Tech Titan’s Battle over Age Gating & Big Tech’s Embrace of Nuclear Power

Battle of Tech Titans Brewing over Age-Gating

In response to efforts in multiple states, including Arkansas, California and Texas, to require social media platforms to verify the age of users and obtain parental permission for minors, Facebook parent Meta is pushing for legislation to shift the burden of age-gating onto app stores. Louisiana considered such a proposal this year, South Dakota lawmakers are planning to take up the issue next year, and legislators in a handful of other states could do the same.

But Apple is pushing back. Louisiana Rep. Kim Carver (R) said when he added an app store age-gating provision to a bill (HB 577) prohibiting social media platforms from targeting ads at children, Apple “hired a number of lobbyists and they began to aggressively work the process.” Although the bill was passed unanimously by the House, the app store age-gating language was stripped out of it before it was passed by the Senate. (PLURIBUS NEWS, LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)

Big Tech Going Nuclear

This month Amazon agreed to support the development of next-generation “small modular nuclear reactors” in Virginia and Washington state, and Google decided it will buy power generated by SMRs that will be built by a start-up company. Last month Microsoft committed to a 20-year power-purchasing agreement that will involve the reopening of a unit at Three Mile Island, although not the one that was shuttered in 1979 after a partial meltdown. The industry’s sudden embrace of nuclear power is in part a reflection of the rise of artificial intelligence, with its significantly higher energy demands. AI queries, for instance, can consume 10 times the energy of standard Google searches. (FINANCIAL TIMES)

—Compiled by SNCJ Managing Editor KOREY CLARK

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