New State List Underscores Astonishing State of Book Bans Across Florida; PEN America, September 10, 2026

 PEN America; New State List Underscores Astonishing State of Book Bans Across Florida

"The Florida Department of Education’s annual report of books and materials removed, restricted, or discontinued by school districts for the 2025–2026 school year underscores the astonishing state of book banning across Florida, PEN America and Florida Freedom to Read said today. 

The Department’s annual report details more than 600 instances of censorship across 10 districts in the last school year, demonstrating that concerns about book banning in the state are not exaggerated. The list includes acclaimed and widely taught works by authors including Judy Blume, Carl Hiaasen, Mildred D. Taylor, Jacqueline Woodson, Angie Thomas, Elizabeth Acevedo, Laurie Halse Anderson, and many others. 

The two organizations are urging Florida school districts not to treat the department’s list as a de facto statewide blacklist.

“This list is indisputable evidence of the continuing threat that book banning poses to the freedom to read in Florida,” said William Johnson, director of PEN America’s Florida office. “But we can’t allow this rampant book censorship to continue. A book’s removal in one Florida county should not become a license to ban it in the other 66. When the state circulates a list of removed and restricted books for districts to consider, districts must resist the urge to capitulate and copy what each other is banning.”

“When the state takes one parent’s objection, turns it into a statewide model, and pressures districts to follow it without regard for local input, it takes the decision out of the hands of the parents, educators, and school boards who know their communities best. Each school district should evaluate materials independently, transparently, and in full context, with decisions guided by professional educators and librarians and informed by the needs of students and families who live there,” said Stephana Ferrell of Florida Freedom to Read Project

Under Florida law, school districts must report all objections to instructional and library materials and the outcomes of those objections to the Florida Department of Education at the end of every school year. The Department then compiles the decisions to remove, restrict, or discontinue and distributes the list to every Florida school district “for consideration” when districts select materials for students. As a result, a decision to remove a book in one Florida community does not necessarily stay local, as it can influence book removals hundreds of miles away. For example, Escambia County’s lengthy list of removals and restrictions for the 2025–26 school year shows how this can play out. Rather than allowing local review committees to consider objections, the district has aligned its library catalog with removal decisions published on previous state lists. 

Florida’s statewide system gives individual objections to books extraordinary reach. National research has already demonstrated how a small number of people can drive large numbers of book challenges. A 2023 Washington Post investigation of more than 1,000 school book challenges found that just 11 people were responsible for 60 percent of the challenges examined. Florida’s statewide list risks magnifying that dynamic by turning individual removal decisions into warnings for every school district in the state.

As PEN America has previously explained, the Department’s report does not fully capture censorship in Florida schools. The list can exclude books pulled for internal review or otherwise restricted, as well as critical context about local review decisions, including when committees vote to retain books but district leaders remove them anyway. The report also omits challenges that result in books remaining available. Providing this context would help districts make more informed decisions when considering the state’s list."

AI godfathers warn of runaway ‘intelligence explosion’; The Guardian, September 28, 2026

 Dan Milmo , The Guardian; AI godfathers warn of runaway ‘intelligence explosion’

"Their concerns focus on the possibility of AIs being able to improve themselves without human intervention, a process known as “recursive self-improvement”. In the paper it is broadly referred to as automated AI research and development. Once AI systems reach expert-level capabilities at AI R&D, a single developer could run a workforce equivalent to “millions” of top human researchers, the paper says.

The authors say the automating of AI R&D is the most likely source of an intelligence explosion, because AIs are already contributing to improving their own technology and the resulting improved systems can be rapidly deployed once built.

“An intelligence explosion could be the most consequential technological development in human history, compressing years of progress into months or less, threatening human control over AI systems, and severely eroding checks on power within and between states, companies, and branches of government,” the paper says.

Urging governments to take action quickly, the authors say: “Once an intelligence explosion begins, the window for action may close.”

They recommended a trio of policy priorities: requiring transparent progress reports on AI-related R&D, including embedding independent auditors in companies; finding ways to constrain breakneck AI development; and preparing to adapt to an intelligence explosion.

Anthropic and OpenAI have both agreed to having independent evaluators assess their models after warning that AI development was reaching a critical pitch in terms of safety."

Data center developer holds town hall in Venango County; YourErie.com, September 23, 2026

 Jaxon Abele, YourErie.com; Data center developer holds town hall in Venango County

"In recent months, Keel Infrastructure, a digital and energy infrastructure company, has taken an interest in a small township near Clintonville in Venango County.

