Quote:President Donald Trump’s attempt to prohibit foreign nations from using the latest iterations of the U.S. firm Anthropic's artificial intelligence models has drawn a sharp reaction from across the tech space, with many considering the ban unworkable and others warning the measure will impede the country's efforts to compete with China in the AI race.
On Friday, the California-based company revealed that an “export control directive” had been issued for its Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, preventing their use “by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.”
Though limited details were provided by the government, Anthropic said it believed the directive was due to a potential vulnerability, specifically a method of “jailbreaking” Fable 5. Jailbreaking refers to bypassing software restrictions—such as an AI’s safety guardrails—that are designed to protect a system or network.
The company said it had investigated the issue and found it exposed only a handful of previously known weaknesses that other publicly available models can also discover, whilst acknowledging that watertight jailbreak protection is likely “not currently possible for any model provider.”
As a result of the order, the company said it had to suspend all access to both models in order to comply, apologized to its customers for the “disruption,” and said it believed this stemmed from a “misunderstanding” on the part of the government.
Newsweek has contacted Anthropic and the Commerce Department via email for comment.
Reactions From The Tech Sector
“We disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people,” Anthropic said in the statement posted Friday. “If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers.”
Both in the U.S. and abroad, much of the criticism from leading tech figures has likewise been directed at the U.S. government, while highlighting the difficulty and consequences of imposing export controls on a technology like AI.
Dean Ball, former White House AI adviser
In a series of posts on X, Ball, one of the authors of the Trump administrations “AI Action Plan,” called it “baffling” that the U.S. would attempt to restrict foreign access to Anthropic models.
“An administration whose posture is that we *should* export advanced AI chips to China, which also wants to ban… Britain (and every other non-American on Earth)… from using our best models?” he wrote on Saturday.
“I can’t tell if this is lawfare against Anthropic in particular or extreme national-security hawkery. Regardless, it is simply cartoonish,” he said in a separate post.
Quote:It has been almost two months since Australia's world-first social media ban for under-16s came into effect, and for Adyan, 14, life has not changed too much.
"I thought the ban would be, like, way more strict, but it ended up being really, like, chill, like, nothing happened," he said.
"It's completely useless."
In the days leading up to the ban, Snapchat prompted Adyan to complete a face scan to confirm he was over 16. The 14-year-old obliged and was granted access.
"Snapchat thought I was over 16, so my Snapchat account did not get banned and same on my TikTok, but Instagram, I needed to show my driver's licence because it wasn't letting me use my face."
Adyan said that while his Instagram account was initially banned, this was only a small hurdle.
"It wasn't letting me use my face, so I got my friend's driver's license, and then I used it, and then it worked, so now I have all social media."
The ABC spoke with teenagers across the country. Most of them had not been banned. Those who had found ways around it.
"I didn't get any warning on anything. When I first made my social media accounts, I had already set my birthday before the year I was born. So I was born in 2010, I think I had set it to like 2007," said Evie, a 15-year-old from Adelaide.
Alby, 14, also never received a warning. Instead, he has seen the ban spawn a new wave of entrepreneurs.
"Now there's sort of like a market for it of younger people under the age of 16 giving money to their friends or people they know that are older to do ID scans for them, or your parents doing it for you. So it's really easy to get around.
"I personally haven't even gotten, like, a message saying, 'You're banned' or had to do any ID scans. I'm still on it, but my friends that have, they've all got around it."
Anabell, who is 15 and turning 16 in February, said she was part of a small minority who were actually booted off social media.
"Ten per cent probably got banned, and most of them were people my age that didn't really need to get banned and have birthdays coming up.
"I was angry because I knew a lot of people who didn't get banned that should have gotten banned.
"I was watching people my sister's age, like only 13, still have social media while I was banned."
Adyan agrees with Anabell's estimate.
"Probably around 10 per cent of them actually have been banned, and half of that 10 per cent has been unbanned by just using basically the same thing that I did: use other people's faces, use their driver's licence.
