Policy – Page 8

Court orders restart of all US offshore wind construction

department of the interior, green, injunction, lawsuit, offshore wind, Policy, renewable energy, Science, trump administration, wind power / Kris Guyer / February 2, 2026

Based on reporting elsewhere, some of the judges viewed the classified report that was used to justify the order to halt construction, but they didn’t find it persuasive. In one case, the judge noted that the government wasn’t acting as if the security risks were real. The threat supposedly comes from the operation of the wind turbines, but the Department of the Interior’s order blocked construction while allowing any completed hardware to operate.

“If the government’s concern is the operation of these facilities, allowing the ongoing operation of the 44 turbines while prohibiting the repair of the existing turbines and the completion of the 18 additional turbines is irrational,” Judge Brian E. Murphy said. That once again raises the possibility that the order halting construction will ultimately be held to be arbitrary and capricious.

For now, however, the courts are largely offering the wind projects relief because the ruling was issued without any warning or communication from the government and would clearly inflict substantial harm on the companies building them. The injunction blocks the government’s hold on construction until a final ruling is issued. The government can still appeal the decision before that point, but the consistency among these rulings suggests it will likely fail.

Several of these projects are near completion and are likely to be done before any government appeal can be heard.

Court orders restart of all US offshore wind construction Read More »

Judge rules Department of Energy’s climate working group was illegal

climate change, doe, endangerment finding, EPA, greenhouse gasses, lawsuit, Policy, Science / Mike M. / February 2, 2026

But the flaws weren’t limited to scientific deficiencies. Two advocacy organizations, the Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists, sued, alleging that the Climate Working Group violated various provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This requires that any groups formed to provide the government with advice must be fairly balanced and keep records that are open to the public. The Climate Working Group, by contrast, operated in secret; in fact, emails obtained during the trial showed that its members were advised to use private emails to limit public scrutiny of their communications.

In response, the DOE dissolved the Climate Working Group in order to claim that the legal issues were moot, as the advisory committee at issue in the suit no longer existed.

No defense

In court, the government initially argued that the Federal Advisory Committee Act didn’t apply, claiming that the Climate Working Group was simply organized to provide information to the government. Based on Friday’s ruling, however, once the court tried to consider that issue, the government shifted to simply arguing that the Climate Working Group no longer existed, so none of this mattered. “The Defendants, in their Opposition and subsequent filings, ignore the allegations relating to the [Federal Advisory Committee Act] violations themselves,” the judge states. “Rather, the Defendants argue only that these claims are moot because the Climate Working Group has been dissolved.”

So, the court was left with little more than the accusations that the Climate Working Group had a membership with biased opinions, failed to hold open meetings, and did not keep public records. Given the lack of opposing arguments, “These violations are now established as a matter of law.”

Judge rules Department of Energy’s climate working group was illegal Read More »

DOJ released Epstein files with dozens of nudes and victims’ names, reports say

department of justice, epstein files, Jeffrey Epstein, Policy / Paul Patrick / February 2, 2026

DOJ reportedly failed to redact nearly 40 nude photos and 43 victims’ names.

Epstein survivor Haley Robson holds up a photo of her younger self during a news conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 18, 2025. Credit: Getty Images | Daniel Heuer/AFP

The Epstein files released by the Department of Justice on Friday included at least a few dozen unredacted nude photos and names of at least 43 victims, according to news reports.

The DOJ missed a December 19 deadline set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act by more than a month, but still released the files without fully redacting nude photos and names of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. The New York Times reported yesterday that it found “nearly 40 unredacted images that appeared to be part of a personal photo collection, showing both nude bodies and the faces of the people portrayed.”

While the people in the photos were young, “it was unclear whether they were minors,” the article said. “Some of the images seemed to show Mr. Epstein’s private island, including a beach. Others were taken in bedrooms and other private spaces.” The photos “appeared to show at least seven different people,” the article said.

The Times said it notified government officials of the nude images and that the pictures have since been “largely removed or redacted” from the files available on the DOJ website. The DOJ told the Times and other media outlets that it is making “additional redactions of personally identifiable information” and redactions of “images of a sexual nature. Once proper redactions have been made, any responsive documents will repopulate online.”

A DOJ spokesperson told Ars today that the department “takes victim protection very seriously and has redacted thousands of victims’ names in the millions of published pages to protect the innocent. The Department had 500 reviewers looking at millions of pages for this very reason, to meet the requirements of the act while protecting victims. When a victim’s name is alleged to be unredacted, our team is working around the clock to fix the issue and republish appropriately redacted pages as soon as possible. To date, 0.1 percent of released pages have been found to have victim identifying information unredacted.”

The 0.1 percent figure is apparently an increase since yesterday, presumably because of more reports of incomplete redactions in the past day. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told ABC News yesterday that “every time we hear from a victim or their lawyer that they believe that their name was not properly redacted, we immediately rectify that. And the numbers we’re talking about, just so the American people understand, we’re talking about .001 percent of all the materials.”

Images “stayed online for at least another full day”

404 Media reported that it sent the DOJ links to nude images from the DOJ’s website and that the “files stayed online for at least another full day, until Sunday evening, when they disappeared.”

Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the files included full names of victims, “including many who haven’t shared their identities publicly or were minors when they were abused by the notorious sex offender. A review of 47 victims’ full names on Sunday found that 43 of them were left unredacted in files that were made public by the government on Friday… Several women’s full names appeared more than 100 times in the files.”

The Journal said its review found that over two dozen names of minor victims were exposed. “Their full names were available Sunday afternoon in the Justice Department’s keyword search, along with personally identifying details that make them readily traceable, including home addresses,” the article said.

Anouska de Georgiou, an Epstein victim who testified against Ghislaine Maxwell, “said she contacted the Justice Department this weekend after learning that her personal information was made public in the release, including a picture of her driver’s license,” the Journal wrote.

DOJ said it made “all reasonable efforts”

Brad Edwards, an attorney for Epstein victims, told ABC News that “we are getting constant calls for victims because their names, despite them never coming forward, being completely unknown to the public, have all just been released for public consumption… It’s literally thousands of mistakes.” Edwards said the government should “take the thing down for now” instead of trying to fix the problems piecemeal.

The DOJ said Friday that the release includes more than 3 million pages, including over 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The agency said it used “an additional review protocol” to comply with a court order requiring that no victim-identifying information be included unredacted in the public release.

“These files were collected from five primary sources including the Florida and New York cases against Epstein, the New York case against Maxwell, the New York cases investigating Epstein’s death, the Florida case investigating a former butler of Epstein, multiple FBI investigations, and the Office of Inspector General investigation into Epstein’s death,” the DOJ said.

