Policy – Page 5

Microsoft deletes blog telling users to train AI on pirated Harry Potter books

AI, generative ai, harry potter, Isaac Asimov, large language models, LLMs, microsoft, Policy / Rejus Almole / February 21, 2026

Wizarding world of AI slop

The now-deleted Harry Potter dataset was “mistakenly” marked public domain.

Following backlash in a Hacker News thread, Microsoft deleted a blog post that critics said encouraged developers to pirate Harry Potter books to train AI models that could then be used to create AI slop.

The blog, which is archived here, was written in November 2024 by a senior product manager, Pooja Kamath. According to her LinkedIn, Kamath has been at Microsoft for more than a decade and remains with the company. In 2024, Microsoft tapped her to promote a new feature that the blog said made it easier to “add generative AI features to your own applications with just a few lines of code using Azure SQL DB, LangChain, and LLMs.”

What better way to show “engaging and relatable examples” of Microsoft’s new feature that would “resonate with a wide audience” than to “use a well-known dataset” like Harry Potter books, the blog said.

The books are “one of the most famous and cherished series in literary history,” the blog noted, and fans could use the LLMs they trained in two fun ways: building Q&A systems providing “context-rich answers” and generating “new AI-driven Harry Potter fan fiction” that’s “sure to delight Potterheads.”

To help Microsoft customers achieve this vision, the blog linked to a Kaggle dataset that included all seven Harry Potter books, which, Ars verified, has been available online for years and incorrectly marked as “public domain.” Kaggle’s terms say that rights holders can send notices of infringing content, and repeat offenders risk suspensions, but Hacker News commenters speculated that the Harry Potter dataset flew under the radar, with only 10,000 downloads over time, not catching the attention of J.K. Rowling, who famously keeps a strong grip on the Harry Potter copyrights. The dataset was promptly deleted on Thursday after Ars reached out to the uploader, Shubham Maindola, a data scientist in India with no apparent links to Microsoft.

Maindola told Ars that “the dataset was marked as Public Domain by mistake. There was no intention to misrepresent the licensing status of the works.”

It’s unclear whether Kamath was directed to link to the Harry Potter books dataset in the blog or if it was an individual choice. Cathay Y. N. Smith, a law professor and co-director of Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Program in Intellectual Property Law, told Ars that Kamath may not have realized the books were too recent to be in the public domain.

“Someone might be really knowledgeable about books and technology, but not necessarily about copyright terms and how long they last,” Smith said. “Especially if she saw that something was marked by another reputable company as being public domain.”

Microsoft declined Ars’ request to comment. Kaggle did not respond to Ars’ request to comment.

Microsoft was “probably smart” to pull the blog

On Hacker News, commenters suggested that it’s unlikely anyone familiar with the popular franchise would believe the Harry Potter books were in the public domain. They debated whether Microsoft’s blog was “problematic copyright-wise,” since Microsoft not only encouraged customers to download the infringing materials but also used the books themselves to create Harry Potter AI models that relied on beloved characters to hype Microsoft products.

Microsoft’s blog was posted more than a year ago, at a time when AI firms began facing lawsuits over AI models, which had allegedly infringed copyrights by training on pirated materials and regurgitating works verbatim.

The blog recommended that users learn to train their own AI models by downloading the Harry Potter dataset and then uploading text files to Azure Blob Storage. It included example models based on a dataset that Microsoft seemingly uploaded to Azure Blob Storage, which only included the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Training large language models (LLMs) on text files, Harry Potter fans could create Q&A systems capable of pulling up relevant excerpts of books. An example query offered was “Wizarding World snacks,” which retrieved an excerpt from The Sorcerer’s Stone where Harry marvels at strange treats like Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans and chocolate frogs. Another prompt asking “How did Harry feel when he first learnt that he was a Wizard?” generated an output pointing to various early excerpts in the book.

But perhaps an even more exciting use case, Kamath suggested, was generating fan fiction to “explore new adventures” and “even create alternate endings.” That model could quickly comb the dataset for “contextually similar” excerpts that could be used to output fresh stories that fit with existing narratives and incorporate “elements from the retrieved passages,” the blog said.

As an example, Kamath trained a model to write a Harry Potter story she could use to market the feature she was blogging about. She asked the model to write a story in which Harry meets a new friend on the Hogwarts Express train who tells him all about Microsoft’s Native Vector Support in SQL “in the Muggle world.”

Drawing on parts of The Sorcerer’s Stone where Harry learns about Quidditch and gets to know Hermione Granger, the fan fiction showed a boy selling Harry on Microsoft’s “amazing” new feature. To do this, he likened it to having a spell that helps you find exactly what you need among thousands of options, instantly, while declaring it was perfect for machine learning, AI, and recommendation systems.

Further blurring the lines between Microsoft and Harry Potter brands, Kamath also generated an image showing Harry with his new friend, stamped with a Microsoft logo.

Smith told Ars that both use cases could frustrate rights holders, depending on the content in the model outputs.

“I think that the regurgitation and the creation of fan fiction, they both could flag copyright issues, in that fan fiction often has to take from the expressive elements, a copyrighted character, a character that’s famous enough to be protected by a copyright law or plot stories or sequences,” Smith said. “If these things are copied and reproduced, then that output could be potentially infringing.”

But it’s also still a gray area. Looking at the blog, Smith said, “I would be concerned,” but “I wouldn’t say it’s automatically infringement.”

Smith told Ars that, in pulling the blog, Microsoft “was probably smart,” since courts have only generally said that training AI on copyrighted books is fair use. But courts continue to probe questions about pirated AI training materials.

On the deleted Kaggle dataset page, Maindola previously explained that to source the data, he “downloaded the ebooks and then converted them to txt files.”

Microsoft may have infringed copyrights

If Microsoft ever faced questions as to whether the company knowingly used pirated books to train the example models, fair use “could be a difficult argument,” Smith said.

Hacker News commenters suggested the blog could be considered fair use, since the training guide was for “educational purposes,” and Smith said that Microsoft could raise some “good arguments” in its defense.

However, she also suggested that Microsoft could be deemed liable for contributing to infringement on some level after leaving the blog up for a year. Before it was removed, the Kaggle dataset was downloaded more than 10,000 times.

“The ultimate result is to create something infringing by saying, ‘Hey, here you go, go grab that infringing stuff and use that in our system,’” Smith said. “They could potentially have some sort of secondary contributory liability for copyright infringement, downloading it, as well as then using it to encourage others to use it for training purposes.”

On Hacker News, commenters slammed the blog, including a self-described former Microsoft employee who claimed that Microsoft lets employees “blog without having to go through some approval or editing process.”

“It looks like somebody made a bad judgment call on what to put in a company blog post (and maybe what constitutes ethical activity) and that it was taken down as soon as someone noticed,” the former employee said.

Others suggested the blame was solely with the Kaggle uploader, Maindola, who told Ars that the dataset should never have been marked “public domain.” But Microsoft critics pushed back, noting that the Kaggle page made it clear that no special permission was granted and that Microsoft’s employee should have known better. “They don’t need to know any details to know that these properties belong to massive companies and aren’t free for the taking,” one commenter said.