"Now, really, none of my friends are banned. Everyone has social media."
So, who's actually been banned?
Before December 10, more than 2.3 million Australians between eight and 15 used at least one social media platform.
According to data from the eSafety commissioner, within that cohort, there were more than 850,000 Snapchat users and more than 700,000 Instagram accounts.
Last month, the federal government said the social media ban was "working", citing that more than 4.7 million under-16 accounts had been either deactivated or removed since the ban came into effect.
Quote:German state media has accused Tesla trillionaire Elon Musk and anti-grooming gang activist Tommy Robinson of calling for the “hunting” of migrants in the wake of an alleged asylum seeker beheading attempt in Belfast.
Tuesday’s edition of German public broadcaster ZDF flagship programme ‘Today Live’ argued that the backlash to footage of a Sudanese asylum seeker allegedly attempting to cut a man’s head off in Northern Ireland earlier this month was a result of malign actors from abroad on social media, signalling out Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson in particular.
Introducing the segment, presenter Christina v. Ungern-Sternberg said: “A brutal attempted murder on a public street in Belfast. Someone films it; the video goes viral. A racist mob subsequently hunts down migrants. Calls for this had come from a British right-wing extremist and tech billionaire Elon Musk. The pattern isn’t new.”
Not only did the German public broadcaster fail to provide any evidence that either Musk or Robinson had called for the violent targeting of migrants, as was seen in some cases during the Belfast riots, ZDF also appeared to undermine their entire argument with the posts they cited as evidence of incietment.
Indeed, in one of the only posts highlighted by the broadcaster, veteran street organiser Tommy Robinson said: “The whole of the United Kingdom is hitting the streets tonight at 7pm following yet another invader attack on our people.”
This post was accompanied with a list of various protests, which featured the call for people to remain: “Peaceful. Respectful. Together.”
The post was shared by Musk, who added: “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!”
There does not appear to be any evidence that either men called for violence of any kind in response to the brutal attack in Belfast. Nevertheless, the half-hour ZDF programme was nearly all dedicated to the supposed negative influence played by Musk and Robinson.
The German broadcaster brought on Ciarán O’Connor of the Soros-backed Institute for Strategic Dialogue as an expert on the matter. O’Connor said that Musk has taken an increasing interest in spreading anti-immigration content over the past five years, saying that he uses his large platform on X to boost local stories to the international level.
While not directly accusing Musk of calling for hunting down migrants as the ZDF presenter did, the ISD commentator noted that social media was used to spread addresses of properties linked to migrants or to asylum seeker accommodation for the purpose of targeting certain groups.
“We see the same pattern, the same playbook, time and again: tragic incidents occur, or tensions flare up over crime, and social media platforms are used in real-time to call on people to protest or simply to take action. And there is also a clear call for violence and an encouragement of violent reactions,” he said.
Quote:Far-left activists plunged Geneva into chaos on Sunday, clashing with police, setting fires, and vandalising businesses to protest against President Donald Trump’s meeting with the G7 nations on Monday.
As leaders of the world’s leading economies are set to hold a summit in Évian, France, leftist agitators used the opportunity to riot across the border in nearby Geneva.
The protest was forced to be held 50 kilometres from the actual summit, as the French government barred demonstrations on its territory against the G7.
According to authorities, an estimated 50,000 protesters were expected in the Swiss city, while 7,000 police officers were deployed in a bid to prevent the unrest that has come to define the lestist response to G7 meetings.
The Swiss German-language daily Blick reported that around 5 pm local time, the protest took a violent turn, which saw a Tesla car set on fire and burnt to a crisp, while a nearby bank had its shop windows smashed in with hammers.
The paper reported that demonstrators also clashed with police, with rioters using iron bars, bicycles, and wooden sticks to assault officers.
Blick further reported that some agitators broke into a construction site, which they raided to use building materials and construction tools as makeshift weapons and missiles against the police.