The DOJ’s Epstein files webpage carries a disclaimer on the potential release of images or names that should have been redacted. “In view of the Congressional deadline, all reasonable efforts have been made to review and redact personal information pertaining to victims, other private individuals, and protect sensitive materials from disclosure. That said, because of the volume of information involved, this website may nevertheless contain information that inadvertently includes non-public personally identifiable information or other sensitive content, to include matters of a sexual nature,” it says.

The DOJ’s Epstein webpage advised that members of the public can email [email protected] to report materials that should not have been included.

Lawyer: DOJ put onus on victims to review files

Annie Farmer, who testified that she was 16 years old when Epstein and Maxwell abused her in 1996, told the Times that “it’s hard to imagine a more egregious way of not protecting victims than having full nude images of them available for the world to download.” Farmer is now a psychologist.

The DOJ told ABC News in a statement that it “coordinated closely with victims and their lawyers to ensure that the production of documents includes necessary redactions,” and wants to “immediately correct any redaction errors that our team may have made.”

Edwards and Brittany Henderson, who are partners at the same law firm, “said they provided a list of 350 victims to the Justice Department on Dec. 4 to ensure that the names would be redacted ahead of the release,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “They said Sunday that they are alarmed that the government didn’t perform a basic keyword search of victim names to verify the success of its redaction process.”

Edwards said he contacted Justice Department officials on Friday. “We notified them of the problem within an hour of the release,” Edwards was quoted as saying. “It’s been acknowledged as a grave error; there is no excuse for failing to immediately remedy it unless it was done intentionally.”

Edwards said the DOJ is putting the onus on victims to comb through millions of files and submit redaction requests. “In some cases, he said individuals have had to locate and submit more than 100 links to the DOJ to request that their names be redacted,” the Journal wrote.

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

DOJ released Epstein files with dozens of nudes and victims’ names, reports say Read More »

ICE protester says her Global Entry was revoked after agent scanned her face

ice, immigration and customs enforcement, Policy / Tim Belzer / January 30, 2026

“I am concerned that border patrol and other federal enforcement agencies now have my license plate and personal information, and that I may be detained or arrested again in the future,” she wrote. “I am concerned about further actions that could be taken against me or my family. I have instructed my family to be cautious and return inside if they see unfamiliar vehicles outside of our home.”

Cleland said she hasn’t performed any observation of federal agents since January 10, but has “continued to engage in peaceful protests” and is “assessing when I will return to active observations.”

We contacted the Department of Homeland Security about Cleland’s declaration and will update this article if we get a response.

Extensive use of facial recognition

Federal agents have made extensive use of facial recognition during President Trump’s immigration crackdown with technology from Clearview AI and a face-scanning app called Mobile Fortify. They use facial recognition technology both to verify citizenship and identify protesters.

“Ms. Cleland was one of at least seven American citizens told by ICE agents this month that they were being recorded with facial recognition technology in and around Minneapolis, according to local activists and videos posted to social media,” The New York Times reported today, adding that none of the people had given consent to be recorded.

ICE also uses a variety of other technologies, including cell-site simulators (or Stingrays) to track phone locations, and Palantir software to help identify potential deportation targets.

Although Cleland vowed to continue protesting and eventually get back to observing ICE and CBP agents, her declaration said she felt intimidated after the recent incident.

“The interaction with the agents on January 10th made me feel angry and intimidated,” she wrote. “I have been through Legal Observer Training and know my rights. I believe that I did not do anything that warranted being stopped in the way that I was on January 10th.”

ICE protester says her Global Entry was revoked after agent scanned her face Read More »

FCC aims to ensure “only living and lawful Americans” get Lifeline benefits

Anna Gomez, brendan carr, California, FCC, Gavin Newsom, Lifeline, Policy / Kris Guyer / January 30, 2026

Carr fires back at California

Carr wrote in his response to Newsom that the FCC Inspector General report “specifically identified the tens of thousands of people that were enrolled AFTER THEY HAD ALREADY DIED.” The Inspector General report wasn’t quite so certain that the number is in the tens of thousands, however.

The report said that “at least 16,774 (and potentially as many as 39,362) deceased individuals were first enrolled and claimed by a provider after they died.” The Inspector General’s office could not determine “whether the remaining 22,588 deceased subscribers were first claimed before or after their deaths as the opt-out states do not report enrollment date information.”

Carr also wrote in his response to Newsom that “payments to providers for people that died or may have died before enrollment went on for over 50 months in cases and for several months on average.” The Inspector General report did say that “providers sought reimbursement for subscribers enrolled after their deaths for 1 to 54 months, with an average of 3.4 months,” but didn’t specify which state or states hit the 54-month mark.

Carr has continued addressing the topic throughout the week. “For the record, my position is that the government should not be spending your money to provide phone and Internet service to dead people. Governor Newsom is taking the opposite position, apparently,” he wrote yesterday.

When asked if the FCC will penalize California, Carr said at yesterday’s press conference yesterday that “we are looking at California and we’re going to make sure that we hold bad actors accountable, and we’re going to look at all the remedies that are on the table.”

Gomez: FCC plan shuts out eligible subscribers

Anna Gomez, the FCC’s one Democrat, said that Carr’s proposed rulemaking “goes well beyond” what’s needed to protect the integrity of Lifeline. “By proposing to use the same cruel and punitive eligibility standards recently imposed for Medicaid coverage, the Commission risks excluding large numbers of eligible households, including seniors, people with disabilities, rural residents, and Tribal communities, from a proven lifeline that millions rely on to stay connected to work, school, health care, and emergency services,” she said.

FCC aims to ensure “only living and lawful Americans” get Lifeline benefits Read More »

Comcast keeps losing customers despite price guarantee and unlimited data

broadband, Comcast, Policy / Kris Guyer / January 29, 2026

Cavanagh said that over the past year, Comcast “made the most significant go-to-market shift in our company’s history. We have simplified our broadband offering by moving away from short-term promotions toward a clear, transparent value proposition.” But more changes are needed, he said.

“Looking ahead, 2026 is about building on the changes we made in 2025… This will be the largest broadband investment year in our history, focused squarely on customer experience and simplification, with the goal of migrating the majority of residential broadband customers to our new simplified pricing and packaging by year-end,” Cavanagh said.

Comcast’s domestic broadband revenue was $6.32 billion, down from $6.38 billion a year ago. Cable TV revenue was $6.36 billion, down from $6.74 billion year over year. Mobile revenue rose from $1.19 billion to $1.40 billion year over year, buoyed by 1.5 million new mobile lines added during the full year of 2025.

