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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Attorneys general in 14 different states filed lawsuits against TikTok last week.</li><li>They say TikTok's algorithm is addictive and harmful to children's mental health.</li></ul>TikTok is facing lawsuits from 14 state attorneys general who say the company's algorithm harms children. Legal experts say the coordinated challenge is designed to take down big companies.Adam Wandt, an attorney and deputy chair for technology at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, said the barrage of state lawsuits mirrors challenges against Big Tobacco in the 1990s and Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin, in the 2000s. In both cases, the lawsuits were used to "overwhelm those industries," he said."The other advantage it gives is, if there are defects in one of the suits, the other suits still survive," Wandt said. "It's actually a pretty good strategy."Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and trial lawyer in California, said that attorneys commonly file multiple lawsuits across several states when they go after "multibillion-dollar" companies because they are more expensive for the companies to defend."Opioid companies, for instance, wouldn't have entered into the settlements that they did had they only dealt with one attorney general or a lawsuit in one state, but when they're looking at multiple lawsuits across the country, and really the continued viability of their company, it's more likely that they'll enter into some settlement," Rahmani said."You might win one or two lawsuits. How are you going to win a dozen?" he added.The Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, ultimately paid over <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/purdue-pharma-oxycontin-sacklers-tentative-settlement-opioid-lawsuits-2019-9">$3 billion in settlements</a> for misleading advertising related to their products. Purdue Pharma later <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-rejects-bankruptcy-plan-protecting-sacklers-2024-6">filed for bankruptcy</a>, but the Supreme Court struck down a $7 billion bankruptcy plan in June that would have given the Sackler's immunity from future civil suits.Big Tech companies like Meta, Google, and TikTok are usually shielded from liability related to the content users post to their sites by Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. No matter how harmful the content, tech companies are considered by law the uninvolved host or "intermediary" for the content.Rahmani said that courts examining the 14 new lawsuits against TikTok will focus on whether the company's algorithm is causing harm, not whether it is hosting harmful content."There's a difference between passively allowing people to post, but really what we're talking about is TikTok's algorithm," Rahmani said.On Thursday, NPR reported that over 30 pages of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-lawsuit-algorithm-children-internal-documents-revealed-2024-10">accidentally unredacted court documents</a> detailed some of the findings of the joint investigation into TikTok. Wandt said those documents showed that TikTok "has very intentionally ignored" federal regulations."I think that the types of legal protections we give to social media companies might not protect them if they are found to be lax with some of the federal laws," Wandt said.Still, the biggest loss for TikTok may come in the court of public opinion, Rahmani said.Congress passed a bill in April that requires TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-ban-app-american-us-not-worried-2024-9">find a new owner</a> for the app or face a potential ban in the United States. With the prospect of <a target="_blank" class="editor-rtfLink" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-ban-app-american-us-not-worried-2024-9">that federal ban looming</a> next year, a slew of federal lawsuits helps shape public opinion and "pressure lawmakers to act," Rahmani said."There's now this narrative: Tiktok isn't about fun, silly dancing. It's dangerously pushing out harmful material for our children," he said. "So that's very different."In a statement to BI, a spokesperson for TikTok said the company "strongly disagrees with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading." The spokesperson said the company cooperated with the investigation for two years and that " it is incredibly disappointing they have taken this step rather than work with us on constructive solutions to industry-wide challenges.""We're proud of and remain deeply committed to the work we've done to protect teens and we will continue to update and improve our product," the spokesperson said.

New lawsuits against TikTok mirror those against Big Tobacco and Purdue Pharma

<ul class="summary-list"><li>AI makes it easier than ever to spread misinformation and disinformation on social media. </li><li>Legal experts argue real change can only happen through new laws or the social media companies themselves.</li></ul>In the age of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-using-ai-bain-survey-roi-2024-6">generative artificial intelligence</a>, the public is arguably more susceptible than ever to fall victim to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/misinformation-vs-disinformation">disinformation and misinformation</a> on social media.It's on social media platforms where disinformation and misinformation <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-social-media-accounts-stoking-political-chaos-in-the-us-2024-4">runs rampant</a>. You can almost bet on it that any time major events become part of the public conversation, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-posts-oversimplify-israel-hamas-war-2023-10">digital falsehoods swiftly circulate</a>. Think of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-pandemic-online-disinformation-hampering-response-2020-3">COVID-19 pandemic</a> and both the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/researchers-struggle-to-study-disinformation-lack-of-data-from-facebook-2019-9">2016</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/misinformation-fell-73-after-trump-was-banned-across-social-media-2021-1">2020</a> United States presidential election cycles.AI-generated so-called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/what-is-deepfake">deepfakes</a> are only exacerbating the problem and making it easier than ever to spread disinformation and misinformation via social media.Legal experts told Business Insider that the only real way to combat misinformation and disinformation on social media is through the creation of new federal laws or the tech companies behind the platforms voluntarily ramping up their own self-regulation."AI means it's not just going to be words" that disseminate false information on social media, it's going to be videos and photos and audio recordings," said Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney and author of the book, "Attack From Within: How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America."McQuade, a professor at the University of Michigan law school believes there needs to be new laws on the books to address this issue because "this is new technology that didn't previously exist.""We may be reaching a point of awareness where people are beginning to understand the risk and the danger of it," McQuade said.A recent federal assessment compiled by the US Department of Homeland Security warned of the threats AI poses to America's 2024 presidential election."As the 2024 election cycle progresses, generative AI tools likely provide both domestic and foreign threat actors with enhanced opportunities for interference by aggravating emergent events, disrupting election processes, or attacking election infrastructure," the analysis obtained by ABC News <a target="_blank" href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dhs-warns-threats-election-posed-ai/story?id=110367438">said.</a><h2 id="bdd20c31-7f98-4aa9-8adb-70a709a34949">Social media companies are protected from civil liability under a US law</h2>Social media has largely gone unregulated since its birth nearly three decades ago. In the US, tech giants like <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-facebook-european-commission-eu-digital-markets-act-dma-advertising-2024-7">Meta</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter">X,</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-growth-gen-z-app-millennial-takeover-trends-youtube-2024-5">TikTok</a> are protected from civil liability related to the content posted by their users and the companies' content moderation practices under <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-section-230-internet-law-communications-decency-act-explained-2020-5">Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996</a>."It says they are not subject to legal liability, they are immune," McQuade explained. "And that probably made sense in 1996 when the goal was to foster innovation and investment, and here we are almost 30 years later, and we've seen some of the collateral consequences of this unregulated space."So what's been the struggle for the government to address the issue of disinformation and misinformation on social media head-on? First Amendment concerns, pushback by Big Tech, and political will, have something to do with it, according to legal experts."It's hard to enact legislation, it's hard to define the terms" of misinformation and disinformation, it's hard to have agreement on what the proper intervention would be, and I think it's hard to craft something that's not going to have a First Amendment problem," said Gautaum Hans, a law professor, and associate director of the First Amendment Clinic at Cornell University."Any kind of regulation that targets speech has a very difficult barrier to constitutionality, so the issue there is you'd have to define disinformation or misinformation in a way that made it not covered by the First Amendment," said Hans.Hans said he believes there's a "general skittishness about any legislator or any government official proposing something that could be deemed Orwellian in its attempt to try to create a regulation of protected speech.""So most politicians, I think, are cognizant that it would be bad for their reputations to be seen as speech suppressive," he said.Additionally, Hans noted, "there are benefits to certain political actors about the existence of misinformation."Hans said he believes it is more likely that the remedies to misinformation and disinformation on social media will be found through the private practices of tech companies themselves instead of through the realm of law."I think that it is more likely to happen, and probably more effective in the long-term given the constitutional problems of legislative or regulatory intervention," he said.<h2 id="1132c141-c9fa-49c9-92dd-c9f5de18ea25">Section 230 has been hotly debated for years</h2>McQuade argued that social media companies would need to be incentivized to beef up their self-regulation on fighting misinformation and disinformation."I just think that you either need to put public pressure on them through consumers to make them change their behavior or through federal legislation," said McQuade.McQuade proposed <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/future-of-section-230-democrats-both-houses-2021-1">amending Section 230</a> in order to hold social media companies accountable under certain circumstances."The better course for regulating social media and online content might be to look at processes versus content because content is so tricky in terms of First Amendment protections," the former federal prosecutor said, adding, "regulating some of the processes could include things like the algorithms.""I'm suggesting that perhaps Section 230 could be amended to provide for civil liability, you know, money damages if the social media companies didn't take certain precautions," she said.Those precautions, McQuade said, could relate to the disclosure of algorithms and how private data is used, requiring users to label AI-generated material, and the removal of bots, which "are there to amplify false information.""So I think that would be the way to sort of use a stick to get compliance by exposing" social media companies to legal liability for failure to comply with certain terms, said McQuade.This would inevitably be challenged legally, and "they'd make it to the courts to see whether those laws would stick, but I think that's probably what it would require," McQuade said."Information is such an important resource, especially in a democracy," said McQuade. "And it seems that everyone should agree that when there is disinformation out there that is an obstacle to good government."Section 230 has come under intense scrutiny over the years from both Republican and Democratic politicians alike.Former President <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-demands-gop-vote-against-defense-bill-end-section-230-2020-12">Donald Trump</a> and other Republicans have argued the law gives Big Tech too much power to censor conservative voices, while Democrats like President <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-biden-want-to-revoke-section-230-for-different-reasons-2020-5">Joe Biden</a> have said it doesn't do enough to fight hate speech.In a Wall Street Journal <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/unite-against-big-tech-abuses-social-media-privacy-competition-antitrust-children-algorithm-11673439411">op-ed</a> last year, Biden double-downed on calls to reform of Section 230."We need bipartisan action from Congress to hold Big Tech accountable," Biden wrote in the op-ed. "We've heard a lot of talk about creating committees. It's time to walk the walk and get something done."Big Tech, however, scored a massive win last year when the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-decision-section-230-win-big-tech-trump-2023-5">US Supreme Court sided with Twitter and Google</a> in lawsuits that alleged they "aided and abetted" terrorist attacks.The decision, which was written by conservative justices, stayed out of the fight over Section 230.<h2 id="e4451185-7621-4888-b1a0-1b8c218f5898">Major social media companies have their own misinformation policies</h2>Many major social media companies, including Meta, TikTok and X, have their own policies when it comes to tackling misinformation and disinformation.For example, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, says on its <a target="_blank" href="https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/misinformation">website</a> that it removes misinformation "where it is likely to directly contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm.""We also remove content that is likely to directly contribute to interference with the functioning of political processes and certain highly deceptive manipulated media," Meta says.Meta says it focuses "on slowing the spread of hoaxes and viral misinformation" and requires users to disclose, using its "AI-disclosure tool," whenever they post content with "photorealistic video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered, and we may apply penalties if they fail to do so.""We may also add a label to certain digitally created or altered content that creates a particularly high risk of misleading people on a matter of public importance," says Meta.In a May 2024 "adversarial threat report" by Meta, the company said, "So far, we have not seen novel GenAI-driven tactics that would impede our ability to disrupt the adversarial networks behind them."TikTok <a target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/transparency/en-us/combating-misinformation/">says</a> it does not allow "harmful misinformation" on its platform and says that it has "robust policies around specific types of misinformation like medical, climate change, and election misinformation, as well as misleading AI-generated content, conspiracy theories, and public safety issues like natural disasters."X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, says on its <a target="_blank" href="https://help.x.com/en/rules-and-policies/manipulated-media">website</a> that users "may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm ('misleading media'). ""In addition, we may label posts containing misleading media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context," X says.These policies, though, are not always enough.Earlier this year, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-fans-furious-graphic-fake-ai-images-on-x-2024-1">graphic AI-generated images of Taylor Swift went viral on X</a>, with a post garnering 45 million views before it was finally taken down 17 hours later.X, which is owned by Elon Musk, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-fake-ai-images-searches-blocked-elon-musk-x-2024-1">blocked searches for the popstar</a> in the aftermath.