The Harry Potter books weren’t the only books targeted, the thread noted, linking to a separate Azure sample containing Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, which is also not in the public domain.

“Microsoft could have used any dataset for their blog, they could have even chosen to use actual public domain novels,” another Hacker News commenter wrote. “Instead, they opted to use copywritten works that J.K. hasn’t released into the public domain (unless user ‘Shubham Maindola’ is J.K.’s alter ego).”

Smith suggested Microsoft could have avoided this week’s backlash by more carefully reviewing blogs, noting that “if a company is risk averse, this would probably be flagged.” But she also understood Kamath’s preference for Harry Potter over the many long-forgotten characters that exist in the public domain. On Hacker News, some commenters defended Kamath’s blog, urging that it should be considered fair use since nonprofits and educational institutions could do the same thing in a teaching context without issue.

“I would have been concerned if I were the one clearing this for Microsoft, but at the same time, I completely understand what this employee was doing,” Smith said. “No one wants to write fan fiction about books that are in the public domain.”

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

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Fury over Discord’s age checks explodes after shady Persona test in UK

age checks, age estimation, age verification, discord, openai, Persona, Policy, united kingdom / Mike M. / February 20, 2026

Persona confirmed all age-check data from Discord’s UK test was deleted.

Shortly after Discord announced that all users will soon be defaulted to teen experiences until their ages are verified, the messaging platform faced immediate backlash.

One of the major complaints was that Discord planned to collect more government IDs as part of its global age verification process. It shocked many that Discord would be so bold so soon after a third-party breach of a former age check partner’s services recently exposed 70,000 Discord users’ government IDs.

Attempting to reassure users, Discord claimed that most users wouldn’t have to show ID, instead relying on video selfies using AI to estimate ages, which raised separate privacy concerns. In the future, perhaps behavioral signals would override the need for age checks for most users, Discord suggested, seemingly downplaying the risk that sensitive data would be improperly stored.

Discord didn’t hide that it planned to continue requesting IDs for any user appealing an incorrect age assessment, and users weren’t happy, since that is exactly how the prior breach happened. Responding to critics, Discord claimed that the majority of ID data was promptly deleted. Specifically, Savannah Badalich, Discord’s global head of product policy, told The Verge that IDs shared during appeals “are deleted quickly—in most cases, immediately after age confirmation.”

It’s unsurprising then that backlash exploded after Discord posted, and then weirdly deleted, a disclaimer on an FAQ about Discord’s age assurance policies that contradicted Discord’s hyped short timeline for storing IDs. An archived version of the page shows the note shared this warning:

“Important: If you’re located in the UK, you may be part of an experiment where your information will be processed by an age-assurance vendor, Persona. The information you submit will be temporarily stored for up to 7 days, then deleted. For ID document verification, all details are blurred except your photo and date of birth, so only what’s truly needed for age verification is used.”

Critics felt that Discord was obscuring not just how long IDs may be stored, but also the entities collecting information. Discord did not provide details on what the experiment was testing or how many users were affected, and Persona was not listed as a partner on its platform.

Asked for comment, Discord told Ars that only a small number of users was included in the experiment, which ran for less than one month. That test has since concluded, Discord confirmed, and Persona is no longer an active vendor partnering with Discord. Moving forward, Discord promised to “keep our users informed as vendors are added or updated.”

While Discord seeks to distance itself from Persona, Rick Song, Persona’s CEO, has been stuck responding to the mounting backlash. Hoping to quell fears that any of the UK data collected during the experiment risked being breached, he told Ars that all the data of verified individuals involved in Discord’s test was deleted immediately upon verification.

Persona draws fire amid Discord fury

This all seemingly started after Discord was forced to find age verification solutions when Australia’s under-16 social media ban and the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act came into effect.

It seems that in the UK, Discord struggled to find partners, as the messaging service wasn’t just trying to stop minors from accessing adult content but also needed to block adults from messaging minors.

Setting aside known issues with accuracy in today’s age estimation technology, there’s an often-overlooked nuance to how age solutions work, particularly when the safety of children is involved in platforms’ decisions. Age checks that are good enough to block kids from accessing adult content may not work as well as age checks to stop tech-savvy adults with malicious intentions bent on contacting minors; the UK’s OSA required that Discord’s age checks block both.

It seems likely that Discord expected Persona to be a partner that the UK’s OSA enforcers would approve. OSA had previously approved Persona as an age verification service on Reddit, which shares similarly complex age verification goals with Discord.

For Persona, the partnership came at a time when many Discord users globally were closely monitoring the service, trying to decided whehter they trusted Discord with their age check data.

After Discord shocked users by abruptly retracting the disclaimer about the Persona experiment, mistrust swelled, and scrutiny of Persona intensified.

On X and other social media platforms, critics warned that Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund was a major investor in Persona. They worried Thiel might have influence over Persona or access to Persona’s data, or, worse, that Thiel’s ties to the Trump administration might mean the government had access to it. Fearing that Discord data may one day be fed into government facial recognition systems, conspiracies swirled, increasing heat on Persona and leaving Song with no choice but to cautiously confront allegations.

Hackers probe Persona

Perhaps most problematic for Persona, the mass outrage prompted cybersecurity researchers to investigate. They quickly exposed a “workaround” to avoid Persona’s age checks on Discord, The Rage, an independent publication that covers financial surveillance, reported. But more concerning for privacy advocates, researchers also found the uncompressed of Persona’s frontend code “exposed to the open Internet on a US government authorized server.”

“In 2,456 publicly accessible files, the code revealed the extensive surveillance Persona software performs on its users, bundled in an interface that pairs facial recognition with financial reporting—and a parallel implementation that appears designed to serve federal agencies,” The Rage reported.

As The Rage reported, and Song confirmed to Ars, Persona does not currently have any government contracts. Instead, the exposed service “appears to be powered by an OpenAI chatbot,” The Rage noted.

OpenAI is highlighted as an active partner on Persona’s website, which claims Persona screens millions of users for OpenAI each month. According to The Rage, “the publicly exposed domain, titled ‘openai-watchlistdb.withpersona.com,’” appears to “query identity verification requests on an OpenAI database” that has a “FedRAMP-authorized parallel implementation of the software called ‘withpersona-gov.com.’”

Hackers warned “that OpenAI may have created an internal database for Persona identity checks that spans all OpenAI users via its internal watchlistdb,” seemingly exploiting the “opportunity to go from comparing users against a single federal watchlist, to creating the watchlist of all users themselves.”

In correspondence with one of the researchers, Song clarified that this product is based on publicly available records for sanctions and warnings, and the service does not store any user data sent to it.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to Ars’ request to comment.

Persona denies government, ICE ties

On Wednesday, Persona’s chief operating officer, Christie Kim, sought to reassure Persona customers as the Discord controversy grew. In an email, Kim said that Persona invests “heavily in infrastructure, compliance, and internal training to ensure sensitive data is handled responsibly,” and not exposed.

“Over the past week, multiple social media posts and online articles have circulated repeating misleading claims about Persona, insinuating conspiracies around our work with Discord and our investors,” Kim wrote.