Comcast said it now has over 9 million total mobile lines and aims to get more of its broadband customers into bundles of Internet and wireless service. Comcast offers consumer mobile service through an agreement with Verizon and struck a deal with T-Mobile to deliver mobile services to business customers this year.

Peacock boosts revenue

As the owner of NBCUniversal, Comcast has a lot more going on than cable and mobile. Strong results in the Peacock streaming service and Universal Studios theme parks helped Comcast meet analysts’ revenue projections and exceed profit estimates. Peacock paid subscribers increased 22 percent year over year to 44 million, and revenue grew 23 percent to 1.6 billion in the quarter, Comcast said.

Total Q4 2025 revenue was $32.31 billion, up 1.2 percent year over year. Net income was $2.17 billion, a 54.6 percent drop compared to a profit of $4.78 billion in Q4 2024. Comcast indicated the drop isn’t as bad as it sounds because it reflects “an unfavorable comparison to the prior year period, which included a $1.9 billion income tax benefit due to an internal corporate reorganization.” Comcast’s stock price was up about 3 percent today but has fallen about 16 percent in the past 12 months.

Comcast is one of the two biggest cable companies in the US alongside Charter, which is scheduled to announce Q4 2025 earnings tomorrow. In Q3 2025, Charter reported a loss of 109,000 Internet customers, a bit more than Comcast’s 104,000-customer loss in the same quarter. Charter, which is seeking regulatory approval to buy cable company Cox, had 27.76 million residential Internet customers and 2.03 million small business Internet customers.

Disclosure: The Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which owns 12 percent of Charter, is part of Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast.

Comcast keeps losing customers despite price guarantee and unlimited data Read More »

She’ll mess with Texas: Nurse keeps mailing abortion pills, despite Paxton lawsuit

Abortion, abortion pills, health, Policy, telehealth, texas / Paul Patrick / January 29, 2026

Texas sues Delaware nurse practitioner shipping out hundreds of abortion pills each month.

A Texas fight with a nurse practitioner may eventually push the Supreme Court to settle an intensifying battle between states with strict abortion-ban laws and those with shield laws to protect abortion providers supporting out-of-state patients.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Debra Lynch, a Delaware-based nurse practitioner, of breaking Texas laws by shipping abortion pills that Lynch once estimated last January facilitated “up to 162 abortions per week” in the state.

“No one, regardless of where they live, will be freely allowed to aid in the murder of unborn children in Texas,” Paxton’s press release said.

In August, Paxton sent a cease-and-desist letter to shut down Lynch’s website, Her Safe Harbor, which she runs with her husband, Jay, a former communications director for Delaware’s health and social services department, alongside other volunteer licensed prescribers.

Fretting that Her Safe Harbor continues to advertise that Texas patients can get access to abortion pills “within days,” Paxton characterized Her Safe Harbor as an “extremist group” supposedly endangering women and unborn children in the state. To support that claim, Paxton cited two unrelated lawsuits where men allegedly ordered pills from other providers to poison pregnant partners and force miscarriages.

But Lynch told The New York Times that her lawyers advised her to ignore the demand letter, because Delaware’s shield law is one of the strongest in the country. Just before Paxton sent the letter, Delaware’s law was updated to clarify that it specifically “provides protection from civil and criminal actions that arise in another state that are based on the provision of health care services that are legal in Delaware,” the Times noted. And “even before that,” she said her lawyers “advised her that Delaware’s shield law protects her work.”

Paxton seems to expect the court will agree that shield laws cannot overrule state abortion ban laws or laws prohibiting out-of-state health practitioners from operating on Texans without a state license. His lawsuit demands a temporary and permanent injunction shutting down Her Safe Harbor, as well as the highest possible fines.

In a loss, Lynch could owe millions, as each mail order would be considered a violation of the state’s Human Life Protection Act, Paxton alleged, triggering a minimum $100,000 fine per violation. She could also face substantial jail time, the Austin American-Statesman reported, since Texas abortion “providers risk up to 99 years in prison.”

However, Lynch told the Times on Wednesday that the lawsuit will not stop her from shipping pills into Texas. She’s been anticipating this fight since at least the beginning of last year and remains committed to helping pregnant people in states with strict abortion laws get support from a qualified health provider. She fears that otherwise, they’ll feel driven to take riskier steps that could endanger their lives.

“I don’t fear Ken Paxton,” Lynch told the Statesman last January. “I don’t fear getting arrested or anything like that.”

Nurse plans to defend shield laws

This is the third lawsuit Paxton has filed against an out-of-state abortion pill provider, his press release noted. Legal experts who support abortion ban laws, as well as those supporting abortion shield laws, told the NYT they expect the Supreme Court to eventually weigh the arguments on both sides. If that happened, it could impact law enforcement in about a third of states with “near-total” abortion bans, as well as more than 20 states that enacted abortion shield laws.

To Lynch, abortion ban laws have already proven disastrous, doing more harm than good.

The Statesman cited data from the Society of Family Planning (SFP), showing that after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, medication abortion by telehealth became much more popular in the US. In 2022, this type of service accounted for approximately 1 in 25 abortions; by 2024, the numbers had shot to 1 in 5.

“Nearly half of those prescriptions went to patients in states with abortion bans or restrictions on telehealth abortion,” the Statesman reported, and SFP’s data showed that Texas residents, particularly, were turning more to telehealth. In the first half of 2024, 2,800 Texans per month received abortion medication by mail, which was “more than any other abortion-restricted state,” the data showed.

SFP also found that, overall, abortions had increased following tighter restrictions, totaling more than 1 million in 2023, which SFP noted was “the highest number in more than a decade.”

Lynch told the Statesman that abortion-ban laws “hadn’t stopped her from mailing the medications. They hadn’t stopped patients from receiving them. They just created hundreds of miles between patients and providers,” leaving women “feeling isolated and afraid to access a procedure that’s legal in half the country, and which had been legal everywhere in the US for half a century.”

“They’re truly alone,” Lynch said. “That frightens the hell out of me.”

Lynch’s case, or one of the other Texas lawsuits, could put shield laws to the test and one day clarify for all US residents if medication abortion by telehealth is legal in states with more restrictive laws.

A win could back up shield laws and block Texas from prosecuting providers like Lynch, as well as from enforcing proposed laws like Texas’ House Bill 991. If passed, that law would let Texas residents sue Internet service providers for failing to block abortion pill providers’ websites.

On the Her Safe Harbor website, Lynch and her partners say that patient safety is their priority and that they go beyond what typical providers offer to ensure that people seeking abortions are well cared for. The website details which abortion pills patients will receive (Mifepristone and Misoprostol), while, unlike other abortion providers, also sends pain and nausea medication at no cost. Both the NYT and the Statesman’s reporters confirmed that Her Safe Harbor is also available for patients to check in with any questions or concerns throughout the process.