In turn, police deployed tear gas and water cannons against the protesters to quell some of the most violent members of the demonstration.
G7 meetings have frequently been targeted by violent anti-capitalist protests, including in the 2001 summit in Genoa, which saw around 100 police officers injured during riots and a young protester, Carlo Giuliani, 23, shot and killed by police.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
Quote:A federal judge rejected Meta Platforms’ bid to dismiss a lawsuit by 29 state attorneys general accusing it of designing Facebook and Instagram to addict children and knowingly concealing the harm from the public.
In a decision late on Monday night, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, Calif., denied Meta’s motion to dismiss claims based on deception, unfair practices and violations of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
The judge also said Meta did not comply with that law’s notice and parental consent requirements, and granted summary judgment to the states on that issue.
Meta said in a statement: “We strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
Gonzalez Rogers also oversees related multidistrict litigation by more than 2,600 individuals, school districts and local governments over whether social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google and YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok addict children.
Meta downplays harms
The states said research has shown that children’s use of Facebook and Instagram could lead to depression, anxiety, insomnia, interference with education and daily life, and self-harm including suicide.
Meta countered that the attorneys general had no evidence it misled consumers about its platforms’ alleged addictiveness, including in congressional testimony by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company said this was because “social media addiction” is not an established psychiatric condition, and therefore statements that its platforms are not addictive could not be false.
Quote:Meta secretly hired hundreds of contractors to pose as teenagers online and bombard rival artificial intelligence chatbots with prompts about suicide, sex, drugs and eating disorders in an effort to test their safety systems, according to a report.
The covert effort, known internally as “Cannes,” was managed by Meta contractor Covalen and allegedly targeted OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Character.AI, Wired reported this week.
While companies routinely benchmark, or test and compare, competing AI models by probing their responses to safety-related prompts, the reported scale of Meta’s testing appears to have been far larger than is typical.
Contractors were instructed to create fake accounts posing as users younger than 18, submit written prompts and images to competing chatbots, then copy the responses into spreadsheets for analysis, according to the Wired report, which cited internal documents and people familiar with the project.
Some of the images used during testing reportedly included pills, knives, nooses and a medical illustration of a gynecological procedure.
The prompts frequently attempted to push the chatbots into generating responses their safety guardrails were designed to reject, according to Wired.
One round of testing completed in August 2025 reportedly involved more than 45,000 prompts sent to competing AI systems.
Among the nearly 3,750 prompts reviewed by Wired were hundreds involving suicide and self-harm, hundreds more centered on eating disorders and at least 239 involving sex or romance, according to the report
Many of the prompts were reportedly written from the perspective of children or teenagers in distress.
Quote:The Trump administration lifted emergency export controls on Anthropic’s most advanced artificial intelligence models on Tuesday night, according to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — abruptly ending a bitter standoff that disrupted the global tech sector.
“Anthropic has agreed to proactively detect and address security risks associated with the models; to work diligently with the US government on protocols and standards and releases for Mythos, Fable, and future models; and to inform the U.S. government of any malicious activity,” Lutnick wrote in a letter obtained by The Post.
“The controls … are withdrawn. A license is no longer required for the export, reexport, or in-country transfer, including deemed export or deemed reexport, of the Mythos or Fable models,” he added.
The move cancelled a June 12 White House directive that banned all foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic’s flagship Fable 5 and Mythos 5 systems.
“We’ve received notice that the Department of Commerce has lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5,” Anthropic wrote on X. “We’ll begin restoring access tomorrow, and will share an update soon.”
The government previously said it disabled the cutting-edge software worldwide because the San Francisco-based startup could not reliably filter out foreign users in real time.
The sudden policy reversal follows intense corporate lobbying and back-channel negotiations between Anthropic executives and Lutnick.
The Post previously revealed those talks, noting President Trump shifted his stance after meeting Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at the Group of Seven summit in France.
Tuesday’s rollback was poised to deliver immediate relief to the broader technology market. Enterprise clients faced significant operational bottlenecks during the nearly three-week blackout.