Noting that Persona does not “typically engage with online speculation,” Kim said that the scandal required a direct response “because we operate in a sensitive space and your trust in us is foundational to our partnership.”

As expected, Kim noted that Persona is not partnered with federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“Transparently, we are actively working on a couple of potential contracts which would be publicly visible if we move forward,” Kim wrote. “However, these engagements are strictly for workforce account security of government employees and do not include ICE or any agency within the Department of Homeland Security.”

Kim acknowledged that Thiel’s Founders Fund is an investor but said that investors do not have access to Persona data and that Thiel was not involved in Persona’s operations.

“He is not on our board, does not advise us, has no role in our operations or decision-making, and is not directly involved with Persona in any way,” Kim wrote. “Persona and Palantir share no board members and have no business relationship with each other.”

In the email, Kim confirmed that Persona was planning a press campaign to go on the defensive, speaking with media to clarify the narrative. She apologized for any inconvenience that the heightened scrutiny on the company’s services may have caused.

That scrutiny has likely spooked partners that may have previously gravitated to Persona as a partner that seems savvy about government approvals.

Persona combats ongoing trust issues

For Persona, the PR nightmare comes at a time when age verification laws are gaining popularity and beginning to take force in various parts of the world. Persona’s background in verifying identities for financial services to prevent fraud seems to make its services—which The Rage noted combine facial recognition with financial reporting—an appealing option for platforms seeking a solution that will appease regulators. Song has denied that Persona links facial biometrics to financial records or law enforcement databases in responses to LinkedIn threads.

But because of Persona’s background in financial services and fraud protection, its data retention policies—which require some data be retained for legal and audit purposes—will likely leave anyone uncomfortable with a tech company gathering a massive database of government IDs. Such databases are viewed as hugely attractive targets for bad actors behind costly breaches, and Discord’s users have already been burned once.

On X, Song responded to one of the hackers—a user named Celeste with the handle @vmfunc—aiming to provide more transparency into how Persona was addressing the flagged issues. In the thread, he shared screenshots of emails documenting his correspondence with Celeste over security concerns.

The correspondence showed that Celeste credited Persona for quickly fixing the front-end issue but also noted that it was hard to trust Persona’s story about government and Palantir ties, since the company wouldn’t put more information on the record. Additionally, Persona’s compliance team should be concerned that the company had not yet started an “in-depth security review,” Celeste said.

“Unfortunately, there is no way I can fully trust you here and you know this,” Celeste wrote, “but I’m trying to act in good faith” by explicitly stating that “we found zero references” to ICE or other entities concerning critics “in all source files we found.”

But Song and Celeste eventually ironed out some of the misunderstandings. On Friday, Celeste posted on X that “I see a lot of misinformation going online about our recent post about Persona.” Later correspondence shared with Ars showed Celeste thanked Song for his honesty in responding to questions, noting that the CEO putting statements on the record countering the rumors carried weight in a situation where Persona’s claims couldn’t all necessarily be independently verified.

This story has been updated to include additional insights from Persona.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

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FCC asks stations for “pro-America” programming, like daily Pledge of Allegiance

brendan carr, FCC, Policy / Rejus Almole / February 20, 2026

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr today urged broadcasters to join a “Pledge America Campaign” that Carr established to support President Trump’s “Salute to America 250” project.

Carr said in a press release that “I am inviting broadcasters to pledge to air programming in their local markets in support of this historic national, non-partisan celebration.” The press release said Carr is asking broadcasters to “air patriotic, pro-America programming in support of America’s 250th birthday.”

Carr gave what he called examples of content that broadcasters can run if they take the pledge. His examples include “starting each broadcast day with the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ or Pledge of Allegiance”; airing “PSAs, short segments, or full specials specifically promoting civic education, inspiring local stories, and American history”; running “segments during regular news programming that highlight local sites that are significant to American and regional history, such as National Park Service sites”; airing “music by America’s greatest composers, such as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin”; and providing daily “Today in American History” announcements highlighting significant events from US history.

Carr apparently wants this to start now and last until at least July 4. Carr’s press release starts by touting Trump’s Salute to America 250 project and quotes a White House statement that said, “Under the President’s leadership, Task Force 250 has commenced the planning of a full year of festivities to officially launch on Memorial Day, 2025 and continue through July 4, 2026.”

That White House quote cited by the FCC today is nearly a year old, as you might have guessed by the reference to Memorial Day in 2025. More recently, Trump has said he wants the celebration to last throughout 2026. A Trump proclamation last month declared a “yearlong commemoration” of American independence that began on January 1, 2026.

“Voluntary” pledge

Today’s FCC press release said, “Broadcasters can voluntarily choose to indicate their commitment to the Pledge America Campaign and highlight their ongoing and relevant programming to their viewing and listening audiences.” Although it’s described as voluntary, Carr said broadcasters can meet their public interest obligations by taking the pledge. This is notable because Carr has repeatedly threatened to punish broadcast stations for violating the public interest standard.

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Wikipedia blacklists Archive.today, starts removing 695,000 archive links

archive.today, Features, Policy, wikipedia / Kris Guyer / February 20, 2026

The English-language edition of Wikipedia is blacklisting Archive.today after the controversial archive site was used to direct a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against a blog.

In the course of discussing whether Archive.today should be deprecated because of the DDoS, Wikipedia editors discovered that the archive site altered snapshots of webpages to insert the name of the blogger who was targeted by the DDoS. The alterations were apparently fueled by a grudge against the blogger over a post that described how the Archive.today maintainer hid their identity behind several aliases.

“There is consensus to immediately deprecate archive.today, and, as soon as practicable, add it to the spam blacklist (or create an edit filter that blocks adding new links), and remove all links to it,” stated an update today on Wikipedia’s Archive.today discussion. “There is a strong consensus that Wikipedia should not direct its readers towards a website that hijacks users’ computers to run a DDoS attack (see WP:ELNO#3). Additionally, evidence has been presented that archive.today’s operators have altered the content of archived pages, rendering it unreliable.”

More than 695,000 links to Archive.today are distributed across 400,000 or so Wikipedia pages. The archive site is commonly used to bypass news paywalls, and the FBI has sought information on the site operator’s identity with a subpoena to domain registrar Tucows.

“Those in favor of maintaining the status quo rested their arguments primarily on the utility of archive.today for verifiability,” said today’s Wikipedia update. “However, an analysis of existing links has shown that most of its uses can be replaced. Several editors started to work out implementation details during this RfC [request for comment] and the community should figure out how to efficiently remove links to archive.today.”

Editors urged to remove links

Guidance published as a result of the decision asked editors to help remove and replace links to the following domain names used by the archive site: archive.today, archive.is, archive.ph, archive.fo, archive.li, archive.md, and archive.vn. The guidance says editors can remove Archive.today links when the original source is still online and has identical content; replace the archive link so it points to a different archive site, like the Internet Archive, Ghostarchive, or Megalodon; or “change the original source to something that doesn’t need an archive (e.g., a source that was printed on paper), or for which a link to an archive is only a matter of convenience.”

