Meta clashes with Apple, Google over age check legislation
The struggle has pitted Meta Platforms Inc. and other app developers against Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, the world's largest app stores. Lobbyists for both sides are moving from state to state, working to water down or redirect the legislation to minimize their clients' risks.
This year alone, at least three states — Utah, Texas and Louisiana — passed legislation requiring tech companies to authenticate users' ages, secure parental consent for anyone under 18 and ensure minors are protected from potentially harmful digital experiences. Now, lobbyists for all three companies are flooding into South Carolina and Ohio, the next possible states to consider such legislation.
The debate has taken on new importance after the Supreme Court this summer ruled age verification laws are constitutional in some instances. A tech group on Wednesday petitioned the Supreme Court to block a social media age verification law in Mississippi, teeing up a highly consequential decision in the next few weeks.
Child advocates say holding tech companies responsible for verifying the ages of their users is key to creating a safer online experience for minors. Parents and advocates have alleged the social media platforms funnel children into unsafe and toxic online spaces, exposing young people to harmful content about self harm, eating disorders, drug abuse and more.
Meta supporters argue the app stores should be responsible for figuring out whether minors are accessing inappropriate content, comparing the app store to a liquor store that checks patrons' IDs. Apple and Google, meanwhile, argue age verification laws violate children's privacy and argue the individual apps are better-positioned to do age checks. Apple said it's more accurate to describe the app store as a mall and Meta as the liquor store.
The three new state laws put the responsibility on app stores, signaling Meta's arguments are gaining traction. The company lobbied in support of the Utah and Louisiana laws putting the onus on Apple and Google for tracking their users' ages. Similar Meta-backed proposals have been introduced in 20 states. Federal legislation proposed by Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah would hold the app stores accountable for verifying users' ages.
Still, Meta's track record in its state campaigns is mixed. At least eight states have passed laws since 2024 forcing social media platforms to verify users' ages and protect minors online. Apple and Google have mobilized dozens of lobbyists across those states to argue that Meta is shirking responsibility for protecting children.
'We see the legislation being pushed by Meta as an effort to offload their own responsibilities to keep kids safe,' said Google spokesperson Danielle Cohen. 'These proposals introduce new risks to the privacy of minors, without actually addressing the harms that are inspiring lawmakers to act.'
Meta spokesperson Rachel Holland countered that the company is supporting the approach favored by parents who want to keep their children safe online.
'Parents want a one-stop-shop to oversee their teen's online lives and 80% of American parents and bipartisan lawmakers across 20 states and the federal government agree that app stores are best positioned to provide this,' Holland said.
As the regulation patchwork continues to take shape, the companies have each taken voluntary steps to protect children online. Meta has implemented new protections to restrict teens from accessing 'sensitive' content, like posts related to suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. Apple created 'Child Accounts,' which give parents more control over their children's' online activity.
At Apple, spokesperson Peter Ajemian said it 'soon will release our new age assurance feature that empowers parents to share their child's age range with apps without disclosing sensitive information.'
As the lobbying battle over age verification heats up, influential big tech groups are splintering and new ones emerging.
Meta last year left Chamber of Progress, a liberal-leaning tech group that counts Apple and Google as members. Since then, the chamber, which is led by a former Google lobbyist and brands itself as the Democratic-aligned voice for the tech industry, has grown more aggressive in its advocacy against all age verification bills.
'I understand the temptation within a company to try to redirect policymakers towards the company's rivals, but ultimately most legislators don't want to intervene in a squabble between big tech giants,' said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich.
Meta tried unsuccessfully to convince another major tech trade group, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, to stop working against bills Meta supports, two people familiar with the dynamics said. Meta, a CCIA member, acknowledged it doesn't always agree with the association.
Meta is also still a member of NetChoice, which opposes all age verification laws no matter who's responsible. The group currently has 10 active lawsuits on the matter, including battling some of Meta's preferred laws.
The disagreements have prompted some of the companies to form entirely new lobbying outfits. Meta in April teamed up with Spotify Technology SA and Match Group Inc. to launch a coalition aimed at taking on Apple and Google, including over the issue of age verification.
Meta is also helping to fund the Digital Childhood Alliance, a coalition of conservative groups leading efforts to pass app-store age verification, according to three people familiar with the funding.
Neither the Digital Childhood Alliance nor Meta responded directly to questions about whether Meta is funding the group. But Meta said it has collaborated with Digital Childhood Alliance.
The group's executive director, Casey Stefanski, said it includes more than 100 organizations and child safety advocates who are pushing for more legislation that puts responsibility on the app stores. Stefanski said the Digital Childhood Alliance has met with Google 'several times' to share their concerns about the app store in recent months.