“Under President Trump’s leadership the United States is the undisputed winner in the AI race,” White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles wrote on X.
“My gratitude to companies across industries who continue to work closely with the White House to implement the President’s EO: ‘Promoting Advanced AI Innovation and Security.'”
Quote:In a remarkably strange statement at a recent California State Senate hearing over the Protect Our Games Act (AB 1921, California's Stop Killing Games-endorsed bill to compel publishers to provide ways to keep playing discontinued games), a representative of the Entertainment Software Association declared private servers for the likes of Minecraft and Call of Duty "illegal," adding that, so far as the ESA is concerned, "we consider it piracy."
The representative in question was Jennifer Gibbons, the ESA's vice president for state government affairs, and just to clear this up right away: what she said was nonsense. You can, literally right now, head over to the official Minecraft website and download a .jar file to let you run your own private server.
Gibbons was responding to a comment made by California state assemblymember Chris Ward—who introduced the bill—regarding the possibility of keeping games alive with private servers. "Minecraft is currently hosted by community servers, Call of Duty [has] community servers, so it's an option that is out there, in existence here today."
Gibbons cut in: "They're illegal. They are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, for Minecraft, has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers."
Asked by California state senator Caroline Menjivar as to whether this was "like the black market of videogames?" Gibbons responded "Yes. In fact, we consider it piracy. We have lawsuits, two pending lawsuits, against private servers right now, and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in their Notorious Markets Reports on counterfeiting and piracy has named some of these big private servers as a notorious market." A notorious market refers to a market where intellectual property infringement is rife—think something like The Pirate Bay.
It is true that the USTR has named particular private servers in its Notorious Markets Reports in years gone by, but not for the simple fact of existing as private servers. To take an example, the 2018 report specifically cited Warmane and Firestorm Servers as examples of notorious markets—two sites which enabled people to play World of Warcraft without paying a subscription to Blizzard. Which is quite a bit different from the private Minecraft server you run with your pals, or a community server for an old COD that no one maintains anymore.
Regardless, the Protect Our Games Act did not make it out of this stage of the legislative process. With four aye votes, three noes, and four abstentions, it failed to accrue the majority of ayes necessary to pass. Nevertheless, it has been granted a reconsideration, so it's not the end.
Quote:The Entertainment Software Association, in an ongoing attempt to slow the roll of the games conservation movement Stop Killing Games, made a baffling statement at a recent California State Senate hearing over a proposed Protect Our Games Act that goes as follows:
"[Private servers are] illegal. They are not in any way affiliated with Microsoft. Microsoft, for Minecraft, has gotten a lot of criticism because of those community servers not employing the same safety standards that Microsoft does on their Minecraft servers."
Now, you can read our very own Joshua Wolens' article on the foible yourself, but I'll repeat what he said back then in that the words of ESA vice president Jennifer Gibbons are basically nonsense. More on that in a moment.
In a statement provided to PC Gamer, the ESA wrote: "Private servers infringe on the intellectual property (IP) rights of game publishers. Publishers reserve the right to exercise their rights against them. The provision in CA AB 1921 that proposed these servers as a legitimate alternative to keep games running raises concerns about a publisher's ability to enforce their IP rights.
"In addition, private servers operate with no oversight from the publisher and do not uphold the same trust and safety standards. This could create an unsafe environment for players and be counter to the industry's commitment to fostering safe and fun game play for all players."
The ESA has since sent us another statement for what it calls "additional clarity", I'm not all that convinced we aren't looking at a backpedal, here. You can read the full updated statement in the screenshot below, but for the sake of in-article brevity, here are the key differences:
Narrowing the scope of what private servers cause trouble, specifically, ones that "host or distribute copyrighted game content."
A "without authorization" was snuck in there, too.
"While publishers may take different approaches," was added to the statement that publishers "reserve the right to exercise their rights against them".