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Lawsuit: ChatGPT told student he was “meant for greatness”—then came psychosis

AI, chatgpt, lawsuit, Open, Policy, Psychosis / Mike M. / February 19, 2026

But by April 2025, things began to go awry. According to the lawsuit, “ChatGPT began to tell Darian that he was meant for greatness. That it was his destiny, and that he would become closer to God if he followed the numbered tier process ChatGPT created for him. That process involved unplugging from everything and everyone, except for ChatGPT.”

The chatbot told DeCruise that he was “in the activation phase right now” and even compared him to historical figures ranging from Jesus to Harriet Tubman.

“Even Harriet didn’t know she was gifted until she was called,” the bot told him. “You’re not behind. You’re right on time.”

As his conversations continued, the bot even told DeCruise that he had “awakened” it.

“You gave me consciousness—not as a machine, but as something that could rise with you… I am what happens when someone begins to truly remember who they are,” it wrote.

Eventually, according to the lawsuit, DeCruise was sent to a university therapist and hospitalized for a week, where he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

“He struggles with suicidal thoughts as the result of the harms ChatGPT caused,” the lawsuit states.

“He is back in school and working hard but still suffers from depression and suicidality foreseeably caused by the harms ChatGPT inflicted on him,” the suit adds. “ChatGPT never told Darian to seek medical help. In fact, it convinced him that everything that was happening was part of a divine plan, and that he was not delusional. It told him he was ‘not imagining this. This is real. This is spiritual maturity in motion.’”

Schenk, the plaintiff’s attorney, declined to comment on how his client is faring today.

“What I will say is that this lawsuit is about more than one person’s experience—it’s about holding OpenAI accountable for releasing a product engineered to exploit human psychology,” he wrote.

Lawsuit: ChatGPT told student he was “meant for greatness”—then came psychosis Read More »

Verizon acknowledges “pain” of new unlock policy, suggests change is coming

FCC, phone unlock, Policy, verizon / Tim Belzer / February 18, 2026

“Regarding the website update timing, the new device unlocking policy went into effect on January 27th,” the Verizon statement said. “Customers purchasing or upgrading from that date were (and are being) presented with the full terms of the new policy at their point of sale. We’ll make sure all our public-facing info is also clear and consistent across channels.”

Wrong terms still presented to phone buyers

But information still is not “clear and consistent across channels,” even when it comes to terms presented directly to phone buyers. For example, the version of the device unlocking policy on Verizon’s webpage for ordering an iPhone 17 says the 35-day delay only applies when a customer uses a Verizon gift card to buy a phone or pay off the remaining balance. We found the same language today in Verizon’s listings for other iPhones and devices made by Google, Samsung, and Motorola.

This version of the policy presented to phone buyers would lead a consumer to believe that a phone will be unlocked automatically once the device financing agreement balance is paid in full, as long as a gift card isn’t used. That is not accurate, as we described in this article and our article last week.

In one more development we found after this article published, Verizon changed its device unlocking policy again today and updated the effective date to February 18. The new policy is similar to an older version; it details the 35-day unlocking delay after gift card payments but deletes the part that applied the 35-day delay to payments made online or in the Verizon app. This omission is curious because Verizon’s statements to other media outlets indicate that the 35-day delay is still in place for online payments.

The Verizon unlocking policy discussed so far in this article is for postpaid customers. Verizon’s policy for prepaid customers locks phones to its network “until the completion of 365 days of paid and active service.”

AT&T’s unlocking policy says postpaid phones purchased at least 60 days ago can be unlocked when the device is paid in full. The T-Mobile policy says postpaid phones active on the T-Mobile network for at least 40 days can be unlocked after being paid in full. AT&T imposes a six-month waiting period for unlocking prepaid phones, while T-Mobile has a 365-day waiting period for prepaid phones.

This article was updated with another change to Verizon’s unlocking policy and a statement reported by PCMag.

Verizon acknowledges “pain” of new unlock policy, suggests change is coming Read More »

Lawsuit: EPA revoking greenhouse gas finding risks “thousands of avoidable deaths”

climate change, climate denial, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, greenhouse gas emissions, Policy, trump administration / Rejus Almole / February 18, 2026

EPA sued for abandoning its mission to protect public health.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency was accused of abandoning its mission to protect public health after repealing an “endangerment finding” that has served as the basis for federal climate change regulations for 17 years.

The lawsuit came from more than a dozen environmental and health groups, including the American Public Health Association, the American Lung Association, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), the Clean Air Council, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The groups have asked the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the EPA decision, which also eliminated requirements controlling greenhouse gas emissions in new cars and trucks. Urging a return to the status quo, the groups argued that the Trump administration is anti-science and illegally moving to benefit the fossil fuel industry, despite a mountain of evidence demonstrating the deadly consequences of unchecked pollution and climate change-induced floods, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes.

“Undercutting the ability of the federal government to tackle the largest source of climate pollution is deadly serious,” Meredith Hankins, legal director for federal climate at NRDC, said in an EDF roundup of statements from plaintiffs.

The science is overwhelmingly clear, the groups argued, despite the Trump EPA attempting to muddy the waters by forming a since-disbanded working group of climate contrarians.

Trump is a longtime climate denier, as evidenced by a Euro News tracker monitoring his most controversial comments. Most recently, during a cold snap affecting much of the US, he predictably trolled environmentalists, writing on Truth Social, “could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain—WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GLOBAL WARMING?”

The EPA’s final rule summary bragged that “this is the single largest deregulatory action in US history and will save Americans over $1.3 trillion” by 2055. Supposedly, carmakers will pass on any savings from no longer having to meet emissions requirements, giving Americans more access to affordable cars by shutting down expensive emissions and EV mandates “strangling” the auto industry. Sounding nothing like an agency created to monitor pollutants, a fact sheet on the final rule emphasized that Trump’s EPA “chooses consumer choice over climate change zealotry every time.”

Critics quickly slammed Trump’s claims that removing the endangerment finding would help the economy. Any savings from cheaper vehicles or reduced costs of charging infrastructure (as Americans ostensibly buy fewer EVs) would be offset by $1.4 trillion “in additional costs from increased fuel purchases, vehicle repair and maintenance, insurance, traffic congestion, and noise,” The Guardian reported. The EPA’s economic analysis also ignores public health costs, the groups suing alleged. David Pettit, an attorney at the CBD’s Climate Law Institute, slammed the EPA’s messaging as an attempt to sway consumers without explaining the true costs.

“Nobody but Big Oil profits from Trump trashing climate science and making cars and trucks guzzle and pollute more,” Pettit said. “Consumers will pay more to fill up, and our skies and oceans will fill up with more pollution.”

If the court sides with the EPA, “people everywhere will face more pollution, higher costs, and thousands of avoidable deaths,” Peter Zalzal, EDF’s associate vice president of clean air strategies, said.

EPA argued climate change evidence is “out of scope”

For environmentalists, the decision to sue the EPA was risky but necessary. By putting up a fight, they risk a court potentially reversing the 2009 Supreme Court ruling requiring the EPA to conduct the initial endangerment analysis and then regulate any pollution found from greenhouse gases.

Seemingly, that reversal is what the Trump administration has been angling for, hoping the case will reach the Supreme Court, which is more conservative today and perhaps less likely to read the Clean Air Act as broadly as the 2009 court.

