This week, the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR) won a key battle in its fight to reverse a visa-restriction policy that the Trump administration had used to attempt to revoke green cards and deport non-US citizens who work on misinformation, disinformation, fact-checking, content moderation, compliance, and trust and safety.

In an opinion published Tuesday, US District Judge James Boasberg granted a preliminary injunction blocking the State Department from enforcing the policy until the CITR’s lawsuit is resolved.

On its face, the policy does not require visa denials or deportations. Instead, it authorizes immigration investigations into individuals suspected of helping foreign adversaries attempt to manipulate public opinion by suppressing US speech.

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The European Union is ramping up pressure on Meta to make big changes to Facebook and Instagram after the European Commission preliminarily found that features like autoplay, infinite scroll, and highly personalized content recommendations were addictive.

On Thursday, the EC said its investigation indicated that “Meta did not adequately assess the risks of its addictive design on the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults.”

“These features fuel the user's urge to keep scrolling and shift the brain into ‘autopilot mode,' contributing to unhealthy habits and compulsive use,” the commission said.

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TikTok's For You Page (FYP) is the default home screen for users of the video-sharing platform. It's a personalized, algorithmically driven content feed, but the approach differs from other social media in that TikTok's algorithm relies heavily on implicit signals—such as how long users watch particular videos—as well as explicit signals such as likes or follows. And generally, that algorithm does remarkably well at predicting which videos will interest particular users.

But some users have voiced concerns that TikTok's almighty algorithm doesn't seem to incorporate negative feedback very well. Even when they don't watch a suggested video or click the "not interested" feature, they keep seeing those videos on their FYP. Northeastern University computer scientists put those suspicions to the test. According to their recent paper, the engagement signals do have an effect, but only temporarily. Then the algorithm gradually relapses unless a user consistently gives the same feedback over and over again.

The research group specializes in "algorithm audits," co-author Piotr Sapiezynski told Ars, to better understand online platforms: "how they work, how they fail, when they fail, how they harm individuals and societies." In this case, he and his co-authors wanted to take a closer look at user agency after hearing multiple anecdotal reports from TikTok users that their negative feedback—responding to prompts by indicating they aren't interested or want to see less of a certain kind of video—doesn't seem to remove those posts from their FYP. "On the other hand, it's unclear why the platforms would offer it, if it doesn't work," said Sapiezynski.

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The British government could intervene in the $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Skydance, citing concerns around the need for a plurality of views in news as well as media ownership in the UK.

UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy said on Tuesday that she was “minded to intervene” in the deal, which would create one of the world’s largest media and entertainment groups.

The takeover would lead to WBD media franchises such as CNN, HBO, and Warner Bros. movies being added to Paramount’s stable of assets, which include CBS in the US and Channel 5 in the UK.

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Reddit will start requiring people to be logged into Reddit to use old.reddit.com.

The new requirement will take effect “over the next month,” a Reddit employee going by the username boat-botany announced on the social media platform today. The person claimed that the change is part of an ongoing effort to “tighten how automated systems access Reddit.”

The Reddit employee wrote:

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