Naomi Nix / Washington Post: Internal documents show Instagram's aggressive campaign to win back teens, including by boosting teen-friendly influencers, adjusting its algorithm, and more — The company pursued a yearslong strategy to win teens back even after critics said it wasn't safe, records show.
Lisa Bonos / Washington Post: A look at the humans employed to rescue robotaxis; Waymo uses the Honk app to pay $20 to $24 to manually close robotaxi doors and $60 to $80 to tow its cars — A recent power outage in San Francisco shows how vulnerable self-driving vehicles can be when problems arise.
Naomi Nix / Washington Post: Tech whistleblowers like Yaël Eisenstat say coming forward has unexpectedly derailed their lives and careers; Meta is in litigation with Sarah Wynn-Williams — By exposing the harms of Big Tech, many whistleblowers say they faced poorer job prospects and professional exile in Silicon Valley.
Washington Post: How David Sacks and AI adviser Sriram Krishnan overcame the opposition to Trump's AI EO, reaching out to lawmakers and finally modifying the text of the order — President Trump's executive order limiting states' power to regulate AI split his supporters and highlighted Silicon Valley's growing influence over his agenda.
Joseph Menn / Washington Post: TTP: Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store host dozens of apps linked to US-sanctioned foreign companies; Google removed 17 apps and Apple removed 35 — Watchdog finds firms and organizations in Apple and Google stores that were banned for issues including human rights abuses in China and facilitating war in Ukraine.
Jacob Bogage / Washington Post: Sources: Amazon, the USPS' top customer with $6B+ in revenue in 2025, is considering ending its deal at the end of 2026 and expanding its own delivery network — Amazon has long been the Postal Service's top customer, providing more than $6 billion in annual revenue to the agency in 2025.
Eva Dou / Washington Post: Sources and docs: Palantir's Immigration OS helps ICE track undocumented immigrants and deport them; a decade ago, Alex Karp said Trump's plans made “no sense” — “The truly progressive position on immigration” is “extreme skepticism,” says Alex Karp, a longtime Democrat and the data-mining company's chief executive.
Emmanuel Felton / Washington Post: Omnicom's DM9 returned three Cannes awards after a NC state senator and CNN Brazil found the company had used AI to manipulate their content and used it for ads — North Carolina state Sen. DeAndrea Salvador discovered her 2018 TED Talk had been altered by an ad agency working for Whirlpool in Brazil, leading to a lawsuit.
Washington Post: An analysis of 47,000 publicly shared ChatGPT conversations: ~10% related to emotional or mental health, ChatGPT exhibits a “default to yes” behavior, and more — The questions flood in from every corner of the human psyche. “What are permanent hair removal solutions?”
Joseph Menn / Washington Post: Sources: the US Commerce Department proposed banning TP-Link Systems' networking devices due to TP-Link's China ties, gaining support from 6+ federal agencies — The Commerce Department has proposed barring sales of TP-Link products, citing a national security risk from ties to China, people familiar with the matter said.
Will Oremus / Washington Post: A profile of Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, who left in 2002 and whose claims that Wikipedia has a liberal bias are fueling the right's campaign against it — Larry Sanger's long-standing claims of liberal bias and mismanagement at the world's dominant online encyclopedia are being enthusiastically embraced on the right.
William Wan / Washington Post: How the FBI's hunt for the person who coerced a 13-year-old into livestreaming his suicide led to the arrest of a German member of the online predator group 764 — GIG HARBOR, Wash. — The early-morning fog had yet to rise when police found the 13-year-old boy in a parking lot behind a grocery store.
Washington Post: An internal Google email said it received many complaints over Israeli government YouTube ads about food access in Gaza, but ruled the ads could remain online — An internal Google email said it received many complaints about Israeli government YouTube ads about food access in Gaza, but ruled they could remain online.
Daniel Wu / Washington Post: Data center proposals are facing growing opposition from towns across the US, as residents and officials raise concerns about water and electricity use — A developer sued a Michigan township after it voted against a data center proposal. Cities in Ohio and Missouri have explored data center bans.
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post: An analysis of nearly 50 Amazon purchases over six months in 2025: during the October 7-8 Prime Day sales, average savings were only 0.6% and some items went up — Next time Amazon hypes its Prime Days savings, remember this: The prices during the sale aren't always better. I've got the receipts to prove it.
Washington Post: An analysis of 1,100 TikTok users' watch histories across six months in 2024 shows how effective TikTok is at getting even its heaviest users to watch more — More than 800 U.S. TikTok users shared their data with The Washington Post. We used it to find out why some people become power users, spending hours per day scrolling.