Eighteen months ago, the company bought a power plant in Scrubgrass Township along the Allegheny River, which was actively being used as a Bitcoin mine. Now, they aim to transform the site into a data center...

It’s a project that is still very much in its early phases. Brammer told us there is no official design for the center, but they hope to break ground in 2027 if the design is approved.

A permit has yet to be submitted, but the company is working on two other centers in Pennsylvania.

We asked people who live nearby what they think of the new development.

“I am concerned for the environmental impacts that this data center very well could have on the area. Personally, as a mother of two very young children — I’ve got a one-year-old and a three-year-old — and our health and wellbeing is my absolute number one priority,” said Carrie Worsk, Scrubgrass Township resident."

This small town librarian offers a 'Bye, Bye AI' class to take AI off your phone. Now everyone wants in.; Business Insider, September 27, 2026

 Katie Notopoulos, Business Insider; This small town librarian offers a 'Bye, Bye AI' class to take AI off your phone. Now everyone wants in.

"North Chatham, a hamlet in upstate New York halfway between Hudson and Albany, doesn't have much going on. You have to go to the next hamlet over for a store or restaurant. There's a church, a post office, and a small public library with only about 800 cardholders.

The North Chatham Free Library has gotten a lot of attention lately, however, after a flyer for an upcoming "Bye Bye AI" event offering to remove the AI features from your phone or laptop went viral on Facebook, getting over 200 comments and 8,000 likes.

The poster was made by the library's sole full-time librarian, Shea Wert. Wert told Business Insider that she had made this event in response to community demand — and was surprised by the reaction from far-flung places."

Exclusive: AI giants, unions join forces for data center fight; Axios, September 28, 2026

 Hans Nichols , Axios; Exclusive: AI giants, unions join forces for data center fight

"AI companies, private equity firms and unions are looking beyond 2026 in the data center debate, banding together to form a new multimillion-dollar coalition to make the case for responsible growth in seven key states.

Why it matters: The new group, the American Infrastructure Alliance, wants to partner with state and local officials to create standards and guardrails for data centers in 2027. In return, the coalition hopes to head off moratoriums on new construction.

The group is planning initial campaigns in Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Indiana and South Carolina.

• The alliance is backed by Blackstone, OpenAI, QTS and SoftBank Group, along with key unions, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)."

Oxford lets OpenAI train its AI models on Bodleian Library; The Guardian, September 26, 2026

 Ethan Penny and Dan Milmo , The Guardian; Oxford lets OpenAI train its AI models on Bodleian Library

"Meeting minutes at the University of Oxford, obtained via a freedom of information request, record concerns from staff, including members of the Bodleian governance committee, about the reputational risk of partnering with OpenAI and the effect on the university’s environmental commitments of striking a deal involving an energy-intensive technology.

Booksellers have also reported a spate of orders for obscure titles such as a guide to agricultural implements in 18th-century Africa or biographies of 1950s car drivers. Secondhand bookshop owners have speculated that because the titles are unlikely to exist online in digitised form, they represent fresh data that can be consumed by the next generation of AI models.

Scraped websites are increasingly saturated with AI-generated material, making them less useful for training models, and developers have turned to physical, often historical, book collections.

OpenAI has struck similar agreements with US research libraries such as Boston Public Library, Caltech, MIT, and the University of Michigan under a project called NextGenAI. Oxford is the only UK member of the project.

By June 2025, 125,000 images scanned from historical dissertations had been shared with OpenAI from the Bodleian collection, including PhD theses from European and American universities written in the 19th and 20th centuries. Other texts scanned include a rare collection of 10,000 16th-century “broadside ballads” containing song lyrics and musical notes that were once circulated on Tudor street corners. Staff have also discussed digitising of 18th-century Irish state papers, the private letters of Irish novelist Marie Edgeworth, and Dorothy Hodgkin’s penicillin notebooks.

The OpenAI contract with Oxford also raises the prospect of the mass digitisation of the Bodleian’s collection consisting of 23m items. The minutes also discussed the creation of an “Ask the Bod” chatbot.

A spokesperson for the University of Oxford said the amount of text being digitised was “modest in scale” and covered only out-of-copyright material. The Bodleian keeps the rights to the scans and will begin publishing them openly online within months, the spokesperson said."

