Dara Kerr / The Guardian: Google co-founder Sergey Brin raises his total contribution to $45M for the Building a Better California Super PAC, which opposes a proposed 5% billionaire tax — Sergey Brin gives $25m on top of $20m he's already given to Super Pac trying to block state's proposed 5% wealth tax
Kaamil Ahmed / The Guardian: IDS and ADRN study: 11 African governments spent $2B+ on Chinese-built surveillance tech that recognizes faces and monitors movements; Nigeria spent $470M — Countries across the continent have spent more than $2bn on Chinese tracking technology that is not ‘necessary or proportionate’, new report finds
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory, Richard Osman, and ~10,000 writers publish Don't Steal This Book, an “empty” book to protest AI companies using their work — About 10,000 writers including Kazuo Ishiguro, Philippa Gregory and Richard Osman join copyright campaign
Daniel Boffey / The Guardian: Iran targeting commercial datacenters in the UAE and Bahrain signals a new frontier in asymmetric warfare and raises doubts over the Gulf as a global AI hub — Iran's targeting of commercial datacentres in the UAE and Bahrain signals a new frontier in asymmetric warfare
Aisha Down / The Guardian: Sources and docs: the US “effectively gutted” the Internet Freedom program that dispensed $500M+ since 2016 to help build tech to evade state internet controls — Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat
Dara Kerr / The Guardian: A look at the US tech industry's effort to influence Californian politics: fighting the 5% billionaire tax, super PACs, and seeking a new tech-friendly governor — As Gavin Newsom departs, ultra-wealthy flex wealth and influence to fight regulation and keep the boom going
Anuj Behal / The Guardian: Women in rural India report experiencing trauma from data annotation work, which requires them to review violent content and porn for global tech companies — Women in rural communities describe trauma of moderating violent and pornographic content for global tech companies
Josh Taylor / The Guardian: Snap blocked 415K+ Australian accounts as of January to comply with the under-16 social media ban and warns of “technical limitations” in the implementation — Social media platform says there are still ‘real technical limitations to accurate and dependable age verification’
Aisha Down / The Guardian: Tests show GPT-5.2 on ChatGPT citing Grokipedia as a source on a wide range of queries, including on Iranian conglomerates and Holocaust deniers — Guardian found OpenAI's platform cited Grokipedia on topics including Iran and Holocaust deniers — The latest model of ChatGPT has begun …
Dara Kerr / The Guardian: The US EPA rules that xAI acted illegally by using dozens of methane gas turbines to power its Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 data centers in the Memphis area — Win for Memphis activists who say ‘Colossus’ facilities add extra pollution to already overburdened communities
Andrew Gregory / The Guardian: Investigation: Google removed AI Overviews for two liver health queries after experts warned about inaccuracy, but slight tweaks still trigger AI responses — Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds AI Overviews provided inaccurate and false information when queried over blood tests
Mark Sweney / The Guardian: Filings: X's UK revenue fell 58.3% YoY from £69.1M in 2023 to £28.9M in 2024; pre-tax profits fell from £2.2M in 2023 to £767,000 in 2024 — Elon Musk-owned site reports plunging profits amid outcry over use of AI tool Grok to create sexually explicit imagery
Helena Horton / The Guardian: X limits Grok's image generation and editing to paying subscribers after a widespread outcry over its use to create sexually explicit and violent imagery — X to limit editing function to paying subscribers after platform threatened with fines and regulatory action
Michael Savage / The Guardian: Reddit surpasses TikTok as the fourth most-visited social media service in the UK, likely driven by changes to Google's search algorithms and AI deals — Platform is now Britain's fourth most visited social media site as users seek out human-generated content
Simon Goodley / The Guardian: Uber rewrote its UK driver contracts to act as an agent, rather than a supplier, of taxi services outside London, to avoid the UK's new 20% “taxi tax” on fares — Hailing app will now act as agent rather than supplier outside London, avoiding VAT requirement
Aisha Down / The Guardian: A Kapwing study of the 15,000 top YouTube channels finds 278 of them have only posted AI-generated “slop” videos, amassing 63B+ views and 221M+ subscribers — Low-quality AI-generated content is now saturating social media - and generating about $117m a year, data shows
Miranda Bryant / The Guardian: Denmark says Russia was behind “destructive and disruptive” cyberattacks on a water utility in 2024 and DDoS attacks in the lead-up to local November elections — Intelligence service says attacks were work of groups connected to Russian state in ‘clear evidence’ of hybrid war
Prianka Srinivasan / The Guardian: The Marshall Islands unveils a national UBI scheme that offers payments of ~$200 per quarter to every resident citizen via stablecoin or traditional currency — Quarterly payments of $200 to be offered via stablecoin or traditional currency in a scheme designed to ease cost of living pressures in the Pacific nation
Dara Kerr / The Guardian: xAI partners with El Salvador to deploy Grok across 5,000+ public schools, reaching 1M+ students in an “AI-powered education program” over the next two years — President Nayib Bukele entrusting chatbot known for calling itself ‘MechaHitler’ to create ‘AI-powered’ curricula
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: AI Forensics: 354 AI-focused TikTok accounts pushed 43K posts made with GenAI tools that hit 4.5B views, including posts with anti-immigrant and sexual material — Researchers uncovered 354 AI-focused accounts that had accumulated 4.5bn views in a month — By Dan Milmo, Global technology editor.