AI is amplifying social media disinformation — and making Big Tech civilly liable may be the key to stemming it

Silicon Valley is filthy with divorced-dad energy.Not necessarily the people, though I'm sure there's plenty of that, but the most powerful companies in the Valley are collectively giving off a sweaty vibe that reeks of desperation. These once proud tech giants are turning to flashy trinkets and cheap thrills rather than doing the hard work and introspection necessary to actually build the future.Let's be clear, the tech industry was never cool cool. Starting sometime around 2000, Silicon Valley's ability to deliver new products that actually improved our lives gave it a new cultural cache — at least for a time, the industry was like the cool, interesting person that people wanted to be with, who listened and built things that people actually wanted. Things came easily, and tech's valuations skyrocketed as companies "disrupted" incumbent businesses.Smart people wanted to work at these companies to tackle the world's most intractable problems, and average Americans began to integrate the best solutions into their everyday lives. It seemed like every new idea opened up a new market worth hundreds of billions of dollars — smartphones, social media, cloud computing, software development solutions. Liquid capital, growing market dominance, slick ads, and fawning media made it easy for giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon to expand their footprint and grow their bottom lines.Yet, like any decaying relationship, these companies got lazy, entitled, and demanding. They started to care less about the foundations of their business — like having happy customers and stable products — and more about making themselves feel better by reinforcing their monopolies. By around 2015, tech's cool-dad period had ended. After reaping the rewards of various hyper-growth ideas, the industry's growth promises began to get ahead of its ability to innovate. Silicon Valley became addicted to acquisitions, buying the new, hot toy that it figured everyone would like instead of thinking through what Americans actually needed. Instead of doing the work to get better, tech has remained steadfastly attached to the tropes that worked when its products were at their prime. The industry has become a bloated, surly divorced dad who refuses to do the hard work and look inward to find real solutions.The biggest players in tech are dyeing their gray hairs, starting a band with their equally middle-aged friends, throwing on a leather jacket or new chain (sometimes literally), and trying anything to pretend that they've "still got it" — anything other than focusing on building important and meaningful products that users actually want. Big Tech has decided the way to keep customers isn't to compete or provide them with a better service but instead make it hard to leave, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-instacart-uses-dark-patterns-encourage-shoppers-buy-faster-more-2023-2">trick customers into buying things</a>, or eradicate competition <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-ruining-apps-websites-internet-worse-google-facebook-amazon-2023-3">so that it can make things as profitable as possible, even if the experience is worse</a>. Great companies are able to accept their limitations and acknowledge that nobody has to be your customer, but giants like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon refuse to accept that they can't do everything and that their problems are a direct result of the kind of lack of introspection and cultural laziness that breaks relationships. Customers have spent the past 30 years sharing their precious data and money with tech companies, but Silicon Valley's new divorced-dad energy may finally push users to pack up the car, take back custody, and leave the toxicity behind.As with all failed marriages, the first sign that the tech industry was letting America down came many years before the eventual breakup. After two decades of consistent internal innovation, Big Tech got addicted to acquisitions in the 2010s: <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-buys-siri-a-mobile-assistant-app-as-war-with-google-heats-up-2010-4">Apple bought Siri</a>; Meta bought <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-is-buying-whatsapp-2014-2">WhatsApp</a>, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-buys-instagram-2012-4">Instagram</a>, and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-to-buy-oculus-rift-for-2-billion-2014-3">Oculus</a>; <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-buys-twitch-2014-8">Amazon bought Twitch</a>; Google bought <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-nest-stratgey-32-billion-2014-1">Nest</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/breaking-google-buying-motorola-mobility-for-125-billion-2011-8">Motorola's entire mobility division</a>. At first, this spending spree was cheered on by a society that had yet to grow suspicious of tech, applauding Amazon and Meta (then Facebook) for finding new ways to expand business and get more users. But over time, the acquisitions made it impossible for these companies to focus on delivering the features we needed. (And eventually got them in legal hot trouble, as <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-violated-antitrust-law-to-keep-search-monopoly-judge-rules-2024-8">Monday's antitrust ruling against Google's search practices</a> showed.) Big Tech companies became less known for one particular product. Instead, they offered a sprawling suite of different interconnected products that all kind-of-sort-of worked while effectively printing money.Tech companies and average Americans knew that just snapping up smaller startups wasn't going to cut it. Eventually, people needed something real — something on the scale of Google Search, Facebook, or the original iPhone, something that changed how we interacted with others, that made our lives richer and cooler and more vibrant, or at least a little easier. But after a few years of coasting, Silicon Valley couldn't deliver. Instead, Big Tech became obsessed with a series of half-baked boondoggles that seemed revolutionary, yet in practice, were either not reliable enough to be trusted or simply not that useful. The shiny distractions were plentiful: Virtual reality would have a brief time in the sun, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oculus-rift">with Oculus Rift popularizing the concept</a> until it became obvious that the technology was little more than a niche gadget with<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/solution-for-virtual-reality-vr-motion-sickness-2016-6"> extremely variable results depending on who used it</a>. Augmented reality was briefly exciting, with an incredible-looking demo from a company called Magic Leap that inspired a short funding craze along with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-glass">an even briefer hype cycle around Google Glass</a>. Self-driving cars were all the rage after Tesla launched its <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-software-update-70-coming-to-model-s-and-model-x-drivers-thursday-2015-10">lane-keeping "autopilot" software</a> in late 2015, and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-autonomous-tesla-drive-across-country-by-end-of-2017-2016-10">Elon Musk promised</a> that "every new Tesla would drive itself" by 2017. Years later, Musk has not delivered, and autonomous vehicles are still struggling to catch on outside a very select set of use cases. Then there was the agonizing dalliance with cryptocurrency and the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-dead-obituary-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-tech-fad-ai-chatgpt-2023-5">useless puffery of the metaverse</a>.There's a consistent theme behind all of these movements — tech's promises vastly outpaced software and hardware's ability to actually drive value. Autonomous cars are possible but require an incredibly large amount of training data, and even then, they make egregious and at times fatal decisions, making it difficult to trust them. While we figuratively might love the idea of being in a virtual world, our expectations are such that we'd want a full-sensory experience rather than a clunky headset, and without full immersion, things feel off. Augmented reality has cool ideas, but what consumers want is something that magically projects in front of them — any physical encumbrance or clunky menu system shatters the illusion. In all of these instances, tech companies tried to growth hack their way into a new, multibillion market while they let the core products — the very thing that had made us fall in love with them in the first place — wither away. It's all so terribly divorced — ignoring long-term problems in favor of shiny baubles that make them feel good and make vacuously informed investors fall in love with them, failing to accept that the reason people are so down on the tech industry is that its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-companies-ruining-apps-websites-internet-worse-google-facebook-amazon-2023-3">core products are getting worse</a> as a means of making investors more money.Big Tech has become sullen, entitled, and lazy, believing that nobody else could snatch away its precious customers. So these companies, brimming with overconfidence, are doing less and less to try to delight customers, unable to see how every selfish move is pushing the most important people away.Perhaps the uber-example of Silicon Valley's new divorced-dad energy is the gratuitous waste that is the latest AI hype cycle. The industry has collectively sunk hundreds of billions of dollars into an unprofitable technology <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/generative-ai-exaggeration-openai-nvidia-microsoft-chatgpt-jobs-investors-markets-2024-3">with massively overstated abilities</a>, which Goldman Sachs' head of equity research, Jim Covello, has argued is "<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-bubble-fundamental-issues-pop-goldman-sachs-global-head-equity-2024-7">not capable of solving complex problems</a>." In spite of these glaring problems, Big Tech is forging ahead, trying to convince Americans that it's different this time and AI really is the thing that will change their lives. Generative AI is the tech industry's leather jacket, and GPUs are the Porsche. Rather than focusing on the next frontier of computing, Big Tech wants to take the big, sexy, fancy, easy route — throwing more money at the latest shiny thing in the hope that it fixes all its problems.Google CEO Sundar Pichai proudly stated that he believes AI in search creates value for users, even as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-ai-glue-pizza-i-tried-it-2024-5">Google's AI-powered search</a> tells users to put glue on their pizza. Meta, unable to reconcile its total lack of innovation in any part of its business, instead chose to let Facebook get <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-flooded-spammy-ai-content-2023-8">flooded with AI-generated spam</a> that it seems unwilling to deal with because it's profitable in the short term — ignoring the bigger problem that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/rotcombubble/#:~:text=Facebook%20(a%20remarkable%20%2D27.7%25">Facebook's traffic has dropped by more than 25%</a> in the past few years. Amazon has only ever lost money on its devices, and while Microsoft might have acquired Github to "heighten Microsoft's focus on open-source development" and is happy to boast that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.benzinga.com/news/24/07/40061358/satya-nadella-says-microsofts-copilot-drives-40-of-githubs-revenue-growth-we-are-also-enabling-anyon">40% of Github's revenue </a>comes from its AI-powered copilot, it's a flimsy boast to make it feel good about itself. Even customers who have had a dalliance with the new divorced-dad version of Silicon Valley have been grossed out — some customers who have tried out new AI tools have been <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ai-copilot-future-openai-2024-3">disappointed in their capabilities</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pharma-cio-cancelled-microsoft-copilot-ai-tool-2024-7">quickly ended their contracts</a>. It doesn't matter that generative AI isn't making anyone money or that it's making companies like Google and Microsoft raise their emissions by more than 30% over the past five years, it's getting attention and drawing investor dollars, so it'll do for now.Even when tech companies aren't trying to shove AI down our throats, they fall into a similar trap. Apple, unwilling to be seen as behind the times, rushed out its Vision Pro headset to prove to the markets that it could make new things. The only problem: The VisionPro wasn't ready for prime time. It clearly needed a few more years of development to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/apple-vision-pro-review">make it lighter, easier to use</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-vision-pro-first-impressions-2024-2">less prone to giving you a headache</a>.Tech's increasingly divorce-vibed executives are scared of doing the hard, transformative work because it requires investing massive amounts of time and energy in developing new inventions with clear use cases in everyday life or fixing the core products that they've left to decay. Pichai shouldn't be excited about AI in search — he should be doing the hard work to fix the cultural and incentive issues that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-getting-worse-spam-affiliate-links-duckduckgo-bing-2024-1">ruined the existing Google Search.</a> Satya Nadella shouldn't be shoving billions into artificial intelligence but trying to build a meaningful improvement to Microsoft Windows or investing in internal security services instead of outsourcing it to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-hires-david-boies-lawyers-crowdstrike-microsoft-pay-damages-2024-7">growth-at-all-costs partners like CrowdStrike</a>. Amazon is, at this point, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-logistics-buildout-one-day-prime-shipping-2021-2">a $50 billion logistics company</a> with a <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-stock-amzn-quarterly-earnings-call-report-live-updates-2024-7">massive cloud-computing business</a> tacked on. Instead of investing in making its workers and customers happier, it's let the quality of products offered on the platform collapse and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hr-performance-improvement-plans-pip-pivot-had-to-quit-2023-11">treated its workers</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/aws-deprioritized-cloud-services-surprising-customers-salespeople-2024-8">clients like crap</a>. But all of that is much harder than just buying some half-baked chatbot and sloppily plugging it in, so here we are: getting AI pushed on us in a desperate attempt to win us back.Like the collapse of any marriage — amicable or otherwise — tech's great divorce from their end users is the result of a disconnection from the reason they built their companies in the first place, back when things mattered more, back when they felt that they had to earn people's love and respect. Now Big Tech firms are cobbled-together masses of people from different companies acquired at different times, with no clear vision and little cultural unity. Much like people get married, grow old, stop having date nights, stop paying attention to each other and to the little things, Big Tech has simply forgotten what matters: the customer at the end of the transaction — and instead has fallen into a parasitic relationship with them, where customers have to stay because leaving would be painful, annoying, and so much work. And once tech's divorce truly happens — when things really begin to fall apart as companies realize they have no more hyper-growth markets — it will be so much harder for them to fix things. Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple are simply no longer forces for innovation, and when the public eventually walks out, I don't believe Big Tech is even capable of making the adjustments necessary to win them back. The "work" in question here likely requires some <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/rot-economics-an-interview-with-mits-daron-acemoglu">actual creative destruction</a> — the "disruption" that t<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/big-tech-sabotages-new-startups-businesses-coopting-disruption-2024-3">ech used to be famous for</a> — which in turn will likely break up one or a few of the largest tech companies.Instead of doing the kind of introspection necessary to please average people, they'd rather paper over their problems with ideas like generative AI — a big, noisy, and superficially impressive doodad that makes them feel cool for a minute but only makes them feel bad when they drive it back to their empty, featureless apartment. Generative AI is the biggest, dumbest attempt that tech has ever made to escape the fallout of building companies by acquiring other companies, taking their eyes off actually inventing things, and ignoring the most important part of their world: the customer.And, like any divorce, lawyers will make a great deal of money either way.<a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/ed-zitron">Ed Zitron</a> is the CEO of <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://www.ezpr.com/">EZPR</a>, a national tech and business public-relations agency. He is also the author of the tech and culture newsletter <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://ez.substack.com/">Where's Your Ed At</a> and the host of <a target="_blank" rel=" nofollow" href="https://www.betteroffline.com/">the "Better Offline" podcast</a>.