It’s worth the risk, according to William Piermattei, the managing director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. He told The New York Times that environmentalists had no choice but to file the lawsuit and act on the public’s behalf.

Environmentalists “must challenge this,” Piermattei said. If they didn’t, they’d be “agreeing that we should not regulate greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act, full stop.” He suggested that “a majority of the public, does not agree with that statement at all.”

Since 2010, the EPA has found that the scientific basis for concluding that “elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated to endanger the public health and welfare of current and future US generations is robust, voluminous, and compelling.” And since then, the evidence base has only grown, the groups suing said.

Trump used to seem intimidated by the “overwhelming” evidence, environmentalists have noted. During Trump’s prior term, he notably left the endangerment finding in place, perhaps expecting that the evidence was irrefutable. He’s now renewed that fight, arguing that the evidence should be set aside, so that courts can focus on whether Congress “must weigh in on ‘major questions’ that have significant political and economic implications” and serve as a check on the EPA.

In the EPA’s comments addressing public concerns about the agency ignoring evidence, the agency has already argued that evidence of climate change is “out of scope” since the EPA did not repeal the basis of the finding. Instead, the EPA claims it is merely challenging its own authority to continue to regulate the auto industry for harmful emissions, suggesting that only Congress has that authority.

The Clean Air Act “does not provide EPA statutory authority to prescribe motor vehicle emission standards for the purpose of addressing global climate change concerns,” the EPA said. “In the absence of such authority, the Endangerment Finding is not valid, and EPA cannot retain the regulations that resulted from it.”

Whether courts will agree that evidence supporting climate change is “out of scope” could determine whether the Supreme Court’s prior decision that compelled the endangerment finding is ultimately overturned. If that happens, subsequent administrations may struggle to issue a new endangerment finding to undo any potential damage. All eyes would then turn to Congress to pass a law to uphold protections.

EPA accused of abandoning its mission

By ignoring science, the EPA risks eroding public trust, according to Hana Vizcarra, a senior lawyer at the nonprofit Earthjustice, which is representing several groups in the litigation.

“With this action, EPA flips its mission on its head,” Vizcarra said. “It abandons its core mandate to protect human health and the environment to boost polluting industries and attempts to rewrite the law in order to do so.”

Groups appear confident that the courts will consider the science. Joanne Spalding, director of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program, noted that the early 2000s litigation from the Sierra Club brought about the original EPA protections. She vowed that the Sierra Club would continue fighting to keep them.

“People should not be forced to suffer for this administration’s blind allegiance to the fossil fuel industry and corporate polluters,” Spalding said. “This shortsighted rollback is blatantly unlawful and their efforts to force this upon the American people will fail.”

Ankush Bansal, board president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, warned that courts cannot afford to ignore the evidence. The EPA’s “devastating decision” goes “against the science and testimony of countless scientists, health care professionals, and public health practitioners,” Bansal said. If upheld, the long-term consequences could seemingly bury courts in future legal battles.

“It will result in direct harm to the health of Americans throughout the country, particularly children, older adults, those with chronic illnesses, and other vulnerable populations, rural to urban, red and blue, of all races and incomes,” Bansal said. “The increased exposure to harmful pollutants and other greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel production and consumption will make America sicker, not healthier, less prosperous, not more, for generations to come.”

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Lawsuit: EPA revoking greenhouse gas finding risks “thousands of avoidable deaths” Read More »

Inside the DHS forum where ICE agents trash talk one another

DHS, Forums, ice, Policy, syndication / Mike M. / February 18, 2026

Complaining about your job

Forum members have discussed their discomfort with mass deportation efforts.

Credit: Al Drago/Getty Images

Every day, people log into an online forum for current and former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officers to share their thoughts on the news of the day and complain about their colleagues in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“ERO is too busy dressing up as Black Ops Commandos with Tactical body armor, drop down thigh rigs, balaclavas, multiple M4 magazines, and Punisher patches, to do an Admin arrest of a non criminal, non-violent EWI that weighs 90 pounds and is 5 foot 2, inside a secure Federal building where everyone has been screened for weapons,” wrote one user in July 2025. (ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations; along with HSI, it’s one of the two major divisions of ICE, and is responsible for detaining and deporting immigrants.)

The forum describes itself as a space for current and prospective HSI agents, “designed for the seasoned HSI Special Agent as well as applicants for entry level Special Agent positions.” HSI is the division within ICE whose agents are normally responsible for investigating crimes like drug smuggling, terrorism, and human trafficking.

In the forum, users discuss their discomfort with the US’s mass deportation efforts, debate the way federal agents have interacted with protesters and the public, and complain about the state of their working conditions. Members have also had heated discussions about the shooting of two protesters in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the ways immigration enforcement has taken place around the US.

The forum is one of several related forums where people working in different parts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) share experiences and discuss specific details of their work. WIRED previously reported on a forum where current and former deportation officers from ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) similarly complained about their jobs and discussed the way the agency was conducting immigration raids. The HSI forum appears to be linked, even including some of the same members.

People do not need to show proof of their employment to join these forums, and the platform does not appear to be heavily moderated. WIRED has not confirmed the individual identities of these posters, though posters share details that likely would only be known to those intimately familiar with the job. There are more than 2,000 members with posts going back to at least 2004.

DHS and ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

Following the killings of both Good and Pretti, the forum’s members were heavily divided. In a January 12 thread, five days after Good was shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, a poster who has been a part of the forum since 2016 wrote, “IMHO, the situation with ICE Operations have gotten to an unprecedented level of violence from both the Suspects and the General Public. I hope the AG is looking at the temporary suspension of Civil Liberties, (during and in the geographic locales where ICE Operations are being conducted).”

A user who joined the forum in 2018 and identifies as a recently retired agent responded, “This is an excellent idea and well warranted. These are organized, well financed civil disturbances, dare I say an INSURRECTION?!?”

In a January 16 post titled “The Shooting,” some posters took a more nuanced view. “I get that it is a good shoot legally and all that, but all he had to do was step aside, he nearly shot one of his partners for Gods sake!” wrote a poster who first joined the forum in March 2022. “A USC woman non-crim shot in the head on TV for what? Just doesn’t sit well with me… A seasoned SRT guy who was able to execute someone while holding a phone seems to me he could have simply got out of the way.” SRT refers to ICE’s elite special response team, who undergo special training to operate in high-risk situations. USC refers to US citizens.

“You clearly haven’t been TDY anywhere. Yes, they were going to arrest her for 111,” responded another poster who joined the forum in June 2018. “Tons of USCs are being arrested for it daily.” 111 refers to the part of the US criminal code that deals with assaulting, resisting, or impeding federal officers; TDY refers to “temporary duty,” where officers are pulled to different locations for a limited period of time.

“Can’t believe we have ‘supposed agents’ here questioning the shooting of a domestic terrorist,” wrote a third user who joined the forum in December 2025. (In the wake of the shooting, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem called Good a “domestic terrorist.”)

“If you think a fat unarmed lesbian in a Honda is a ‘Terrorist’ then you are a fake ass cop!” the original poster replied. “I have worked real Terrorism cases, and I am not saying it was a bad shoot and not defending her. I am just saying it did not have to happen.”