Nadeem Badshah / The Guardian: Airbus issues an order to revert 6,000 A320-series planes to old software, after an incident revealed that intense solar radiation corrupted flight control data — Immediate software change on ‘significant number’ of jets to result in disruption to half the worldwide fleet
Aisha Down / The Guardian: Researchers say Russia-aligned Pravda network is engaging in “LLM grooming”, flooding the internet with disinformation to influence chatbots like ChatGPT — Thinktank says internet flooded with disinformation by Russia-aligned Pravda network, which many websites treat as credible
Cory Doctorow / The Guardian: A book excerpt details the “enshittification” of Amazon, and how its “flywheel” technique now enriches the company at the expense of merchants — Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products?
Samanth Subramanian / The Guardian: A book excerpt details Tonga's 2022 internet outage after a colossal underwater volcanic eruption ripped apart the cables connecting the country to the world — A colossal volcanic eruption in January 2022 ripped apart the underwater cables that connect Tonga to the world - and exposed the fragility of 21st-century life
Lauren Almeida / The Guardian: Amazon plans to close all 19 Fresh stores in the UK and convert five of them into Whole Foods Market shops, four years after launching the first in London — Company confirms plan to shut 19 shops with stronger focus on Whole Foods outlets after concept of stores without tills fails to catch on
Rebecca Ratcliffe / The Guardian: ASPI: Myanmar's online scam centers on the Thai border have increased from 11 to 27 since the military coup in 2021, holding an estimated 100K trafficked people — Operated by crime syndicates and fostered by the country's military junta, the number of vast complexes such as KK Park on the Thai-Myanmar border has doubled since 2021
Phil Hoad / The Guardian: An inside look at how Netflix's use of data led to generic “algorithm films” intended for broad appeal, with AI set to further entrench the production style — When the streaming giant began making films guided by data that aimed to please a vast audience, the results were often generic, forgettable, artless affairs.
Gaby Hinsliff / The Guardian: An interview with Nick Clegg about Zuckerberg's “masculine energy”, Silicon Valley's “cloying conformity” and “combination of machismo and self-pity”, and more — When Britain's former deputy PM took a job at Meta, nothing could have prepared him for the ‘cloying conformity’ of the tech world.
The Guardian: Investigation: Israel's Unit 8200 built a system to collect millions of mobile phone calls made daily in Gaza and the West Bank using Microsoft's Azure platform — Revealed: The Israeli military undertook an ambitious project to store a giant trove of Palestinians' phone calls on Microsoft's servers in Europe
The Guardian: After Elon Musk unveiled the America Party, a new US political party, President Trump called Musk a “TRAIN WRECK” fueled by discontent over EV subsidies ending — US president railed against his former adviser online after tech billionaire said he will start and bankroll America party
Johana Bhuiyan / The Guardian: A report finds Google undercounted its carbon emissions, which rose 65% from 2019 to 2024, not 51% as claimed; biggest yearly jump was 26% between 2023 and 2024 — Research says Google's carbon emissions went up by 65% between 2019-2024, not 51% as the tech giant had claimed
Mark Sweney / The Guardian: Sky, ITV, and Channel 4 plan to provide streaming ad space in one marketplace, letting advertisers run campaigns simultaneously, to combat Google and Meta — The TV streamers are pooling their advertising services to make it easier for small companies to run campaigns
Michael Goodier / The Guardian: A survey of UK academic integrity violations finds nearly 7,000 proven AI cheating cases in 2023-24, or 5.1 per 1,000 students, up from 1.6 per 1,000 in 2022-23 — Guardian investigation finds almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating - and experts says these are tip of the iceberg
Michael Savage / The Guardian: WPP Media expects ad revenue from user-generated content and platforms like YouTube and TikTok to surpass that from traditional media for the first time in 2025 — User-generated material to surpass advertising income from professional media amid change in viewing habits
Katharine Viner / The Guardian: The Guardian partners with Cambridge University to launch Secure Messaging in its app, protecting sources by making messages indistinguishable from other data — Today, the Guardian, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, launches Secure Messaging, a world-first from a media organisation
