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France's top court blocks social media ban for under-15s <br> France&#39;s top court on Friday blocked ​a bill banning social media access for under-15s, saying it infringed upon freedom of &zwnj;expression and delivering a setback for President Emmanuel Macron, who asked his government to rewrite the legislation. The bill would have barred children younger than 15 from opening a social media account from September 1. Accounts already open would be ​closed within four months by social media platforms, which would also need to use age ​verification approved by the French privacy regulator. But France&#39;s Constitutional Council found that the ⁠bill, while requiring everyone to give proof of age, failed &quot;to specify the conditions and limits&quot; under ​which it should be provided, as well as infringing on freedoms and privacy. &quot;The Council holds that the ​contested provisions, on the one hand, disproportionately infringe upon the free...

Apple trains its own AI model for China market with Alibaba's support, sources say <br> Apple has trained a large language model specifically for the China market, three people ​familiar with the matter said, a departure from the iPhone maker&#39;s strategy of relying on third-party models to power AI features &zwnj;in the country. The AI model was developed in partnership with Alibaba Group and trained with the Chinese tech giant&#39;s support, the people said, declining to be named as the information is sensitive and not public. Apple&#39;s training of its own China-specific model has not been reported before. The company had previously leaned towards domestic partners&#39; models to bring generative AI to ​iPhones and other devices sold in China, where US models such as Anthropic&#39;s Claude and OpenAI&#39;s ChatGPT, which Apple pairs with its own ​technology in its home market, are not available. Read: OpenAI asks US judge to dismiss A...

Anthropic investors eye $2 trillion valuation in potential Wall Street debut: report <br> Anthropic investors are betting that the artificial intelligence company could seek a valuation of at least $2 trillion in a potential October stock market debut, a figure that would eclipse SpaceX and make it the largest initial public offering&nbsp;(IPO) on record. Six investors in the five-year-old company told the Financial Times that Anthropic&#39;s rapidly rising revenue could support more than a doubling of its current valuation, according to a report published on&nbsp;Thursday. Investors said they expect Anthropic&#39;s annualised revenue to reach between $100 billion and $120 billion by the end of 2026, using a measure that projects full-year sales from recent performance. That would represent more than tenfold growth during the year. &ldquo;If Anthropic is growing 800% a year, you&rsquo;d think at the incredibly low end they would trade at 30 times [...

Microsoft retreats in China, but AI boom helps it keep a window open <br> Microsoft once regarded the idea of quitting China as unthinkable. The year was 2010, and Google was about to exit due to concerns over censorship and cyberattacks. That decision was lauded by democracy activists, but not by Bill Gates and Microsoft&#39;s then-CEO Steve Ballmer, who suggested Google ​was overreacting. In the past five years, however, at least 15 Microsoft branch offices and joint ventures in China have been shut, corporate filings show, and Microsoft is pursuing what five company sources described as a strategy of retreat. The firm considered quitting the market in &zwnj;2023 because some executives felt it took on too much geopolitical risk for too little economic return, one of them said, while stressing Microsoft has no current plans to exit. China accounted for just 1.5% of global revenue, Microsoft said in 2024. Microsoft took a major hit from the erosion of trust betw...

Report accuses Meta of systematically suppressing Palestinian content <br> Meta&rsquo;s content moderation practices have systematically restricted Palestinian voices on Facebook and Instagram, according to a report by Palestinian digital rights group 7amleh and a researcher at Utrecht University. The Platformicide of Palestine 2021-2025 examined 3,520 cases submitted to 7amleh&rsquo;s Palestinian Observatory for Digital Rights Violations from January 2021 to December 2025. The cases included account suspensions, post removals, restrictions on livestreaming and reduced content distribution. The report uses the term &ldquo;platformicide&rdquo; to describe what it considers the structural erasure of Palestinian visibility and participation on social media. While it does not conclude that Meta deliberately censored individual users, the report argues that the repeated restrictions cannot be explained solely as isolated technical or moderation errors. Only 32...

Meta says it has taken down 756,000 Australian teen accounts as ban enforcement looms <br> Facebook ​and Instagram owner Meta said on Thursday it had taken down more than 750,000 accounts it suspected &zwnj;were held by Australians aged under 16 since a world-first ban on teen accounts, and promised more action in the face of possible regulatory intervention. The company said it had deactivated 462,000 suspect Instagram accounts and 294,000 suspect Facebook accounts from just before the Australian social media ​ban went live in December to June, up from 331,000 Instagram accounts and 173,000 Facebook accounts it said ​it had removed by January. The world&#39;s largest social media company has said it wants to ⁠comply with a law it and other platforms have vocally opposed, just as Australia&#39;s internet regulator considers an&nbsp;enforcement lawsuit against platforms, including some that Meta owns, that it says have failed to take sufficient steps to comp...