Paxton seems fixated on Her Safe Harbor’s claims that orders can be shipped to all states, regardless of state laws, which he alleged makes women not seeking abortions vulnerable to attacks by male partners.

However, Her Safe Harbor takes steps to speak directly with patients in states with the most restrictive abortion laws. An Ars test showed that patients seeking consultations from such states are encouraged to call health care providers directly, rather than submit a form that their state could try to subpoena, a step that could prevent the kinds of attacks that Paxton fears. Of course, anyone can still choose to initiate the process using the consultation form, with Her Safe Harbor providing reassurances that the group “has never and will never disclose any private health data to any authority. We will not comply if we are ever subpoenaed.”

“This lawsuit is not about patient safety”

In email comments, Jay Lynch, who helps run Her Safe Harbor with his wife, told Ars that Paxton’s lawsuit is not trying to “protect life” but seeking to “silence medicine.”

“Every day, we provide evidence-based medical care to women who are scared, vulnerable, and often out of options,” Jay said. “We assess medical history. We evaluate risk. We follow clinical guidelines. We act to prevent complications, hospitalizations, infertility, and death. That is what medicine is supposed to do: save lives and reduce harm.”

Jay accused Paxton of “trying to expand state control across borders” and “intimidate providers everywhere.”

“This lawsuit is not about patient safety,” Jay said. “It is about who gets to decide what care is allowed: trained medical professionals—or politicians with no clinical expertise.”

To Jay, a win for Paxton would put patients in a risky place, forcing doctors and nurses to choose between “doing what is medically right, or doing what is politically ‘safe.’”

“That is a dangerous place for any healthcare system to be,” Jay said, noting that “when politicians override clinicians, patients pay the price” through delayed treatment, worsening injuries, preventable emergencies, lost fertility, or their lives.

Working with her husband and other providers, Lynch told the NYT that Her Safe Harbor is currently shipping out hundreds of packages a month. She vowed that as long as threats to abortion access continued to risk women’s lives, the shipments would never stop.

“Women are losing their lives and children are winding up orphans, and babies are being born with non-life-sustaining medical conditions” due to abortion bans and restrictive laws, Lynch told the NYT. “As long as that is happening, there’s absolutely nothing or nobody that will deter us from our mission to bring health care to women.”

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.

She’ll mess with Texas: Nurse keeps mailing abortion pills, despite Paxton lawsuit Read More »

County pays $600,000 to pentesters it arrested for assessing courthouse security

Biz & IT, courts, defamation, Penetration testing, Policy, Security / Mike M. / January 29, 2026

Two security professionals who were arrested in 2019 after performing an authorized security assessment of a county courthouse in Iowa will receive $600,000 to settle a lawsuit they brought alleging wrongful arrest and defamation.

The case was brought by Gary DeMercurio and Justin Wynn, two penetration testers who at the time were employed by Colorado-based security firm Coalfire Labs. The men had written authorization from the Iowa Judicial Branch to conduct “red-team” exercises, meaning attempted security breaches that mimic techniques used by criminal hackers or burglars.

The objective of such exercises is to test the resilience of existing defenses using the types of real-world attacks the defenses are designed to repel. The rules of engagement for this exercise explicitly permitted “physical attacks,” including “lockpicking,” against judicial branch buildings so long as they didn’t cause significant damage.

A chilling message

The event galvanized security and law enforcement professionals. Despite the legitimacy of the work and the legal contract that authorized it, DeMercurio and Wynn were arrested on charges of felony third-degree burglary and spent 20 hours in jail, until they were released on $100,000 bail ($50,000 for each). The charges were later reduced to misdemeanor trespassing charges, but even then, Chad Leonard, sheriff of Dallas County, where the courthouse was located, continued to allege publicly that the men had acted illegally and should be prosecuted.

Reputational hits from these sorts of events can be fatal to a security professional’s career. And of course, the prospect of being jailed for performing authorized security assessment is enough to get the attention of any penetration tester, not to mention the customers that hire them.

“This incident didn’t make anyone safer,” Wynn said in a statement. “It sent a chilling message to security professionals nationwide that helping [a] government identify real vulnerabilities can lead to arrest, prosecution, and public disgrace. That undermines public safety, not enhances it.”

DeMercurio and Wynn’s engagement at the Dallas County Courthouse on September 11, 2019, had been routine. A little after midnight, after finding a side door to the courthouse unlocked, the men closed it and let it lock. They then slipped a makeshift tool through a crack in the door and tripped the locking mechanism. After gaining entry, the pentesters tripped an alarm alerting authorities.

County pays $600,000 to pentesters it arrested for assessing courthouse security Read More »

SpaceX sends list of demands to US states giving broadband grants to Starlink

BEAD program, Broadband Equity Access and Deployment, Policy, spacex, starlink / Rejus Almole / January 28, 2026

SpaceX won’t make specific promises on Starlink network capacity or subscribers.

A Starlink user terminal during winter. Credit: Getty Images | AntaresNS

SpaceX has made a new set of demands on state governments that would ensure Starlink receives federal grant money even when residents don’t purchase Starlink broadband service.

SpaceX said it will provide “all necessary equipment” to receive broadband “at no cost to subscribers requesting service,” which will apparently eliminate the up-front hardware fee for Starlink equipment. But SpaceX isn’t promising lower-than-usual monthly prices to consumers in those subsidized areas. SpaceX pledged to make broadband available for $80 or less a month, plus taxes and fees, to people with low incomes in the subsidized areas. For comparison, the normal Starlink residential prices advertised on its website range from $50 to $120 a month.

SpaceX’s demands would also guarantee that it gets paid by the government even if it doesn’t reserve “large portions” of Starlink network capacity for homes in the areas that are supposed to receive government-subsidized Internet service. Moreover, SpaceX would not be responsible for ensuring that Starlink equipment is installed correctly at each customer location.

SpaceX sent a letter to state broadband offices proposing a rider with terms that it hopes will be applied to all grants it receives throughout the country. The letter was obtained and published by Broadband.io and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

Arguing that SpaceX should receive grant money regardless of whether residents purchase Starlink service, the letter to states said that grant payments should not depend on “the independent purchasing decisions of users.” SpaceX also said it will not hold “large portions of capacity fallow” to ensure that people in subsidized areas receive good service, but will instead continue its preexisting practice of “dynamically allocat[ing] capacity where needed.”