The Guardian: An analysis of the top 100 trending TikTok videos under #mentalhealthtips finds 52 contain misinformation, including misused language and quick-fix methods — Guardian investigation reveals promotion of dubious advice, questionable supplements and quick-fix healing methods
Amy Hawkins / The Guardian: Study: users in China's Henan province were on average denied access to 5x more websites than a typical Chinese internet user between Nov. 2023 and March 2025 — Tens of millions of internet users in China's Henan denied access to five times more websites than usual
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: Ofcom outlines 40+ child safety measures for websites and apps to introduce from July 2025 or face large fines under the Online Safety Act, including age checks — Companies will be legally required to block children's access to harmful content under UK's Online Safety Act or face large fines
The Guardian: Q&A with Reid Hoffman on making people AI-curious through his new book, Superagency, writing with AI, why AI “gloomers” are wrong, tech's DEI rollback, and more — The co-founder of LinkedIn and Democrat donor remains confident that AI can be good for all of us - if its introduction is handled in the right way
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: The UK NCSC urges large entities, including energy and transport providers, to introduce “post-quantum cryptography” by 2035 to protect against quantum hackers — Organisations including energy and transport firms told to guard systems against powerful new computers
Nick Robins-Early / The Guardian: How Elon Musk targeted 18F, as former employees say the GSA group focused on increasing bureaucratic efficiency through tech, similar to what DOGE claims to do — Rightwing campaign propelled by tech billionaire accuses General Services Administration's 18F of being a far-left cell
Geoffrey Bunting / The Guardian: The Xbox Kinect, released in 2010 and discontinued in 2017, has found applications beyond gaming, including in interactive art, pornography, and ghost hunting — Fifteen years since Microsoft's motion-sensing gaming camera was released for the Xbox 360, artists, roboticists and more are still finding new ways to use it
Dan Milmo / The Guardian: OpenAI says Sora is now available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro users in the EU, the UK, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland — ‘Sora would not exist without its training data,’ said peer Beeban Kidron, citing ‘another level of urgency’ to debate — The artificial intelligence …
Justin McCurry / The Guardian: The FBI says North Korea was responsible for the $1.5B Bybit Hack, referring to this particular form of North Korean malicious cyber activity as “TraderTraitor” — The US agency said it refers to this specific North Korean malicious cyber activity as ‘TraderTraitor’
David Barnett / The Guardian: An interview with Nadia Odunayo on building Goodreads alternative StoryGraph, remaining bootstrapped, reaching 3.8M active users, not allowing DMs, and more — Software engineer and developer Nadia Odunayo created the social media readers' platform StoryGraph and its popularity has rocketed
Katie McQue / The Guardian: A US man pleads guilty to a cyberstalking campaign against a professor, including by creating chatbots on Crushon.ai and JanitorAI using her personal info — James Florence, 36, agreed to plead guilty after using victim's information to guide chatbots in impersonation
The Guardian: An investigation reveals how the Israeli military's reliance on Microsoft's cloud and AI systems surged during the most intensive phase of the Israel-Hamas war — Leaked documents shed light on how Israel integrated the US tech giant into its war effort to meet growing demand for cloud and AI tools
Michael Savage / The Guardian: UK's tech secretary says its Online Safety Act is “not up for negotiation,” after Zuckerberg vowed to work with Trump to pressure countries “censoring” content — Senior cabinet minister promises not to dilute new measures despite Zuckerberg's attacks on countries ‘censoring’ content
Gabrielle Canon / The Guardian: A look at the rise of Watch Duty, a wildfire alert app that is active in 14 US states and has gained up to 7.2M active users in three years since its launch — Watch Duty - which began in California and has expanded across 14 states - alerted the public to more than 9,000 wildfires in 2024
Robert Booth / The Guardian: The UK ICO criticizes Google's plans to no longer prohibit companies using its ad products from employing fingerprinting techniques from 16 February 2025 — ICO says allowing advertisers to track digital ‘fingerprints’ will undermine consumers' control over information