Court filings have revealed new details about the FTC’s investigation into Elon Musk over his handling of privacy and security issues at X. In newly public court documents, the Department of Justice says Musk fostered a “chaotic environment” at Twitter, now known as X, that prevented company officials from complying with their obligations to the FTC.

The FTC investigation stems from a 2022 settlement between the FTC and Twitter over the company’s use of deceptive ad targeting under the leadership of Jack Dorsey. Prior to Musk’s takeover, the company paid a $150 million fine and signed on to an agreement to implement specific privacy and security measures. It was those additional data protection measures that apparently fell by the wayside once Musk took control, triggering new scrutiny from the regulator.

In March, the FTC began investigating the rushed rollout of Twitter Blue, which reportedly launched without the privacy and security review required under the FTC order, as well as Musk’s handling of the so-called “Twitter Files.”

In the latest court documents, the Department of Justice details new information provided by a number of former top Twitter executives. According to the DoJ, Twitter’s former chief privacy officer Damien Kieran said Twitter Blue launched so quickly a “security and privacy review was not conducted in accordance with the company’s process for software development.”

It also details employee concerns over Musk’s attempts to grant an outside journalist unfettered access to the company’s internal systems. (The filing notes that “longtime information security employees intervened” and the reporter was ultimately given access to files and systems via an intermediary.) 

The government also raises concerns over Musk’s rearranging of company servers between data centers. The company’s policy required that servers be wiped prior to being moved, but that didn’t happen, according to former Twitter employees. The government also notes that Musk’s rapid-fire layoffs resulted in deep cuts among the Twitter staff who could have helped the company stay in compliance with the FTC.

X didn’t respond to a request for comment. Musk has previously described the investigation as the “weaponization of a government agency for political purposes.”

Ultimately, the owner of X may end up having to answer to the FTC directly on these issues. The regulator argues that Musk should be deposed, though lawyers for X have sought to prevent the deposition. “Evidence the FTC uncovered during its investigation reveals that Musk has been deeply involved in the ‘fundamental transformation’ of X Corp.,” the government wrote. “Musk exercised granular control of X Corp., at times directing employees in a manner that may have jeopardized data privacy and security.”

Apple’s premium smartwatch is getting its first major upgrade. The company showed off the $799 Apple Watch Ultra 2, the first update for the high-end watch meant for extreme athletes and others with more specialized fitness-tracking needs.

As expected, the second-gen device will keep the same 49-millimeter form factor as the original, but still sports some significant upgrades. Notably, the Ultra 2 comes with a new extra-bright 3,000 Nit display to make the screen easier to read in any lighting conditions. The Ultra 2 will be among the first watches to get Apple’s new S9 chip, which will power the new “double tap gesture,” and upgraded Siri functionality.

As with the original Ultra, the second-gen device boasts a longer battery life than its smaller Series 9 counterpart. According to Apple, the Ultra 2 will top out at 36 hours of battery life on one charge, but can last up to 72 hours in low-power mode. That’s a slight improvement over last year’s model, which could go 60 hours in low-power.

Developing...

Follow all of the news live from Apple's 'Wonderlust' event right here.

It turns out that Threads’ recently introduced keyword-searching abilities won’t work for all topics. The app is currently blocking searches for a number of “potentially sensitive” words, including “vaccines,” “covid,” and other variations of words that have previously been linked to misinformation on Meta’s platform.

The limits, which were first reported by The Washington Post, are an apparent attempt to prevent controversial content from spreading on Meta’s newest app. The company has blocked a number of covid and vaccine-related terms, including “covid,” “coronavirus,” “covid-19,” “vaccines” and “covid vaccines,” as well as other terms associated with potentially unsavory content like “gore,” nude,” and “sex.”

The company confirmed it was blocking searches in a statement to The Post, calling it a temporary measure. “The search functionality temporarily doesn’t provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content,” a spokesperson said. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram who also oversees Threads, tweeted that the company was “trying to learn from last [sic] mistakes and believe it's better to bias towards being careful as we roll out search.”

Meta’s history shows the company has good reasons to be cautious about search on Threads. Instagram search has been widely criticized as a vector for misinformation and its ability to lead users down conspiratorial rabbit holes. The app’s search was particularly weaponized during the early days of the pandemic, when it promoted conspiracy-touting anti-vax accounts in its top results for simple queries like “vaccine” and “5g.”

At the same time, it’s telling that Meta is now opting to block all searches containing “potentially sensitive” keywords, even posts that don’t contain rule-breaking content. It’s also a notably more aggressive approach than the social media company has taken in the past.

While Meta has previously limited search functionality on both Facebook and Instagram, the company has typically intervened when search terms were explicitly linked to rule-breaking content, like specific hashtags related to QAnon. In other cases, the company has worked to clean up search results for topics like vaccines, and pushed in-app PSAs directing users to official resources.

As The Washington Post points out, the result of the total block on covid-related search terms is that users are also prohibited from looking for information, resources and conversations that don’t break the platform’s rules, which could be a barrier to those seeking advice or credible information from experts.