Sweaty, desperate, and sad: Big Tech is giving off divorced dad energy

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Former pharmaceutical executive <keyword id="12354153" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="martin-shkreli" source="Orion">Martin Shkreli</keyword> launched a tech and investing newsletter Thursday.</li><li>The first entry of "Martin's Newsletter" was subtitled "This post was written in prison."</li></ul>Martin Shkreli has a <keyword id="11931414" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="substack" source="Orion">Substack</keyword>.The former pharmaceutical exec and "<keyword id="12955190" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="pharma-bro" source="Orion">Pharma Bro</keyword>" launched his tech and investing newsletter on Thursday, just over a month after he was released from prison having served less than five years of his <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/martin-shkreli-prison-sentence-for-securities-fraud-2018-3">seven-year sentence</a>.Shkreli is now living in a halfway house pending his planned release in September.The first entry of <a href="https://martinshkreli.substack.com">Martin's Newsletter</a>, subtitled "This post was written in prison," is a rambling collection of book reviews, predictions, and musings, including whether he would be un-banned from Twitter.By 2025, for example, he projects "TSLA nears $10T market cap, Musk becomes the first trillionaire."The newsletter arrived amid <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/06/23/martin-shkrelis-old-pharma-company-faces-shareholder-battle/">a pitched proxy battle</a> between Shkreli and a group of activist investors seeking to take control of his pharmaceutical firm Turing.A lawyer for Shkreli declined to comment when contacted by Insider.Shkreli was found <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pharma-bro-who-is-he-martin-shkreli-convicted-2017-8">guilty of securities fraud in 2017</a> and faced a separate antitrust lawsuit for raising the price of the rare, life-saving anti-parasitic drug Daraprim by 5,000%.Earlier this year, a federal judge <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/martin-shkreli-gets-lifetime-ban-from-pharmaceutical-industry-2022-1">barred him from the pharmaceutical industry for life</a> and ordered him to pay a $64.6 million fine.As for the newsletter, Shkreli said that it wouldn't be free and, in a nod to his infamous raising of Daraprim, said: "Expect a 5000% price increase soon. Just don't mix up relative and absolute changes. That's been a matter of confusion in the past."Brent Hodge, who directed the "Pharma Bro" documentary, told the <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/09/29/insiders-explain-why-pharma-bro-martin-shkreli-is-a-jerk/">New York Post</a> that Shkreli "likes to play up his position as a supervillain."

