In the span of just 48 hours this week, two separate juries in two different US states delivered verdicts that could reshape the entire social media industry — not because of the dollar amounts involved, but because of what those verdicts legally establish for the first time. On Tuesday, March 24, a jury in Santa Fe, New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million for failing to protect children from sexual exploitation on Facebook and Instagram. Less than 24 hours later, on Wednesday, March 25, a jury in Los Angeles found both Meta and Google (YouTube) liable for engineering addiction in young users — finding them negligent in the design of their platforms and awarding a further $6 million in damages. Two days. Two states. Two juries. Both pointing at the same conclusion: that Big Tech can no longer hide behind the legal shields it has relied on for nearly three decades. This is the story of what happened, why it matters far beyond the headline numbers, and what comes next for the s...
Stephen Fry announced on his Twitter account that will be missing from his account for about three months. He is doing this in order to concentrate on writing his Biography. In a mini-blog farewell note. He says some people can write with distractions but he cannot and needs quietness and peace. He will be back in a while once he is done writing.
Accept my apologies for what must be and believe me, no one yearns more keenly for the day when I will be able to be back amongst you all.
Well now, this is a sort of farewell. An au revoir more than an adieu but a valediction all the same. This morning I switch off most of my connections with the outside world, for I have work to do. I must deliver a book to my publishers by the end of April or my soul and testicles will be forfeit.
Some people can write with ease in whatever circumstances they find themselves. Up a tree, on a bus, in a log cabin, a steamy-windowed café or a tropical beach. Some don’t mind noise, distraction or a broken up day. I, unhappily, am not made of this material. I need peace, absolute peace, an empty diary and zero distraction. I enter a kind of writing purdah, an eremitical seclusion in which there is just me, a keyboard and abundant cups of coffee, all in a room whose curtains have been drawn against the light. I would have added tobacco as a constant and necessary companion, but I stopped smoking some two and half years ago, so no longer will there be the pleasure of having a pipe clamped between the teeth as I grope for the Flaubertian mot juste.
Accept my apologies for what must be and believe me, no one yearns more keenly for the day when I will be able to be back amongst you all.
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