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Independent reporting on AI, social platforms, and the people shaping technology.
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Shunned by the government, and newly appealing to consumers, the company is at a crossroads
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Sam Altman’s deal with the Pentagon seems too good to be true. What happens when the public realizes that?
Platformer
• Casey Newton
AI safety researchers have long worried that a government would seek to use AI for domestic surveillance and autonomous killing. The Pentagon’s fight with Anthropic threatens to make it a reality
Platformer
• Lindsey Choo
PLUS: The Substack post that tanked the markets, continued
Platformer
• Casey Newton
The US government still can’t think beyond “winning.” The rest of the world is still thinking too small
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Testifying before a jury in LA, Mark Zuckerberg makes the case that platform design is about free expression. But the walls are closing in on Section 230
Platformer
• Casey Newton
In the company’s latest policy reversal under Trump 2.0, the facial recognition system it blew up in 2021 may be poised for a return
Platformer
• Casey Newton
As OpenAI sunsets its most dangerous model, the tensions it exposed remain as tricky as ever. PLUS: Elon's space catapult, and OpenAI vs. Anthropic
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Joshua Achiam will become the company's chief futurist
Platformer
• Casey Newton
A lawsuit that begins in LA this week, along with a new investigation into TikTok by the European Commission, could change social apps forever. PLUS: AI ads at the Super Bowl and in ChatGPT
Platformer
• Ella Markianos
Anxiety about AI replacing entry-level jobs is on the rise. Could a state-of-the-art chatbot do the job of a Platformer fellow? PLUS: Anthropic vs. OpenAI, and will AI kill SaaS?
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Spotify’s Molly Holder on the power of prompted playlists. PLUS: Meta is testing a standalone Vibes app
Platformer
• Casey Newton
What a social network for AI agents tells us about the future. PLUS: Elon consolidates the X empire
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Maybe someday you’ll have a genie in your laptop working for you 24/7. Today is not that day
Platformer
• Casey Newton
The “moral panic” framing misses how platforms actually harm kids. PLUS: Newsom investigates TikTok over Trump, and the Clawdbot frenzy
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Truth and terror in Minneapolis. PLUS: TikTok conspiracy theories, and Dario Amodei's Oppenheimer moment
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Managers say it makes them more productive. Workers don't. What gives?
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Plus: Writers react to Claude Code for writers; Elon Musk vs. OpenAI; and ChatGPT gets ads
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Five useful things I’ve built so far. Plus: Grok caves, and Thinking Machines implodes
Platformer
• Casey Newton
Announcing Platformer+, a new way to listen to our columns
Platformer
• Casey Newton
More than a week into a deepfake scandal, a handful of foreign governments have found the strength to do what Apple, Google, and the United States will not
Platformer
• Casey Newton
I feel great about the website I’m building — and terrible for professional website builders. PLUS: Who will stop Grok? And ChatGPT will see you now
Platformer
• Ella Markianos
At ConCon, researchers and tech workers debate whether future systems could develop an inner life — and how you would know if they did
Platformer
• Casey Newton
A “whistleblower” tried to corroborate his viral post with AI-generated evidence. This is how I caught him. PLUS: Grok's image-generation crisis, and the rapture over Claude Opus 4.5
Platformer
• Casey Newton
PLUS: What I got right (and wrong) about 2025
Platformer
• Casey Newton
The US is retaliating against the EU after it fined X — and now some of Europe's biggest companies are caught in the crossfire
Platformer
• Casey Newton
A fresh investigation reveals the scope of Meta's problem in China. Will a pending court case force the company to crack down — or destroy Section 230?
Platformer
• Casey Newton
A decade years in, what started as a sci-fi lab is now focused on engagement and growth. What does that mean for building AI safely?
Platformer
• Casey Newton
How social networks lost the argument. PLUS: All worked up over Nvidia's H200
Platformer
• Casey Newton
By banning an ad account on a flimsy pretext, X demonstrated the exact behavior that led the European Union to fine it. PLUS: The state AI law moratorium is back, and the Paramount-Netflix fight
