I wrote about Europe maybe retreating from strong privacy protections in the name of AI competitiveness and why it may be making a mistake https://www.platformer.news/eu-ai-act-changes-proposal/

Wrote about the great Reuters investigation into scams on Meta's platforms and why lately nothing seems to stick to the company https://www.platformer.news/meta-scams-prevalence/

Wrote about Perplexity's comical flouting of every other website's rules and insistence that it is being "bullied" https://www.platformer.news/amazon-perplexity-comet-agents-future/

I wrote about Bluesky a year after the big post-election surge in users, and whether you can build a happier version of Twitter while keeping its same basic shape https://www.platformer.news/bluesky-2025-content-moderation-fediverse/

Character.AI is the first major company to acknowledge that companions aren't safe for young people. Will others follow? https://www.platformer.news/character-ai-teen-ban/

Wrote about OpenAI's restructuring and what it means for how AI is governed https://www.platformer.news/openai-restructuring-microsoft-altman/

I talked to OpenAI about its surprising new research on the prevalence of mental health concerns in ChatGPT usage and whether this is a problem we can model-tweak our way out of https://www.platformer.news/openai-mental-health-research-chatgpt-suicide-delusions/

OpenAI's flailing over content policy for Sora is just the latest example of the company rushing out a product at the expense of its own reputation. As AI tools get more powerful, that's reason for concern https://www.platformer.news/openai-sora-copyright-policy-king-cranston/

I wrote about the AI slop backlash and how platforms are starting to respond to it https://www.platformer.news/thursday-newsletter-5/

California's move to regulate AI companions really could not have come soon enough https://www.platformer.news/california-ai-companion-law-newsom-openai/

AI leaderboards are declining in influence. So why did Meta-backed Scale AI just launch a new one? https://www.platformer.news/ai-leaderboards-decline-lmarena-scale/

Wrote about fresh signs of an AI bubble (and why the industry says the worries are mostly overblown) https://www.platformer.news/ai-bubble-2025/

I wrote about OpenAI's ambitious platform play and the Cambridge Analytica flashbacks it inspired. Plus, Sam Altman takes my question about enshittification risk https://www.platformer.news/openai-dev-day-2025-platform-chatgpt/

Here's what everyone is saying about Sora. Of note: several OpenAI employees have posted about their concerns with the product https://www.platformer.news/sora-2-reactions-openai/

Tried out the new slop app https://www.platformer.news/sora-2-hands-on-openai-social-network/

Talked to OpenAI about its new parental controls and the effort to make ChatGPT safer for kids — by pushing more responsibility onto parents https://www.platformer.news/chatgpt-parental-controls-child-safety/

ChatGPT Pulse is a step toward becoming a proactive assistant that works for you in the background. It's also one more feed to scroll. Sound familiar? https://www.platformer.news/chatgpt-pulse-proactive-ai/

Today is Platformer's fifth birthday! I wrote about the state of the newsletter economy, how the business is going, and what we're planning for year six https://www.platformer.news/platformer-year-five-lessons/

I tried to capture everything that's strange about the TikTok deal. A giveaway to Trump's allies and another step toward US media being controlled by his allies https://www.platformer.news/tiktok-deal-framework-questions/

I wrote about how social media enabled Charlie Kirk while making our politics ever worse. https://www.platformer.news/thursday-newsletter-4/

ChatGPT will soon alert parents when their children express thoughts of self-harm. Will that protect them — or simply drive them elsewhere? https://www.platformer.news/openai-teen-accounts-safety-senate-hearing/?ref=platformer-newsletter

After all that hand-wringing about the dangerous Chinese TikTok algorithm, it appears that Trump is going to let the new American TikTok just license it from China. Whatever!! https://www.platformer.news/tiktok-deal-bytedance-china-trump-bessent/

The FTC's investigation into chatbots and children suggests that Republicans are *this* close to having an epiphany about AI safety https://www.platformer.news/ftc-chatbots-child-safety/

The AI as Normal Technology guys are back with a good new post on why they think AI transformation of society will take decades. I'm a fan, but had to ask — doesn't the effect AI is *already* having on education suggest things may go much faster? […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

NEW: Google tells me it will re-file a legal brief in which lawyers said "the open web is already in rapid decline" to clarify that they were only talking about open-web display advertising. (The open web is still in rapid decline, though.) […]

A year ago today, Trump threatened to jail Zuckerberg for the rest of his life. Today, Trump is fighting Meta's battles around the world. I wrote about everything that Zuckerberg has gotten from Trump 2.0 so far: https://www.platformer.news/trump-zuckerberg-meta-partnership-eu-dsa-ai-dma/