'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli has launched a newsletter to talk investing, science, and tech a month after his release from prison

<ul class="summary-list"><li>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</li></ul>Hello there! Here's a comeback absolutely no one wants. Nuclear weapons are on the rise amid increased US-China tension. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-weapons-era-comeback-china-us-russia-experts-2024-8">Experts explain why</a>.In today's big story, a CMO said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cmo-tried-google-ai-tools-stopped-using-them-2024-8">Google's AI tools left them disappointed</a>.What's on deck:<ul><li>Markets: At Blackstone's internship, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-succeed-at-blackstone-schwarzman-gray-career-advice-2024-8">nice people finish first</a>.</li><li>Tech: OpenAI's brain drain is a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-brain-drain-isnt-great-for-sam-altman-competition-2024-8">bad look for Sam Altman</a>.</li><li>Business: Gyms have <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-loves-gym-weightlifting-workout-fitness-trends-planet-fitness-2024-8">a Gen Z problem</a>.</li></ul>But first, is this thing even worth it?If this was forwarded to you, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today">sign up here.</a><h3 id="7fa5f018-5b05-4a37-a8dc-d3f89138bcb3">The big story</h3><h2 id="5fd547b9-ec52-41fc-8e08-4f4b27dd8097">A lack-of-demand problem</h2><div type="image" title="google ai on a computer with scribbles and glitches on a red background." height="892" width="1189" msid="112380048" hostid="261" sizebytes="62584"></div>The tech industry's big plans for AI have hit a roadblock: Some of their customers don't find the tools useful.Business Insider's Alistair Barr spoke to a chief marketing officer about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cmo-tried-google-ai-tools-stopped-using-them-2024-8">their less-than-stellar experience using Google's AI tools</a>.On paper, this should be an easy win. In the pantheon of industries set to be upended by AI, marketing is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-artificial-intelligence-is-used-in-marketing-strategy-2024-5">somewhere near the top</a>. (Don't feel bad, marketers. Media is not far behind.)From personalized emails to determining where ads should run, AI could supercharge a company's marketing department in plenty of ways.Except… it hasn't yet.At least that's what the CMO told Alistair. One tool disrupted its advertising strategy so much they stopped using it. Another was no better at the job than a human. And a third was only successful about 60% of the time.An entire industry can't, and shouldn't, be judged by one person's experience. But the CMO isn't alone in their frustration.A pharma company stopped using Microsoft's Copilot AI tool after an exec compared its work to "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pharma-cio-cancelled-microsoft-copilot-ai-tool-2024-7">middle school presentations</a>." And this isn't an age thing. Morgan Stanley's interns don't love using <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-customer-service-morgan-stanley-interns-2024-8">AI chatbots in customer service</a>.<div type="image" title="Photo illustration of a robot hand with cash." height="833" width="1111" msid="112380046" hostid="261" sizebytes="109502"></div>AI will get better, but the clock is ticking for tech firms racking up big bills.I'm old enough to remember when a phone call to your house might kick you off the web and your mobile phone's form of entertainment was Snake. Tech has a way of evolving and fine-tuning its products.But <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-big-tech-spending-on-ai-investments-2024-7">AI development isn't cheap</a>. The hardware, people, and power requirements are a big financial drain. So while it's only fair to give the industry time to work out the kinks, the bills aren't going to slow down anytime soon.Still, tech has the ultimate trump card. As much as the industry wants AI to prove useful, the rest of us need AI to prove useful.For over two decades, tech has been the rocketship investors have strapped themselves to.The internet. Social media. Cloud computing. Tech has consistently found new trends to ride to exponential returns, and we've all gladly gone along for the ride.AI is the latest, and everyone has bought in, leading the stock market to new record heights this year.Should that falter, it's not just tech that'll tumble. The pensions, 401(k)s, and other retirement plans built on the promise of tech's continued rise will drop with it.<h2 id="f4b54806-7f81-450c-ba32-92560d4fae9b">3 things in markets</h2><div type="image" title="Photo of Wall Street with huge US flags" height="667" width="1000" msid="112380039" hostid="261" sizebytes="72454"></div><ol><li>Bank of America wants everyone to take a chill pill. Michael Gapen, the bank's chief US economist, said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/is-a-recession-coming-us-economy-risks-rate-cuts-bofa-2024-8">a recession is "highly unlikely."</a> Gapen said a misreading of the economic data — like Hurricane Beryl's impact on the jobs report — led to the overreaction and threw cold water on the possibility of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/emergency-rate-cut-fed-recession-july-jobs-report-unemployment-powell-2024-8">an emergency rate cut</a>.</li><li>Gov. Tim Walz doesn't appear to be slinging tendies or checking r/wallstreetbets. The Democrats' VP pick <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tim-walz-kamala-harris-personal-finances-2024-8">doesn't own a single stock</a>, according to financial disclosures. In fact, when he was in Congress he sponsored the bill formally banning insider trading by government officials.</li><li>At Blackstone, niceness is a secret weapon. Blackstone COO Jon Gray recently shared career advice with the private-equity giant's summer analysts. BI spoke to four Blackstone insiders to understand more about how to succeed at the firm. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-succeed-at-blackstone-schwarzman-gray-career-advice-2024-8">Here's what they had to say</a>.</li></ol><h2 id="545818b4-6561-4465-a6aa-94bbe2d1ae4f">3 things in tech</h2><div type="image" title="sam altman" height="950" width="1440" msid="112380041" hostid="261" sizebytes="167996"></div><ol><li>OpenAI's castle has no moat. Having one could have kept OpenAI from losing key members over the past few weeks. Instead, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-brain-drain-isnt-great-for-sam-altman-competition-2024-8">the company is facing a brain drain</a> — and it's not a great look for Sam Altman.</li><li>The hidden objective in Elon Musk's X advertising lawsuit. Many legal experts think the platform's antitrust lawsuit against a group of advertisers is baseless. But a legal win isn't the point. Musk's true goal is to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-x-advertiser-lawsuits-silence-opponents-2024-8">sap his opponents' resources and hinder their work</a>, BI's Lara O'Reilly writes.</li><li>Early testers share their thoughts on OpenAI's up-and-coming generator for creatives. Sora, OpenAI's forthcoming text-to-video generator, turned heads when it was teased in February. Visual artists and designers granted early access to the tech shared what they think <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sora-openai-text-video-generator-testers-pros-cons-2024-8">Sora's strengths and weaknesses are</a>.</li></ol><h2 id="9260fa45-d397-4b3c-b4f8-4bb193976216">3 things in business</h2><div type="image" title="A crowded gym filled with young people hanging out" height="2869" width="3833" msid="112380043" hostid="261" sizebytes="1124446"></div><ol><li>Gen Z's love of lifting pushes gyms to their limits. Thanks to the rise of "gymfluencers" and a shrinking number of places to meet new people, Gen Zers are flocking to gyms in droves. But gyms aren't built to host that kind of capacity, forcing many of them to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-loves-gym-weightlifting-workout-fitness-trends-planet-fitness-2024-8">rethink their business models</a>.</li><li>How much are we willing to pay for convenience? A lot, apparently. Americans are still having a lot of stuff delivered from DoorDash and Uber, even as we pull back spending on other goods. We may have witnessed the demise of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/millennial-subsidy-uber-airbnb-prices-surge-pricing-dynamic-2024-8">millennial lifestyle subsidy</a>, but it turns out <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-doordash-instacart-still-delivering-lots-as-consumers-pull-back-2024-8">convenience isn't dead yet</a>.</li><li>For Disney, theme parks are out and streaming is in. Disney reported lower-than-expected earnings from its theme parks division, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-theme-parks-struggle-another-warning-sign-for-the-economy-2024-8">a bad sign for the economy</a> as consumers look to rein in spending. On the other hand, Disney <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-streaming-profitable-price-hike-earnings-2024-8">made money in streaming</a> for the first time ever, thanks to hefty price hikes. Execs also announced a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-password-sharing-crackdown-is-coming-third-quarter-earnings-call-2024-8">password-sharing crackdown</a>, effective next month.</li></ol><h2 id="1ad7b482-3f4b-44b4-81b6-a864aa386478">In other news</h2><ul><li>Taylor Swift's 3 Eras Tour concerts in Vienna are canceled after police say <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-vienna-eras-tour-concerts-canceled-terrorist-attack-2024-8">they thwarted a terrorist plot</a>.</li><li>Flop era: How the British behemoth Burberry became fashion's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-burberry-became-fashions-biggest-fail-stock-drop-ceo-ousting-2024-8">biggest fail of the year</a>.</li><li>The minimum wage is dead — so now is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jobs-labor-market-federal-minimum-wage-raise-small-business-2024-8">the perfect time to increase it</a>.</li><li>Google Workspace VP Bob Frati has left <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-workspace-robert-frati-left-ai-gemini-2024-8">after just over a year at the company</a>.</li><li>There's a double-edged sword high performers face at work, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/double-edged-sword-high-performers-face-at-work-feedback-managers-2024-8">it's costing employers their talent</a>.</li><li>Olympic couples are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/olympic-couples-competing-together-not-necessarily-bad-says-relationship-expert-2024-8">mixing romance with competition</a>. That's not necessarily a bad thing, a psychologist says.</li><li>Boosting worker well-being doesn't have to be pricey. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/flexibility-can-increase-worker-well-being-2024-8">Simple flexibility</a> can do the trick.</li><li>Warner Bros Discovery says <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/warner-bros-discovery-9-billion-tv-networks-breakup-merger-2024-8/">it overpaid for its TV networks by $9 billion</a>.</li><li>Costco is leaning into its Netflix-style <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/costco-leaning-into-netflix-style-membership-crackdown-2024-8">membership crackdown</a>.</li><li>A guy who bought <a target="_blank" href="http://HarrisWalz.com">HarrisWalz.com</a> in 2020 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guy-who-bought-harriswalz-site-2020-says-got-huge-payday-2024-8">just got a huge payday</a>.</li></ul><h2 id="9f5d80ac-3466-429f-a50a-2ffbb70c65ff">What's happening today</h2><ul><li>Paramount, News Corp, and <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/earnings-calendar">other companies</a> report earnings.</li><li>Tropical storm Debby is forecast to hit the Carolinas.</li><li>San Diego Zoo unveils two new pandas to the public. A win for panda diplomacy!</li></ul>The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Annie Smith, associate producer, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.

