WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump threatened the European Union with &#8220;substantial&#8221; tariffs on Friday after regulators hit Google with another $1 billion antitrust fine, accusing Europe of treating the United States like its own &#8220;PIGGYBANK.&#8221;
Trump accused the EU of &#8220;taking direct aim at GREAT American Companies!&#8221;
&#8220;After having fined Apple, for no reason at all, 15 Billion Dollars, Meta, 3 Billion Dollars, Amazon 2.5 Billion Dollars, and many others, we have just been informed that Google, a truly advanced and amazing group, has been fined yet another 1 Billion Dollars, without explanation,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116976043318889040">posted</a> on Truth Social.
The latest penalty brings Google&#8217;s total EU fines to more than $18 billion, the president said.
&#8220;This illegal and highly discriminatory practice started at these high levels during the first year of the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, but it’s not going to continue during the Trump Administration,&#8221; Trump said, adding: &#8220;The United States of America is not a &#8216;PIGGYBANK&#8217; for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!&#8221;
<div id="attachment_1143205" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-threatens-european-union-after-massive-fines-on-google/president-trump-hosts-2025-world-series-champions-los-angeles-dodgers" rel="attachment wp-att-1143205"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1143205" class="wp-image-1143205 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2286736761-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2286736761-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2286736761-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2286736761-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2286736761.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>US President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, July 23, 2026. Photographer: Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
Trump warned that the EU&#8217;s actions would trigger a strong response from the United States.
&#8220;Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that we will immediately initiate a 301 Investigation into the practice of &#8216;ROBBING&#8217; American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer,&#8221; Trump wrote. &#8220;The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about.&#8221;
&#8220;The penalties will be entirely reversed and, we anticipate, a substantial TARIFF to be placed on them at the earliest possible moment,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Stay tuned!&#8221;
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Wire.

All-In and Hill & Valley Forum Host “Winning The AI Race”

Trump Threatens European Union After Massive Fines On Google

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Apple

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Europe

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Meta dismantled its latest artificial intelligence image-generation feature last Friday, only three days after releasing it. 
Muse Image, a feature that allowed users to create images using public Instagram photos from adult accounts without consent, sustained overwhelming backlash immediately after it went public. Many users were automatically opted in and were unaware that their public accounts were subject to the new feature, and they scrambled to figure out how to turn it off. 
Meta released a statement, saying it received feedback that &#8220;this feature missed the mark,&#8221; and removed it, according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/11/meta-ditches-muse-image-ai-feature-instagram-privacy">The Guardian</a>.
“Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control ⁠over whether their public content could be referenced in this way,” Meta said.
Meta unveiled Muse Image on Tuesday, <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2026/07/introducing-muse-image-meta-ai/">describing</a> it as the “first image generation model from Meta Superintelligence Labs.” The feature allowed users to generate customized images by tagging an Instagram username, allowing Meta AI to draw from that account&#8217;s public photos.
The feature was available through the Meta AI app, web browser, WhatsApp, and Instagram Stories for users in the United States.
“Whether you want to design a custom event invitation, mock up a collaborative creative concept, or generate a personalized graphic, tagging a username lets Meta AI use public photos to build a visual that’s ready to post,” Meta said.
Adult users with public Instagram accounts were automatically opted in, allowing Meta AI to use their public photos to generate new images unless they opted out. 
In an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9lee19y1yo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview with the BBC</a>, Donald Campbell, advocacy director at tech justice non-profit Foxglove, said Meta’s move was an “obvious recipe for disaster,” pointing out that there have already been &#8220;a catalogue of harms from non-consensual AI-altered images on social platforms just in the past year.&#8221;
“It is hard to see why Mark Zuckerberg thinks facilitating yet more of this creepy image manipulation is a good idea,” Campbell said.
Many users complained they had not been asked for permission before being enrolled and said the opt-out option was difficult to find.
“Went to opt out but there was only one toggle for reels for me (which I already had switched off) and not one for posts, hopefully they’re just rolling it out gradually and it’ll be there when I check back later,” one Instagram user wrote.
Another user said, “Would be fab if our [government] were keeping an eye on stuff like this.”