SpaceX capitalizes on Trump overhaul

SpaceX’s proposed contract rider would apply to grants distributed under the US government’s Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. BEAD was created by Congress in a 2021 law that authorized spending over $42 billion to make broadband networks available in areas without modern service.

While the Biden administration designed the program to prioritize fiber deployments, the Trump administration threw out the previous plans. Under Trump, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) deemed the Biden-era plan too costly and changed the rules to make it easier for satellite services to obtain grant funding. The overhaul cut projected spending to about $21 billion, and it’s still unclear what will happen to the other $21 billion.

Starlink sought billions in grants after the new rules were put in place, but states didn’t want to provide that much. So far, SpaceX is slated to receive $733.5 million to offer broadband at 472,600 locations. Amazon’s Leo satellite service (formerly Kuiper) is set to receive $311 million for 415,000 locations.

While not every state plan is final, it looks like satellite networks will get about 5 percent of the grant money and serve over 22 percent of the locations funded by grants. Satellite companies are getting smaller payments on a per-location basis because, unlike fiber providers, they don’t have to install infrastructure at each customer’s location.

The concessions sought by SpaceX “would limit Starlink’s performance obligations, payment schedules, non-compliance penalties, reporting expectations, and labor and insurance standards,” wrote Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute. Garner argued that SpaceX’s demands illustrate problems in how the Trump NTIA rewrote program rules to increase reliance on low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers.

“BEAD was designed primarily to deploy terrestrial networks, which are physically located in communities, built with traditional construction methods, and are relatively easy to monitor and inspect,” Garner wrote. “But, on June 6, 2025, NTIA restructured BEAD in ways that greatly increased participation by LEO providers, exacerbating the challenge of applying BEAD’s terrestrial-focused rules to LEO’s extraterrestrial networks.”

SpaceX: Labor rules shouldn’t apply to us

Among other things, SpaceX is trying to “minimize states’ ability to penalize LEO grantees for defaulting or failing to comply with contract requirements,” and avoid having “to report on the use of BEAD funds or other financial information related to the grant,” Garner wrote.

SpaceX’s letter said that “all requirements related to labor issues (e.g., prevailing wage and similar obligations), contractors, and procurement are inapplicable to SpaceX” because “there are no identifiable employees, contractors, or contracts being funded” to support Starlink broadband service in each state. Similarly, “there are no identifiable pieces of SpaceX infrastructure equipment (other than satellite capacity delivered from Space) being funded via BEAD,” the company said.

It’s unclear whether SpaceX will turn down grants if it doesn’t get what it wants. We asked the company for information on its plans if states refuse its terms and will update this article if we get a response. SpaceX’s proposed terms could also be applied to Amazon if states accept them.

SpaceX’s letter said that despite the Trump administration’s changes to BEAD, “a number of issues remain that, if unaddressed, could render LEO participation in the program untenable.” SpaceX said it wants to work with states “to more fully tailor aspects of the project agreement to the reality of LEO deployment and operations now that the initial project selection and approval phase is accomplished.”

Space said it wants to avoid extensive negotiations over its proposed terms. But the acknowledgement that some negotiation may be necessary seems to recognize that states don’t have to comply with the demands:

Toward this goal, we have developed a set of terms that we intend to function as a rider to all subgrant agreements across the country. This rider is intentionally limited in scope to addressing items of critical importance, to minimize the need for negotiation, and provide clarity to both parties moving forward. Our intention is for the LEO rider to enable the state to keep its core subgrant agreement relatively uniform amongst grantees, retain state-law-specific requirements, co-locate all relevant LEO-specific material for ease of administration, and standardize agreements across states.

Low-income plan: $80 plus taxes and fees

SpaceX’s proposed contract rider said the firm will offer broadband plans for “a monthly cost of $80 or less before applicable taxes and fees” to households that meet the low-income eligibility guidelines used by the FCC’s Lifeline program. People who don’t qualify for low-income plans would presumably pay regular Starlink rates.

The BEAD law requires ISPs receiving federal funds to offer at least one “low-cost broadband service option for eligible subscribers.” While the Biden administration sought low-income plans that cost as little as $30 a month, the Trump administration decided that states may not tell ISPs what prices to charge in their low-cost options. A Trump administration threat to shut states out of BEAD if they required low prices doomed a California proposal to mandate $15 monthly plans for people with low incomes.

SpaceX told state governments that it should receive 50 percent of grant funds when it certifies that it is capable of providing BEAD-quality service (100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload speeds) within 10 business days to any potential customer that requests it in a grant area. The rest of the money would be distributed quarterly over the 10-year period of the grant.

Explaining why SpaceX shouldn’t be penalized if potential customers decide Starlink prices are too high, the firm wrote:

Tying payments to the independent purchasing decisions of users solely for awardees using LEO technologies, and not for any other technology, is, by definition, not technology neutral. SpaceX is already appropriately incentivized to gather customers by the opportunity to capture the monthly recurring revenue from each subscriber. SpaceX was in most instances awarded the most remote and difficult areas to serve among all other providers. SpaceX is up to the task of ensuring success in these challenging areas, however, it cannot undertake this mission without certainty of consistent payments to compensate such work.

Based on SpaceX’s letter, it sounds like the work the company must do to ensure quality of service at BEAD-funded locations is the same work it has already done to make Starlink available across the US. Instead of dedicated capacity for government-subsidized deployments, SpaceX said it will simply factor the needs of BEAD users into its planning:

With respect to capacity reservations, we have found some confusion regarding how such a reservation is made. Given the dynamic nature of the Starlink network, the reservation will not be such that SpaceX holds large portions of capacity fallow. This would be wasteful, inefficient, and does not reflect a LEO providers [sic] ability to dynamically allocate capacity where needed. Instead, SpaceX will include the capacity needs of BEAD users into its network planning efforts. These activities are multifaceted and include real time capacity allocation at the network level, launch activities, and sales efforts. As a result, there is no single “document” evidencing the reservation of capacity.

SpaceX wants limits on performance testing

SpaceX said it will be obvious if it does not provide sufficient service, and thus the states should not seek additional performance testing beyond what’s included in the NTIA guidelines. “If sufficient capacity was not reserved, performance testing will reveal insufficient quality of service, and this deficiency will be transparent to the state. Developing a separate, indirect measurement of the reservation itself is infeasible and unnecessary,” SpaceX said.

The proposed rider said that any network testing must “exclude subscribers who have installed CPE [consumer premise equipment] such that its view of the sky is obstructed and subscribers with damaged or malfunctioning CPE, as determined by GRANTEE.”