The App Association, a group backed by Apple, has been running ads in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana and Ohio arguing that the app store age verification bills are backed by porn websites and companies. The adult entertainment industry's main lobby said it is not pushing for the bills; pornography is mostly banned from app stores.
'This one-size fits all approach is built to solve problems social media platforms have with their systems while making our members, small tech companies and app developers, collateral damage,' said App Association spokesperson Jack Fleming.
In South Carolina and Ohio, there are competing proposals placing different levels of responsibility on the app stores and developers. That could end with more stringent legislation that makes neither side happy.
'When big tech acts as a monolith, that's when things die,' said Joel Thayer, a supporter of the app store age verification bills. 'But when they start breaking up that concentration of influence, all the sudden good things start happening because the reality is, these guys are just a hair's breath away from eating each other alive.'
Birnbaum writes for Bloomberg.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNBC
4 minutes ago
- CNBC
'Superman,' 'F1' both cross $500 million at the global box office
Warner Bros. Discovery had a bountiful weekend at the global box office. The studio had two films cross the $500 million mark worldwide — "Superman" soared to $502 million and Apple's "F1," which Warner Bros. distributed, topped $509 million in ticket sales. The benchmark is a boon for Warner Bros.' DC Studios, as "Superman" is the first theatrical debut of James Gunn and Peter Safran since they became co-heads of the film and TV unit in late 2022. The pair has developed a 10-year plan to reinvigorate the studio's franchises across TV and film, including fresh spins on Superman and Batman. At present, 2025's "Superman" is the fourth-highest-grossing film featuring Superman. Zack Snyder's 2016 "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" is the highest with $874 million in global ticket sales, while 2013's "Man of Steel" is second-highest with $669 million and 2017's "Justice League" with $661 million, according to data from Comscore. "Superman" debuted in theaters just two weeks ago and continues to drive weekend moviegoing as well as weekday trips. As for Apple's "F1," passing the $500 million mark is just another feather in the cap for the studio. Earlier this month, the film became Apple's best film release ever, surpassing Ridley Scott's "Napoleon," which generated $221 million during its 2023 run, to become Apple's then-highest-grossing theatrical release. The tech company has only sent a handful of films to cinemas with wide releases since delving into the media business in recent years. "Killers of the Flower Moon" tallied $158 million worldwide, "Fly Me to the Moon" took in just $42 million and "Argylle" generated $96 million in ticket sales globally. "F1" has benefited greatly from its partnership with IMAX. Before production, Apple and the film's top creatives reached out to not only secure the use of IMAX's camera technology but also a three-week release in its theaters.
USA Today
33 minutes ago
- USA Today
What's Trump's approval rating? Latest polls on job performance, immigration
A string of recent polls shows President Donald Trump's approval rating has remained largely steady over the last week, even as a new Gallup survey gave him his lowest numbers of his second term. Aggregations of recent approval polling from the New York Times and RealClearPolitics place Trump's approval between 44% and 45%, respectively, with a 53% to 42% disapproval. See last week's polling: Trump approval drops in new poll as more Americans oppose immigration policies In a July 25 poll from Emerson College, the president had a 46% approval rating and 47% disapproval. That's a one-point increase on both counts from the survey's June results. "About six months into the second Trump administration, the president's approval rating has stabilized in the mid-40s," the poll's executive director, Spencer Kimball, said in statement. "While his disapproval has steadily increased about a point each month since the inauguration and now stands at 47%." In a Gallup poll released a day prior, the president's approval rating was significantly lower, coming in at 37%. The pollsters called it the lowest mark of his second term and only a few points higher than his all-time-low rating of 34% at the end of his first term. Both polls showed what has long been a deep divide between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to Trump and his policies, especially over immigration, foreign policy and the economy. Here's a round-up of some of the last week's polls. Emerson College poll Trump notched his highest single-issue approval rating on immigration, the poll said, with 45% approving and 46% disapproving of Trump's policies. The highest disapproval numbers were on the economy, with a 41% approval rating and 51% disapproval. That continued to sink with Trump's tariff policy, with 36% approving while 50% disapproved. Trump's support – both on overall job performance and on specific issues – was fueled by Republican respondents in the poll. Just 10% of Democrats said they like the president's job performance, compared to 87% of Republicans and 38% of independents. The difference support was widest by party on immigration, with 12.9% of Democrats approving compared to 80% of Republicans. More: 16% of voters approve of Trump's handling of Epstein files, poll shows The survey of 1,400 registered voters was conducted July 21-22 and has a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points. Gallup poll The poll marks a 10-point drop from the 47% approval rating Americans gave Trump at the beginning of his second term in January. About 29% of independent voters said they're pleased with Trump's job performance in the new survey, the lowest Gallup has tracked with the group in either of Trump's two terms. It's a 17-point decline from the 46% the president enjoyed among independents at the start of his second term earlier this year. Trump's ratings on some of the most significant issues facing the country also faltered, according to Gallup pollsters. He received the strongest support for his handling of the conflict with Iran, at 42% approving, followed by foreign policy at 41%. The president's handling of Iran – where U.S. troops bombed three nuclear sites last month – earned Trump the greatest support from independents, at 36%, while the federal budget gave him the lowest at 19%. The survey of 1,002 Americans was conducted July 7-21, and has a margin of error of ±4 percentage points. Fox News poll Trump's support was lowest on issues of inflation and tariffs, with 36% of respondents backing the way Trump has approached two central forces in America's economy. He received his highest ranking for border security, with 56% of respondents approving and 44% disapproving. Along party lines, support was highest among Republicans, with 88% backing the president. Thirty-seven percent of independents and 7% of Democrats agreed. The survey was conducted by Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research. 1,000 registered voters were surveyed July 18-21, and the poll has a margin of error of ±3 percentage points. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr.