Big Tech is hyping up the power of AI tools. Some of their clients aren't as impressed. 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</li></ul>Hi! Who says the movies are dead? Disney's "Inside Out 2" took home <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-out-2-box-office-pixar-disney-numbers-analysis-2024-6">$295 million at the global box office over the weekend</a>, a record opening for an animated movie.In today's big story, we're looking at the surgeon general suggesting <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/surgeon-general-social-media-warning-label-mental-health-crisis-children-2024-6">warning labels for social media</a>. (Let us know <a target="_blank" href="https://forms.gle/GCdqwEnQXm5DnKXo8">which side you are on</a>.)What's on deck:<ul><li>Markets: Ten signs <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-identify-stock-market-peak-indicators-sp500-bank-america-2024-6">the market has peaked</a>. (FYI — We've only hit four of them.)</li><li>Tech: The feature that could be key to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-creators-notes-engagement-audience-meta-posting-messaging-influencers-2024-6">Instagram's future success</a>.</li><li>Business: We identified the 34 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/most-innovative-chief-marketing-officers-2024-6">most innovative chief marketing officers</a>.</li></ul>But first, follow at your own risk.If this was forwarded to you, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today">sign up here.</a><h3 id="2dbae47f-5471-4739-ae1a-e5a8601c60d6">The big story</h3><h2 id="61179ee2-fcdb-45e8-a056-a5e3156a5cb1">A solution for socials</h2><div type="image" title="Dr. Vivek Murthy" height="900" width="1200" msid="111088026" hostid="261" sizebytes="190252"></div>Social media has gotten so bad that the country's top doctor is intervening.Dr. Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/surgeon-general-social-media-warning-label-mental-health-crisis-children-2024-6">calling for social media to come with a warning label</a> like the ones you find on cigarette packs, writes Business Insider's Geoff Weiss.In his piece, Murthy said social media is a key culprit of the mental health crisis young people are facing. A warning label reminding people it is "associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents" could help the problem, he argued.It's not something Murthy can install on his own. The labels would require congressional approval. And <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/surgeon-general-warning-label-social-media-teen-health-2024-6">Murthy's comparison to cigarette warnings might be misplaced</a>, writes BI's Katie Notopoulos, who suggests explicit lyrics on music might be a better fit.Murthy has taken shots at social media before. Last year he called for legislation to protect young people from harassment, abuse, and exploitation, and more transparency from tech companies.Major social media companies remained largely silent regarding Murthy's suggestion, but the tech lobbying group Chamber of Progress was quick to respond."Putting a warning label on online speech isn't just scientifically unsound. It's at odds with the constitutional right to free speech," group CEO Adam Kovacevich said in a statement.Vote here to let us know <a target="_blank" href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScSjALurfMLlW0rgR0FDBvP1ASufbe6EyBPOHWwh_1C4ZaWoQ/viewform">whether you favor a warning label</a>.<div type="image" title="warning label with red background" height="900" width="1200" msid="111088031" hostid="261" sizebytes="74838"></div>Murthy's recommendation comes at a unique time for social media.If the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-ban-bytedance-lawsuit-us-government-free-speech-national-security-2024-5">US ban on TikTok can survive the courts</a>, it will be a watershed moment for the industry. (Yes, TikTok's ties to China muddy the waters, but a successful ban would still mean lawmakers shutting down a popular app used by millions of Americans.)It's not just TikTok. Generative AI adds more fuel to the misinformation fire social media platforms have been battling for years.AI tools make it easier for bad actors to fabricate stories, images, and videos that can influence people. And it's all happening in the lead-up to a contentious presidential election. There are also concerns surrounding <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-getting-into-murky-business-of-ai-generated-creator-ads-2024-6">AI-generated avatars' impact on influencers</a>, writes BI's Dan Whateley.And yet, things have never been better for some companies.Meta, the godfather of social media, is perhaps the best example. On January 31, CEO Mark Zuckerberg, along with a handful of other tech CEOS, was grilled by Congress during a hearing on online child sexual exploitation.At one point, Zuckerberg was pressured to physically stand up and face families <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-meta-faced-families-online-child-safety-senate-hearing-2024-1">affected by online abuse</a>. In the long battle to force tech CEOs to get their companies in line, it <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-senate-hearing-child-exploitation-social-media-law-2024-1">felt like a potential turning point</a>.More than four months later, though, the only thing that's seemed to change is Meta's stock price. The company's share price is up more than 28% since that contentious hearing.<h2 id="ad3eab13-2845-438f-9ac5-3578a3bc31f9">3 things in markets</h2><div type="image" title="man" height="750" width="1000" msid="111088027" hostid="261" sizebytes="46578"></div><ol><li>How one hedge fund got off to a booming start this year. Schonfeld's flagship fund is leading returns among the main multistrategy managers. It's an impressive turnaround for a firm that faced takeover talks in 2023. But it hasn't come easy, with the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/schonfeld-macro-research-turnover-pm-changes-relative-value-shift-2024-6">loss of portfolio managers and research executives amid a strategy shift</a>.</li><li>Has the market peaked? Investors are worrying the market has reached its top amid record highs, according to Bank of America. The bank <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-identify-stock-market-peak-indicators-sp500-bank-america-2024-6">identified 10 indicators of a market peak</a>, like elevated M&amp;A activity and sell-side strategists overwhelmingly recommending allocating to stocks. But don't worry, we've only triggered four so far.</li><li>June could see a rise in bankruptcies and unemployment. That's according to Wall Street forecaster Danielle DiMartino Booth, who pointed to the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/recession-layoffs-unemployment-job-market-outlook-economy-corporate-bankruptcies-defaults-2024-6">rise in corporate bankruptcies</a> over the past year. It's a sign that businesses are struggling under higher interest rates.</li></ol><h2 id="dfe48fa2-7ed1-41d3-8e58-303271f7b5c8">3 things in tech</h2><div type="image" title="status update instagram" height="1500" width="2000" msid="111088025" hostid="261" sizebytes="76322"></div><ol><li>Status updates are so back. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-creators-notes-engagement-audience-meta-posting-messaging-influencers-2024-6">Instagram notes are growing at a "wild pace"</a> and the app plans to expand the AIM-like feature for users. Bad news for creators, though: Notes are best suited to mutuals who follow each other, not for the influencing class.</li><li>iPhones might be getting the Ozempic treatment. Apple is reportedly <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-thinner-iphone-slim-down-product-range-ipad-mac-watch-2024-6">aiming to slim down its iPhones</a>, as well as some MacBook Pros and Apple Watch models, by next year. It also appears to be making its phones less reliant on WiFi and cellular connectivity, a move that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ios-18-messages-via-satellite-could-be-services-moneymaker-2024-6">could eventually become a revenue stream for Apple</a>.</li><li>Adobe is having a terrible month. The Department of Justice is suing Adobe over <a target="_blank" rel="noopener" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/adobe-sued-doj-unfair-subscription-practices-ftc-investigation-signup-cancel-2024-6">deceptive subscription practices</a>, with the lawsuit claiming the company hides fees and makes it hard to cancel subscriptions. It comes after public backlash over using artists' content to train AI models.</li></ol><h2 id="3eb6ad05-a83a-437c-80c1-63392d6ccd9e">3 things in business</h2><div type="image" title="Business Insider's most innovative CMOs of 2024 from left: Mayur Gupta, Kim Chappell, Kory Marchisotto, Asad Ayaz and Jonnie Cahill" height="900" width="1200" msid="111088030" hostid="261" sizebytes="81898"></div><ol><li>Marketing's trailblazers. From fast food and fashion to finance and baby formula, here are <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/most-innovative-chief-marketing-officers-2024-6">34 CMOs changing the game</a> in 2024. Many of them are making fast use of social media platforms like TikTok and investing heavily in AI.</li><li>BlackRock's solution to the retirement crisis is a catch-22. To avoid economic catastrophe, CEO Larry Fink argued, people should work longer and save more money. The problem? Many <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/retirement-crisis-blackrock-letter-boomers-work-longer-employer-age-discrimination-2024-6">older people who do want to work are overlooked</a> in favor of younger employees.</li><li>Zyn could get tougher to buy. The maker of the popular nicotine pouch has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zyn-pauses-online-nicotine-pouch-sales-dc-investigation-subpoena-flavors-2024-6">paused online sales</a> after receiving a subpoena from the District of Columbia about sales of flavored tobacco products — which have been banned in DC since October 2022.</li></ol><h2 id="a2cc2e1e-0c60-4c2b-a5f2-c5fe28a5cb1d">In other news</h2><ul><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-know-about-celebrity-manager-scooter-braun-2019-7">Scooter Braun is retiring from music management after 23 years. Here's everything to know about his life and career.</a></li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-tripadvisor-ceo-red-flag-answers-hiring-interview-questions-2024-6">Red flag answers to avoid in hiring interviews, according to Tripadvisor's former CEO</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kate-catherine-middleton-return-duties-save-royal-family-britain-charles-2024-6">Kate Middleton's reappearance could save the royal family</a>.</li><li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-favorite-podcasts-the-explorers-hardcore-history-2024-6">These are Elon Musk's top podcasts</a>.</li></ul><h2 id="ea60a99d-1b01-4c15-9389-fe43fa68074f">What's happening today</h2><ul><li>Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun testifies in Congress on the company's safety culture.</li></ul>The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. George Glover, reporter, in London. Annie Smith, associate producer, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.