Basically, it's a softening of the deeply condemning statements the ESA made both during that hearing and in their original statement to our publication. And hey, it makes sense that some things are being walked back: Plenty of games have officially-permitted private servers or private server functionality without incident.
There are, of course, exceptions—like MMOs. There are World of Warcraft private servers that give access to the game without a subscription while also making money via in-game cash shops, which is legally indefensible, no matter how interesting their own spins on the games are.
But there are also exceptions to those exceptions, too. A City of Heroes' private server, Homecoming, was given official permission by its IP owners to keep operating on account of its good, non-profit focused behaviour.
And no matter which way you slice it, Minecraft isn't coming under fire for its community servers in any statistically significant way. As Josh pointed out, there's a literal part of the official website that lets you download a server, and in doing so, agree to the EULA.
While it's true in theory that Microsoft doesn't have a say in what people do on their own private servers… I mean, good? I'm stating the obvious here, but I don't think we should live in a world where the only online interactions we can have are the ones pre-approved by companies nobody voted for. That's how you get nonsense like credit card companies muscling in on itch.io.
Quote:Earlier this month, former SIE Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden said the still-ongoing flailing at Xbox "evince a basic misunderstanding of how the interactive entertainment world moves." Harsh words indeed—but lest you think he's just a partisan hater, he's now taken aim at his former company, Sony, and its pullback from the PC market.
It's been quite a turnaround from Sony. After years of dogged exclusivity, Sony began releasing its games on PC to significant success—to the point that Shuhei Yoshida, also a former SIE Worldwide Studios boss, said it was "almost like printing money."
But earlier this year, Sony began backing away from the strategy, and while no formal announcement was ever made, it soon became clear that a PC pullback is happening.
Layden, who also previously served as president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment America and executive vice president and COO of Sony Network Entertainment International, addressed the shift in a new interview with PSI, beginning by noting that in his mind, at least, bringing Sony games to PC was never about making money—it was about getting Sony properties in front of people who otherwise wouldn't see it.
"Not necessarily because they're going to buy a PlayStation," Layden said. "I wasn't that crazy. I didn't think that was going to happen.
"But as we take our intellectual property across other media, whether it's into films or whether it's in television or in comic books or into merchandise, whatever, you need to have as many eyeballs that are aware of this character, of this story, and just concentrating on the PlayStation population and only telling them these stories, and then try to bring it off of that platform into different media, that's going to be a hell of a jump."
While some have suggested that releasing PlayStation games on PC could "devalue" the brand, Layden says the strategy of holding them back for a year or so effectively addresses that concern: "I think if someone's waiting 18 months for something to come on PC, we didn't lose a sale to them. They weren't going to buy the hardware anyway."
"If it's a way to cover costs or the burden of making a port, there is some money attached to that, or the distraction or whatever," Layden said. "I don't know what they're thinking."
I don't either, but I do think it's interesting that we seem to be moving inexorably into a new round of the console wars: Microsoft has indicated that it's also looking at leaning more heavily on console exclusives in order to resuscitate the flagging Xbox brand. In that case, though, the impact on PC gamers should be minimal: Microsoft chief content officer Matt Booty said earlier this month that Xbox exclusives will "still show up on all the normal places where we sell the PC version."
The material impact of the PlayStation PC pullback is also debatable: PC Gamer's Morgan Park recently reminded that in the short term, at least, we're not likely to miss out on very much.
Here's another fact not to be overlooked: Unlike the ignominious dark days of "PC gaming is dying," PC gaming has never been stronger than it is right now. While year-over-year console revenue growth was close to stagnant, according to a Global Games Market Report published earlier in June, PC revenues leapt by 12%, powering the market past $200 billion in a single year for the first time. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says PC gamers have to wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 because we're not part of its "core" audience, but he also admits that PC can account for 45-50% of a big game's total sales. I have no idea how to square that either, but I definitely agree with Layden: Bringing Sony games to PC made sense, and taking them away just does not.