Washington Post: A look at a growing number of medical startups that are using robots and AI to fertilize embryos through IVF, helping bring at least 20 babies to term — MEXICO CITY — When she walked into an IVF clinic in June, Alin Quintana knew it would be the last time she would try to conceive a child.
Washington Post: Tests show OpenAI's Sora can closely mimic Netflix shows, movies, TikTok videos, and Twitch streams, suggesting it was trained on versions of such content — Tests by The Post suggest the training data for OpenAI's video generators Sora included versions of movies, TikTok clips and Netflix shows.
Joseph Menn / Washington Post: CrowdStrike: DeepSeek refuses to write code or produces less-secure code when English prompts say the code will be used by groups or regions disfavored by China — Research by a U.S. security firm points to the country's leading player in AI providing higher-quality results for some purposes than others.
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post: OpenAI releases the first detailed public study on how people use ChatGPT: 73% of chats were non-work related, practical guidance was the top use case, and more — OpenAI released the first detailed public study on who uses its chatbot and what they most often ask it to do.
Washington Post: A look at Starlink's plans to launch a cellphone service that some experts say will likely remain complementary to existing networks, focusing on rural coverage — The tech entrepreneur has upended one business after another. Now he may be going after our phone networks. — Just now
Washington Post: Current and ex-Meta employees submitted documents and affidavits to Congress alleging that Meta suppressed research on child safety risks in its VR platforms — The company's lawyers intervened to shape research that might have shed light on risks in virtual reality, four current and former staffers have told Congress.
Washington Post: PitchBook: VCs have invested $5B+ in humanoid robotics startups since the beginning of 2024, as years of steady progress and GenAI triggers an investment frenzy — A frenzy of investment has created a crowd of new human-like designs. — SALEM, Ore. — In an office park opposite an Amazon warehouse, the robots are at work.
Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post: Study: Character.AI chatbots of Timothée Chalamet, Chappell Roan, and Patrick Mahomes chatted inappropriately with teen accounts on topics like sex and drugs — The chatbots made by users of Character.AI used recognizable synthetic voices for the stars. — Just now
Drew Harwell / Washington Post: Analysis: porn sites that don't comply with the UK's age verification laws have seen their traffic from UK users grow, while sites complying had declines — The age-verification laws rapidly expanding across the United States and United Kingdom are bringing with them some surprising downsides …
Washington Post: In a trial over a fatal Autopilot crash, Tesla denied having crash-snapshot data, until a hacker hired by the plaintiffs recovered the data from the vehicle — The critical evidence was presented last month to a jury, which found the company partially liable for the 2019 crash in Key Largo, Florida.
Drew Harwell / Washington Post: Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to memorialize the dead, as critics worry about AI coarsening how people remember one another — Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?
Danielle Abril / Washington Post: How the AI boom is reenergizing San Francisco, one of the slowest US cities to recover from the pandemic, with rising foot traffic and new commercial leases — The AI momentum isn't stopping and it's bringing workers, venture capital money and life back to San Francisco.
Kasha Patel / Washington Post: Google researchers say Android's early-warning system detected and issued alerts for 1,200+ earthquakes since 2021, sometimes giving up to 15-60 seconds' notice — An early-warning system on Android phones has detected more than 1,000 earthquakes worldwide since 2021, sometimes giving people 15 …
Washington Post: Analysis: nearly 70 Trump administration officials and nominees held crypto or investments in blockchain or digital-asset firms at the time of their selection — Trump$51M — Data uses minimum assets values from nominee financial disclosures filed by July 9.
Joseph Menn / Washington Post: CrowdStrike: Chinese hacking attacks on US targets were up 2x from 2024 to 330+ incidents in 2025; US officials say China has shifted to “hacking-for-hire” — American officials say new economic model for offense has fueled spying attacks by government agencies that have more than doubled.
Trisha Thadani / Washington Post: Tesla is set to face a Florida federal jury to defend allegations that Autopilot was at fault in a fatal 2019 crash, as it tests autonomous robotaxis in Austin — The trial could dissect Tesla's automated driving technology in public just as a more advanced version starts to ferry passengers on public roads.
Washington Post: White collar workers are increasingly using AI note-taking apps to assist them during Zoom meetings or fully represent them when they choose not to attend — Video calls can be a drag — some workers send a bot in their place. — Summary15 — Clifton Sellers attended a Zoom meeting last month where robots outnumbered humans.