Photo Illustrations  Meta Launches Muse Image

Meta Removes Concerning Instagram AI Feature After Severe Backlash

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The UFC and Meta announced a new partnership Monday afternoon that revolutionizes the current fighter ranking system that has been in place since 2013.
The multi-billion dollar mixed martial arts organization partnered up with the artificial intelligence company to use their technology to evaluate the athletes based on a specific algorithm using advanced metrics such as quality of win and recency. UFC President and CEO Dana White took to Instagram to declare the new collaboration.
“I’ve been unhappy with the rankings and always believe there had to be a better way,” White said. “We’ve always been a company that runs toward technology and innovation and now we’ve worked with Meta to integrate it directly into our rankings system. I’m excited to see how this innovation can help change the sport for both the fans and the athletes.”
White has publicly expressed his disdain for the media voting panels in recent years, so the change in rankings did not come as much of a surprise to anyone. It was especially heightened in 2024 after Khalil Rountree Jr. almost beat the light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, yet stayed at number eight in the rankings.
“The morons strike again,” White complained. “The morons keep him at number eight. Literally this week, I have a meeting to try and fix the rankings and get all of these know-nothing, do-nothing motherf*ckers out of it.”
“I just can’t handle incompetence. I can’t take it anymore. It’s driving me crazy,” White <a href="https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/story/sports/ufc/2024/10/15/ufc-rankings-dana-white-change-media-ai/75696927007/">continued during a post-fight press conference</a> just a few days later. “I can’t let people that I don’t believe know what the f*ck that they’re talking about deal with the rankings anymore. I have to figure out a solution.”
The new deal with Meta fixes White’s issues with the media panel that voted for the top 15 fighters in each division and an overall top ten “pound-for-pound” fighter list. What was once affected by popularity now uses an algorithm created by the engineering team at Meta.
The algorithm factors in how a fighter wins, whether it’s dominant or a split decision, opponent quality, and activity of the fighter. The rankings update the Monday after each UFC event.
The first “Meta UFC Rankings” released Monday, June 22, with many fans and fighters alike giving mixed reactions to the now unranked fighters and athletes who jumped rankings and benefitted from the change.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
What am I lookin at 😆 
This 💩 gotta be a joke
Somebody playin I can’t take none this serious 😆 <a href="https://t.co/bLnzzMsvql">pic.twitter.com/bLnzzMsvql</a>
— Charles &#8220;InnerG&#8221; Johnson (@innerGmma_ufc) <a href="https://x.com/innerGmma_ufc/status/2069174064544137388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2026</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
For the first time this bullshit ranking is right
— Renato Moicano (@moicanoufc) <a href="https://x.com/moicanoufc/status/2069176060889968793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 22, 2026</a></blockquote>
The “Meta UFC Rankings” appear to be here to stay despite the backlash.
“By introducing these advanced metrics, the Meta UFC Rankings deliver the most consistent and clear assessment of fighter placement available today,” the company <a href="https://www.ufc.com/news/ufc-and-meta-unveil-meta-ufc-rankings">stated on the announcement on their website</a>. “This consistent, data-informed approach is designed to foster greater fan engagement and debate, providing a neutral and sophisticated benchmark for comparing the world&#8217;s best athletes.”

UFC 257: Press Conference

UFC And Meta Team Up To Reinvent Fighter Rankings

Meta launched a free program on Monday that it&#8217;s calling America’s Workforce Academy, a first-of-its-kind $115 million initiative designed to fast-track Americans into high-demand jobs without requiring a college degree.
Meta&#8217;s pitch is simple: train for free, get paid while you learn, and walk into a guaranteed job on the other side. Meta said that its new school is not a federal program or another handout but a private company spending its own money because it needs the workers for the next wave of a technological revolution. 
&#8220;The AI revolution is bringing change but also historic opportunities. Skilled workers electrified rural America one pole at a time,” said Meta’s President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick. “They manned the factories that built the arsenal that won World War II. Now a new generation will pour the foundations and lay the fiber that secures American strength in this new age.”
The program will launch as a pilot in four states: Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, and Texas. America’s Workforce Academy seeks to output welders, electricians, plumbers, and fiber technicians, the workers who will physically build the data centers and infrastructure powering the artificial intelligence boom.
Mike Rowe, the host of the Discovery Channel&#8217;s &#8220;Dirty Jobs&#8221; and CEO of a foundation that awards $10 million a year in scholarships to aspiring tradesmen, praised Meta’s new program. 
“Workers are actually paid to learn,&#8221; Rowe said. &#8220;There is zero cost to them, no college debt and a fast certification, with a guaranteed job on the other end. This is an important step in the right direction, and one that I hope other companies will be inspired to take.&#8221; 
Meta said it is partnering with the National Urban League, Associated Builders and Contractors, and CBRE, along with a roster of regional groups including the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, and local economic development organizations across each of the pilot regions.
The idea for the academy came after Meta saw huge demand for a similar initiative. LevelUp, Meta’s fiber-installation training program, received 35,000 applications in the seven days after it launched.
As college tuition continues to soar, interest in trade schools has steadily increased. Earning a four-year degree in America costs an average <a href="https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/bachelor-degree-cost/">$153,080</a>, with in-state public schools averaging $108,584 and private nonprofit $234,512. 
Total student loan debt in the United States is now over <a href="https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics">$1.8 trillion</a>, and many of the students carrying that debt also worry that the rise of artificial intelligence could eventually make their jobs obsolete. Gen Z&#8217;s outlook on AI is largely negative, with <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/708224/gen-adoption-steady-skepticism-climbs.aspx">42%</a> reporting they feel anxious about the technology&#8217;s rapid advancement. 
Meta, while not dismissing the possibility of workforce disruption, is betting that AI will also create a new generation of high-paying skilled trades jobs that cannot be outsourced to algorithms. The company argues that building the infrastructure behind the AI revolution will require millions of workers whose labor remains firmly rooted in the physical world and educated by its new America’s Workforce Academy.

