Surveillance firm Palantir has faced heavy scrutiny for its ties to the Trump Administration, but now even Democrats are getting flak for connections to the firm. Democratic challenger Colin Allred has accused Representative Julie Johnson of profiting from Palantir’s activities, having held stock in the company while serving in Congress. The company’s collaborations with ICE have proven particularly caustic, and other lawmakers have quietly cut ties with the firm, including both Democrats and Republicans. While Palantir affiliates have tried to push back on its negative reputation, Palantir is quickly becoming a liability for political candidates.
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV has extended the deadline for public colleges and universities to submit data on the race & gender of admitted students, which the Trump Administration demanded from the schools by March 18th. Judge Saylor noted ongoing personnel and infrastructure issues in the Department of Education, which would likely put student data at risk, and raised the possibility of a preliminary injunction against the order. Nevertheless, the states’ contention that the data collection was politically motivated did not persuade the judge, who noted the long history of similar data collections in association with federal anti-discrimination laws.
Social media platform Reddit is considering implementing a verification program, in which users would be asked to submit face photographs or biometric data to verify their humanity. Reddit is one of the largest social media sites on the internet and has long allowed pseudonymous accounts. Still, the flood of AI-generated content is presenting major problems for users and administrators alike. The stakes are high as the company’s leadership seeks to maintain the human composition of Reddit’s userbase while avoiding scaring off privacy-conscious users.
The Senate recently passed the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA 2.0, with unanimous support, pushing forward “the most significant update to our nation’s online privacy protections for young people” in over 25 years. While the bill still needs approval from the House, COPPA 2.0 explicitly “cannot be read to require” age verification. Age verification poses major constitutional and political questions, to say nothing of the difficulties in implementing a solution. The strategy may be off the table for now, but various states and developed countries have implemented age verification with mixed results, even where the public has strongly supported the measures.
(compiled by David Gonzalez)
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