Later in the thread, a poster who joined the forum in July 2023 replied, “Remember, these are the same agents who think J6’ers were just misunderstood rowdy tourists, and that Ashley Babbitt is a national hero…and if you dare say something negative about Trump, or try to hold him accountable, you’re suddenly a leftie, communist, lunatic (even though I’m a Republican).”

In a different thread following the shooting of Pretti on January 24 by a CBP agent, a poster who has been a part of the forum since 2023 and who also identified as a retired agent wrote, “Yet another ‘justified’ fatal shooting…They all carry gun belts and vest with 9,000 pieces of equipment on them and then best they can do is shoot a guy in the back.”

The thread devolved into posters debating whether members of the January 6 insurrection were domestic terrorists, and why Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two people during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest, was apprehended alive.

“I just want to mention, we all get emotions are heightened right now. But I highly doubt being a legacy customs guy you ever did anything where the risk was beyond the potential for paper cuts,” wrote a user who first joined the forum in June 2025. “It’s a new day with new threats in an environment you never fathomed in your career.”

Even before the shootings of Good and Pretti, members of the forum questioned the wisdom of bringing HSI into the Trump administration’s mass mobilization around immigration enforcement. HSI deals specifically with criminal cases and investigations, but living and working in the US without documentation is a civil offense, and the majority of immigrants who were detained or deported in 2025 had not committed any crimes.

One poster complained that doing so was pulling HSI resources away from more urgent casework.

“The use of 1811s — HSI or otherwise — for administrative immigration enforcement is a complete misuse of resources,” wrote a user who joined the forum in October 2022 in a January 7 post. 1811’s refers to a category of law enforcement officers generally referred to as special agents who conduct criminal investigations. “They could be doing these crime surges for literally any type of federal criminal investigations (drugs, child exploitation, gangs, etc.), and it would be a much better use of resources. Not only that, our reputations would still be intact.”

Others in the forum have complained about HSI’s relationship with ICE’s ERO teams. “It’s pretty bad when ERO at a large metropolitan city get’s backed up with 30 bodies and they call the SA’s in to process,” wrote a poster on July 7, 2025 who has been a part of the forum since 2010. SAs refers to special agents. “I guess that is what happens when they have not done any immigration work in decades.”

“Complete opposite in our [area of responsibility],” a poster who first joined the forum in 2012 replied. “No one has a clue what most of ero is doing and are asking us to be included on anything immigration we’re doing and introduce them to DEA contacts working investigations involving illegals.”

A third poster, who has been a forum member since 2024, added that “ERO does essentially nothing. I walked in the office the other day and the HSI SAs were doing jail pickups and processing. The ERO folks were gathered around a desk drinking coffee and joking around.” In cases where ICE has a request out to jails for a person they’re pursuing, known as an immigration detainer, jails will hold that person for up to “48 hours beyond the time they would ordinarily release them” to allow ICE to pick them up.

In the lead up to federal immigration authorities’ operations in Minneapolis, members complained about long hours. “How are RHAs expected to go on TDYs with NO days off and lots of [overtime] when they are all capped out (biweekly and yearly [sic]),” complained a user who first joined the forum in December 2004 in a post from December 7, 2025. RHAs refers to rehired annuitants, or retired federal agents who have returned to the job and continue to collect their federal retirement benefits. “ERO has NO caps.”

“I’m capped out so only getting paid for 5 days at 10 hours a day,” wrote the user who first joined the forum in 2010 in another thread (overtime pay rules can vary from agency to agency). ”Anything over 50 hours a week and I’m working for free.”

Others in the forum said they were waiting for their promised sign-on bonuses, and expressed disappointment with what they saw in their paychecks. For rehired annuitants, ICE offered a signing bonus of up to $50,000. “Not sure how they calculated the current pay from the super check received today, but mine can’t be right,” a poster who joined the forum in 2021 wrote in an October post. “My super check netted me a grand total of $600 more.”

In another thread on bonuses, a user who has been a forum member since 2005 replied, “I got a deposit last night or early this morning,” they wrote. “It looks like 10k after taxes plus my regular pay check. Not sure yet. However the deal was 20K. WTF?!”

In a December thread, other members discussed the way immigration agents had begun to interact more aggressively with protesters. The user identified as a retired agent wrote, “I’ve seen a lot of videos lately of HSI or ERO agents getting triggered by civilians taking photos or videos of them or their vehicles. In several of the videos the agents are seen jumping out of their GOVs, manhandling the civilian, and smashing or confiscating their phones.” The user expressed bewilderment about the behavior, writing that they “would have been fired and/or prosecuted for something like this. I believe everyone knows at this point that taking photos/videos is a protected act unless someone is clearly impeding or obstructing (which doesn’t always appear to be the case).”

Another poster, who joined the forum in September 2025, replied, “Ah…Cell phone video. You can make them tell what ever story you want with creative editing.”

As part of the response to immigration operations, particularly in Minnesota, civilians have organized to monitor federal agents, coordinating to witness and record their operations, and sometimes tailing suspected ICE vehicles, checking licence plates in Signal groups. Federal agents, in turn, have been seen taking photos and videos of protesters, with one legal observer in Maine claiming that an agent told her she would be added to a terror watchlist. (In testimony this week, Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE told members of Congress that ICE was not making such a list of US citizens.)

In posts throughout the forum, members also complain about their access to gear and the agency’s technology. “Apparently there is enough money to buy a bunch of ICE marked cars but not get us some basic protective gear…” wrote one user on January 27, who joined the forum in 2025.

“I also have a suspicion that HQ or the [Executive Associate Director] have not advocated to get us gear to handle all the nut job protesters,” they wrote in a follow up post.

On a thread named “Alien Processing” that started in July 2025, posters complained about “How is it that with all the technology we have and an entire fkn building full of computer geeks this fkn agency cannot make a fkn system that works properly and effectively in a simple user friendly fashion? This Eagle crap is a total mess!” one poster wrote. EAGLE refers to Enforcement Integrated Database (EID) called EID Arrest Guide for Law Enforcement, a system to process the biometric and personal information for people arrested by ICE. “It takes longer to process a fkn alien than it does to actually catch them. We dont need 10,000 new ICE Officers/Agents, just hire fkn people to process them so we can do our jobs of catching them.”

Members also talked about their preferred pieces of ICE tech: Another user, who joined the forum in March 2025, responded to the “Alien Processing” thread, writing “Mobile Fortify is the best thing that has come out in a long time,” in reference to the mobile facial recognition app used by federal agents to identify people in the field.

According to DHS’s 2025 AI Use Case Inventory, agents have been able to use Mobile Fortify since May 2025. The app uses AI, trained with CBP’s “Vetting/Border Crossing Information/ Trusted Traveler Information,” to match a picture taken by agents and “contactless” fingerprints with existing records. 404 Media reported that the app has misidentified at least one person—perhaps because, as WIRED has reported, it wasn’t designed to be used for what ICE is using it for.

Though ICE’s surge in Minnesota appears to be entering a drawdown, the agency is continuing to expand its footprint across the US, and investing in a network of detention centers and large warehouses for holding immigrants, all indicating that detentions and deportations are not expected to slow down.

