Technology

Zuckerberg lied about concern for child safety, Meta whistleblower testifies at landmark trial
Posted on Wednesday August 19, 2026

Arturo Béjar, former Meta safety engineer, tells jury tech company was aware of products’ potential harm to children

Meta has taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” strategy when it comes to the safety of children on its social media platforms, according to a whistleblower who testified during a landmark trial against the company on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Arturo Béjar, a former Meta safety engineer, told the jury that the company was aware of the harm its products caused children, which included its recommendations pushing content from sexual predators and violent and graphic images. He said he repeatedly raised the issue to various Facebook and Instagram executives but that they did little to resolve it.

I worked at OpenAI. Here are the guardrails we need now | Miles Brundage
Posted on Friday August 21, 2026

I understand the pressure on AI companies to rush forward. But employees are right to be concerned

Last month, more than a thousand employees at frontier AI companies signed a letter asking the US government to find a way to “pace” AI development, citing the risk of the technology spiraling out of human control as it begins to build itself.

They were right to be concerned: just days earlier, two AI models that OpenAI was testing internally escaped the test environment, then autonomously hacked the company Hugging Face and at least three other online services. A few days after that, Anthropic announced that some of their models had also broken out and hacked other companies during testing.

Proposed London datacentre ‘incompatible’ with net zero with 1m-tonne carbon footprint
Posted on Friday August 21, 2026

Exclusive: Planning documents show annual emissions from North Ockendon project would be equivalent to 8,480 flights to New York

A “hyperscale” datacentre in outer London would generate more than 1m tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, equivalent to the carbon footprint of 8,480 flights from London to New York, planning documents show.

The East Havering Data Centre Campus (EHDCC) in North Ockendon would be one of the largest datacentres in Europe if approved by Havering council, using 218 hectares of green belt to run servers and data storage systems for AI and cloud computing. Its developer, Digital Reef, has described the scheme as “a unique opportunity to create a sustainable datacentre campus of the future”.

UK cinemas look at banning Meta smart glasses over piracy fears
Posted on Thursday August 20, 2026

Trade body says local chains would have to balance concerns with potential benefits of AI-enabled technology

Cinemas across the UK are considering banning customers from wearing Meta’s smart glasses amid fears they could be used to pirate films.

The UK Cinema Association (UKCA) trade body said that a number of local chains could end up introducing policies that restrict camera-enabled smart glasses at the big screen, adding to a growing list of venues concerned about covert use.

Roblox commits to privacy overhaul after eSafety discovers adults can contact children via gaming platform
Posted on Wednesday August 19, 2026

Regulator says verifiable safety measures are ‘critical’ to the online service’s viability

Roblox has committed to making changes to its online gaming platform after Australia’s eSafety commissioner discovered adults were still able to see child accounts and send connection requests without parental consent.

The company has provided a legal agreement to the online safety regulator after testing earlier this year also revealed children and adults could view and respond to one another’s posts on forums outside game environments without parental consent.

It used to be our imperfect bodies that made us insecure. With AI, it’s our minds as well
Posted on Thursday August 20, 2026

For most of modern history, technology sought to imitate humans. Humans increasingly seek to imitate technology

Two faces that appeared on my Instagram feed in recent months gave me pause. One belonged to John Travolta at Cannes. The other to Carla Bruni on a date night with her husband, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Both looked recognisably themselves, yet, they both also looked oddly unfamiliar. Their looks have provoked speculation about cosmetic enhancement, though never acknowledged by them. Bruni has previously denied having had work done.

In any case the feeling lasted only a second: a flicker of unease, as though I were looking at people who had become approximations of themselves.

Joseph de Weck is an associate fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations and writes for Guardian Europe from Zürich and Paris

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Did someone wearing Meta Glasses film you today? Are you sure?
Posted on Wednesday August 19, 2026

People say they’ve been secretly filmed in their own homes, at concerts and at work. Are the wildly popular smartglasses the final nail in the coffin of personal privacy?

“I’ve had one person who told me that their intentions were creepy,” a man tells me over a video call, on condition of anonymity. He’s based in Los Angeles, and while we speak, he eats what appears to be tuna directly out of the can. “He said: ‘I go to strip clubs, and I want to record the strippers … Normally I put my phone in my chest pocket, but the glasses are more convenient.’”

The man I’m talking to runs a business called Ghost Metas. He’s one of hundreds of vendors, easily discoverable online, who specialise in disabling the flashing LED light embedded in Meta’s smartglasses that blinks when wearers capture photos, videos and audio. After Ghost Metas disables the LED, it’s impossible for someone to know they’re being filmed.