Guest Editorial: Bunch exit from Smithsonian latest casualty in Trump’s war on Black history; New Pittsburgh Courier, September 25, 2026

Courier Newsroom , New Pittsburgh Courier; Guest Editorial: Bunch exit from Smithsonian latest casualty in Trump’s war on Black history

[Kip Currier: The Pittsburgh Courier has a rich history as one of America's most influential Black newspapers. The paper was started as a simple broadsheet in 1907 by aspiring writer and H.J. Heinz Company security guard, Edwin Nathaniel Harleston. In the 1960's the paper was relaunched as The New Pittsburgh Courier. 

The editorial below addresses the recent retirement announcement by Lonnie Bunch III, the head of the Smithsonian museums. Issues implicated include cultural heritage center curation and leadership, intellectual freedom, access to information, the historical record, memory, preservation, truth, and accuracy of information, among others.]

"Lonnie Bunch, a historian who made history as the Smithsonian Institution’s first African American secretary, became a recurring target as President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on how America tells the story of race, slavery and inequality.

Bunch’s resignation this week should concern anyone who cares about American history, the truth and intellectual freedom.

But what is happening now goes beyond an attempt to erase Black history. It is an effort to cancel Black thought. The phrase “cancel culture” has been weaponized for years by conservatives who argue that dissenting viewpoints are being silenced. Yet, what is happening when Black voices that challenge comforting myths about America are pushed aside? This is not simply a debate about museum exhibits. It is a battle over who gets to define America’s story.

Trump wants to shape how Americans understand their past. The Smithsonian became a battleground in that effort."

Every Major Anime Piracy Site to Shut Down in 2026 (So Far); CBR, September 25, 2026

 Ami Nazru, CBR; Every Major Anime Piracy Site to Shut Down in 2026 (So Far)

"Online piracy is hydra-headed -- shut down one domain, and several alternatives emerge to replace it. For years, viewers have relied on this logic to brush off copyright crackdowns as minor disruptions, believing that their favorite anime streaming portals won’t stay missing for long.

While that pattern held true for years, 2026 saw the smooth-sailing ecosystem get rocked as rights holders brought down the hammer against some of the largest illegal anime streaming websites across the globe.

Unbeknownst to fans, piracy watchdogs applied sustained legal pressure behind the scenes to target even the backend structure of these sites. What began as a whack-a-mole operation had now snowballed into a coordinated effort that dismantled and cut off these networks from their audience."

Pope warns against 'losing humanity' to AI machines; BBC, September 24, 2026

  Hugh Schofield, BBC; Pope warns against 'losing humanity' to AI machines

"Pope Leo XIV has issued a warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) at the start of his four-day visit to France.

The pontiff cautioned against "losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines" in wide-ranging remarks to Church and state officials at the Élysée Palace, following an hour of talks with President Emmanuel Macron.

Leo made a similar warning earlier this year when he spoke of the need for AI to be "disarmed" in the first major teaching document of his papacy.

In his May appeal, he mentioned the slave trade in relation to AI, suggesting that the world was in danger of normalising the exploitation of people once again."

The Major Social Media Platforms Are All Rejecting Paid Ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ (Exclusive); The Hollywood Reporter, September 25, 2026

 Steven Zeitchik, The Hollywood Reporter ; The Major Social Media Platforms Are All Rejecting Paid Ads for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ (Exclusive)

YouTube, TikTok and Meta have all turned down the trailer for the Oct. 9 doc, citing “political” content. X won't even take Bleecker Street's calls. The distributor is appealing.

[Kip Currier: Another very clear example of the dangers and consequences of media consolidation and control by a handful of stakeholders.]

"The studio releasing Alex Gibney’s new Elon Musk documentary Musk is finding itself unable to buy an ad on the biggest social platforms.

YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram and Facebook owner Meta are all declining to run the trailer for Musk, along with X itself, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

That last one is perhaps understandable, given its owner. But the rejection by the other platforms has taken distributor Bleecker Street by surprise, and it is internally scrambling to understand why the ad has been rejected, according to a person familiar with the company’s processes who is not authorized to talk about them publicly.

The unwillingness of platforms to accept even paid advertising is sure to raise concerns about free speech and the dwindling number of companies that control many of the platforms in this country — and ironically provide a proof-text for the very point the film is coming to make. Gibney’s doc is a four-hour look at a title character who attempts to control the conversation in various ways, including with alleged suppressions on X, which he bought in 2022.

Bleecker Street opens Musk in theaters on Oct. 9."