The “as determined by GRANTEE” phrase means it’s up to SpaceX to decide which subscribers should be excluded from testing. As the Benton Society says, the rider stipulates that “performance tests can only be considered if the LEO provider determines that the subscriber’s equipment is properly installed, and, notably, the LEO provider is not obligated to ensure proper installation.”

SpaceX’s proposed rider defines a “standard installation” as the mailing of equipment to a subscriber. That’s the standard process for unsubsidized areas throughout the country, and SpaceX doesn’t want to do any extra work to help set up equipment for customers in subsidized areas. However, customers may be able to purchase professional installation for an extra fee.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the GRANTEE will not be responsible for completing a permanent installation” at each location, SpaceX’s proposed rider says. A satellite provider “may choose to offer the subscriber professional services for permanent installation of CPE at an additional fee, but such professional services shall not be considered part of the standard installation,” it says.

SpaceX sends list of demands to US states giving broadband grants to Starlink Read More »

Angry Norfolk residents lose lawsuit to stop Flock license plate scanners

alpr, cameras, Flock!, norfolk, Policy, surveillance, Virginia / Tim Belzer / January 28, 2026

In his Thursday ruling, Judge Davis referenced the family tree of modern surveillance case-law, noting that a 1983 Supreme Court case (Knotts v. United States) found that there is no “reasonable expectation of privacy” when traveling on a public road.

That 1983 case, which centered on a radio transmitter that enabled law enforcement to follow the movements of alleged drug traffickers driving between Minnesota and Wisconsin, has provided the legal underpinning for the use of ALPR technology in the United States over the last few decades.

“Modern-day license plate reader systems, like Norfolk’s, are nothing like [the technology of the early 1980s],” Michael Soyfer, one of the Institute of Justice attorneys, told Ars by email. “They track the movements of virtually every driver within a city for weeks at a time. That can reveal a host of insights not captured in any single trip.”

For its part, Flock Safety celebrated the ruling and wrote on its website that its clients may continue to use the cameras.

“Here, the court emphasized that LPR technology, as deployed in Norfolk, is meaningfully different from systems that enable persistent, comprehensive tracking of individuals’ movements,” the company wrote.

“When used with appropriate limitations and safeguards, LPRs do not provide an intimate portrait of a person’s life and therefore do not trigger the constitutional concerns raised by continuous surveillance,” it added.

But some legal scholars disagree with both the judge’s and Flock’s conclusions.

Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University and the author of the forthcoming book Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance, told Ars by email that the judge’s ruling here is “understandably conservative and dangerous.”

“The danger is that the same reasoning that there is no expectation of privacy in public would justify having ALPR cameras on every single street corner,” he continued.

“Further,” he said, “looking at the technology as a mere tool, rather than a system of surveillance, misses the mark on its erosion of privacy. Think how revealing ALPRs would be outside religious institutions, gun ranges, medical clinics, addiction treatment centers, or protests.”

Angry Norfolk residents lose lawsuit to stop Flock license plate scanners Read More »

US cyber defense chief accidentally uploaded secret government info to ChatGPT

AI, chatgpt, CISA, cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, ice, openai, Policy / Mike M. / January 28, 2026

Cybersecurity “nightmare”

Congress recently grilled the acting chief on mass layoffs and a failed polygraph.

Alarming critics, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Madhu Gottumukkala, accidentally uploaded sensitive information to a public version of ChatGPT last summer, Politico reported.

According to “four Department of Homeland Security officials with knowledge of the incident,” Gottumukkala’s uploads of sensitive CISA contracting documents triggered multiple internal cybersecurity warnings designed to “stop the theft or unintentional disclosure of government material from federal networks.”

Gottumukkala’s uploads happened soon after he joined the agency and sought special permission to use OpenAI’s popular chatbot, which most DHS staffers are blocked from accessing, DHS confirmed to Ars. Instead, DHS staffers use approved AI-powered tools, like the agency’s DHSChat, which “are configured to prevent queries or documents input into them from leaving federal networks,” Politico reported.

It remains unclear why Gottumukkala needed to use ChatGPT. One official told Politico that, to staffers, it seemed like Gottumukkala “forced CISA’s hand into making them give him ChatGPT, and then he abused it.”

The information Gottumukkala reportedly leaked was not confidential but marked “for official use only.” That designation, a DHS document explained, is “used within DHS to identify unclassified information of a sensitive nature” that, if shared without authorization, “could adversely impact a person’s privacy or welfare” or impede how federal and other programs “essential to the national interest” operate.

There’s now a concern that the sensitive information could be used to answer prompts from any of ChatGPT’s 700 million active users.

OpenAI did not respond to Ars’ request to comment, but Cyber News reported that experts have warned “that using public AI tools poses real risks because uploaded data can be retained, breached, or used to inform responses to other users.”

Sources told Politico that DHS investigated the incident for potentially harming government security—which could result in administrative or disciplinary actions, DHS officials told Politico. Possible consequences could range from a formal warning or mandatory retraining to “suspension or revocation of a security clearance,” officials said.

However, CISA’s director of public affairs, Marci McCarthy, declined Ars’ request to confirm if that probe, launched in August, has concluded or remains ongoing. Instead, she seemed to emphasize that Gottumukkala’s access to ChatGPT was only temporary, while suggesting that the ChatGPT use aligned with Donald Trump’s order to deploy AI across government.

“Acting Director Dr. Madhu Gottumukkala was granted permission to use ChatGPT with DHS controls in place,” McCarthy said. “This use was short-term and limited. CISA is unwavering in its commitment to harnessing AI and other cutting-edge technologies to drive government modernization and deliver” on Trump’s order.

Scrutiny of cyber defense chief remains

Gottumukkala has not had a smooth run as acting director of the top US cyber defense agency after Trump’s pick to helm the agency, Sean Plankey, was blocked by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) “over a Coast Guard shipbuilding contract,” Politico noted.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem chose Gottumukkala to fill in after he previously served as her chief information officer, overseeing statewide cybersecurity initiatives in South Dakota. CISA celebrated his appointment with a press release boasting that he had more than 24 years of experience in information technology and a “deep understanding of both the complexities and practical realities of infrastructure security.”

However, critics “on both sides of the aisle” have questioned whether Gottumukkala knows what he’s doing at CISA, Cyberscoop reported. That includes staffers who stayed on and staffers who prematurely left the agency due to uncertainty over its future, Politico reported.

At least 65 staffers have been curiously reassigned to other parts of DHS, Cyberscoop reported, inciting Democrats’ fears that CISA staffers are possibly being pushed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The same fate almost befell Robert Costello, CISA’s chief information officer, who was reportedly involved with meetings last August probing Gottumukkala’s improper ChatGPT use and “the proper handling of for official use only material,” Politico reported.