Meta’s caution also underscores just how quickly the company rushed the development of Threads. The app was released just five months after a small group of Instagram engineers started working on the project. The quick turnaround meant that Threads launched with several basic features missing from the service. And while Meta has said Threads has the same safety policies of Instagram, it hasn’t disclosed many details about its plans to moderate content on the Twitter-like app, where posts look and feel very different.

X, the social media company previously known as Twitter, is suing the state of California over a law that requires companies to disclose details about their content moderation practices. The law, known as AB 587, requires social media companies to publish information about their handling of hate speech, extremism, misinformation and other issues, as well as details about internal moderation processes.

Lawyers for X argue that the law is unconstitutional and will lead to censorship. It “has both the purpose and likely effect of pressuring companies such as X Corp. to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally-protected speech,” the company wrote in the lawsuit. “The true intent of AB 587 is to pressure social media platforms to ‘eliminate’ certain constitutionally-protected content viewed by the State as problematic.”

X is not alone in its opposition to the law. Though the measure was backed by some activists, a number of industry groups took issue with AB 587. Netchoice, a trade group which represents Meta, Google, TikTok and other tech companies, argued last year that AB 587 would help bad actors evade companies’ security measures, and make it harder for them to enforce their rules.

At the same time, AB 587's backers have said it’s necessary to increase the transparency of major platforms. “If @X has nothing to hide, then they should have no objection to this bill,” Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel, who wrote AB 587, said in response to X’s lawsuit.

X, the company formerly known as Twitter, may not be labeling its ads properly, putting it at risk of — once again — running afoul of the FTC. There have been numerous reports over the last several days of ads appearing in users’ timelines without being labeled as such, according toTechCrunch, which was first to report on the stealth ads.

According to their reporting, as well as reports from industry groups, users have identified numerous ads that leave off the typical “Ad” label that identifies the post as paid advertising rather than a native post. It’s apparent that the posts are, in fact, ads when clicking into the “...” menu in the tweet, which indicates the tweet is a paid promotion.

While the unlabeled ads have irked users, who may mistakenly believe the platform is showing posts from accounts they don’t follow in their following timeline, the issue also risks stirring up more regulatory trouble with the FTC. Nandini Jammi, co-founder of watchdog group Check My Ads, has been sharingexamples on her Twitter account over the past couple days. The nonprofit group is tracking the issue and encouraging X users to report any examples they find.

It’s unclear if the unlabeled ads are the result of a bug or an intentional change by the company. X, which no longer has a functioning communications department, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But it’s no secret the company’s advertising business has collapsed over the last year since Elon Musk took over the company. Musk recently said ad revenue is down 60 percent, a drop he has blamed on activists. The company also recently losttwo top executives overseeing brand safety, an issue advertisers have cited as a major concern and reason for pulling back from the platform.

Snapchat is adding new features meant to discourage teens from interacting with strangers on its app. The changes come after years of scrutiny on the app as lawmakers and other officials have questioned Snap’s ability to keep teens safe.

As with previous updates, the new restrictions primarily affect the accounts of 13- to 17-year-olds on the app. Last year, the company began limiting the visibility of teens’ accounts in its “Quick Add” recommendations to limit strangers’ ability to find young people in the app. Now, the company says it will make teens even harder to find in search and recommendations by increasing the number of mutual friends users must have in order to appear in search and suggested accounts.

And, in cases when teens are able to connect with people with whom they don’t share many mutual friends, Snap will surface warnings encouraging users to only interact with people they know. The warning will be accompanied by an option to block or report the user in question.

The company is also introducing a new strike system for accounts that share “age-inappropriate content” in public-facing parts of the app, like Stories and Spotlight. Under the new system, the app will remove posts that it deems age-inappropriate and dole out a strike to the offending account. Users who rack up too many strikes over a set period of time will have their accounts permanently disabled, according to the company.

Snap has also published a new section of its website aimed at parents who have potential concerns about their teens’ use of Snapchat. The site offers several explainers about the app, including guides on how to use its parental control features.

Pinterest is again changing its search algorithm to make its results more representative of the people using its platform. The latest update is aimed at improving the visibility of plus-size fashion and other styles that highlight a broader spectrum of body shapes and sizes.

With the changes, searches for women’s fashion and wedding looks will surface results with a more diverse range of body types, Pinterest says. Annie Ta, Pinterests’s head of inclusive products, said the changes were driven by the realization that many users were adding “descriptions and qualifiers,” to their queries in an effort to find the styles that best fit their needs. “They were experiencing something really similar: recommendations that were homogenous and not very diverse,” she said.

It’s not the first time Pinterest has taken steps toward more inclusive search features. The company, which has cultivated a reputation as a kinder social media company, added skin tone filtering to makeup and other beauty-related searches in 2018, and introduced hair pattern search in 2020.