US-INTERNET-TECHNOLOGY-FACEBOOK

Meta Launches A Free Alternative To College In Four Red States

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<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/meta-smart-glasses-face-recognition-nametag-connections/">A WIRED analysis</a> found that Meta has incorporated facial recognition technology into apps that connect to the company’s smart glasses.
The feature, called “NameTag,” was integrated into the app through several updates in 2026. It identifies people through the glasses’ camera and alerts the wearer when it recognizes someone, according to WIRED. Although the feature has not yet been enabled, NameTag relies on three AI models implemented through Meta’s servers and stored on users&#8217; phones.
“One model detects faces, one crops them, and a third encodes them into biometric data,” WIRED reported. 
This discovery, identified by independent experts cited by WIRED, suggests that Meta has already distributed facial-recognition code to customers&#8217; devices while publicly claiming it is still “thinking through” whether to deploy the technology. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/meta-facial-recognition-smart-glasses.html">According to the New York Times</a>, Meta said in February that it would not “roll anything out” before taking a “thoughtful approach.” 
“While we frequently hear about the interest in this type of feature — and some products already exist in the market — we’re still thinking through options,” a Meta executive told the Times. 
At the time, Meta’s smart glasses only activated their cameras when users took photos, recorded videos, or interacted with the AI assistant. The company, however, was also developing a feature known as “super sensing,” which would allow the cameras to operate continuously throughout the day. According to reports, facial recognition was a key component of that effort. 
WIRED shared its findings with Cooper Quintin, a security researcher and senior public interest technologist with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Threat Lab. Although NameTag is not available to consumers, Quintin said the feature appears &#8220;nearly ready to go,” with the core facial-recognition components “already in Meta’s companion app.” 
“Despite the billions of reasons not to, Meta seems to have created the capacity to turn their customers into a distributed surveillance machine,” Quintin said.
While a feature like this could benefit the blind, which is one of the reasons Mark Zuckerberg supported research into this field, it also poses significant dangers — especially when the company begins embedding this technology without altering its original statement. In April, more than 70 advocacy groups called on Meta to abandon Nametag, arguing it could allow stalkers and abusers to covertly identify strangers in public.
Meta has denied that it is preparing to launch the feature.
Spokesman Ryan Daniels said that despite what he described as “sensational reporting,” the company is merely “exploring” the technology.
“Nothing has shipped to consumers and no final decision has been made on what to do here, if anything,” Daniels said. “If we do decide to roll something out, we will take a thoughtful approach and do so with full transparency. One decision we can be clear about—we are not building a central face database.&#8221; 
However, WIRED reported that NameTag is capable of pulling faceprints from Meta&#8217;s servers and storing them on a consumer&#8217;s phone.  
Meta previously faced scutiny over facial recognition technology used on Facebook. Beginning in 2010, the company deployed software that analyzed photographs and suggested tags for users who appeared in images. According to WIRED, the system became “one of the largest consumer face-recognition systems ever deployed.” 
European regulators and U.S. privacy advocates raised concerns about the technology&#8217;s legality in 2011. In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a record $5 billion settlement to the Federal Trade Commission as part of a broader privacy case that included scrutiny of the company&#8217;s handling of user data and facial-recognition practices.

Daily Life In Caen

Meta Smart Glasses Platform Contains Face-Recognition Code, Report Says

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The co-CEOs building what could become the next major tech disruptor say Americans have already surrendered their privacy, and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise. 
On Tuesday, Warby Parker co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa discussed their company&#8217;s entry into the rapidly escalating race for artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses, positioning Warby Parker against Meta in what many in Silicon Valley believe could become the post-smartphone era.
Asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin if the smart glasses would &#8220;persistently listen&#8221; to or watch users, Blumenthal <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2026/05/26/future-of-a-eye-warby-parker-co-ceos-on-the-companys-new-ai-glasses.html">replied</a>, “Our phones are already listening to us, so we’ve already given that up. Now, for us, you&#8217;re going to need a prompt. But I think we probably have to have honest discussions about what we’ve already decided in society.”
Unlike Warby Parker, which openly acknowledged that consumers have already surrendered privacy to always-on technology, Meta has stopped short of saying its devices are constantly listening. The company has instead compared its smart glasses to voice assistants like Siri, maintaining that they only activate and begin listening after a user prompt. 
Warby Parker’s upcoming smart glasses are powered by Google’s Gemini AI platform and developed in partnership with Samsung. The company says the devices are being built with visible privacy safeguards, including cameras that are turned off by default, and an LED indicator light that becomes “incredibly visible” whenever recording is activated.
Executives argue the tradeoff is worth it because of the productivity gains AI-powered eyewear could bring to everyday life.
Gilboa believes the glasses will allow people to “keep their heads up” by allowing them to take calls, send emails and texts, and browse the internet all without taking out a phone or logging onto a computer. 
Blumenthal drew a distinction between Google’s business model and Meta’s, arguing that Google is designed to help users quickly find information, while competitors aim to keep consumers trapped inside their platforms for as long as possible.
“One of the primary reasons we are so excited to partner with Google is if you think about Google’s business model, it is designed to help you find information and then get you off Google properties,” Blumenthal said. “Others in the market are designed to keep you in their ecosystem. For us, it’s about making the world more useful.”
“You can also imagine super vision as well,” he added. “That’s how we think about these products, how we give ourselves superpowers.”
Warby Parker’s AI-powered smart glasses are expected to launch in the fall of 2026. 
Warby Parker first jumped into the industry <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/28/how-warby-parker-became-sustainable-business-dtc-profitability.html">in 2010</a> when it was founded by four Wharton MBA students, each of whom invested $30,000 of their own savings to launch the company. Since then, the eyewear startup has expanded into contact lenses, opened in-store eye care services, and generated nearly $872 million in revenue last year.
Later this year, Apple <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2026/04/12/apple-smart-glasses-new-leak-reveals-a-major-design-twist-to-beat-meta/">is also expected</a> to unveil its first AI-powered smart glasses, which are expected to launch in 2027.