CNET
33 minutes ago
- CNET
AI Is Taking Over Your Search Engine. Here's a Look Under the Hood
For decades, the way we find information on the internet changed only in small ways. Doing a traditional Google search today doesn't feel all that different from when, in the 1990s, you would Ask Jeeves. Sure, a lot has changed under the hood, the results are likely far more relevant and the interface has some new features, but you're still typing in keywords and getting a list of websites that might hold the answer. That way of searching, it seems, is starting to go the way of AltaVista, may it rest in peace. In May, Google announced the rollout of its new AI Mode for search, which uses a generative AI model (based on the company's Gemini large language model) to give you conversational answers that feel a lot more like having a chat and less like combing through a set of links. Other companies, like Perplexity and OpenAI, have also deployed search tools based on gen AI. These tools, which merge the functionality of a chatbot and a traditional search engine, are quickly gaining steam. You can't even escape AI by doing just a regular Google search: AI Overviews have been popping up atop those results pages since last year, and about one in five searches are now showing this kind of summary, according to a Pew Research Center report. I'm surprised it's not even more than that. These newfangled search tools feel a lot like your typical chatbot, like ChatGPT, but they do things a little differently. Those differences share a lot of DNA with their search engine ancestors. Here's a look under the hood at how these new tools work, and how you can use them effectively. Everything Announced at Google I/O 2025 Everything Announced at Google I/O 2025 Click to unmute Video Player is loading. Play Video Pause Skip Backward Skip Forward Next playlist item Unmute Current Time 0:13 / Duration 15:40 Loaded : 6.33% 00:13 Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 15:27 Share Fullscreen This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Text Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Caption Area Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Opacity Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Drop shadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Close Modal Dialog This is a modal window. This modal can be closed by pressing the Escape key or activating the close button. Everything Announced at Google I/O 2025 Search engines vs. AI search: What's the difference? The underlying technology of a search engine is kinda like an old library card catalog. The engine uses bots to crawl the vast expanses of the internet to find, analyze and index the endless number of web pages. Then, when you do a search to ask who played Dr. Angela Hicks on ER, because you're trying to remember what else you've seen her in, it will return pages for things like the cast of ER or the biography of the actor, CCH Pounder. From there, you can click through those pages, whether they're on Wikipedia or IMDB or somewhere else, and learn that you know CCH Pounder from her Emmy-winning guest appearance on an episode of The X-Files. "When customers have a certain question, they can type that question into Google and then Google runs their ranking algorithms to find what content is the best for a particular query," Eugene Levin, president of the marketing and SEO tool company Semrush, told me. Generally, with a traditional search, you have to click through to other websites to get the answer you're looking for. When I was trying to figure out where I recognized CCH Pounder from, I clicked on at least half a dozen different sites to track it down. That included using Google's video search -- which combs an index of videos across different hosting platforms -- to find clips of her appearance on The X-Files. Google announced AI Mode at its I/O developer conference in May. Google/Screenshot by Joe Maldonado/CNET These multiple searches don't necessarily have to happen. If I just want to know the cast of ER, I can type in "cast of ER" and click on the Wikipedia page at the top. You'll usually find Wikipedia or another relevant, trustworthy site at or near the top of a search result page. That's because a main way today's search algorithms work is by tracking which sites and pages get most links from elsewhere on the web. That model, which "changed the game for search" when Google launched it in the 1990s, was more reliable than indexing systems that relied on things like just how many times a keyword appeared on a page, said Sauvik Das, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. "There's lots of cookie recipes on the web, but how do you know which ones to show first?" Das said. "Well, if a bunch of other websites are linking to this website for the keywords of 'cookie recipe,' that's pretty difficult to game." AI-powered search engines work a little differently, but operate on the same basic infrastructure. In my quest to see where I recognized CCH Pounder from, I asked Google's AI Mode, literally, "Where do I recognize the actress who plays Dr. Angie Hicks on ER from?" In a conversation that felt far more like chatting with a bot than doing searches, I narrowed it down. The first result gave me a list of shows and movies I hadn't seen, so I asked for a broader list, which featured her guest appearances on other shows. Then I could ask for more details about her X-Files appearance, and that narrowed it down. While the way I interacted with Google was different, the search mechanisms were basically the same. AI Mode just used its Gemini model to develop and process dozens of different web searches to gather the information needed, Robby Stein, vice president of product for Google Search, told me. "A user could've just queried each of those queries themselves." Basically, AI Mode did the same thing