Gavin Newsom
Newsom Wants an AI Kill Switch. Who Gets the Keys?
California’s plan depends on “independent” AI watchdogs, but the people lining up for the job may already be deeply connected to the industry they would police.
California Is Building an Internet of Age Checks and Identity Gates
California’s child safety push comes with a passport of sorts for everyone else.
California Legislature Passes Online Age Verification Bill
The vote was unanimous, but the privacy backlash is only getting started.
California Legislature Passes Amendment Keeping Operating System Age Signals
Browsers are out of the handoff, but app stores and developers still get a live read on user age categories.
Newsom Signs Content Takedown Law Following Nick Shirley Investigations
The precedent is more than the content removals. The precedent is that a legislature can keep inventing new categories of people entitled to them.
California's Takedown Bill Is One Step Closer, and Still Has No Journalist Exemption
It is a privacy statute until someone points out that the footage was true, published, and shot in public.
Newsom Adds CA Drivers to National ID System
A phone ID, a national database, and a set of Olympic cameras walk into one bill, and only one of them is about convenience.
MembersLinux Distros Are Mounting a Response to the Age Verification ID Laws Coming for Your OS
One developer has already registered their distribution under the law’s own definitions and declared intentional noncompliance on the front page.
California Law Forces Age-Tracking Into Every Operating System by 2027
In a different timeline, wiring an age-surveillance layer into the boot sequence of every computing device in California is an idea that would have died in committee.
Newsom Backs Teen Social Media Ban After Daughter’s Birthday Party Phone Moment
The governor who couldn’t bring himself to say “put the phones down” at his own daughter’s party is now asking the state to say it for every family in California.
Gavin Newsom Says He’s Investigating TikTok Over Alleged Censorship of Anti-Trump and “Epstein” Content
It has been a bad week for TikTok, as technical excuses wear thin against a pattern of silence that, to some users, looks anything but random.
The Algorithm Accountability Act’s Threat to Free Speech
By going after algorithms instead of posts, lawmakers seem to think they’re not going against the First Amendment.