Inside The Google I/O Developers Conference

Big Tech Isn’t Even Pretending That It’s Not Listening Anymore

Artificial Intelligence

Google Gemini

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
It was a normal Saturday night in suburban Pennsylvania. Ashley Kavcak, a mom of four, was sitting on the couch mindlessly scrolling Instagram like she did all the time. But on this night, everything changed in an instant when a notification popped up saying her account had been disabled. 
The reason made her stomach drop. According to pop up, she had been banned for violating “Community Standards on child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity.”
&#8220;It made me want to throw up,&#8221; she told The Daily Wire in an interview. &#8220;I started immediately thinking, what did I do? Like oh my gosh, what could I have possibly liked or done that would make them think I&#8217;m something so horrible?&#8221;
Ashley had maintained a private Instagram account for 14 years, carefully curating who could see photos of her children because she, like so many moms, was creeped out by anonymous internet weirdos. She had roughly 200 followers mostly made up of family and close friends. 
She never found out what triggered the ban because Instagram doesn&#8217;t tell you.
There was an option to appeal the decision, but in her case that appeal came back denied in six minutes. &#8220;At this point I don&#8217;t think there are any humans working for Meta,&#8221; Ashley said.

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Ashley&#8217;s case is part of a disturbing pattern affecting thousands of Instagram users nationwide. It all blew up around May 2025 when Meta reportedly rolled out new AI moderation models, which immediately triggered clusters of Instagram accounts around the world being disabled overnight. Journalists began documenting how images of cars, family photos, and art were all being improperly flagged as child sexual exploitation.
CBS Philadelphia <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/facebook-instagram-accounts-wrongfully-suspended-for-child-exploitation/">reported</a> that nearly 50,000 Facebook and Instagram users have signed an online petition claiming wrongful bans, with many involving false accusations of child exploitation. NBC Connecticut <a href="https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/investigations/nbc-ct-responds/glastonbury-brothers-claim-accounts-wrongfully-shut-down-meta/3654056/">documented</a> 77 complaints across NBC stations in six months, with 17 specifically for &#8220;child sexual exploitation, abuse, and nudity.&#8221;
In June 2025, a law firm in St. Paul, Minnesota, began seeking plaintiffs for a class action lawsuit against Meta for those who believe they were wrongfully banned. The question at the heart of these cases: What happens when automated systems make life-altering accusations with no visible human oversight?
For Ashley, the accusation carried particular irony. She had kept her account private from the beginning, specifically to protect her children from online dangers. She was selective about whom she accepted as followers. In recent years, she started asking her children&#8217;s permission before posting their photos.
&#8220;I was worried about predators,&#8221; she says. &#8220;Now, according to AI, I am the predator.&#8221;
When the ban notification appeared, Ashley couldn&#8217;t identify what might have triggered it. Her last post was from January 17 and included photos of her family walking on a snowy trail wearing winter coats and hats. She had recently messaged her teenage daughter about going to Hobby Lobby, which made her wonder if that innocent conversation had somehow been flagged.
&#8220;She has a teen account. I am a moderator for her account and am listed as her parent,&#8221; Ashley explained. &#8220;There shouldn&#8217;t be a reason I was flagged for that … but now I’m questioning everything.”
Instagram&#8217;s notification was frustratingly vague. &#8220;They say click here for more information, and it tells you this could be this or it could be that,&#8221; she said. The possibilities ranged from posting inappropriate content to arranging to meet a minor, none of which she had done.
The mistake sent her down the Reddit rabbit hole of researching what she could possibly do to get her account back. What she found was less than encouraging. According to other users who went through the same thing, the ban is tied to her IP address. So trying to sign up and restart with a different email address wouldn’t work. 
&#8220;My email, my phone, everything has a mark on it,&#8221; she says. Users report having to buy new phones and use different WiFi networks just to access Instagram again. &#8220;The length that people have to go just to get Instagram back, it&#8217;s not even worth it,&#8221; she said.
The whole experience brought to mind the relationship people have with social media and their dependence on it always being there. With the ban, Ashley lost access to nearly 2,000 photos spanning 14 years, many of which she no longer has saved anywhere else. &#8220;There&#8217;s definitely years and years of stuff just lost forever,&#8221; she said. 
Beyond the photos, she lost her primary means of staying connected with far-away family and friends, people like an out-of-state cousin who loved seeing pictures of the kids and high school friends who kept up with her family through her posts. &#8220;These people that I once talked to probably think I fell off the face of the earth,&#8221; Ashley said. &#8220;Or maybe they think I blocked or deleted them.&#8221;
She missed a friend&#8217;s pregnancy announcement. She had to text another friend to ask about a mutual friend’s surgery, which is all information that would have appeared in her feed. &#8220;Social media is where people do their updates. That&#8217;s where you share your life,&#8221; Ashley said. &#8220;You don&#8217;t even think about it.&#8221;
The experience revealed how much of modern life is built on these platforms. &#8220;You don&#8217;t realize how dependent you are on it until it&#8217;s gone,&#8221; she added.
The accusation itself also left lasting damage. Ashley immediately worried about the implications: &#8220;Do they report me? Am I in trouble with the public? Can I even volunteer at my kids&#8217; school anymore? Like am I on some kind of list now?&#8221;
Redditors said she probably wasn&#8217;t on a government watchlist, but she still felt weird about it. She found herself adding disclaimers when explaining to people what happened. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t want anybody to think that of me,&#8221; she says. &#8220;What if somebody thinks this is true?&#8221;
The false accusation of exploiting children after spending years protecting her kids from online dangers remains deeply painful. &#8220;That&#8217;s one of those things that I&#8217;m like, well, this is ironic,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I was private to block things like this from happening.&#8221;
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Ashley&#8217;s experience is the impossibility of reaching a human at Meta for help.
&#8220;There are no humans,&#8221; she said. “You can&#8217;t bypass the robots to get in touch with a human.&#8221;
&#8220;I feel like this is a deeper conversation too about that aspect … there&#8217;s no customer service anymore,&#8221; she went on. &#8220;There are no people to plead your case to.&#8221;
Meta did not return The Daily Wire’s multiple requests for comment. 
Ashley has sent countless emails to support addresses with no luck at all. &#8220;I&#8217;m emailing nobody,&#8221; she said. &#8220;At this point they&#8217;re probably scanning my emails and thinking I&#8217;m a robot because I just keep sending the same thing over and over.&#8221;
Meta&#8217;s approach to content moderation has created a flagging system that appears to be malfunctioning on a massive scale. The company&#8217;s operating model of &#8220;remove first, ask questions later — or never&#8221; means AI is likely making decisions with minimal human oversight, and appeals are mostly processed by bots, according to reports.
“Ordinary users are being hit with these bans completely out of nowhere — no prior warnings, no real reasoning, no chance to appeal effectively,” one Redditor <a href="https://sfist.com/2025/06/16/instagram-users-complain-of-mass-suspensions-of-accounts-likely-by-ai/">observed</a>. “And while losing photos, messages, and memories sucks — and it does — the larger issue is that Meta is slapping these life-altering accusations onto people’s digital identities without context or due process.&#8221;
The European Commission last year initiated <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/24/instagram-facebook-breach-eu-law-content-flagging">formal proceedings</a> against Meta for potential violations of the Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to provide clear reasons for removals and offer the chance for users to appeal. 
But for users like Ashley, slow-moving regulatory action feels like it won’t help much. She just wants her account back, her photos restored, and some acknowledgment that what happened to her was wrong.
&#8220;What they&#8217;re doing is really affecting people negatively,&#8221; she said when asked what she would tell Meta if someone was listening. &#8220;We lost something very personal to us and to be accused … it feels like an invasion.&#8221;
The broader questions remain unanswered: How many others have been wrongly accused? Are any humans reviewing the appeals? Or do they just not care? For Ashley, it’s been a painful education in how fragile our digital lives are and how little power we have against the algorithms ruling the world of social media.

