Adi Robertson

The BEAD program — which my colleague Sean wrote about last year — is coming under fire as Donald Trump’s inauguration approaches:

Cruz sent a letter yesterday to NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson in which he asked the agency to halt the program rollout until Trump takes over. Cruz also accused the NTIA of “technology bias” because the agency decided that fiber networks should be prioritized over other types of technology.

Not spending ad dollars on a website because its owner keeps spouting weird conspiracy theories is a very serious antitrust problem, and as usual, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is on it. Surely the best use of law enforcement’s time and money.

Couldn’t get enough of Trust & Safety Tycoon? Cocreator and Bluesky board member Mike Masnick is crowdfunding a card game, inspired by Touring, about growing a social network while running your competition into the ground. It’s called One Billion Users, and if I ever end up playing, I’m totally nabbing the “Hellsite” card.

Microsoft is still fighting The New York Times over AI copyright rules, and it’s got a new line of attack: if the Times is so mad at chatbots, why does its tech podcast host love them? Its lawyers’ appreciation of Hard Fork, unfortunately, does not extend to learning Kevin Roose’s name.

Ken White of Popehat is a longtime proponent of anti-SLAPP laws, which shift legal costs off people who get hit with bogus, speech-suppressing lawsuits. With anti-speech suits by billionaires in the news lately, he’s restarting a long-running series on them — building up to why we need one at the federal level now.

Our sister site Polygon has joined us in getting active on Bluesky, complete with a starter pack of reporters. If you prefer your decentralization ActivityPub-flavored, they’re still posting on Mastodon too.

A neurology ICU nurse relates the unsettling feeling of watching AI tech take over:

“Efficiency” is a buzzword in Silicon Valley, but get it out of your mind when it comes to healthcare. When you’re optimizing for efficiency, you’re getting rid of redundancies. But when patients’ lives are at stake, you actually want redundancy. You want extra slack in the system. You want multiple sets of eyes on a patient in a hospital. 

The Verge’s Bluesky account is now actively posting stories from the site, and there’s a starter pack for following individual reporters, editors, and others. Come find us!

A digital trail can provide evidence of someone obtaining an illegal abortion, but as Lux Alptraum wrote back in 2022, they’re not usually the initial tipoff:

A full 45 percent of cases were brought to the attention of the police via a healthcare professional like a doctor, nurse, or social worker. Another 26 percent of people were reported by friends or family members. 

In case you were wondering.