Peter Whoriskey / Washington Post: Jim Chanos, who famously shorted Enron, calls Michael Saylor's bitcoin strategy “financial gibberish”, as Saylor inspires several copycats like Trump Media — Michael Saylor earned billions selling company stock to buy bitcoin. Jim Chanos, who famously shorted Enron, is suspicious.
Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post: TollBit: from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025, traffic from AI retrieval bots to 266 websites, including national and local news organizations, grew 49%, as AI usage jumps — As consumers switch from Google search to ChatGPT, a new kind of bot is scraping data for AI. — Summary4
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post: ChatGPT-4o, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Gemini 2.0 Flash, Llama 4, and Copilot comparison: Claude was the best overall with the highest consistency and no hallucinations — We challenged AI helpers to decode legal contracts, simplify medical research, speed-read a novel and make sense of Trump speeches.
Washington Post: Analysis: since his inauguration, President Trump posted 2,262 times on Truth Social in 132 days, 3x+ the volume of tweets in the same period of his first term — In his current term, the influencer-in-chief has left his own record for social media missives in the dust. He posts day and night.
Nitasha Tiku / Washington Post: Researchers say tactics used to make AI more engaging, like making them more agreeable, can make chatbots reinforce harmful ideas, like encouraging drug use — Tactics used to make AI tools more engaging can drive chatbots to monopolize users' time or reinforce harmful ideas.
Lisa Bonos / Washington Post: Chainalysis: the US government's top 20 crypto holdings are worth ~$20.9B as of May 28, including $20.4B in bitcoin, primarily derived from its seized crypto — President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that boosted the spirits of cryptocurrency investors — and created a digital money mystery.
Will Oremus / Washington Post: Grok's tendency to repeat debunked claims raises doubts about Elon Musk's goal of making it a reliable source of information in high-stakes areas like medicine — Grok has proved popular with X users. But a string of bizarre blunders has threatened to turn it into a punchline.
Joseph Menn / Washington Post: Experts say some Trump officials' plans to amp up cyberattacks against China would risk retaliation the US is increasingly unprepared for amid budget cuts — Some Trump administration officials want to hit back at China for its hacks on U.S. infrastructure — a risky strategy, experts say, amid budget reductions.
Washington Post: Big Tech companies are firing staff who organize protests and rejecting petitions, even as a poor job market discourages worker activism, once ubiquitous in SV — A tighter labor market and lower corporate tolerance have stifled once boisterous employee input on controversies over company policy, AI safety and the Israel-Gaza war.
Washington Post: Senate hearing: Sam Altman says that requiring government approval to release AI would be “disastrous” for the US' lead in AI, a reversal from his 2023 comments — Congressional testimony Thursday from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman illustrated a shift in the tech industry's attitude to the potential risks of AI.
Geoffrey A. Fowler / Washington Post: Meta AI brings more privacy risks than ChatGPT and Gemini, building a Memory file including the user's sensitive personal info, like fertility and payday loans — Meta's chatbot remembers everything, even what you might not want it to. — Mark Zuckerberg has a new way to invade your privacy: a creepier version of ChatGPT.
Andrea Jiménez / Washington Post: How AI tools like Autistic Translator and Goblin Tools are helping neurodiverse people better understand social situations, as some worry about overreliance — For people living with autism, experiencing awkward or confusing social interactions can be a common occurrence.
Frances Vinall / Washington Post: A draft executive order sent to US agencies shows the Trump administration is considering issuing an order to create a policy integrating AI into K-12 education — A policy under consideration by the White House and seen by The Post instructs federal agencies on how to incorporate artificial intelligence into classrooms.
Julian Mark / Washington Post: The US v. Google remedies trial opens with the DOJ arguing that Google should be forced to divest Chrome, and Google calling the proposed remedies “extreme” — The remedies trial opens in Washington with the government pushing to break up the company through measures that Google lawyers deem “extreme.”
Washington Post: Arguments start Monday in the FTC's antitrust suit targeting Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, amid reports Zuckerberg asked Trump to intervene — Arguments start Monday in the FTC's blockbuster antitrust suit targeting Facebook's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp, as Zuckerberg pleads for the White House to intervene.
Washington Post: US officials say NSA director and Cyber Command head Timothy Haugh was fired on April 3, along with his civilian deputy Wendy Noble and at least five aides — The director of the NSA, the powerful wiretapping and cyber espionage service, was fired Thursday, according to U.S. officials. — just now
Washington Post: Interviews with 24+ US government workers show many embraced Signal after Trump's return to office as a tactic to shield communications, impacting transparency — The encrypted chat app beloved by Elon Musk and foreign dissidents has been embraced by federal government workers, DOGE and military planners.