Earlier this month, staffers alleged that Gottumukkala took steps to remove Costello from his CIO position, which he has held for the past four years. But that plan was blocked after “other political appointees at the department objected,” Politico reported. Until others intervened to permanently thwart the reassignment, Costello was supposedly given “roughly one week” to decide if he would take another position within DHS or resign, sources told Politico.

Gottumukkala has denied that he sought to reassign Costello over a personal spat that Politico’s sources said sprang from “friction because Costello frequently pushed back against Gottumukkala on policy matters.” He insisted that “senior personnel decisions are made at the highest levels at the Department of Homeland Security’s Headquarters and are not made in a vacuum, independently by one individual, or on a whim.”

The reported move looked particularly shady, though, because Costello “is seen as one of the agency’s top remaining technical talents,” Politico reported.

Congress questioned ongoing cybersecurity threats

This month, Congress grilled Gottumukkala about mass layoffs last year that shrank CISA from about 3,400 staffers to 2,400. The steep cuts seemed to threaten national security and election integrity, lawmakers warned, and potentially have left the agency unprepared for any potential conflicts with China.

At a hearing held by the House Homeland Security Committee, Gottumukkala said that CISA was “getting back on mission” and plans to reverse much of the damage done last year to the agency.

However, some of his responses did not inspire confidence, including a failure to forecast “how many cyber intrusions CISA expects from foreign adversaries as part of the 2026 midterm elections,” the Federal News Network reported. In particular, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) criticized Gottumukkala for not having “a specific number in mind.”

“Well, we should have that number,” Gonzales said. “It should first start by how many intrusions that we had last midterm and the midterm before that. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want us waiting until after the fact to be able to go, ‘Yeah, we got it wrong, and it turns out our adversaries influenced our election to that point.’”

Perhaps notably, Gottumukkala also dodged questions about reports that he failed a polygraph when attempting to seek access to other “highly sensitive cyber intelligence,” Politico reported.

The acting director apparently blamed six career CISA staffers for requesting that he agree to the polygraph test, which the staffers said was typical protocol but Gottumukkala later claimed was misleading.

Failing the test isn’t necessarily damning, since anxiety or technical errors could trigger a negative result. However, Gottumukkala appears touchy about the test that he now regrets sitting for, calling the test “unsanctioned” and refusing to discuss the results.

It seems that Gottumukkala felt misled after learning that he could have requested a waiver to skip the polygraph. In a letter suspending those staffers’ security clearances, CISA accused staff of showing “deliberate or negligent failure to follow policies that protect government information.” However, staffers may not have known that he had that option, which is considered a “highly unusual loophole that may not have been readily apparent to career staff,” Politico noted.

Staffers told Politico that Gottumukkala’s tenure has been a “nightmare”—potentially ruining the careers of longtime CISA staffers. It troubles some that it seems that Gottumukkala will remain in his post “for the foreseeable future,” while seeming to politicize the agency and bungle protocols for accessing sensitive information.

According to Nextgov, Gottumukkala plans to right the ship with “a hiring spree in 2026 because its recent reductions have hampered some of the Trump administration’s national security goals.”

In November, the trade publication Cybersecurity Dive reported that Gottumukkala sent a memo confirming the hiring spree was coming that month, while warning that CISA remains “hampered by an approximately 40 percent vacancy rate across key mission areas.” All those cuts were “spurred by the administration’s animus toward CISA over its election security work,” Cybersecurity Dive noted.

“CISA must immediately accelerate recruitment, workforce development, and retention initiatives to ensure mission readiness and operational continuity,” Gottumukkala told staffers at that time, then later went on to reassure Congress this month that the agency has “the required staff” to protect election integrity and national security, Cyberscoop 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.

US cyber defense chief accidentally uploaded secret government info to ChatGPT Read More »

TikTok users “absolutely justified” for fearing MAGA makeover, experts say

censorship, Donald Trump, First Amendment, Jeffrey Epstein, Policy, tiktok / Paul Patrick / January 27, 2026

Spectacular coincidence or obvious censorship?

TikTok’s tech issues abound as censorship fears drive users to delete app.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

TikTok wants users to believe that errors blocking uploads of anti-ICE videos or direct messages mentioning Jeffrey Epstein are due to technical errors—not the platform seemingly shifting to censor content critical of Donald Trump after he hand-picked the US owners who took over the app last week.

However, experts say that TikTok users’ censorship fears are justified, whether the bugs are to blame or not.

Ioana Literat, an associate professor of technology, media, and learning at Teachers College, Columbia University, has studied TikTok’s politics since the app first shot to popularity in the US in 2018. She told Ars that “users’ fears are absolutely justified” and explained why the “bugs” explanation is “insufficient.”

“Even if these are technical glitches, the pattern of what’s being suppressed reveals something significant,” Literat told Ars. “When your ‘bug’ consistently affects anti-Trump content, Epstein references, and anti-ICE videos, you’re looking at either spectacular coincidence or systems that have been designed—whether intentionally or through embedded biases—to flag and suppress specific political content.”

TikTok users are savvy, Literat noted, and what’s being cast as “paranoia” about the app’s bugs actually stems from their “digital literacy,” she suggested.

“They’ve watched Instagram suppress Palestine content, they’ve seen Twitter’s transformation under Musk, they’ve experienced shadow-banning and algorithmic suppression, including on TikTok prior to this,” Literat said. “So, their pattern recognition isn’t paranoia, but rather digital literacy.”

Casey Fiesler, an associate professor of technology ethics and internet law at the University of Colorado, Boulder, agreed that TikTok’s “bugs” explanation wasn’t enough to address users’ fears. She told CNN that TikTok risks losing users’ trust the longer that errors damage the perception of the app.

“Even if this isn’t purposeful censorship, does it matter? In terms of perception and trust, maybe,” Fiesler told CNN.

Some users are already choosing to leave TikTok. A quick glance at the TikTok subreddit shows many users grieving while vowing to delete the app, Literat pointed out, though some are reportedly struggling to delete accounts due to technical issues. Even with some users blocked from abandoning their accounts, however, “the daily average of TikTok uninstalls are up nearly 150 percent in the last five days compared to the last three months,” data analysis firm Sensor Tower told CNN.

A TikTok USDS spokesperson told Ars that US owners have not yet made any changes to the algorithm or content moderation policies. So far, the only changes have been to the US app’s terms of use and privacy policy, which impacted what location data is collected, how ads are targeted, and how AI interactions are monitored.

For TikTok, the top priority appears to be fixing the bugs, which were attributed to a power outage at a US data center. A TikTok USDS spokesperson told NPR that TikTok is also investigating the issue where some users can’t talk about Epstein in DMs.