GettyImages-2260904003

This Mom’s Last Post Was A Family Walk. Then Came The Accusation That Changed Everything.

Social Media

Upstream

Meta has begun scrubbing ads offering legal help for damages related to social media addiction and the associated harmful behaviors.
According to a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/04/09/meta-social-media-addiction-ads">report</a> from Axios on Thursday, Meta has begun pulling ads — from both Facebook and Instagram — that provide users with information about getting legal advice or taking legal action against social media platforms.
Axios quoted an example of one of the ads that was pulled: &#8220;Anxiety. Depression. Withdrawal. Self-harm. These aren&#8217;t just teenage phases — they&#8217;re symptoms linked to social media addiction in children. Platforms knew this and kept targeting kids anyway.&#8221;
Meta has acknowledged that some ads are being removed from the social media platforms, saying that the law firms placing such ads should not be allowed to benefit from the use of Meta&#8217;s platforms while claiming at the same time that Meta was responsible for creating addicts and causing mental health problems.
&#8220;We&#8217;re actively defending ourselves against these lawsuits and are removing ads that attempt to recruit plaintiffs for them. We will not allow trial lawyers to profit from our platforms while simultaneously claiming they are harmful,&#8221; a Meta spokesperson told the outlet.
The report comes just two weeks after a California jury found that both <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/verdict-reached-in-landmark-social-media-media-addiction-trial">Meta</a> and YouTube had contributed to a number of mental health problems — including addiction and related behavior — in a landmark case before the California Superior Court.
A Meta spokesperson protested the verdict, saying at the time, &#8220;We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal. We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content. We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online.&#8221;
As The Daily Wire previously reported, social media platforms — including Meta and YouTube — have often touted online safety features in recent years, such as Instagram’s “Teen Accounts” and YouTube “Kids,” which are meant to create safer and more controlled experiences for children. Critics argue that kids — sometimes with willing parents or other adults helping them — are able to bypass those controls and gain access to the full platforms anyway.

Meta Shuts Down Ads From ‘Trial Lawyers’ Targeting Social Platform Over Addiction

Meta Doesn't Want Users To Know They May Be Able To Sue For Social Media Harm

Big Tech

Courts

Lawsuit

Supreme Court

U.S.

