EU fines Apple €500M and Meta €200M for DMA violations, sparking US-EU tensions. Bluesky implemented censorship in Turkey. Security concerns emerged at NLRB after DOGE employees allegedly used GitHub code to extract sensitive data. A study confirms Rust’s security advantages. Adobe released advanced Firefly AI models for image and video generation.
▶️ Internet Infrastructure
Government censorship comes to Bluesky, but not its third-party apps … yet | TechCrunch
Bluesky has implemented government-mandated censorship in Turkey via geographic labelers, restricting 72 accounts, while third-party apps can bypass these blocks due to lack of enforced regional moderation.
- Bluesky restricted access to 72 accounts in Turkey at the Turkish government’s request, citing national security and public order concerns.
- 59 accounts were blocked, 13 accounts and at least one post made invisible; accounts remain on Bluesky infrastructure.
- Official Bluesky app users cannot opt out of geographic moderation, but third-party apps like Skeets, Ouranos, Deer.social, and Skywalker can bypass these restrictions by not implementing geographic labelers.
Does using Rust really make your software safer? - Blog - Tweede golf
Using Rust for DNS parsing code prevents memory safety vulnerabilities, as demonstrated by empirical tests showing Rust’s robustness against exploits, reducing development time and costs.
- A 2021 vulnerability in Siemens’ Nucleus real-time operating system, used by over 3 billion devices, allowed malicious DNS response crafting to overwrite memory.
- The vulnerability stemmed from unsafe DNS response parsing code, enabling crashes or device reprogramming; patched in later versions.
- The security research team conducted an experiment rewriting the DNS unpacking routine in Rust, demonstrating that Rust’s memory safety prevents such vulnerabilities, with tests showing no exploitable errors.
- The experiment revealed that Rust code avoided memory unsafe bugs, resulted in recoverable errors during exploits, facilitated thorough testing, and saved development time and costs compared to C implementations.
▶️ Open Source
14 Advanced Python Features | Edward Li’s Blog
Edward Li’s blog details 14 underrated Python features—such as @overload, __slots__, structural pattern matching, and metaclasses—with code examples, PEP references, and practical insights for advanced usage.
- The article covers 14 advanced Python features, including typing overloads, keyword-only and positional-only arguments, future annotations, generics, protocols, context managers, pattern matching, slots, nitpicks, f-string formatting, cache, futures, proxy properties, and metaclasses.
- Features are explained with code examples, technical details, and relevant PEP references, emphasizing their use cases and implementation nuances.
- The features are presented with links to additional resources and documentation for deeper exploration.
▶️ Management and Leadership
Apple, Meta fined as EU presses ahead with tech probes
EU regulators fined Apple 500 million euros and Meta 200 million euros for DMA violations, enforcing rules to curb Big Tech’s market dominance and requiring compliance within two months.
- EU fined Apple 500 million euros ($570 million) and Meta 200 million euros for non-compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) following a year-long investigation.
- Apple must remove restrictions preventing app developers from steering users to cheaper outside options; Meta’s pay-or-consent model breached DMA until November 2024, when it was revised.
- The EU dropped Meta’s Marketplace from DMA gatekeeper status due to user count falling below thresholds; Apple avoided a fine on browser options after making compliant changes but was charged for sideloading restrictions.
DOGE Worker’s Code Supports NLRB Whistleblower – Krebs on Security
A whistleblower at the NLRB reported DOGE employees downloaded code from GitHub, including requests-ip-rotator and its fork by Marko Elez, to bypass security controls and transfer sensitive data, raising security and legal concerns.
- Whistleblower at the NLRB alleged DOGE siphoned gigabytes of sensitive case data in early March 2025
- DOGE created accounts with unrestricted permissions to read, copy, alter data, and disable log visibility, delaying or removing logs
- Investigation revealed DOGE downloaded three GitHub code repositories, including requests-ip-rotator and its fork async-ip-rotator, created by Marko Elez, a DOGE employee with prior work at SpaceX, X, and xAI
Pluralistic: Sarah Wynn-Williams’s ‘Careless People’ (23 Apr 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Sarah Wynn-Williams’s Careless People reveals Facebook’s reckless leadership, systemic abuses, and policy failures enabling global harm, driven by growth obsession and regulatory neglect.