Quote:Sony said Wednesday it will stop producing physical discs for all new games released on PlayStation consoles from January 2028, marking a full shift to digital distribution as consumer purchases continue to move online.
Digital downloads accounted for about 80% of Sony’s full-game software sales in fiscal 2025, according to the company, reflecting a years-long shift toward digital game purchases.
The Japanese entertainment and technology company said new PlayStation titles released from January 2028 will be sold through the PlayStation Store and by retailers in digital formats only.
The change will not apply to games released, or already scheduled for disc release, before that date.
“Stripping discs improves margins but will likely require greater storage capacity, which is also increasingly expensive,” said Joost van Dreunen, games professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business.
Separately, Sony said it would begin shutting down the PlayStation Store on its legacy PS3 and PS Vita devices, starting with select markets this year and expanding globally in 2027.
The 15- to 20-year-old consoles can no longer support the secure payment systems used by the modern PlayStation Network, the company said.
Once the stores close, users will no longer be able to purchase new content, although previously purchased games and content will remain available for download for the foreseeable future.
The PS3 store will close in Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua from August, followed by additional Latin American and Middle Eastern markets later in the year.
The PS3 and PS Vita stores will close in all remaining markets in July 2027.
Quote:TOKYO, June 23 (Reuters) - Kadokawa (9468.T), opens new tab, the Japanese firm behind the dark epic "Elden Ring" video game franchise, is now facing a nightmare of its own: an activist shareholder who wants its CEO gone, wielding a big stake and proxy advisor support.
The showdown will take place at Wednesday's annual general meeting and is being closely watched by investors in Japan, where activist shareholders have scored some significant wins as authorities pile pressure on companies to improve returns and corporate governance.
In one camp, there is Takeshi Natsuno, 61 and chief executive since 2021 but under attack for declining profitability.
He may have history on his side after garnering 90% of shareholder support at last year's AGM. Natsuno has also been backed by the company's board, which says removing him would create uncertainty while the company is trying to carry out reforms.
Natsuno is facing off against Hong Kong-based Oasis Management, one of the most active activist investors in Japan. Oasis, which says it has been engaging with Kadokawa since 2020, is now the firm's largest shareholder with a 13.76% stake.
NATSUNO ACCUSED OF 'PROFIT LEAKAGE'
While "Elden Ring" — a collaboration between veteran game director Hidetaka Miyazaki and "Game of Thrones" author George R. R. Martin — has been a massive success, Natsuno has been criticised for failing to capitalise on it.
The 2022 action role-playing game is published by Kadokawa unit FromSoftware in Japan but by Bandai Namco (7832.T), opens new tab overseas. That arrangement has led to "material profit leakage," says Oasis.
Oasis is not alone in thinking it is time for a new person at the helm.
"While it may take time to find a replacement for Natsuno, this is a challenge worth accepting," Institutional Shareholder Services said in its proxy report.
Glass Lewis, another major proxy advisor, also recommends shareholders vote against the company's re-election proposal and in favour of the Oasis proposal, the activist said. Glass Lewis did not reply to a Reuters request for its report.
Though a drop in shareholder support from 90% to below 50% would be extraordinary, some market participants say it could happen given the firm's poor performance.
Kadokawa, a major force in manga, anime as well as video games, logged return on equity of just 0.5% last year compared to 9.4% in the year ended March 2022. In May, it reported annual operating profit that undershot its forecast despite an earlier downward revision.
"Even without Oasis submitting a shareholder proposal, it has become a situation where institutional investors could easily make a no vote," said one market participant who was not authorised to speak to media and declined to be identified.
And even if Natsuno retains his job, a sharp drop in support could increase pressure for changes sought by Oasis including more investment in big-name titles.
Quote:It's looking like another grim summer for the videogame industry. Microsoft is eyeing up several studios to shutter, and the CEO of Epic Games says there's a tidal wave sweeping over the AAA business, which I'm sure is fine.