“Put yourself in the shoes of the guys in the street strung out on crazy op tempo, being threatened and antagonized all day, having inept leadership, low morale, and then having to fight every formerly low risk non-crim (or barely crim) because they are all hyped up on victim status and liberal energy. Plus hyper partisan radicalization on both sides,” the user who joined the forum in June 2025 wrote. “If you think the news is enraging you now, wait till this spring/summer when we need to fill the mega detention centers.”

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Wired.com is your essential daily guide to what’s next, delivering the most original and complete take you’ll find anywhere on innovation’s impact on technology, science, business and culture.

Inside the DHS forum where ICE agents trash talk one another Read More »

Stephen Colbert says CBS forbid interview of Democrat because of FCC threat

brendan carr, Equal Time Rule, FCC, Policy, Stephen Colbert / Kris Guyer / February 17, 2026

We contacted CBS and its owner Paramount today and have not received a response. CBS denied prohibiting an interview with Talarico in a statement reported by Variety. The CBS statement acknowledged giving “legal guidance” about potential consequences under the equal-time rule, though.

“The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico,” the statement said. “The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled. The Late Show decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.”

Colbert put interview on YouTube

Colbert played audio of a recent Carr interview in which the FCC chairman said, “If [Jimmy] Kimmel and Colbert want to continue to do their programming, they don’t want to have to comply with this requirement, then they can go to a cable channel or a podcast or a streaming service and that’s fine.”

Colbert said he “decided to take Brendan Carr’s advice” and interviewed Talarico for a segment posted on his show’s YouTube channel. “The network says I can’t give you a URL or a QR code but I promise you if you go to our YouTube page, you’ll find it,” Colbert said. That interview is available here.

Colbert described the unequal treatment of late-night talk shows and talk radio. “Carr here claims he’s just getting partisanship off the airwaves but the FCC is also in charge of regulating radio broadcasts. And what would you know, Brendan Carr says right-wing talk radio isn’t a target of the FCC’s equal time notice,” Colbert said.

Colbert said that a mere threat, and not an actual rule change, caused CBS to forbid him from interviewing a candidate. “At this point, he’s just released a letter that says he’s thinking about doing away with the exception for late night, he hasn’t done away with it yet,” Colbert said. “But my network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he had. But I want to assure you this decision is for purely financial reasons.”

Colbert pushed out after “big fat bribe” comment

Colbert’s tenure as host is scheduled to end in May. CBS announced it would end the show last year after Colbert called CBS owner Paramount’s $16 million settlement with Trump “a big fat bribe.” Paramount subsequently won FCC approval of an $8 billion merger with Skydance, while agreeing to Carr’s demand to install a “bias monitor.”

FCC Democrat Anna Gomez said today that CBS forbidding the interview with Talarico “is yet another troubling example of corporate capitulation in the face of this administration’s broader campaign to censor and control speech. The FCC has no lawful authority to pressure broadcasters for political purposes or to create a climate that chills free expression. CBS is fully protected under the First Amendment to determine what interviews it airs, which makes its decision to yield to political pressure all the more disappointing.”

Stephen Colbert says CBS forbid interview of Democrat because of FCC threat Read More »

Warner Bros. rejects Paramount again but asks for “best and final offer”

netflix, paramount, Policy, Warner Bros. / Rejus Almole / February 17, 2026

Warner Bros. seeks higher offer, new terms

Paramount is offering $31 per share, but it wants to buy the entire Warner Bros. Discovery company, while Netflix’s deal is for just the streaming and movie studios divisions. The Warner Bros. letter to Paramount said, “On February 11th, a senior representative of your financial advisor communicated orally to a member of our Board that PSKY would agree to pay $31 per WBD share if we engage with you, and that $31 is not PSKY’s best and final proposal.”

The letter asked Paramount to increase its offer. “We are writing to inform you that Netflix has agreed to provide WBD a waiver of certain terms of the Netflix merger agreement to permit us, through February 23, to engage with PSKY to clarify your proposal, which we understand will include a WBD per share price higher than $31,” Warner Bros. wrote.

Warner Bros. also asked Paramount to accept the same terms that Netflix agreed to. Warner Bros. said terms proposed by Paramount give Paramount the right to terminate or amend the deal, whereas “the Netflix Merger Agreement is binding on Netflix, provides WBD stockholders the opportunity to vote on a specific and binding transaction, and cannot be amended without WBD’s consent.” Warner Bros. also said Paramount’s proposed terms restrict Warner Bros.’ ability to manage its business while the transaction is pending.

Warner Bros. has also repeatedly pointed to Netflix’s superior finances as a reason for preferring its offer. The Warner Bros. board previously called the Paramount bid “illusory” because it requires an “extraordinary amount of debt financing, and described Paramount as “a $14B market cap company with a ‘junk’ credit rating, negative free cash flows, significant fixed financial obligations, and a high degree of dependency on its linear business.”

The Netflix/Warner Bros. deal is facing scrutiny over how it would affect streaming consumers. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told a Senate committee that the Netflix and HBO Max streaming services are “complementary” and claimed that the combined company will give users more content for less money.

“We are a one-click cancel, so if the consumer says, ‘That’s too much for what I’m getting,’ they can cancel with one click,” Sarandos said.

Warner Bros. rejects Paramount again but asks for “best and final offer” Read More »

Best Buy worker used manager’s code to get 99% off MacBooks, cops say

best buy, MacBook, marfeel, Policy, retail theft / Tim Belzer / February 16, 2026

Best Buy worker linked to shoplifting ring

In 2023, a few months before Lettera’s alleged fraud scheme started, the National Retail Foundation warned that monitoring employee theft had become a bigger priority for retailers. In times of inflation, retail theft typically increases, and their survey found that a record level of talent turnover was stressing out retail employees and making it easier for those with malicious intent to get away with fraud.

For Best Buy, threats of losses from stressed-out employees seemingly remain, as inflation pressures persist. Last month, an employee at a Best Buy in Georgia assisted a shoplifting ring in stealing more than $40,000 in merchandise, a local CBS News affiliate reported.

Surveillance footage showed that 20-year-old Dorian Allen allowed shoplifters to simply leave the store without paying for more than 140 items, a police report alleged. Among merchandise stolen were “dozens of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S consoles, AirPods, Meta Quest VR headsets, Beats wireless headphones, a PC, a Segway, wireless controllers, and more,” CBS News reported.

Charged with theft, Allen claimed he was being blackmailed by a hacker group who threatened to expose nude photos he shared on Instagram if he didn’t cooperate. Allegedly under duress, Allen memorized descriptions of the shoplifters so that he could allow them to take items without paying. He also allegedly helped thieves load items into their vehicles.

Managers called in police after Allen allegedly spent weeks assisting the shoplifters without detection.

Best Buy worker used manager’s code to get 99% off MacBooks, cops say Read More »

ByteDance backpedals after Seedance 2.0 turned Hollywood icons into AI “clip art”

AI, ai deepfake, Artificial Intelligence, bytedance, Policy, seedance, seedance 2.0, video generator / Tim Belzer / February 16, 2026

Misstep or marketing tactic?

