E.U. launches inquiry into Elon Musk’s X over spread of illegal content (Aaron Gregg and Will Oremus)</a>

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/17/ai-fake-news-misinformation/" target="_blank">The rise of AI fake news is creating a ‘misinformation superspreader’ (Pranshu Verma)</a>

NIST holds a <a href="https://www.nist.gov/news-events/events/virtual-listening-session-us-government-national-standards-strategy-critical-and">virtual listening session</a> on U.S. standards for emerging technologies at 11 a.m.

That’s all for today — thank you so much for joining us! Make sure to tell others to subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/60/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a">The </a><a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/61/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a">Technology</a><a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/62/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a"> </a><a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/63/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a">202</a><a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/64/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a"> here</a>. Get in touch with tips, feedback or greetings on <a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dcb/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/65/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a">Twitter</a> or <a href="mailto:cristiano.lima@washpost.com?utm_campaign=wp_the_technology_202&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter&amp;wpisrc=nl_technology202">email</a>.&nbsp;

Lehigh University, BA in Political Science

Lehigh University, MA in Political Science

 Cristiano Lima-Strong is a tech policy reporter and author of The Washington Post's Technology 202 newsletter, focusing on the intersection of tech, politics and policy. His coverage focuses on privacy and children’s online safety. He previously served as a senior web producer, breaking news reporter and tech policy reporter for Politico.

Cristiano Lima-Strong

George Washington University, BBA in business analytics

Georgetown University, MS in business analytics

David DiMolfetta researches The Cybersecurity 202 and The Technology 202, the morning newsletters at The Washington Post keeping readers up to date on cybersecurity and technology policy.

David DiMolfetta

washpost

The Washington Post

Scott Dibble

name

prism://prism.query/site-and-tag,/politics/powerpost,technology202&limit=20

Your daily guide to the intersection of technology and politics, with reporter Cristiano Lima.

Your daily guide to the intersection of technology and politics.

The Technology 202

A newsletter briefing on the intersection of technology and politics.

https://newsletter-imgs.s3.amazonaws.com/prod/the-202s/primary/technology.svg

https://newsletter-imgs.s3.amazonaws.com/prod/the-202s/secondary/technology.svg

prism://prism.query/site,/technology/tech-policy&limit=20

Tech Policy

prism://prism.query/site,/politics/powerpost&limit=20

The 202s

The 202s - The Washington Post

PowerPost, by The Washington Post, delivers essential intelligence for D.C. decision-makers.