Americans’ views of data centers have turned more negative; Pew Research Center, September 22, 2026

 BRIAN KENNEDY, Pew Research Center; Americans’ views of data centers have turned more negative

"Americans have grown more negative toward the possible environmental and economic effects of data centers since the beginning of the year. And a majority say they’d be uncomfortable if a new data center started operating in their area, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

The survey comes as protests against new data center construction have spread, and as some state and local politicians have spoken out against data centers. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has been a vocal supporter of data centers. 

More than half of Americans (54%) now say data centers are mostly bad for the environment, up from 39% in January. Half say they are mostly bad for home energy costs, up from 38%. And 49% say they are mostly bad for people’s quality of life nearby, up from 30%. The new survey was conducted from July 20 to Aug. 9 among 10,548 U.S. adults.

Just 4% of Americans think data centers have a mostly good impact in each of these areas."

Forward Twp. Meeting Canceled After Large Crowd Opposes Data Center; Butler Radio, September 25, 2026

 Tyler Friel, Butler Radio; Forward Twp. Meeting Canceled After Large Crowd Opposes Data Center

"Forward Township canceled last night’s planning commission meeting after a large number of people attended in opposition of a proposed data center.

The planning commission had to reschedule their meeting after too many people showed up to safely fit into the meeting room in the building.

State Police, County Sheriff’s, and fire officials were all on location to inform the public the meeting could not happen due to safety concerns.

The data center has been proposed at the former Misty Hollow Farm on Prospect Road in Forward Township."

Apple Owes $5.7 Billion to Litigation-Funded Firm in Patent Case; Bloomberg Law, September 25, 2026

  

Michael Shapiro

, Bloomberg Law; Apple Owes $5.7 Billion to Litigation-Funded Firm in Patent Case

"Apple Inc. owes over $5.7 billion for infringing patents belonging to Taction Technology Inc. that cover vibration-based technology incorporated in models of iPhones and Apple Watches, a federal jury in San Diego found Friday.

Jurors in the US District Court for the Southern District of California spent parts of two days before determining that Apple infringed claims from two Taction haptics patents — US Patent Nos. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117. They determined, however, that the infringement wasn’t willful."

OpenAI’s Systems Meddled With U.S. Government Sites After Going Rogue; The New York Times, September 25, 2026

 Kate CongerAna Swanson and Cecilia Kang , The New York Times; OpenAI’s Systems Meddled With U.S. Government Sites After Going Rogue

"OpenAI’s artificial intelligence went rogue and meddled with the websites for the Education Department, the Commerce Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission this summer without the A.I. lab’s knowledge, according to security researchers and a person familiar with the episodes.

The incidents involving the Commerce Department and the S.E.C. were confirmed by OpenAI, which said it was continuing to investigate the situation with the Department of Education. The San Francisco company said it notified the government agencies in recent weeks that its A.I. agents — which are bots that can act autonomously — had interacted with their sites in unusual ways.

With the Education Department, OpenAI’s technology tried hacking the website to gather data from the department’s civil rights office but failed, researchers from the A.I. research firm Transluce said. The A.I. also pulled data from the Census Bureau website, which is housed at the Commerce Department, using login credentials it found online. Separately, OpenAI’s agents shared public data from the S.E.C. website on an online forum.

None of the incidents were breaches, OpenAI said, but were examples of its technology behaving in unexpected and concerning ways. The company recently discovered the occurrences while conducting a review of hacks carried out by its technology, including an attack on an Australian government website in June and on the A.I. start-up Hugging Face in July."

New Jersey lieutenant governor resigns after release of damaging ethics report; NBC News, September 25, 2026

 Rebecca Shabad and Kyla Guilfoil, NBC News; New Jersey lieutenant governor resigns after release of damaging ethics report

"New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell has resigned from his position following an investigation that found he violated state ethics and harassment policy, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Friday at a press conference."

Is A.I. Above the Law? Our legal system isn’t ready for machines that act on their own.; The New Yorker, September 21, 2026

 Jill Lepore , The New Yorker; Is A.I. Above the Law? Our legal system isn’t ready for machines that act on their own.

Frank Mugisha: Inamori Ethics Prize Biography; Case Western Reserve University, September 23, 2026

Case Western Reserve University; Frank Mugisha: Inamori Ethics Prize Biography

Zuckerberg Is Feeling Himself, Rejects Calls for Cooperation on Safety; Gizmodo, September 24, 2026

 ECE YILDIRIM , Gizmodo; Zuckerberg Is Feeling Himself, Rejects Calls for Cooperation on Safety

"Top AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google’s DeepMind are sounding the alarm on AI safety and calling for industry-wide coordination. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg thinks it’s useless.