I did, just a lot faster. So many searches, so little time The approach here is called "query fan-out." The AI model takes your request and breaks it down into a series of questions, then conducts searches to answer those components of the request. It then takes the information it gathers from all those searches and websites and puts it together in an answer for you. In a heartbeat. Those searches are using the same index that a traditional search would. "They work on the same foundation," Levin said. "What changes is how they pull information from this foundation." This fan-out process allows the AI search to pull in relevant information from sites that might not have appeared on the first page of traditional search results, or to pull a paragraph of good information from a page that has a lot more irrelevant information. Instead of you going down a rabbit hole to find one tiny piece of the answer you want, the AI goes down a wide range of rabbit holes in a few seconds. "They will anticipate, if you're looking for this, what is the next thing you might be interested in?" Levin said. Read more: AI Essentials: 29 Ways You Can Make Gen AI Work for You, According to Our Experts The number of searches the AI model will do depends on the tool you're using and on how complicated your question is. AI Mode that uses Google's Deep Search will spend more time and conduct more searches, Stein said. "Increasingly, if you ask a really hard question, it will use our most powerful models to reply," Stein said. The large language models that power these search engines also have their existing training data to pull from or use to guide their searches. While a lot of the information is coming from the up-to-date content it finds by searching the web, some may come from that training data, which could include reams of information ranging from websites like this one to whole libraries of books. That training data is so extensive that lawsuits over whether AI companies actually had the right to use that information are quickly multiplying. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) AI search isn't just a chatbot Not relying on training data is one thing that sets an AI-powered search engine apart from a traditional chatbot, even though the underlying language model might be largely the same. While ChatGPT Search will scour the internet for relevant sites and answers, regular ChatGPT might rely on its own training data to answer your question. "The right answer might be in there," Das said. "It might also hallucinate a likely answer that isn't anywhere in the pre-training data." The AI search uses a concept called retrieval-augmented generation to incorporate what it finds on the internet into its answer. It collects information from a source you point it to (in this case, the search engine index) and tells it to look there instead of making something up if it can't find it in its training data. "You're telling the AI the answer is here, I just want you to find where," Das said. "You get the top 10 Google results, and you're telling the AI the answer is probably in here." Perplexity offers AI-powered search through its app and through a newly announced browser. Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images Can you really trust AI search results? These AI-powered search tools might be more reliable than just using a chatbot itself, because they're pulling from current, relevant information and giving you links, but you still have to think critically about it. Here are some tips from the experts: Bring your human skepticism Consider how bad people are at telling when you're sarcastic on the internet. Then think about how bad a large language model might be at it. That's how Google's AI Overviews came up with the idea to put glue on pizza -- by pulling information from a humorous Reddit post and repeating it as if it were real culinary advice. "The AI doesn't know what is authentic and what is humorous," Das said. "It's going to treat all that information the same." Remember to use your own judgement and look for the sources of the information. They might not be as accurate as the LLM thinks, and you don't want to make important life decisions based on somebody's joke on an internet forum that a robot thought was real. AI can still make stuff up Even though they're supposed to be pulling from search results, these tools can still make things up in the absence of good information. That's how AI Overviews started creating fake definitions for nonsensical sayings. The retrieval-augmented generation might reduce the risk of outright hallucinations but doesn't eliminate it, according to Das. Remember that an LLM doesn't have a sense of what the right answer to a question is. "It's just predicting what is the next English word that would come after this previous stream of other English words or other language words," Das said. "It doesn't really have a concept of truthiness in that sense." Check your sources Traditional search engines are very hands-off. They will give you a list of websites that appear relevant to your search and let you decide whether you want to trust them. Because an AI search is consolidating and rewriting that information itself, it may not be obvious when it's using an untrustworthy source. "Those systems are not going to be entirely error-free, but I think the challenge is that over time you will lose an ability to catch them," Levin said. "They will be very convincing and you will not know how to really go and verify, or you will think you don't need to go and verify." But you can check every source. But that's exactly the kind of work you were probably hoping to avoid using this new system that's designed to save you time and effort. "The problem is if you're going to do this analysis for every query you perform in ChatGPT, what is the purpose of ChatGPT?" Levin said.
