Jeff Horwitz
@jeffhorwitz.bsky.social
Reporter covering Meta, social media and other topics (hopefully) for Reuters' investigative Team.
I've repeatedly run into a 4 y.o. tripod husky named Chicken Nuggy at Contra Costa Animal Services. While he's not at risk of euthanasia, I consider the Nug's ongoing availability to be a market failure. Can attest that in person he is the party that his photo indicates. Someone get on this.
I would pay good money never to hear the phrase "maxxing" ever again.
This one was a great read. Nice, @alexsammon.bsky.social
alex sammon@alexsammon.bsky.social · 3w agoAmerica is in the midst of a shoplifting crisis the level of social collapse. Gavin Newsom thinks so; Ron DeSantis thinks so; House D+Rs think so. So i went to the world's most advanced anti-shoplifting lab to get the hard science, and found...the anatomy of a crime panic. slate.com/life/2026/07...
Been getting advertisements for Temu novelty t-shirts a lot, and the concept of a slop-based wardrobe might be growing on me.
Look, when I confidentially file for an IPO none of you are going to know about it. These guys just have no chill.
Maria is wildly talented and I’ve known her since American Banker days. Just an awesome reporter with technical depth and a penchant for simplifying and humanizing complex topics. This sucks, I hate this industry and everyone should hire her.
Maria Aspan@mariaaspan.bsky.social · 2mo agoSome personal news, un-fun edition. Proud of my work for NPR, grateful to have spent the past two years learning the joys of audio/broadcasting/podcasting from some wonderful colleagues, and looking forward to what's next. I'm at maria.aspan@gmail.com
Some wild details from @courtneyrozen.bsky.social about how social media companies paid child-focused orgs to recommend kids engage with their products. Google sponsored the Girl Scouts "Be Internet Awesome Fun Patch" and a special edition of Highlights Magazine. www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...
Big Tech turns to Sesame Street, Girl Scouts to deflect scrutiny over kids' screen time
Meta and Google enlisted trusted children's brands such as Sesame Street, Girl Scouts and Highlights magazine to teach kids to use technology in moderation - even as the companies designed apps that m...
reuters.com
On X, I'm seeing two dominant strains of Grok interaction. 1. Lazy fact-checking, e.g. "Gork, is this true?" 2. Unconditional positive reinforcement, such as the below:
It's rarely good when "holocaust" is trending on Twitter.
We got a Pulitzer! Along with thanking my editors here - Steve Stecklow, Mike Williams and Paulo Prada -- I need to thank Jason Dean, my former WSJ bureau chief who oversaw and occasionally fought for my Meta work. Congratulations to @theinformation.com for hiring him!
Academics find that 3% of Polymarket accounts are driving price discovery, suggesting the platform offers a way for a small minority of informed players to cash in on previously unmonetizable information advantages. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Prediction Market Accuracy: Crowd Wisdom or Informed Minority?
Prediction markets are remarkably accurate, yet the source of this accuracy remains poorly understood. The conventional view attributes it to crowd wisdom, wher
papers.ssrn.com
Does Polymarket offer bets on how many people get arrested for illegal behavior related to Polymarket bets?
Over on X, virtually every prominent financial account has accrued multiple copycats that steal their name and avatar and then reply to all their posts with an invitation to "come check out my strategy" and a link to a scam. It's a stable ecosystem, just one that's real heavy on the parasites.
NEW: we @consumerfed.bsky.social are suing Meta in DC for knowingly facilitating massive scam losses through ads and misleading consumers about what they're doing to stop it www.wired.com/story/meta-i... thanks to @tyckozavareei.bsky.social @techjusticelaw.bsky.social for repping us.
Meta will begin keystroke logging US employees at work -- complete with mouse movements and periodic screenshots -- to train better AI agents. This comes after Boz posted about a future in which AI will "primarily do the work" at meta. It's a new era for tech labor. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
Exclusive: Meta to start capturing employee mouse movements, keystrokes for AI training data
Meta is installing new tracking software on U.S.-based employees’ computers to capture mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes for use in training its artificial-intelligence models, part of a broad ...
reuters.com
Nobody's recently asked, but in case anybody's interested I also will agree to buy $100 billion of your future services if you give me $5 billion upfront
The size of Meta's future layoff waves will depend on the speed of improvements in AI tooling and capacity. It sets up a wild workplace dynamic. www.reuters.com/world/meta-t...
Exclusive: Meta targets May 20 for first wave of layoffs; additional cuts later in 2026
Meta intends to conduct a first wave of sweeping layoffs planned for this year on May 20, with more coming later, three sources familiar with the plans told Reuters.
reuters.com
On X, community notes being used to flag X for running allegedly illegal undisclosed ads for Nvidia.
Chinese government decides to regulate AI from the right to personal likeness, child safety and addiction angles. www.reuters.com/world/china/...
China moves to regulate digital humans, bans addictive services for children
The proposed rules would require prominent "digital human" labels on all virtual human content and prohibit digital humans from providing "virtual intimate relationships" to those under 18.
reuters.com
Okay so here’s my actual Bluesky-is-dying hypothesis: The entire web is dying. Users aren’t going from BlueSky to another site (x/insta/threada/tiktok). Users are going to chatbots. I know traffic to news sites has cratered (like 90%). My hunch is traffic to all the social platforms is down too.
The compromise @caseynewton.bsky.social is proposing would be a big deal in the tech policy world. The feud between Section 230 absolutists and those seeking to rein in social media companies is a big reason why regulation always withers on the vine.
Casey Newton@caseynewton.bsky.social · 4mo agoCan you have child safety and Section 230, too? I think so. But it requires acknowledging the distinction between speech and design: www.platformer.news/social-media...
Elon Musk's lawyers have asked the court to suppress talk of "inflammatory and highly irrelevant topics" like Donald Trump and Rhino Ketamine storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
I'm VERY aware that leaks have consequences, but it's intereesting to see a CDT staffer saying that public scrutiny of internal company documents ultimately harms social media well being work. Sorta feels like many brand-name tech critic orgs are either quiet or resentful of the meta verdicts.
There's an unfortunate tendency to combine speech concerns about negligent platform design lawsuits with a claim that platform design can't be blamed for bad user outcomes. Platforms run A/B tests showing the effects of discrete features and then weigh safety vs growth tradeoffs. That's settled.
Also, beyond the money in the New Mexico case, there will be a bench trial in May to adjudicate NM's claim that Meta needs to change its product to comply with state law.
I should clarify that there were two separate findings of liability involving 37,500 violations. So that's ~$375 million in a state that contains 0.62% of the US population. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
Jury orders Meta to pay $375 mln in New Mexico lawsuit over child sexual exploitation, user safety
A New Mexico jury on Tuesday found Meta Platforms violated state law in a lawsuit brought by the state attorney general, who accused the company of misleading users about the safety of Facebook, Insta...
reuters.com
Jeff Horwitz@jeffhorwitz.bsky.social · 4mo agoVerdict is in for the New Mexico child safety case against Meta. Goes against Meta on every question. Jury finds Meta liable for ~37,000 violations. Maximum liability of $5,000 per violation.