Social media has gotten so bad that America's top doctor is intervening

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The US surgeon general is pushing for a warning label on social media about teen mental-health risks.</li><li>A comparison to cigarette warnings is tempting, but social media might be more like explicit lyrics.</li></ul>US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is recommending a warning label on social-media sites cautioning that "social media is associated with significant mental-health harms for adolescents."This label would warn teens and their parents of the risk of harm from using social media. In an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/opinion/social-media-health-warning.html">op-ed for The New York Times</a>, Murthy writes, "The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor."Murthy references the warning label on tobacco products, which is viewed as a public-health success story, helping reduce tobacco use significantly since the 1970s.But is social media really comparable to cigarettes? And could a warning label actually make an impact? Sure, apps like TikTok and Instagram can be addictive and harmful. However, there are a few really basic differences that I think are worth considering.First of all, unlike social-media apps, cigarettes are aimed at adults (yes, they have also been stealthily marketed to teens), and they are legally sold only to adults (yes, obviously, teens are getting their hands on them anyway). The warning label is for everyone: Cigarettes pose a health risk to anyone who smokes.Secondly, there's little hope that tobacco companies will be inspired to make cigarettes healthy — there is no healthy version of an American Spirit. But there is hope that social media could be less harmful. There could be all sorts of changes, small and large, that make social platforms safer for kids. Big Tech platforms could make these changes if spurred by regulation, negative media coverage, advertiser boycotts, or simply their belief that it's the right thing to do.Speaking of regulation, the decline in cigarette use over the past 50 years has been aided by smoking bans in offices, planes, restaurants, bars, and other public places. These bans resulted from a series of state, local, and federal regulations.So far, the government's approach to social-media regulation has been somewhat chaotic. A few bills exist, like the Kids Online Safety Act, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/1291">Protecting Kids on Social Media Act</a>, and an overhaul of the existing COPPA laws on data privacy and advertising to kids online.There's also a bunch of state attorneys general who have filed lawsuits over social-media harms to kids, and individual states have crafted their own laws, like a <a target="_blank" href="https://apnews.com/article/social-media-tech-kids-new-york-82779a3040385dfc26c6ee15f490234e">new bill in New York</a> that would ban "addictive" algorithmic feeds for teens. Meta has said it would welcome regulation (meaning regulation that it likes) and has also suggested that it would like the responsibility of age gating and parental consent to download social apps to be shifted over to Apple's and Google's app stores.Perhaps instead of thinking of social media like cigarettes when it comes to warning labels, there's another analogy that might help us make more sense of this moment: the parental-advisory stickers on music albums with explicit lyrics.Social media is maybe closer to music than cigarettes, at least in terms of the First Amendment (there's a far more obvious speech implication than the right to rip heaters in the airport).In the mid-1980s, a group called the Parents Music Resource Center, which included a handful of influential wives of senators like Tipper Gore, was incensed over songs like Prince's "Darling Nikki" and Judas Priest's "Eat Me Alive" and urged record labels to attach warnings to albums containing explicit lyrics. The pressure campaign culminated in a media spectacle when John Denver, Frank Zappa, and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister spoke before Congress to defend their art.Ultimately, no law was passed — the parental-advisory labels you still see on albums today resulted from self-regulation by the record industry to avoid actual regulation: a compromise between the Recording Industry Association of America and the PMRC. (This <a target="_blank" href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/853600?mag=parental-advisory-the-story-of-a-warning-label&amp;seq=1">1999 article from the journal Popular Music</a> is a fun read if you're interested in diving deeper into the history of the warning labels.)A surgeon general's warning label that pops up when you open Instagram is probably going to be annoying, but it can't really hurt. So, hey, why not? I'm not going to sit here and say a government effort to help teen mental health is bad. Go for it.But I am skeptical of how effective it will actually be, and how much political capital might be wasted on this instead of the hard, unfun work of coming up with regulations on social platforms that are actually effective.