“We don’t have rules against sharing the name ‘Epstein’ in direct messages and are investigating why some users are experiencing issues,” TikTok’s spokesperson said.

TikTok’s response came after California governor Gavin Newsom declared on X that “it’s time to investigate” TikTok.

“I am launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content,” Newsom said. His post quote-tweeted an X user who shared a screenshot of the error message TikTok displayed when some users referenced Epstein and joked, “so the agreement for TikTok to sell its US business to GOP-backed investors was finalized a few days ago,” and “now you can’t mention Epstein lmao.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the results of TikTok’s investigation into the “Epstein” issue were not publicly available, but TikTok may post an update here as technical issues are resolved.

“We’ve made significant progress in recovering our US infrastructure with our US data center partner,” TikTok USDS’s latest statement said. “However, the US user experience may still have some technical issues, including when posting new content. We’re committed to bringing TikTok back to its full capacity as soon as possible. We’ll continue to provide updates.”

TikTokers will notice subtle changes, expert says

For TikTok’s new owners, the tech issues risk confirming fears that Trump wasn’t joking when he said he’d like to see TikTok be tweaked to be “100 percent MAGA.”

Because of this bumpy transition, it seems likely that TikTok will continue to be heavily scrutinized once the USDS joint venture officially starts retraining the app on US data. As the algorithm undergoes tweaks, frequent TikTok users will likely be the first to pick up on subtle changes, especially if content unaligned with their political views suddenly starts appearing in their feeds when it never did before, Literat suggested.

Literat has researched both left- and right-leaning TikTok content. She told Ars that although left-leaning young users have for years loudly used the app to promote progressive views on topics like racial justice, gun reforms, or climate change, TikTok has never leaned one way or the other on the political spectrum.

Consider Christian or tradwife TikTok, Literat suggested, which grew huge platforms on TikTok alongside leftist bubbles advocating for LGBTQ+ rights or Palestine solidarity.

“Political life on TikTok is organized into overlapping sub-communities, each with its own norms, humor, and tolerance for disagreement,” Literat said, adding that “the algorithm creates bubbles, so people experience very different TikToks.”

Literat told Ars that she wasn’t surprised when Trump suggested that TikTok would be better if it were more right-wing. But what concerned her most was the implication that Trump viewed TikTok “as a potential propaganda apparatus” and “a tool for political capture rather than a space for authentic expression and connection.”

“The historical irony is thick: we went from ‘TikTok is dangerous because it’s controlled by the Chinese government and might manipulate American users’ to ‘TikTok should be controlled by American interests and explicitly aligned with a particular political agenda,’” Literat said. “The concern was never really about foreign influence or manipulation per se—it was about who gets to do the influencing.”

David Greene, senior counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which fought the TikTok ban law, told Ars that users are justified in feeling concerned. However, technical errors or content moderation mistakes are nearly always the most likely explanations for issues, and there’s no way to know “what’s actually happening.” He noted that lawmakers have shaped how some TikTok users view the app after insisting that they accept that China was influencing the algorithm without providing evidence.

“For years, TikTok users were being told that they just needed to follow these assumptions the government was making about the dangers of TikTok,” Greene said. And “now they’re doing the same thing, making these assumptions that it’s now maybe some content policy is being done either to please the Trump administration or being controlled by it. We conditioned TikTok users to basically to not have trust in the way decisions were made with the app.”

MAGA tweaks risks TikTok’s “death by a thousand cuts”

TikTok USDS likely wants to distance itself from Trump’s comments about making the app more MAGA. But new owners have deep ties with Trump, including Larry Ellison, the chief technology officer of Oracle, whom some critics suggest has benefited more than anyone else from Trump’s presidency. Greene noted that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a key investor in Silver Lake. Both firms now have a 15 percent stake in the TikTok USDS joint venture, as well as MGX, which also seems to have Trump ties. CNBC reported MGX used the Trump family cryptocurrency, World Liberty Financial, to invest $2 billion in Binance shortly before Trump pardoned Binance’s CEO from money laundering charges, which some viewed as a possible quid pro quo.

Greene said that EFF warned during the Supreme Court fight over the TikTok divest-or-ban law that “all you were doing was substituting concerns for Chinese propaganda, for concerns for US propaganda. That it was highly likely that if you force a sale and the sale is up to the approval of the president, it’s going to be sold to President’s lackeys.”

“I don’t see how it’d be good for users or for democracy, for TikTok to have an editorial policy that would make Trump happy,” Greene said.

If suddenly, the app were tweaked to push more MAGA content into more feeds, young users who are critical of Trump wouldn’t all be brainwashed, Literat said. They would adapt, perhaps eventually finding other apps for activism.

However, TikTok may be hard to leave behind at a time when other popular apps seem to carry their own threats of political suppression, she suggested. Beyond the video-editing features that made TikTok a behemoth of social media, perhaps the biggest sticking point keeping users glued to TikTok is “fundamentally social,” Literat said.

“TikTok is where their communities are, where they’ve built audiences, where the conversations they care about are happening,” Literat said.

Rather than a mass exodus, Literat expects that TikTok’s fate could be “gradual erosion” or “death by a thousand cuts,” as users “likely develop workarounds, shift to other platforms for political content while keeping TikTok for entertainment, or create coded languages and aesthetic strategies to evade detection.”

CNN reported that one TikTok user already found that she could finally post an anti-ICE video after claiming to be a “fashion influencer” and speaking in code throughout the video, which criticized ICE for detaining a 5-year-old named Liam Conejo Ramos.

“Fashion influencing is in my blood,” she said in the video, which featured “a photo of Liam behind her,” CNN reported. “And even a company with bad customer service won’t keep me from doing my fashion review.”

Short-term, Literat thinks that longtime TikTok users experiencing inconsistent moderation will continue testing boundaries, documenting issues, and critiquing the app. That discussion will perhaps chill more speech on the platform, possibly even affecting the overall content mix appearing in feeds.

Long-term, however, TikTok’s changes under US owners “could fundamentally reshape TikTok’s role in political discourse.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, unfortunately, if it suffers the fate of Twitter/X,” Literat said.

Literat told Ars that her TikTok research was initially sparked by a desire to monitor the “kind of authentic political expression the platform once enabled.” She worries that because user trust is now “damaged,” TikTok will never be the same.

“The tragedy is that TikTok genuinely was a space where young people—especially those from marginalized communities—could shape political conversations in ways that felt authentic and powerful,” Literat said. “I’m sad to say, I think that’s been irretrievably broken.”

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.

TikTok users “absolutely justified” for fearing MAGA makeover, experts say Read More »