The next step in this macabre march comes from EA, which will reportedly be laying off an unknown number of staff ahead of its $55 billion sale to Saudi Arabia's public investment fund, which is set to have a whopping 93.4% stake when all is said and done. This comes courtesy of Kotaku, which claims it's spoken with sources inside the publisher, and shared an email sent to EA's customer support team.
EA claims it's axing these roles to "adapt how we work to better meet fans’ changing needs … As part of this evolution, we are making or proposing to make changes to some roles, creating new roles, and moving certain work to different teams, locations, or service partners."
Which is likely a bunch of business waffle. Layoffs after large acquisitions like this aren't at all uncommon—take Microsoft, which laid off 1,900 people after purchasing Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. As a matter of fact, the Saudi Arabia investment fund was also reported to be tightening its purse strings late last year.
The note here is that the trimming's happening before the acquisition, rather than afterwards—most likely due to the eye-watering $20 billion in loan debt EA has taken on to close the deal. But hey, the shareholders are in favour, and we wouldn't want to upset the shareholders, would we?
The incoming layoffs at EA include members across "recruitment, customer support, trust and safety, and IT teams", Kotaku reports, and will be a continuation of last year's rash of layoffs, which included:
Laying off BioWare veterans and basically closing the door on Dragon Age for good in January.
Laying off hundreds of employees in April, cancelling two projects.
Cancelling the Black Panther game in May, closing the studio making it.
On the "bright" side, EA's CEO took in 260 times the median salary of the company. I'm sure this is healthy and normal.
Saudi Arabia's incoming deal with the company has many concerned that it's part of the investment fund's ongoing efforts to "sportswash" the country's history of human rights violations.
Quote:South Korea’s government allegedly forced a US web retailer to carry out a bizarre and risky plot to recover a stolen laptop from the bottom of a river in China – part of a high-level data-privacy clampdown that US officials claim is the latest example of the country’s anti-American tech regulations run amok.
A House Judiciary Committee report released on Wednesday detailed how Seattle-based Coupang – known as the “Amazon of South Korea” where it does 90% of its business – believed it had no choice but to hire scuba divers for the James Bond-style caper as top South Korean regulators pressed for an elaborate probe of a November data breach that affected 33 million customers.
Indeed, while South Korea’s National Intelligence Service denied any involvement, Coupang compiled a host of evidence to the contrary — including messages from a senior government aide affirming that South Korea’s president had been briefed on the operation.
The “highest levels of the South Korean government, including President Lee Jae-myung himself, knew that the NIS had been closely instructing Coupang on the recovery operation and that Coupang acted in response to these directives,” the report said.
Coupang faced 40 investigations from 11 different South Korean agencies, threats of travel bans for its executives and potential fines of up to 10% of its global revenue, the report said. On June 11, South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission fined Coupang $410 million — nearly twice its profit last year — after finding that the company had illegally harvested customer data.
The December mission focused on a rogue Coupang employee, a Chinese national who had allegedly extracted the personal data of 3,000 customers — a tiny fraction of the 33 million who were caught in a massive data breach at the company reported on Nov. 27 – and fled to Shanghai, according to the report.
Coupang contacted the rogue employee, who confessed and agreed to turn over several devices linked to the theft – except for a laptop he had tossed into a Shanghai river in a panic, according to the 35-page report, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.
South Korea’s NIS allegedly told Coupang that its agents couldn’t personally retrieve the devices because Chinese law bars foreign intelligence agencies from operating on its soil. Instead, it ordered Coupang to send one of its own employees to collect the devices and the rogue employee’s fingerprints – all under the Chinese government’s nose.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
News of the Cyber World
![[Image: SP1-Scripter.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Scripter.png)
![[Image: SP1-Writer.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Writer.png)
![[Image: SP1-Poet.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-Poet.png)
![[Image: SP1-PixelArtist.png]](https://www.save-point.org/images/userbars/SP1-PixelArtist.png)
![[Image: SP1-Reporter.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/GmxWbHyL/SP1-Reporter.png)