Social media isn't like cigarettes, and a warning label won't help much

<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-is-a-dating-app-remote-work-online-romance-2024-1"></a><ul class="summary-list"><li>This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.</li></ul>Happy Friday! For those of you in cold-weather cities, it's the time of year when a snowstorm can upend your day. Here are <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-to-put-in-emergency-survival-kit-blizzard-winter-snow-2020-1">10 items to help you get out of a jam during a blizzard</a>.Lucky for me, I'm escaping the cold for a few days. I'm headed to Las Vegas for CES, the big, annual trade show for consumer electronics. If you'll be there, <a href="mailto:ddefrancesco@businessinsider.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drop me a line</a> or keep an eye out for where free food is being served.In today's big story, we're looking at <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-is-a-dating-app-remote-work-online-romance-2024-1">how LinkedIn has become an unexpected dating site for some</a>.What's on deck: <ul><li>Markets: Hedge funds' annual report cards are in, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/2023-hedge-fund-returns-for-citadel-millennium-point72-multistrats-2024-1">and a familiar face is on top</a>.</li><li>Tech: One of the top EV reviewers <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cybertruck-interior-video-tour-features-best-yet-2024-1">finally got a Tesla Cybertruck</a>.</li><li>Business: Bill Ackman railed against Harvard's former president for plagiarizing. Turns out <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-ackman-wife-neri-oxman-mit-dissertation-plagiarism-2024-1">his wife did it in her dissertation</a>. </li></ul>But first, you have a new connection (in more ways than one).If this was forwarded to you, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/subscription/newsletter/insider-today">sign up here.</a><h3>The big story</h3><h2>#opentoworklove.</h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-is-a-dating-app-remote-work-online-romance-2024-1"></a><div type="image" title="Graphic depicting LinkedIn, a rose, and champagne, among other icons, in a water cooler, which has taken the place of a man-in-a-suit's head" height="1000" width="2000" msid="106579950" hostid="261" sizebytes="37624"></div>Looking for a romantic relationship can sometimes feel like a job, so why not treat it like one? That's a growing trend on LinkedIn, where some people are using the professional network <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-is-a-dating-app-remote-work-online-romance-2024-1">for personal connections</a>, Kelli María Korducki reports. Fielding romantic offers amid job postings and work updates doesn't sound like the stuff of romcoms, but the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-is-a-dating-app-remote-work-online-romance-2024-1">love-via-LinkedIn approach</a> isn't that far-fetched.In a world of carefully manicured socials, LinkedIn offers a more accurate representation of a person. Many profiles have verified their employment and include references from real people.This latest dating revolution does come with downsides. While finding the one on LinkedIn might be a welcome surprise for some, not everyone is looking for love. Being #opentowork doesn't also mean being #opentohappyhouratApplebees. Blurring the lines on a website focused on career development also creates a dangerous dynamic. It's another way people could leverage their positions of power over those looking to break into an industry.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-is-a-dating-app-remote-work-online-romance-2024-1"></a><div type="image" title="Graphic depicting different parts of the Internet, from shoe shopping to making money" height="1000" width="2000" msid="106579951" hostid="261" sizebytes="428124"></div>LinkedIn has evolved from the social-media backwaters to a favorite among people <a href="https://www.thecut.com/article/why-teenagers-love-linkedin.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">barely old enough to work</a>.Sure, LinkedIn has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-linkedin-got-weird-work-life-blurred-lines-of-oversharing-2023-9">gotten a bit weird with people oversharing</a>, as Business Insider's Rob Price previously reported. But as "cringe" as LinkedIn can be, brands are starting to like it <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-cringe-more-attractive-advertisers-than-elon-musk-x-2024-1">better than other networks</a>, writes BI's Hasan Chowdhury.The platform's evolution got me thinking about the wider social-media ecosystem, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-splintering-new-less-toxic-era-meta-bluesky-twitter-2023-10">seems to be on its last legs</a> thanks to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-dead-instagram-tiktok-bereal-replaced-group-chats-messaging-2023-8">the rise of group chats and messaging apps</a>.TikTok: The new kid on the block. TikTok has grown from the pandemic's go-to spot for short-form videos to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-new-google-search-engine-gen-z-taylor-tomlinson-2023-11">Gen Z's Google</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-gets-news-from-tiktok-influencers-media-industry-2023-12">main news source</a>. But, TikTok's China-based owner <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bytedance-planned-track-specific-us-tiktok-user-locations-report-2022-10">could lead to trouble</a> as geopolitical tensions remain high. X: Long considered the pinnacle of social media and the internet's public square, the website <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-year-elon-musk-turned-twitter-into-x-2023-12">has changed a lot under Elon Musk</a>, to put it mildly. X will never go away completely, but it's also apparent <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-killed-twitter-irrelevant-meta-threads-debt-mark-zuckerberg-2023-7">its best days are behind it</a>. Facebook: The ship sailed on one of the OG social networks long ago. But the platform still holds considerable sway, with a user base encompassing about 40% of the world's population. However, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-facebook-apps-used-half-world-population-earnings-mark-zuckerberg-2023-7">growth opportunities in the US</a> seem few and far between.Instagram: Documents alleging Instagram knowingly has millions of underage users and a Wall Street Journal report on how it pushed "risqué footage of children" was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/news-today-november-28-instagram-advertising-ai-adtech-2023-11">not the ending to 2023 the company was hoping for</a>. Its prime use case now seems to be watching videos you saw on TikTok three days ago.<h2>3 things in markets</h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/2023-hedge-fund-returns-for-citadel-millennium-point72-multistrats-2024-1"></a><div type="image" title="A composite image of Izzy Englander, Ken Griffin, and Steve Cohen." height="900" width="1200" msid="106579953" hostid="261" sizebytes="65158"></div><ol><li>It was another big year for Ken Griffin's Citadel. The hedge fund's flagship fund, Wellington, was top among its peers, with a 15.3% gain in 2023, according to sources. Meanwhile, rivals Point72 and Millennium posted double-digit returns. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/2023-hedge-fund-returns-for-citadel-millennium-point72-multistrats-2024-1">More on how other hedge funds performed</a>.</li><li>David Tepper's no-good-very-bad tenure owning the Carolina Panthers. The hedge fund billionaire isn't exactly a fan favorite of the NFL team he purchased in 2018. A dreadful 2023 season, coupled with a recent $300,000 fine for throwing a drink at an opposing fan, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/david-tepper-carolina-panthers-owner-hedge-fund-billionaire-2024-1">is the latest issue for the founder of Appaloosa Management</a>.</li><li>What keeps bullish investors up at night about the market. Ed Yardeni is as optimistic as any investor about this year, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-outlook-4-negative-risks-fed-hawkish-taiwan-yardeni-2024-1">but still has concerns</a>. Among the potential hiccups are the war in the Middle East and the Fed turning hawkish.</li></ol><h2>3 things in tech</h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-googles-plan-end-cookies-chrome-browser-2024-1"></a><div type="image" title="Google office outside" height="750" width="1000" msid="106579954" hostid="261" sizebytes="63796"></div><ol><li> Inside Google's rocky path toward killing off web cookies. The search giant is on a deadline. Google announced that by the end of 2024, it would have a more privacy-conscious version of Chrome. However, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-googles-plan-end-cookies-chrome-browser-2024-1">industry experts aren't convinced</a> the company will meet its self-declared deadline.</li><li>Internet-based businesses have a looming problem. They experienced strong growth for the past two decades. But sectors like e-commerce and digital advertising may be entering a new, lower-growth phase now that they could be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/internet-biggest-businesses-have-growth-problem-2024-1">approaching saturation</a>.</li><li>The best Tesla Cybertruck review video yet. They're finally rolling off the assembly line, and one of the best EV reviewers in the industry got his hands on one. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cybertruck-interior-video-tour-features-best-yet-2024-1">nearly two-hour video tour</a> covers everything: headlights, the steering wheel, cameras, software, and more.</li></ol><h2>3 things in business</h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-ackman-wife-neri-oxman-mit-dissertation-plagiarism-2024-1"></a><div type="image" title="Graphic of Bill Ackman and wife Neri Oxman" height="667" width="1000" msid="106579956" hostid="261" sizebytes="64352"></div><ol><li>Bill Ackman's wife, academic celebrity Neri Oxman, plagiarized in her dissertation. Meanwhile, Ackman — a hedge fund manager and prominent Harvard donor — used plagiarism as a reason to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-ackman-wife-neri-oxman-mit-dissertation-plagiarism-2024-1">push Claudine Gay out at Harvard</a>. Oxman <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neri-oxman-admits-plagiarism-business-insider-article-apology-2024-1">admitted to failing to properly credit sources</a> in portions of her doctoral dissertation after Business Insider published its findings.</li><li>How travel influencers are building lucrative businesses and side hustles. Many are using their unique travel knowledge to lead group trips and become travel agents. They leverage their followers to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/travel-creators-plan-group-trips-instagram-tiktok-travel-agents-community-2024-1">build lucrative side hustles — or even full-time businesses</a>.</li><li>Welcome to the Big Stay: Quitting your job is out. Job-hopping levels are back to where they were before the pandemic upended the labor market. But just because people aren't moving around as much, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/quitting-job-big-stay-great-resignation-labor-market-economic-outlook-2024-1">doesn't mean they're actually happy with their job</a>.</li></ol><h2>In other news</h2><ul><li><a href="https://businessinsider.com/child-tax-credit-trump-breaks-might-come-back-wyden-cuts-2024-1">Don't do your taxes yet. Parents and businesses could benefit from last-minute changes in Congress</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-ceo-bob-iger-power-move-trian-peltz-proxy-fight-2024-1">Bob Iger's power move put a wrench in activist investor Nelson Peltz's proxy plans, but the Disney CEO isn't out of the woods</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gypsy-rose-blanchard-says-she-regrets-conspiring-to-kill-mother-2024-1">Gypsy Rose Blanchard says it was "panic, desperation" that drove her to conspire to kill her mother: "I regret it every single day</a>."</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/housing-market-outlook-forecast-home-price-mortgage-rates-fed-loan-2024-1">From interest rates to home demand, here's how the housing market will unfold in 2024, according to LendingTree</a>.</li><li><a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/bitcoin-etf-goldman-sachs-crypto-cryptocurrency-regulators-sec-2024-1">Goldman Sachs reportedly wants in on the bitcoin ETF hype</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/federal-reserve-meeting-minutes-recession-economy-inflation-interest-rates-powell-2024-1">The Federal Reserve is done talking about recession</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-to-release-new-smartphones-powered-by-ai-2024-1">Samsung teases the release of its new Galaxy smartphones "powered by AI</a>."</li><li><a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-2024-outlook-trading-playbook-for-crucial-election-year-2024-1">"A lackluster January through May": One chart shows what stock investors can expect in a crucial election year</a>.</li></ul><h2>What's happening today</h2><ul><li>The 46th annual Dakar Rally is today in Saudi Arabia. The car, motorcycle, and truck race spans 5,500 miles, starting in Al-'Ula and finishing in Yanbu.</li><li>Happy birthday, Diane Keaton. Bradley Cooper, Walter Mondale, Walker Scobell, Deadmau5, and Marilyn Manson were also born on this day.</li><li>Earnings today: Constellation Brands, <a href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/earnings-calendar">and other companies</a>.</li></ul><h3>For your bookmarks</h3><h2>Bedroom colors</h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-colors-bedroom-this-year-2024-from-color-expert"></a><div type="image" title="Bed with pink and green sheets" height="975" width="1300" msid="106579959" hostid="261" sizebytes="139230"></div>A color expert shared the eight shades you should use in your bedroom this year. The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-colors-bedroom-this-year-2024-from-color-expert">eight colors</a> will likely become more popular this year, including classic blue and soft green.The Insider Today team: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/dan-defrancesco">Dan DeFrancesco</a>, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/diamond-naga-siu">Diamond Naga Siu</a>, senior reporter, in San Diego. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/hallam-bullock">Hallam Bullock</a>, editor, in London. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/jordan-parker-erb">Jordan Parker Erb</a>, editor, in New York. <a href="https://newsletter.businessinsider.com/click/33739711.1210015/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYnVzaW5lc3NpbnNpZGVyLmNvbS9hdXRob3IvaGF5bGV5LWh1ZHNvbj91dG1fbWVkaXVtPW5ld3NsZXR0ZXImdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1TYWlsdGhydSZ1dG1fY2FtcGFpZ249SW5zaWRlcl9Ub2RheQ/6388bd81e7b7ccd0ba0929daB5b9051cd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hayley Hudson</a>, director, in Edinburgh. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/lisa-ryan">Lisa Ryan</a>, executive editor, in New York.

LinkedIn becoming an unexpected dating site shows social media's shifting landscape

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11892922" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="netflix" source="Orion">Netflix</keyword> says it has licensed <keyword id="12154119" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="johnny-depp" source="Orion">Johnny Depp</keyword>'s next movie, but will only stream it in France.</li><li>The movie, "La Favorite," will be on Netflix in France 15 months after it hits French cinemas.</li></ul>Johnny Depp has found his next movie after his high-profile defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard. It will be on Netflix in France after a theatrical run.<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-07/netflix-bets-on-johnny-depp-s-return-to-film-as-king-louis-xv">Bloomberg</a> reported on Thursday that the <keyword id="11899360" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="streaming" source="Orion">streaming</keyword> giant would co-finance "La Favorite," starring Depp as King Louis XV.But Netflix told Insider that the movie doesn't have financial backing from the company and it has only licensed the movie in France. It will be available on the service in the country 15 months after it hits French cinemas. A jury last month <a href="https://www.insider.com/johnny-depp-amber-heard-verdict-trial-defamation-case-2022-6">found that Heard defamed Depp</a> in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed, in which she said she was a victim of abuse without naming Depp. Heard countersued, claiming that a lawyer for Depp defamed her when he called her abuse allegations a "hoax."Depp was awarded $15 million in damages, while Heard was awarded $2 million.Depp's career has stalled in recent years amid the allegations. During the defamation trial, his manager claimed that Depp lost out on a $22.5 million deal to return for a sixth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie.His last film role was in 2020's "Minamata," which was a box-office dud, earning just $2 million. As for Netflix, the streamer has been embroiled in its own turmoil, losing 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of this year. It's expecting to lose 2 million more in Q2.