The chatbot mental health crisis is here. No one is ready for it https://www.platformer.news/chatgpt-suicide-lawsuit-openai-safety/

Can Musk sue his way to the top of the App Store? I asked Stanford Law Prof. Mark Lemley about Musk's new lawsuit against OpenAI and Apple https://www.platformer.news/musk-sues-apple-openai-grok/

It's Hard Fork Friday! This week: the AI bubble, Jeff Horwitz on Meta's child-romancing chatbots, and a filthy song that is NOT the no. 1 country song in America right now https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/podcasts/is-this-an-ai-bubble-metas-missing-morals-tiktok-shock-slop.html

It's my annual productivity post! What I'm still doing, what I stopped doing, and what I'm trying. Plus, the mundane and non-transformational ways I am using AI https://www.platformer.news/productivity-tools-ai-2025/

Just listened to a great interview about @obsidian between @kepano and @caseynewton on Decoder podcast https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/760522/obsidian-ceo-steph-ango-kepano-productivity-software-notes-app (the show is also followable at @2123 thru podcast index)

I wrote about the seeming contradiction in two new survey findings: 71 percent of Americans fear AI will take their job; and 95 percent of AI tests at companies are failing to generate money. https://www.platformer.news/ai-job-loss-surveys-mit/

Chatbots can provide something *like* therapy, but it's not the genuine article — so I think it's good more states are cracking down on how companies present them https://www.platformer.news/ai-therapy-paxton-meta-character/

This evening, I joined a small group of reporters for a wide-ranging, on-the-record dinner with Sam Altman and some of his top lieutenants. And yeah, Altman said — we're in an AI bubble https://www.platformer.news/sam-altman-gpt-5-interview-lightcap-turley/

Note to Platformer subscribers: this week's final edition will be going out *Friday* to accommodate some reporting this evening.

Elon Musk's whining about App Store rankings is a strong signal that Grok is on the rocks https://www.platformer.news/musk-altman-grok-apple-competition-fight/

Wrote about the backlash to GPT-5 and the dawning awareness inside labs of just how strongly some people feel about individual models and workflows https://www.platformer.news/gpt-5-backlash-openai-lessons/

GPT-5 is alive! Here's what people are saying, why Google and Anthropic may be breathing a sigh of relief, and one weird AI safety trick that I think other labs should borrow: https://www.platformer.news/gpt-5-launch-release-reviews-impressions/

Wrote about the new OpenAI models and the creeping danger of powerful models that can fit on a laptop https://www.platformer.news/open-ai-gpt-oss-open-source/

That Hard Fork interview with Matthew Prince from @cloudflare is really good. Here are two quotes from it: “But for bad actors, and there are bad actors out there, we can pollute their data, and we can pollute it at scale” “Everything that is wrong with the world today is ultimately Google’s […]

In the wake of ChatGPT adding a warning, I looked at the mixed record of 'nudges' to try to deter people from problematic use https://www.platformer.news/open-ai-

The Substack founders bragged that they were building a different kind of platform. But when they promoted a Nazi this week, they revealed that they have become a social network like any other https://www.platformer.news/substack-nazi-push-notification/

I wrote about how the UK's age-gating debacle is coming to America — and what we could do differently https://www.platformer.news/age-assurance-uk-tea-apple-google-meta/

Trust and safety workers had a LOT to say after the column I wrote last week asking why more don't speak out publicly. Here's what they say I missed: https://www.platformer.news/trust-and-safety-workers-respond-censorship-free-speech/

After a visit to TrustCon, I wrote about the near-total failure of trust and safety leaders to defend human rights after conservatives successfully bullied platforms into submission https://www.platformer.news/trustcon-trust-safety-leadership-decline-2025/

A new Pew study offers data to back up what we have suspected for a while now: AI answers are draining all the traffic out of the web https://www.platformer.news/google-ai-overviews-pew-research/?ref=platformer-newsletter

I wrote about OpenAI front-running the announcement of this year's International Math Olympiad side competition among AI contestants https://www.platformer.news/google-openai-international-math-olympiad-gold/

Pay to boost your newsletter in Substack Notes! Pre-roll ads on your podcasts and videos! Your writing licensed to train new AI models! I wrote about how Substack can live up to its new billion-dollar valuation https://www.platformer.news/substack-series-c-enshittification/

NEW: xAI added a porn companion to Grok in Apple's App Store ... and rated it as appropriate for kids 12 and older https://www.platformer.news/grok-ani-app-store-rating-nsfw-avatar-apple/

The conservative pressure campaign that turned all the big tech companies into Trump appeasers is now coming for AI. It's totally unconstitutional, and might work anyway. I talked to some legal experts about it: https://www.platformer.news/andrew-bailey-chatgpt-trump-jawboning-legal-case/