It took a similar approach in looking at ways to tweak its algorithm to surface results that would be more inclusive for the plus-size community. Ha says the Pinterest’s algorithm has been trained on more than 5 billion images and videos on its platform to detect and categorize different body shapes and sizes. The company also tapped advocates and creators from the plus size community for advice on the changes. Now, users should be better able to browse styles without adding on extra search terms like “curvy” or “plus size.”

According to Ha, early results suggest the feature is effective. She says that the representation of different body types in search results for women’s fashion has improved by more than four times since implementing the algorithmic tweaks. Though the changes are limited to women’s fashion and wedding-related content for now, she says the company is looking to expand body type representation into other categories as well.

Clubhouse, once the Silicon Valley darling of pandemic-era social media, announced earlier this year that it was laying off half its staff as its founders pivoted to building “Clubhouse 2.0.” Now, the company is sharing the results of its big reset, with a redesign meant to make Clubhouse “more like a messaging app.”

The audio app is pivoting from its signature “drop-in” audio conversations to friend-centric voice chats, the company said in an update. Instead of sprawling rooms where users host live-streamed conversations open to any and all of the app’s users, the new Clubhouse will instead encourage users to join groups with people they know.

The groups are, somewhat confusingly, called “chats,” and allow friends and friends-of-friends to exchange voice messages. There’s still a “drop-in” element, but it’s less focused on real-time talking and geared more toward something like an Instagram Story — a destination for checking in and sharing quick updates. The app is also ditching text-based direct messages in favor of private audio messages which, yes, it’s calling voicemails or VMs.

The biggest shift, however, isn’t just the format of the conversations but that Clubhouse is now positioning itself as more of a Snapchat, where smaller groups of friends communicate privately or semi-privately, than a Twitter, where all the app's users are shouting into the void. “It’s not about passively listening to people speaking,” the company wrote in an update. “You can listen to great conversations on podcasts, YouTube, TikTok, and a lot of other platforms. It’s about talking with people … and becoming real-life friends with your friends’ friends, and people you never would have met otherwise.”

While the pivot to messaging app may make more sense given the steep decline in engagement Clubhouse saw after pandemic restrictions eased, it’s unclear if the company will be able to return to the same buzzy highs of 2021, when it attracted millions of users and a multibillion-dollar valuation. Clubhouse, whose founders claimed earlier this year that they had “years of runway remaining,” seem like they aren’t taking success for granted their second time around.

They ended their announcement of the redesign with a bit of caution. “It’s a big bet, and we hope we’re right…”

The home state of some of the most influential AI companies has a new plan to confront the potential regulation of generative AI. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order instructing agencies in the state to study potential risks and use cases for the technology.

Under the order, state agencies are tasked with identifying “the most significant and beneficial uses of GenAI in the state” and creating frameworks to train state employees on how to use “state-approved” generative AI tools in their work. Likewise, it directs the same agencies to analyze potential negative impacts of the technology, including its effect on vulnerable communities and threats to “critical energy infrastructure” in the state.

The order also lays the groundwork for new partnerships with University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, which will help study how generative AI is affecting the state’s workers. “This is a potentially transformative technology – comparable to the advent of the internet – and we’re only scratching the surface of understanding what GenAI is capable of,” Newsom said in a statement. “We recognize both the potential benefits and risks these tools enable.”

As Bloombergpoints out, the California order comes ahead of a White House executive order on generative AI expected in the coming months. Leaders of several top AI companies have been meeting with White House officials over the last severalmonths as the administration weighs potential regulations for AI. More than half a dozen companies have already agreed to some safeguards, including new investments in cybersecurity, following those meetings.

The company previously known as Twitter is fully reversing a longtime ban on political advertising after it first loosened its rules in January. X said in an update it would once again open its doors to political advertisers of all stripes.

“Building on our commitment to free expression, we are also going to allow political advertising,” the company wrote. It added that it will “apply specific policies to paid-for promoted political posts,” including rules barring “the promotion of false or misleading content” as well as content “intended to undermine public confidence in an election.” X also said it’s planning to create a “global advertising transparency center” so that users can track political ads on the platform.

Twitter first banned political ads in 2019, with then-CEO Jack Dorsey saying that “political message reach should be earned, not bought.” That began to change earlier this year when the company eased restrictions for “caused-based” ads, citing the importance of “public conversation around important topics.”

Now, it’s unclear if there is any kind of political ad that would be off-limits on X so long as it adheres to the company’s rules. Of note, X has yet to update support pages outlining its political ad rules, though it said in a blog post it was updating its civic integrity policy “to make sure we strike the right balance between tackling the most harmful types of content … and not censoring political debate.” X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The policy changes could have significant implications for the upcoming 2024 elections. X also said that it was in the process of staffing up its teams overseeing safety and elections policies, “to focus on combating manipulation, surfacing inauthentic accounts and closely monitoring the platform for emerging threats.”

Opening to political ads could also be a major boon to X’s ad business, which has dropped 50 percent since Elon Musk’s takeover last year. Though conventional advertisers have increasingly shied away from the platform, political campaigns may have a harder time staying away ahead of a major election.