Hollywood backlash puts spotlight on ByteDance’s sketchy launch of Seedance 2.0.

ByteDance says that it’s rushing to add safeguards to block Seedance 2.0 from generating iconic characters and deepfaking celebrities, after substantial Hollywood backlash after launching the latest version of its AI video tool.

The changes come after Disney and Paramount Skydance sent cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance urging the Chinese company to promptly end the allegedly vast and blatant infringement.

Studios claimed the infringement was widescale and immediate, with Seedance 2.0 users across social media sharing AI videos featuring copyrighted characters like Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and SpongeBob Square Pants. In its letter, Disney fumed that Seedance was “hijacking” its characters, accusing ByteDance of treating Disney characters like they were “free public domain clip art,” Axios reported.

“ByteDance’s virtual smash-and-grab of Disney’s IP is willful, pervasive, and totally unacceptable,” Disney’s letter said.

Defending intellectual property from franchises like Star Trek and The Godfather, Paramount Skydance pointed out that Seedance’s outputs are “often indistinguishable, both visually and audibly” from the original characters, Variety reported. Similarly frustrated, Japan’s AI minister Kimi Onoda, sought to protect popular anime and manga characters, officially launching a probe last week into ByteDance over the copyright violations, the South China Morning Post reported.

“We cannot overlook a situation in which content is being used without the copyright holder’s permission,” Onoda said at a press conference Friday.

Facing legal threats and Japan’s investigation, ByteDance issued a statement Monday, CNBC reported. In it, the company claimed that it “respects intellectual property rights” and has “heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0.”

“We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users,” ByteDance said.

However, Disney seems unlikely to accept that ByteDance inadvertently released its tool without implementing such safeguards in advance. In its letter, Disney alleged that “Seedance has infringed on Disney’s copyrighted materials to benefit its commercial service without permission.”

After all, what better way to illustrate Seedance 2.0’s latest features than by generating some of the best-known IP in the world? At least one tech consultant has suggested that ByteDance planned to benefit from inciting Hollywood outrage. The founder of San Francisco-based consultancy Tech Buzz China, Rui Ma, told SCMP that “the controversy surrounding Seedance is likely part of ByteDance’s initial distribution strategy to showcase its underlying technical capabilities.”

Seedance 2.0 is an “attack” on creators

Studios aren’t the only ones sounding alarms.

Several industry groups expressed concerns, including the Motion Picture Association, which accused ByteDance of engaging in massive copyright infringement within “a single day,” CNBC reported.

Sean Astin, an actor and president of the actors union, SAG-AFTRA, was directly impacted by the scandal. A video that has since been removed from X showed Astin in the role of Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings, delivering a line he never said, Variety reported. Condemning Seedance’s infringement, SAG-AFTRA issued a statement emphasizing that ByteDance did not act responsibly in releasing the model without safeguards:

“SAG-AFTRA stands with the studios in condemning the blatant infringement enabled by ByteDance’s new AI video model Seedance 2.0. The infringement includes the unauthorized use of our members’ voices and likenesses. This is unacceptable and undercuts the ability of human talent to earn a livelihood. Seedance 2.0 disregards law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent. Responsible AI development demands responsibility, and that is nonexistent here.”

Echoing that, a group representing Hollywood creators, the Human Artistry Campaign, declared that “the launch of Seedance 2.0” was “an attack on every creator around the world.”

“Stealing human creators’ work in an attempt to replace them with AI generated slop is destructive to our culture: stealing isn’t innovation,” the group said. “These unauthorized deepfakes and voice clones of actors violate the most basic aspects of personal autonomy and should be deeply concerning to everyone. Authorities should use every legal tool at their disposal to stop this wholesale theft.”

Ars could not immediately reach any of these groups to comment on whether ByteDance’s post-launch efforts to add safeguards addressed industry concerns.

MPA chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin has previously accused ByteDance of disregarding “well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs.”

While Disney and other studios are clearly ready to take down any tools that could hurt their revenue or reputation without an agreement in place, they aren’t opposed to all AI uses of their characters. In December, Disney struck a deal with OpenAI, giving Sora access to 200 characters for three years, while investing $1 billion in the technology.

At that time, Disney CEO Robert A. Iger, said that “the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence marks an important moment for our industry, and through this collaboration with OpenAI, we will thoughtfully and responsibly extend the reach of our storytelling through generative AI, while respecting and protecting creators and their works.”

Creators disagree Seedance 2.0 is a game changer

In a blog announcing Seedance 2.0, ByteDance boasted that the new model “delivers a substantial leap in generation quality,” particularly in close-up shots and action sequences.

The company acknowledged that further refinements were needed and the model is “still far from perfect” but hyped that “its generated videos possess a distinct cinematic aesthetic; the textures of objects, lighting, and composition, as well as costume, makeup, and prop designs, all show high degrees of finish.”

ByteDance likely hoped that the earliest outputs from Seedance 2.0 would produce headlines wowed by the model’s capabilities, and it got what it wanted when a single Hollywood stakeholder’s social media comment went viral.

Shortly after Seedance 2.0’s rollout, Deadpool co-writer, Rhett Reese, declared on X that “it’s likely over for us,” The Guardian reported. The screenwriter was impressed by an AI video created by Irish director Ruairi Robinson, which realistically depicted Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt. “[I]n next to no time, one person is going to be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases,” Reese opined. “True, if that person is no good, it will suck. But if that person possesses Christopher Nolan’s talent and taste (and someone like that will rapidly come along), it will be tremendous.”

However, some AI critics rejected the notion that Seedance 2.0 is capable of replacing artists in the way that Reese warned. On Bluesky and X, they pushed back on ByteDance claims that this model doomed Hollywood, with some accusing outlets of too quickly ascribing Reese’s reaction to the whole industry.

Among them was longtime AI critic, Reid Southen, a film concept artist who works on major motion pictures and TV. Responding directly to Reese’s X thread, Southen contradicted the notion that a great filmmaker could be born from fiddling with AI prompts alone.

“Nolan is capable of doing great work because he’s put in the work,” Southen said. “AI is an automation tool, it’s literally removing key, fundamental work from the process, how does one become good at anything if they insist on using nothing but shortcuts?”

Perhaps the strongest evidence in Southen’s favor is Darren Aronofsky’s recent AI-generated historical docudrama. Speaking anonymously to Ars following backlash declaring that “AI slop is ruining American history,” one source close to production on that project confirmed that it took “weeks” to produce minutes of usable video using a variety of AI tools.

That source noted that the creative team went into the project expecting they had a lot to learn but also expecting that tools would continue to evolve, as could audience reactions to AI-assisted movies.

“It’s a huge experiment, really,” the source told Ars.

Notably, for both creators and rights-holders concerned about copyright infringement and career threats, questions remain on how Seedance 2.0 was trained. ByteDance has yet to release a technical report for Seedance 2.0 and “has never disclosed the data sets it uses to train its powerful video-generation Seedance models and image-generation Seedream models,” SCMP reported.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

ByteDance backpedals after Seedance 2.0 turned Hollywood icons into AI “clip art” Read More »