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The Big Apple is taking on the companies behind Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, accusing them of public nuisance and spurring a youth mental health crisis in the city. In a 327-page lawsuit filed last week in the Southern District of New York, the city of New Yorkalong with its school districts and health departmentalleges that gross negligence on the part of Meta, Alphabet, Snap, and ByteDance has hooked kids on social media through algorithms that wield user data as a weapon against children and fuel the addiction machine. Over one-third of 13- to 17-year-olds report using one of these social media platforms almost constantly and admit this is too much, according to the complaint. Yet more than half struggle to cut back on their social media use, the complaint finds. In January 2024, New York City’s health commissioner declared social media a public health hazard, placing a strain on the citys resources as taxpayer dollars went toward addressing the resulting youth mental health crisis, the complaint says. The ripple effects of the teen behavioral health crisisincluding depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, disordered eating, behavioral problems, and ADD/ADHDare estimated to reach up to $185 billion in lifetime medical costs and $3 trillion in lifetime lost productivity and wages, according to the nonprofit United Hospital Fund. The city alleges that the platforms’ algorithms are designed to keep users scrolling, contributing to sleep loss, chronic absenteeism, and risk-taking behaviors. “Social media use by teens has recently been implicated in alarming increases in dangerous and even deadly off-campus activity in New York City,” the lawsuit alleges. The suit singles out the phenomenon known as “subway surfing.” This trend is inspired by the popular mobile game Subway Surfers, in which young kids and teens catch rides atop moving trains, often with fatal consequences. Just this month two girls, ages 12 and 13, died after climbing on top of a Brooklyn-bound J train and being struck by a low-hanging beam. “Leaders and transportation authorities have grappled with the challenges of subway surfing for decades. Videos encouraging this kind of dangerous activity violate our policies, and we remove them when we become aware of them, a Meta spokesperson tells Fast Company. We will continue to work with MTA to address this issue, and will vigorously defend ourselves against this suit.” New York City is among the largest plaintiffs to join other governments, school districts, and individuals pursuing around 2,050 similar lawsuits. These lawsuits fundamentally misunderstand how YouTube works, and the allegations are simply not true, José Castaeda, a Google spokesperson, tells Fast Company. YouTube is a streaming service where people come to watch everything from live sports to podcasts to their favorite creators, primarily on TV screens, not a social network where people go to catch up with friends. He continued: Weve also developed dedicated tools like Supervised Experiences for young people, guided by child safety experts, that give families control. Fast Company has reached out to Snap and ByteDance for comment. For decades, tech giants have been shielded from lawsuits in the U.S. by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects social media platforms from liability for third-party content. However, this case focuses not on content, but on product design and addictive features. “Defendants should be held to account for the harms their conduct has inflicted on New York City youth and on the NYC Plaintiffs’ educational and public health ecosystems,” the plaintiffs wrote in the complaint. “As it stands now, NYC Plaintiffs are left to abate the nuisance and foot the bill.”
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E-Commerce
OpenAI and Broadcom have formed a multibillion-dollar partnership to develop OpenAI-designed chips. Under the deal, OpenAI will design the chips to its own specifications and Broadcom will manage the development and fabrication of the chips, as well as help with their deployment. The companies plan to deploy enough chips to require 10 gigawatts of electrical power beginning in mid-2026, and running through 2029. Broadcom stock jumped almost 10% on the announcement Monday. The deal marks the second major move by OpenAI to reduce its dependence on Nvidia, which now dominates the AI chip marketthe company announced a partnership with chipmaker AMD last week. The Broadcom partnership is part of a many-pronged effort by OpenAI to dramatically scale up the computing power it uses to train and operate AI models. Within its Stargate initiative to add data centers, the company has attracted large investments from Softbank, Oracle, Nvidia, AMD, and MGX. Coreweave, Microsoft, and ARM will play supporting roles. OpenAI also signed a $300 billion deal with Oracle to buy computing power within existing Oracle data centers. The massive infrastructure investments represent the largest single force buoying up the U.S. stock market. AI companies and their investors believe that generative AI systems are about to revolutionize the way companies do business, from accounting to engineering to operations. AI may prove to be a transformative technology wave on the order of the internet or mobile (or, some even say, electricity). It might also prove to be something more like the metaverse that has lots of potential but will take time to mature. A lot of money, and perhaps the health of the U.S. economy, is riding on the answer to that question.
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E-Commerce
If you are one of the millions of Americans who filed for an extension on your federal tax return back in April, you might be wondering if you still need to pay your taxes by October 15 because of the current government shutdown. The simple answer is yesfor most filers. (Two exceptions, though, are if you were affected by a federally declared disaster, or if you were living out of the country on the due date.) Even though the Trump administration has furloughed 34,400 of some 74,300 employees, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the deadline still stands. “Due to the government shutdown, the American people lost access to many vital services provided by the IRS when the agency furloughed thousands of employees,” the National Treasury Employees Union said. “Expect increased wait times, backlogs, and delays implementing tax law changes as the shutdown continues. Taxpayers around the country will now have a much harder time getting the assistance they need.” “There is no furlough in the filing deadline,” Tom OSaben, director of tax content and government relations for the National Association of Tax Professionals, told the Detroit Free Press. The IRS is still required to continue to collect any taxes due, the paper noted.Some 20 million people filed for a six-month extension back in April, according to the IRS, and the agency expects that number to remain about the same, at 19.8 million people, next tax year, CNBC reported. Should I file electronically or by mail? If you’re anticipating a tax refund, you may want to file your return electronically, instead of by mail, to get your money back sooner, according to NerdWallet. What happens if I miss the October 15 tax extension deadline? Despite all that, if you are still thinking of dragging your feet, one thing to note is that it will cost you. If you miss this deadline, the IRS will consider your return to be late, and you will be subject to these penalties, NerdWallet confirmed.
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E-Commerce
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