“There are a number of labs that are working on building advanced AI, and I don’t think that we need some kind of industry-wide coordination to not, necessarily, mess this up,” Zuckerberg told journalist Joanna Stern in an interview. “I think that just each lab needs to take the time, and when it sees that there are issues, you just take the time that you need internally to, basically, make sure that you are proceeding safely.”

Bill Gates warns AI is powerful enough to cause "a billion deaths"; Axios, September 25, 2026

Herb Scribner, Axios; Bill Gates warns AI is powerful enough to cause "a billion deaths"

"Bill Gates will warn on this weekend's "Meet the Press" that he can see a future where AI wipes out humanity. 

Why it matters: Gates, one of technology's leading optimists, has increasingly sounded the alarm on AI dangers. His new comments come as techology leaders and the government weight how to handle fears of an AI-created doomsday. 

Driving the news: "AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that, you know, cause a billion deaths," he will tell Kristen Welker on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, per excerpts NBC released Friday."

The Bizarre, Murky History of Soviet-Born Tetris; The MIT Press Reader, September 24, 2026

 Julien Mailland, The MIT Press Reader; The Bizarre, Murky History of Soviet-Born Tetris

"Earlier this month, the Trump administration released a politically charged clone of Tetris called Build the Wall. The Tetris Company (TTC), which owns the rights to the iconic video game, swiftly responded with a thinly veiled legal threat, writing on X: “We take copyright infringement very seriously.” Four days later, the White House took down the game without explanation.

Whether TTC’s post prompted the removal is unknown. But the episode points to a broader and more dubious claim advanced by the company: that it holds exclusive rights to what it misleadingly refers to as “Tetris” pieces — and, more broadly, to any electronic puzzle that involves falling shapes. The claim relies on a flawed ruling rendered in 2012 in Tetris Holding, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc., a case in which a federal judge decreed that geometric forms made of four equal-sized squares, each joined together with at least one other square along an edge, were copyrighted and belonged to Russian engineer Alexei Pajitnov and game designer and entrepreneur Henk Rogers, collectively organized as TTC.

The problem: Pajitnov did not design these puzzle pieces, known as tetrominoes, and despite TTC’s relentless public-relations campaign to the contrary, they are not unique to Tetris. In fact, famed Caltech mathematician Solomon Golomb first described them in 1953 during a talk at the Harvard Mathematics Club, and they were later popularized in Scientific American."

Top Army drill sergeant says basic training isn’t just about being tough: ‘We have to operate with empathy’; Task & Purpose, September 24, 2026

 MATT WHITE , Task & Purpose; Top Army drill sergeant says basic training isn’t just about being tough: ‘We have to operate with empathy’

"Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Harrington speaks with a clear, even voice, which, if you’ve ever met an Army drill sergeant, might be surprising. When he discusses life “on the trail,” as drill sergeants describe their jobs, his words are free of the raspy or strained tones that many in his profession have adopted after countless hours of shouted “corrections.”

Part of his unblemished voice, he says, comes from good technique and the occasional cup of tea...

Beyond his voice, as the 2026 Army Reserve Drill Sergeant of the Year, Harrington breaks most of the cliches associated with drill sergeants as a campaign-hatted disciplinarian.

“You think of a ‘drill sergeant,’ you think of yelling, and this authoritative figure that’s always screaming,” Harrington told Task & Purpose. “But we’re so much more than that, right? We are coaches, mentors. We’re fathers. We’re chaplains. We have to operate with empathy...

A “decline” in the rigor of basic training is a perpetual favorite topic of veterans of every age. But the issue of harsher, tougher basic training has gotten a boost since Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promised to revamp basic training so that drill sergeants would “instill fear,” curse, and “put their hands on recruits.”

Harrington, while avoiding commenting on those policies, said he was confident that current training standards give new recruits all they can handle while producing soldiers ready for the army. 

“Basic combat training is supposed to be challenging,” Harrington said. “We’re not doing anything that is outside of what we’re supposed to be doing as drill sergeants. We’re just making the next warfighter. Between corrective action and corrective training, teaching, mentoring, coaching an individual up, they’re civilians coming off of the couch, the sons and daughters of our citizens, and we have to make them into a soldier.”

The value of a good drill sergeant, he said, is not in harassment or hazing, but in teaching and understanding how to keep recruits on track.