There is a not-so-secret war being waged for control of your kid&#8217;s mind.
Who owns your child&#8217;s mind? Social media companies? The government?
Or is it you?
A landmark lawsuit that just sent a gigantic shockwave through Silicon Valley. Meta (Facebook) and YouTube (Google) were found negligent in facilitating social media addiction.
Let’s break down the case that could upend Big Tech, reshape AI regulation, and force a national reckoning over parenting power and responsibility.
The legal case found both companies were negligent in facilitating social media addiction. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/technology/social-media-trial-verdict.html">The New York Times</a>:
<blockquote>The bellwether case, which was brought by a now 20-year-old woman identified as K.G.M., had accused social media companies of creating products as addictive as cigarettes or digital casinos. Citing features like infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations, K.G.M. sued Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, and Google’s YouTube, claiming they led to anxiety and depression. &#8230; 
K.G.M., whose first name is Kaley, filed her lawsuit in 2023 against Meta, Snap, YouTube and TikTok. Kaley, who lives in Chico, Calif., said she had begun using social media at age 6 and claimed the sites caused personal injury, including body dysmorphia and thoughts of self harm. </blockquote>
Variety said that the verdict was rooted in an argument around cigarette addiction. Back in the 1990s, there were settlements with the big tobacco companies where it was found that the tobacco companies fraudulently marketed products they knew were addictive as non-addictive, and that drew millions of people into serious health risks like lung cancer.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2396-sub?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
That doesn&#8217;t seem like a crazy take. We were told originally that social media would be a gigantic benefit for all of us. It would open “new vistas.” We&#8217;d all experience “new worlds.” We&#8217;d have “so many friends.” (Yeah, they&#8217;d be Facebook friends, but they were still friends.) We&#8217;d never have to go outside again. We&#8217;d all live in the metaverse, etc.
All of that was untrue. All of these social media companies are clickbait machines. That is what they are designed to do, in Pavlovian style.
Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke, who wrote a book called “Dopamine Nation,” speaks about this. She writes:
<blockquote>We&#8217;re wired to connect. It&#8217;s kept us alive for millions of years in a world of scarcity and ever-present danger. Moving in tribes safeguards against predators optimizes scarce resources and facilitates pair bonding.
Our brains release dopamine when we make human connections, and that incentivizes us to do it again. Social connection has now become drugified by social media apps, making us vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption. These apps can cause the release of large amounts of dopamine into our brains’ reward pathway all at once, like heroin. meth or alcohol. They do that by amplifying the feel-good properties that attract humans to each other in the first place.</blockquote>
It&#8217;s not just the social connection. It&#8217;s also because when you scroll on X, it&#8217;s literally designed to provide a brief dopamine rush. That&#8217;s why there&#8217;s that little sound effect. It&#8217;s almost a literal Pavlovian response. A Pavlovian response was established when you rang a bell in front of a dog and fed it a piece of meat at the same time. Eventually, when you rang the bell, the dog would start to salivate even if the meat wasn&#8217;t there because the brain had now been trained: Bell means meat, so bell causes salivation.
Social media companies do that too. This is why when you scroll, there&#8217;s a little sound effect. You&#8217;re going to get a dopamine hit, even if nothing new appears, just because you hear that little sound effect. 
Social media companies are arguing that they&#8217;re not the ones who are actually causing the addiction to really serious stuff. They say, “Sure, our algorithms are designed to make you click, but it&#8217;s the videos themselves that are responsible for the harm, not the design of the product.” 
In other words, if you were watching lots of cooking videos on social media and it fed you an infinite loop of cooking videos and not skinny influencers, you&#8217;d be totally fine. You&#8217;re the one who decides whether you are clicking on skinny influencers or whether you&#8217;re clicking on cooking videos. And what&#8217;s more, it turns out, these social media companies aren&#8217;t the ones who are actually making the content. The social media companies say, &#8220;We&#8217;re a platform, like a phone line.&#8221;
Yes, they make money by featuring viral content, but the consumer picks which content to actually watch. The person posting the content is actually responsible for the content, unless it&#8217;s an AI or a bot these days.
Until now, social media companies have been avoiding legal culpability by citing Section 230. Section 230 says that if you&#8217;re a platform and your website has a comment section, you&#8217;re not responsible for what&#8217;s in the comments.
If you&#8217;re YouTube, you&#8217;re not responsible for the content of the videos that are on YouTube because you&#8217;re just providing the platform on which others can post.
Section 230 says that all of these platforms ought not be held liable for content produced by others.
But that&#8217;s not on point.
The actual argument here is that these social media sites are, by their very nature, addictive, and that almost no matter what the content is, the medium is damaging to kids.
This raises a broader question for parents. Are you responsible for your children and their social media use?
The answer here should be yes.
My kids aren&#8217;t on social media because they are banned from using social media. Kids who are addicted to TV also don&#8217;t have great lives, but we don&#8217;t actually hold TV companies responsible for that fact. Nobody&#8217;s suing Apple because your kid is watching Apple TV all day.
That&#8217;s a point made yesterday by Meta&#8217;s president, Dina Powell McCormick, who said, “You know, as a mom, this is really important to me and very personal. I see firsthand just how hard the company is trying to ensure that there&#8217;s not harmful content, to ensure that we are empowering parents to the best of our ability. And it&#8217;s something that I watch being focused on every single day. We respectfully disagree with that decision, and we&#8217;re appealing.”
She&#8217;s not totally wrong here. The fact is that as a parent of four kids, going on five, I&#8217;m all over what my kids are consuming. I decide what movies they watch. I decide what TV shows they watch. They&#8217;re not allowed on social media. They do not have interactive capability on social media, anything like that.
This issue is kind of a sticky wicket, as social media companies are responsible for part of the problem because of the dopamine response. And yes, parents are also responsible for the problem.
Here&#8217;s the actual solution: not gigantic lawsuits. The answer is governmental legislation banning social media for kids under 18. Period.
That is what we should be doing. It&#8217;s what a lot of countries are doing right now — and they are correct to do so.
Users should have to register as over 18. Companies that don&#8217;t do it should be held legally accountable.
If we&#8217;re going to actually carry this analogy all the way through, if we&#8217;re going to treat social media like tobacco or alcohol, then the answer historically wasn&#8217;t to sue tobacco companies for kids smoking, it was to ban kids from smoking. The same is true for alcohol.
The reason I&#8217;m a little bit averse to lawsuits like these is because I think it will be extended to adults. I think what&#8217;s going to happen is that this will be used as a broader argument, not just against social media, where I’m relatively indifferent, but to actual useful technologies like AI, because this is a big societal question: Should we blame technology for our own failures as adults?
Kids are a different story. The reason that this particular lawsuit is emotionally appealing is because it&#8217;s about a kid who got addicted. And kids do get addicted. And honestly, I blame the parents as the primary source.
I don&#8217;t let my kids get addicted to things. It&#8217;s my job to prevent that. I don&#8217;t give my kids candy bars even though they want candy bars every single day, all the time. And if I decide to feed that to them, and they get Type 2 diabetes. I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s on the candy company. I think it&#8217;s on me.
My biggest problem here is that we start blaming technologies for our failures as adults.
We have to look to ourselves to solve some of these problems.