- Sarah Wynn-Williams’s memoir Careless People details her years managing global policy at Facebook, exposing internal misconduct and corporate recklessness.
- The book was initially suppressed via legal injunction by Meta’s lawyers, prompting Wynn-Williams to promote it freely.
- The memoir describes Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and Kaplan as morally reprehensible, highlighting their private misconduct, strategic failures, and reckless behavior, including mishandling global crises and engaging in sexual harassment.
- Facebook prioritized US market dominance, neglecting international issues like Myanmar genocide and Chinese censorship, building surveillance tools for authoritarian regimes.
- The company’s pursuit of growth led to insatiable expansion, acquisitions, and regulatory evasion, culminating in systemic overreach, lies to regulators and advertisers, and a culture of carelessness and arrogance.
- Wynn-Williams argues that Facebook’s recklessness stems from policy failures—lack of antitrust enforcement, privacy protections, and regulation—enabling a culture of indifference to harm.
- The memoir details Facebook’s complicity in global human rights abuses, including Myanmar genocide and suppression in China, and its exploitation of advertising targeting vulnerable groups.
- The company’s shift to selling political ads to authoritarian regimes and its strategic acquisitions insulate it from competition and accountability.
- Wynn-Williams’s account emphasizes that Facebook’s carelessness is a policy choice, not just individual flaws, and advocates for regulatory reforms to enforce corporate accountability.
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Elon Musk was forced back to the Tesla boardroom as Doge coin ‘blowback’ caused stock declines and governance issues, raising market and regulatory concerns.
- Elon Musk was pushed back to the Tesla boardroom amid Doge coin ‘blowback’ impacting Tesla’s stock and reputation
- The incident involves significant market and corporate governance repercussions for Musk and Tesla
- The article details the events and implications of Musk’s return to the boardroom, highlighting investor and regulatory concerns
US calls EU fines on Apple and Meta ’economic extortion’ | Reuters
The US White House condemned EU fines on Apple and Meta as “economic extortion,” citing concerns over the Digital Markets Act’s extraterritorial impact and potential trade tensions.
- The White House described EU fines on Apple (€500 million) and Meta (€200 million) as “economic extortion” and stated they will not be tolerated.
- The fines follow EU antitrust investigations into compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), aimed at limiting Big Tech’s market dominance.
- The EU sanctions are the first under the DMA, which seeks to promote competition by enabling smaller rivals to enter markets dominated by large companies.
▶️ Technology
Pete Koomen
Pete Koomen argues AI apps should be customizable via editable System Prompts, enabling personalized, efficient automation, unlike current “horseless carriage” designs that mimic traditional software constraints.
- Pete Koomen compares AI applications to “horseless carriages,” criticizing their reliance on old paradigms that constrain AI capabilities.
- Highlights Gmail’s AI draft feature using Google’s Gemini model, which produces formal, verbose drafts that do not match user voice, illustrating poor app design.
- Demonstrates an alternative AI email assistant that uses a customizable System Prompt to teach the model user-specific writing style, improving output quality and efficiency.
Adobe releases new Firefly image generation models and a redesigned Firefly web app | TechCrunch
Adobe announced new Firefly AI models including Image Model 4, Ultra, and a video model supporting 1080p, integrated into a redesigned web app with third-party model access and upcoming mobile app.
- Adobe launched Firefly’s latest image generation models, including Image Model 4 and Image Model 4 Ultra, with improvements in quality, speed, and control, supporting resolutions up to 2K.
- The new Firefly video model, released from limited beta, enables generating 1080p video clips from text prompts or images, with features for camera angles, shot control, atmospheric elements, and motion design.
- The redesigned Firefly web app consolidates access to all models, including third-party options from OpenAI, Google, and Flux, with content credentials attached; a mobile app is in development.