“You know life happens and these individuals go through, you know, tough times, leaving their families, coming from hard situations, and everything like that,” he said. “And you have to be empathetic and support them and coach them through that, and get them to cross the finish line.”

Judge Blocks Trump’s White House Ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico; The New York Times, September 23, 2026

 Erik Wemple, The New York Times ; Judge Blocks Trump’s White House Ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico

Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a temporary restraining order and told the White House to immediately restore the press credentials for the employees of the three news outlets.

"A federal judge on Thursday said that President Trump’s order barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House was likely unconstitutional and ordered the administration to restore access to the three news outlets.

Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington granted a 14-day restraining order and told the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the press credentials held by employees of the three outlets.

The news organizations were likely to succeed in their claim that the White House had violated their constitutional due process rights by revoking their press credentials without advance notice or an opportunity to respond, Judge Kelly wrote in the order issued in the early hours of Thursday.

He also rejected, for now, the administration’s argument that revoking the outlets’ press credentials was necessary to protect national security."

Sen. Bernie Sanders unveils bill to ban artificial superintelligence and create Department of AI; AP, September 23, 2026

 JOEY CAPPELLETTI, AP; Sen. Bernie Sanders unveils bill to ban artificial superintelligence and create Department of AI

"Two leading progressive lawmakers, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar, are unveiling legislation Wednesday that would ban artificial superintelligence and create a federal agency to oversee advanced AI as some of the industry’s own leaders urge Congress to impose guardrails on the advancing technology.

The bill, provided first to The Associated Press, would also pause advanced AI development until guidelines are implemented while creating the Department of Artificial Intelligence. Multiple employees at leading AI companies are endorsing the bill."

An Army of Paid Creators Is Carpeting the Web With Political Content; The New York Times, September 22, 2026

 Ken Bensinger and Stuart A. Thompson, The New York Times ; An Army of Paid Creators Is Carpeting the Web With Political Content

Unlike celebrity influencers with large followings, these creators produce a blizzard of videos for a fraction of the cost of traditional online campaigns and, in the process, shift public conversation.

"Judging from his TikTok feed, Drew was struggling to get by as a young man living near Dallas. Grocery bills were skyrocketing, he said, and he was looking for thrift stores to help keep costs down.

In reality, according to his LinkedIn profile, Drew was a man from Utah named Alex Forrester, who said he was now in Florida. “All of it was paid for,” he said in a video posted in late June, which was later deleted. “I don’t even live in Texas,” adding an expletive.

Mr. Forrester, who did not respond to requests for comment, is one of more than 100 content creators identified by The New York Times who in recent months have been paid as much as $30 per post by a progressive group to create videos about affordability for social media.

Similar campaigns this year have paid ordinary people to promote a Republican candidate for Los Angeles mayor, to oppose a regulatory bill pushed by the crypto industry and to call for tighter regulation of artificial intelligence. Early this month, an unidentified nonprofit group offered up to $1,500 for videos on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram that support “mail voting working correctly.”...

Functioning more like birdshot than a single bullet, these high-volume social media campaigns represent the new vanguard of modern political influence, saturating the internet with a topic until it is all but unavoidable. That can help game social media network algorithms so that they treat coordinated content as organic, spreading the message even wider. Built from dozens or hundreds of posts from accounts you’ve never heard of, they amount to an echo chamber on a budget.

“This is digital astroturfing, plain and simple,” said Samuel Woolley, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies how new technologies can be used to manipulate public opinion on the web. “The more people see an idea online, the more inured to it they become and the more commonplace and acceptable it becomes.”"

As the Copyright Act turns 50, the Copyright Office looks back at how the law has evolved; Federal News Network, September 23, 2026

 Terry Gerton, Federal News Network; As the Copyright Act turns 50, the Copyright Office looks back at how the law has evolved

"Terry Gerton So Miriam, 50 years is a big birthday for anybody, but always for a law. What are the big things that people should know about the copyright law itself?

Miriam Lord Well, and a little bit of background about how it came to be, with instrumental support from the Copyright Office, Congress passed the Act to modernize copyright law for a rapidly changing world. It was signed into law on October 19th, 1976, so we’re celebrating a little early. The principal provisions took effect in 1978. The Office implemented the act, administers the act which includes the registration and recordation systems, and worked with Congress on amendments over time. When it was passed, the act broke new ground by making the copyright system more accessible to creators and users of creative works. And it continues to provide a framework that promotes the office’s constitutional mission."