Meta And Youtube Found Liable In Social Media Addiction Lawsuit

Did Social Media Destroy The Kids?

Opinion

social media addiction

Teenagers

YouTube

For now, Facebook is still technically called Meta. But the “metaverse,” Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious virtual reality project, is in shambles. Tech outlets <a href="https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-isnt-shutting-down-its-vr-metaverse-after-all-165520696.html">reported</a> last week that the company would be sunsetting Horizon Worlds, its VR social media platform. Then CTO Andrew Bosworth clarified that Horizon Worlds would remain operational, even if users could expect little in the way of updates or new content. The parallel reality that Zuckerberg invited his clientele to dream of will linger quietly on — like the mostly forgotten game &#8220;The Sims,&#8221; that nerds of a certain age sometimes spin up for old time’s sake, except with real people pretending to be virtual instead of the other way around. Meta’s rebrand was perhaps a bit premature.
But then, it wasn’t so much the “Meta” part that grated. It was the “Verse”: the all-encompassing and boundlessly presumptuous claim about how life would be from now on. Pretensions to metaversality were part of the enthusiasm for “Web 3,” a supposedly epochal transition from a world of siloed apps and websites to a paradise of digital interconnectivity. It was one of those tech projects that consists of a doomsday scenario presented unblinkingly as a sales pitch. In &#8220;Snow Crash,&#8221; a 1992 cyberpunk fantasia, the novelist Neal Stephenson gave the name “metaverse” to a digital world that his characters would escape into when socioeconomic conditions conspired to make their embodied lives unbearable.
Zuckerberg, striding confidently through a sea of early adopters wearing insectoid VR helmet-goggles for a photo op, didn’t seem to notice how viscerally unappealing the whole thing was. He comes across as totally deaf to these sorts of concerns, although maybe acting that way is part of his job. It also has to be said how profoundly the mood back then was affected by COVID-19, which spiked people’s screen time and created the impression that everything was getting ported to the cloud.
<div id="attachment_1063987" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1063987" class="size-large wp-image-1063987" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-864x576.jpg" alt="Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook Inc., speaks in a virtual Horizon Home environment during the virtual Facebook Connect event, where the company announced its rebranding as Meta, in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. A major theme at the annual conference will be the company's ambitions for the so-called metaverse, a new digital space that it believes will supplant smartphone apps as the primary form of online interaction. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/03/GettyImages-1236189437.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images</div>
Lots of things were, but it was silly not to expect an imminent counter-revolution once people grew disgusted with the effects of too much scrolling. In the first round of mass layoffs that followed his pandemic hiring spree, Zuckerberg regretfully <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/">acknowledged</a> that he had seen the rush of users to the site and “predicted this would be a permanent acceleration.” Whoopsie. The four most foolhardy words in the English language are “if present trends continue.”
Present trends generally do not continue. In &#8220;<a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/shoshana-zuboff/the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism/9781478947271/?lens=publicaffairs">The Age of Surveillance Capitalism</a>,&#8221; the social psychologist Shoshanna Zuboff used the word “inevitabilism” to describe how technologists labor to make their designs seem inevitable “when they are actually meticulously calculated and lavishly funded means to self-dealing commercial ends.” What Zuboff called “the prediction imperative” puts tech companies in “the reality business,” where profit models depend on passing off corporate aspirations as unalterable, world-historical developments that must and will take place. Then the only question becomes whether you’ll get on board or, in the words of Ebenezer Scrooge from the 1951 adaptation of Dickens’s &#8220;A Christmas Carol,&#8221; “be crushed under with the weak and the infirm.” This is why product launches so often look and sound like something out of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, and why emissaries from the c-suite tend to talk like Thanos from &#8220;Avengers: Endgame&#8221;: &#8220;I.Am.Inevitable.&#8221;
What I want to propose is that inevitabilism is neither unique to tech nor especially modern. It’s just the standard advertising strategy for aspirants to global power. In 1817, anticipating the arrival in London of a colossal pharaonic statue from Egypt, Percy Shelley and Horace Smith embarked on a friendly competition to write a poem on the theme of monarchic pride. Shelley won with “Ozymandias,” a sonnet on the ruins of a dead king’s towering monument whose “vast and trunkless legs of stone” stand on a pedestal inscribed with the words “‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. / Look on my works ye mighty, and despair!’ / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
The real Ozymandias was Ramesses II, god-king of Egypt’s mighty New Kingdom. The Greek version of his name, which Shelley used for his title, came from the royal epithet he adopted at his coronation: Usermaatre Setepenre. It means roughly “Strong Justice and Chosen one of Ra,” the Sun God. Shelley neither invented nor exaggerated Ozymandias’ claims to ultimate power. The statue’s inscription in the poem is a rough paraphrase of a real one quoted by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus: “King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works.”
Ozymandias, Nebuchadnezzar, Sennacherib, Ashurbanipal&#8230;they came and they went. It used to be standard practice for imperial monarchs to boast of their sacred, eternal, and universal dominion. The fiction is appealing because it offers things people crave: permanence, stability, order, and certainty about the future. It’s tragic because, as Shelley observed, none of these are things that even very good men can guarantee. The sands of time’s desert are littered with trunkless legs. Nothing beside remains.
Understand these things, and you understand the politics of the Old Testament. The constant refrain of the Hebrew Prophets was that people look for eternity in the wrong places. “Put not your trust in princes”: again and again, the Jews of ancient Israel were invited to observe the wreckage of dynasties whose total dominion was once depicted — plausibly, at the time — as inevitable.
As it winds down its VR program, Meta will be diverting its resources and attention toward Artificial Intelligence. AI technology has so far proven vastly more useful and workable than the metaverse. It seems unlikely that we’ll look back on it as a passing fancy. At the same time, the predictions about the world AI will make — its powers to transform the universe, or come to life, or usurp God — have all the flavor of inevitabilism.
The same people who went all-in on the metaverse have moved on with undiminished confidence to telling us that AI will change everything, everywhere, all at once, that the whole thing is a fait accompli, that it’s pointless to speak of exercising restraint. “Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair.” I submit that we will continue to fall for this routine, chasing like hamsters after the next forever, just as long as we expect a company or a king to secure the future of the universe. If we want eternity, we will have to look elsewhere.
* * *
Spencer A. Klavan is co-host, with his father Andrew Klavan, of the “Klavans on the Culture” podcast. He is associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books and author, most recently, of &#8220;Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith.&#8221;
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Day Two of MWC Barcelona 2023