Netflix will license Johnny Depp's next movie, but it will only stream in France

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Sen. Ed Markey wrote a letter to <keyword id="6354630" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="mark-zuckerberg">Mark Zuckerberg</keyword> condemning <keyword id="6354576" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="facebook">Facebook</keyword>'s practice of recommending political groups to people.</li><li>"Facebook's system of recommending political groups poses grave threats to American democracy and public safety," Markey wrote.</li><li>The letter references the siege on the US Capitol on January 6 — insurrectionists were found to have organized online.</li></ul>US Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) wrote a scathing letter to Mark Zuckerberg condemning Facebook's method of recommending political groups to users on its platform. A representative of Markey's office shared the letter with Insider.The Massachusetts senator said Facebook not only allows users to "organize and coordinate violent and anti-democratic efforts on these pages," but that it recommends them to people."Facebook's system of recommending political groups poses grave threats to American democracy and public safety," Markey wrote in the letter. "Many Facebook groups (pages on your platform that function as forums for users to communicate about a particular topic) are breeding grounds for hate, echo-chambers of misinformation, and venues for coordination of violence, including explicit planning for the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021."Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-silicon-valley-banished-donald-trump-in-48-hours-2021-1?r=kc-sub">How Silicon Valley banished Donald Trump in 48 hours</a>Markey said Facebook "failed to meet commitments it made" to stop the practice, commitments that Markey said were also made in Zuckerberg's responses during a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-amazon-apple-google-microsoft-twitter-earnings-q3-congress-2020-10">hearing</a> before the US Senate in October.During the hearing, Zuckerberg said the company has taken "the step of stopping recommendations in groups for all political content or social issue groups as a precaution for this." In early January, Facebook reiterated that it still does not recommend political groups for people to join. But according to Markey, Facebook is not keeping to its word.The senator referenced <a href="https://themarkup.org/citizen-browser/2021/01/19/facebook-said-it-would-stop-pushing-users-to-join-partisan-political-groups-it-didnt">an investigation by The Markup</a> that found 12 of the top 100 groups recommending on Facebook were political, including groups that promoted violence.Markey is demanding that Facebook address this discrepancy and provide an explanation by February 9."We have a clear policy against recommending civic or political groups on our platforms, and are investigating why these were recommended in the first place," Facebook spokesperson Daniel Roberts told Insider in an email.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-twitter-social-media-facebook-disinformation-warner-2021-1?r=kc-sub">Trump's Facebook ban is just 'a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,' critics say - but no one can agree on the best way to wipe out the disinformation contagion</a>The pro-Trump extremists that stormed the Capitol were found to have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/plans-to-storm-the-capitol-circulated-on-social-media-2021-1">organized online weeks in advance</a>, including on Facebook. They were supporters of the "Stop the Steal" campaign, which contends that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.Days after the Capitol siege, Facebook said it would <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-remove-stop-the-steal-election-fraud-content-2021-1">remove all posts that referenced "stop the steal"</a> due to its policy on Coordinating Harm. The company already <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-group-stop-the-steal-removed-election-fraud-calls-violence-2020-11">removed the original "Stop the Steal" group</a> in November over false election claims and "worrying calls for violence."Facebook said the day after the riot that it was <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-has-blocked-president-trump-indefinitely-2021-1">suspending Trump until the end of his presidency</a> and until "the peaceful transition of power is complete." President Joe Biden was sworn into office on January 20.Facebook and other tech platforms have faced mounting pressure amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election to stop people from spreading false information online.<h3>You can read Markey's letter in full below:</h3>

Sen. Ed Markey wrote a scathing letter to Mark Zuckerberg condemning Facebook groups as 'breeding grounds for hate' and 'venues for coordination of violence'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Forget Apple's nerd goggles and OpenAI's ChatGPT.</li><li>The most important tech product of 2024 comes from an unusual source. </li></ul>On Friday, former Meta product manager Dan Grover <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/DanGrover/status/1748435075279270234">tweeted</a> about a new service that he said will vie with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-vision-pro-fatal-flaw-nerd-goggles-uncool-2023-6">Apple's goggles</a> and OpenAI's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-chat-gpt-2023-1">ChatGPT</a> as the "biggest/most impactful product launch" in tech. I'll go further and say this offering is the most important tech product of 2024. It doesn't need <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-data-centers-energy-cloud-microsoft-chatpgt-amazon-google-2023-7">energy sucking AI data centers</a>, or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-times-content-removed-common-crawl-ai-training-dataset-2023-11">legally dubious data-siphoning</a> to work. It doesn't require you to download an app and pay a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-chatgpt-ai-app-store-tax-openai-ios-2023-5">30% App Store tax to Apple</a>. It won't make anyone in Silicon Valley rich. It won't help build another giant tech platform. There will be no IPO or glowing profile of the founder on the cover of Fortune or Forbes. What it could do is something that Silicon Valley always claims to do, but sometimes fails to deliver on: Help millions of regular people. <h2>Direct File</h2>I'm talking about <a target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/a-closer-look-at-the-irs-direct-file-pilot">Direct File</a>, a new way for many Americans to file their taxes for free. The IRS is launching the online service as a pilot program this tax season, which starts in earnest later this month.Americans who qualify for free tax preparation earn an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free">annual adjusted gross income of no more than $79,000.</a> (AGI is your total income minus any eligible deductions or adjustments). The median US household income in the US is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2023/demo/p60-279.html">about $75,000</a>. That's a heck of a lot of people who can use Direct File.At the moment, it's available in 12 states including Arizona, California, Florida, New York, and Texas. Many other states are interested in taking part, the IRS says. It's mainly for people with relatively simple tax situations, but millions of taxpayers should be able to save a lot of money using Direct File. <h2>The Intuit scandal</h2>The story behind this new product is even more interesting. It reveals how some companies take advantage of consumers' limited tech knowledge, and how <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-getting-worse-spam-affiliate-links-duckduckgo-bing-2024-1">Google Search</a> was cynically used to trick lower-income Americans into paying for something they didn't need.The scandal centers on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/turbotax-settlement-deceptive-advertising-how-to-know-you-get-check-2023-5">Intuit</a>, a major provider of tax preparation software. You can read all about its infuriating shenanigans over at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free">ProPublica</a>, which investigated the company.Most wealthy countries make filing your taxes simple and free. Not the US, though. And Intuit waged a long campaign to stop any US government initiatives to make filing taxes easier or cheaper, according to ProPublica.An internal planning document also suggested that Intuit intentionally targeted minorities for media manipulation, according to the ProPublica investigation. "Buy ads for op-eds/editorials/stories in African American and Latino media," stated that PowerPoint slide dug up by the publication.<h2>Hiding from Google</h2>About two decades ago, Intuit and other companies agreed to provide free tax prep for lower-income people in return for the IRS pledging not to create its own offering. Then Intuit tried to undermine the system known as Free File. Intuit <a target="_blank" href="https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-deliberately-hides-its-free-file-page-from-search-engines">hid its its Free File web page</a> from Google's search engine, making it nearly impossible for people to find the free filing service, according to ProPublica.ProPublica found tax prep competitors doing similar things. It also found Intuit engaging in other tactics, such as using unclear software design to allegedly trick people into upgrading to paid offerings. This disingenuous behavior was happening while Intuit outwardly presented the standard Silicon Valley corporate message of being a good citizen and helping the world.<h2>Intuit's response</h2>"Any assertions that Intuit did not and does not promote free tax preparation are wholly inaccurate and not based on facts," Tania Mercado, a spokesperson for Intuit, wrote in an email to BI. "Intuit has always been clear, fair, and transparent with its customers and is committed to free tax preparation."She also questioned the value of the new Direct File service in various ways."Filing taxes without someone advocating for your highest refund could be a recipe for overpaying the Internal Revenue Service and Departments of Revenue," Mercado wrote in a statement.She pointed out that Direct File is not free because the IRS is funded by taxpayer dollars, calling Direct File "a thinly veiled scheme where billions of taxpayer dollars will be unnecessarily used to pay for something already completely free of charge today — free to the taxpayer and actually free for the government."Intuit ended up paying $141 million to victims to settle allegations it deceived low-income Americans into paying to file their taxes when they actually qualified to file for free. In a blog, the company <a target="_blank" href="https://www.intuit.com/blog/news-social/reaffirming-our-commitment-to-free-tax-preparation/">didn't admit wrongdoing</a>. Intuit made more than $2 billion in its <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0000896878/000089687823000034/intu-20230731.htm#i158eb573169a472c8d452410afcb9cd2_124">latest fiscal year</a>.<h2>Give Direct File a try</h2>Which brings us back to the new Direct File service. With hindsight, the IRS maybe should have just built this free tax prep service itself 20 years ago, instead of trusting for-profit companies to do it. Today, though, there are more web and cloud tools available to make such a service available more efficiently. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/secyellen/status/1748434625385349223?s=46&amp;t=qXeQ5wkxERk2ASthsfwBVQ">said</a> the pilot program will start small in 2024, to help the IRS to test it and learn from taxpayers.If you live in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/strategic-plan/direct-file#participating-states">these 12 states</a>, and you have a relatively simple tax situation, such as W-2 salary income and taking the standard deduction, you should check out Direct File this tax season. It could save you some real money. And don't rely on Google to find the right IRS website for this! The search engine is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/simple-fix-online-search-google-amazon-bing-bright-pink-ads-2023-11">stuffed with ads</a> these days, which makes finding what you really need more difficult. When I searched for "free file taxes" this weekend, the top of Google's results page was full of ads. Guess who was top of the paid list? Intuit's TurboTax. At the very bottom – almost out of view on my full sized laptop – was the actual IRS website you need. I've linked to it <a target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free">here</a> so you don't have to search. And here's the site for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/about-irs/a-closer-look-at-the-irs-direct-file-pilot">Direct File</a>.

You Searched For "pharma ed tech media" and got 11 results

New lawsuits against TikTok mirror those against Big Tobacco and Purdue Pharma

Kenneth Niemeyer

AI is amplifying social media disinformation — and making Big Tech civilly liable may be the key to stemming it

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Sweaty, desperate, and sad: Big Tech is giving off divorced dad energy

Ed Zitron

'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli has launched a newsletter to talk investing, science, and tech a month after his release from prison

Dominick Reuter,Jane Ridley

Big Tech is hyping up the power of AI tools. Some of their clients aren't as impressed.

Dan DeFrancesco

Social media has gotten so bad that America's top doctor is intervening

Dan DeFrancesco

Social media isn't like cigarettes, and a warning label won't help much

Katie Notopoulos

LinkedIn becoming an unexpected dating site shows social media's shifting landscape

Dan DeFrancesco

Netflix will license Johnny Depp's next movie, but it will only stream in France

Travis Clark

Sen. Ed Markey wrote a scathing letter to Mark Zuckerberg condemning Facebook groups as 'breeding grounds for hate' and 'venues for coordination of violence'

Katie Canales

Direct File is the most important tech product of 2024, helping you to finally file your taxes for free

Alistair Barr

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