May 23, 2023
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empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines
Technology
The Internet Survives: The Supreme Court punted last week on holding tech companies accountable for the content on their platforms or dealing with the hairy (or outdated and somewhat controversial) Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The Court had 2 lawsuits in front of it — the first unanimously rejected was seeking to “hold Twitter, Google and Facebook responsible for an ISIS nightclub attack in Turkey in 2017 due to recruiting videos posted on their sites.” The second, vs Google, alleged that YouTube’s algorithms promoted ISIS recruitment videos and was responsible for the 2015 Paris terrorist attack. In this case, the Justices declined to address Section 230 and sent it back to the lower court. Unfortunately, the Court will have more opportunities to decide what is “free speech” on the internet, if and when it takes up the constitutionality of state laws passed in Texas and Florida that restricts the platforms’ ability to moderate content. And don’t forget, one new tangle to consider, we still don’t know if Section 230 covers Generative AI, although legislators don’t believe it does. We’d hope at some point Congress would actually make a decision on 230 and legislate around social media and AI, but that would involve them actually understanding what an App is.
Getting Prithee with It: During Google’s I/O developer conference, Google announced a handy feature for Android users who want help customizing or perfecting their text messages: Magic Compose. Magic Compose uses AI to offer suggestions to your text messages, but one of the rewrites caught our eye: you can make your message sound “like it was written by your favorite playwright, aka Shakespeare.” As the screen shot shows, “wanna grab dinner?” becomes “Prithee, shall we dine tonight?” or “Wouldst thou join me for a repast?” We think we’ll stick to the Chill tab unless we finally build that time machine.
Pain of Privacy: Meta was hit with the largest fine of its kind ($1.3BN) by the EU data regulators for violating the privacy of EU citizens, and has been ordered to stop transferring their data back to the US. Meta transfers this data for ad-targeting, but the EU says this violates privacy regulations because Meta cannot protect the data from being scraped by US surveillance programs. The decision, however, only relates to Facebook (not other Meta companies such as Instagram and Whatsapp), and Facebook has several months to begin the process of complying.
Business
The Cost of a NY Street: During the pandemic, restaurants across the world took to the public sidewalks and streets opening mini cafes and open-air venues, so we could support these local establishments and dine in safety. The tradition of outdoor dining has continued, and NYC has finally decided what to charge restaurants to use the sidewalks and parking spaces on a permanent basis. The City Council agreed to charge restaurants $1,050 for a four-year license, but they have limited licenses to be outside of historic districts. Feels like the preservationists sided with the lovers of free on-street parking or at least the parking enforcement officers for the moment.
The Cost of Water: Arizona, California and Nevada have finally signed an agreement to use less water from the Colorado River. The three states have agreed to conserve 3-million-acre-feet of water over the next three years (or a 13% reduction in total water use) and will receive $1.2BN in Federal aid. The Colorado River provides drinking water to over 40M people, supports a significant amount of the US agriculture and hydropower, and was in danger due to drought, climate change and over usage. (Lake Mead, suffering from a mega-drought, revealed sunken mysteries including a WW2 boat and a body buried inside a barrel.) The seven states that use the Colorado River were forced to the negotiating table, after the US government proposed percentage cuts to water usage across the board.
Water and Ice: Starbucks is rolling out new ice machines which will make “nugget” or “pebble” ice as opposed to the chunks they serve now. Starbucks recently announced that 75% of the chain’s beverage sales came from cold beverages. Somehow, the new Foley Nugget Ice Machine uses “less water” to produce all the ice needed throughout the day (some inventive barista will have to explain the physics behind that to us). Yet since we are ice aficionados, we’ve got our Frappucino order on speed dial, and we think this announcement is cool.
Bid a Fond Farewell: We spent most of our career trading interest rates, so we are taking this personal: next month will be the official end to LIBOR. LIBOR is the short term interest rate that was plagued by scandals in the 2010s, but was used to fix contracts valued at over $550TN. There are many new rates set to take its place and the logistics of switching these contracts have been in place for several years now. However, there are roughly $74TN contracts that are still linked to LIBOR and are set to expire after June 30. Alas, long live the Eurodollars, Eurodollars are dead. Apologies, for we reminisce.
Death Star Bill: The Texas Governor is about to sign a bill that is “lovingly” nicknamed the Death Star Bill. This bill, HB2127, will override any local regulation that conflicts with it, attempting to stop progressive cities from instituting any local reforms. Some regulations up on the chopping block: tenant protections, consumer protections, noise complaints, water breaks for construction workers, water-use during droughts, etc. Opponents claim the law obliterates local control, and hands cities over to the Texas state legislature, while supporters claim it helps small business owners giving them relief from regulation.
Closing its Doors: Disney has been in the news a lot lately, but who would have saw this one coming: the Galactic Starcruiser Hotel is shutting down! The hotel which costs roughly $5,000 for a two-night stay, serves up dyed, blue shrimp, and apparently has few windows will be closing its doors at the end of September. The hotel has only been open for 18 months and offered a fully immersive experience. Personally, we’d rather spend the $5k on sneaking into Disney’s private Club 33 or riding Space Mountain several hundred times, but what do we know.
Culture
Baby Kits: If you are from Europe (or any sane country other than the US), you have probably heard of the Baby Box: a kit that is delivered to new parents upon the arrival of a newborn; the box doubles as a bassinet and the kit contains a lot of essential parenting information and baby items. Evidently, someone at the US HHS noticed and launched the US Newborn Supply Kit with nonprofit Baby2Baby. Sadly, we suspect a lot more babies in the US will need this soon, but we are so excited to welcome the initiative.
Boos at BU: In the midst of the WGA writer’s strike, Boston University invited David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, to give a commencement speech and receive an honorary doctorate. He chose to say “some people will be looking for a fight,” and boy did he get one. Zaslav was greeted with shouts of “pay your writers” and boos from the crowd during his entire 20 minute talk.
Cats and Horses: (trigger warning) The LA dining scene was finally catching up to NY and then this happened. “A chef of popular Los Angeles restaurant Horses accused her husband and business partner of killing the family’s cats in a divorce filing in which she also asked for a domestic violence restraining order.” The couple ran the restaurant as partners, and the husband allegedly strangled cats in the middle of “self-passion.” The restaurant isn’t closed, but because it is LA, people are still flocking to the location for the drama
Blue Couches: In case you’ve been seeing memes of a blue couch this week, it started with a strange story of a TikTok user finding a couch on the sidewalk in NYC. We immediately think of bedbugs and dead bodies, but the industrious TikToker “cleaned” the couch and brought it home to her living room, since she believes it to be an $8k steal. Twitter became divided — sadly, we’d side with those who’d walk on by.
Feeling Transparent: Sick of losing your Airpods, and looking for a device that you can lose more easily that also reminds you of Y2K. Check out the Beats Studio Buds+ that come in the “Transparent” edition, available for pre-order now, but dropping in June.
— Lauren Eve Cantor
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