The Metaverse Was Never Inevitable

Books

Literature

Silicon Valley

This week, Meta announced it was shutting down Horizon Worlds, the company&#8217;s virtual reality social network, on June 15. Going forward, the platform will only be available as a mobile app and will no longer support VR headsets.
&#8220;We are separating the two platforms so each can grow with greater focus, and the Horizon Worlds platform will become a mobile-only experience,&#8221; the company said in the announcement.
Skepticism greeted Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s vision from the start. When he declared in 2021 that Facebook would transform into the Metaverse — an online world where avatars would live, work, and play — even enthusiastic early adopters had doubts.
Zuckerberg formally announced the concept that year and renamed his company Meta to match, calling it &#8220;the next frontier&#8221; of tech.
&#8220;Our hope is that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers,&#8221; Zuckerberg <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/founders-letter/">said</a> in 2021.
Critics, meanwhile, called it unsettling and strange. Now, with the platform hemorrhaging billions and parts of it shutting down, those critics appear to have been right.
Horizon Worlds was once positioned as the centerpiece of Meta&#8217;s VR ambitions. The retreat comes just weeks after the company laid off more than 1,000 employees from Reality Labs, the division responsible for developing its metaverse products.
After news of the shutdown spread, Meta appeared to walk back its announcement, clarifying that it would continue to support some existing VR apps within Horizon Worlds, but would not be adding any new ones.
A February <a href="https://developers.meta.com/horizon/blog/2026-vr-state-of-the-union-horizon-mobile-focus/">blog post</a> insisted that the company &#8220;remains the biggest investor in the VR industry&#8221; and had &#8220;a robust roadmap of future VR headsets in the works.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/18/meta-horizon-worlds-metaverse-vr.html">CNBC</a>, Reality Labs has reported billions in losses each quarter since its launch, with the most recent figure — $6.02 billion — reported for Q4 in January.
The outlet also noted that Meta has shifted its focus from VR worlds to artificial intelligence. According to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/technology/mark-zuckerbergs-metaverse-vr-horizon-worlds.html">The New York Times</a>, Zuckerberg mentioned AI 23 times at a recent developer conference, and brought up the metaverse only twice.

Metaverse

If You Were Excited About Facebook’s Big Tech Upgrade — There’s A New Reality

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The Insane Left Wing Law That Is Causing Another Mass Exodus. What Happens Next?

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