US will ban foreign officials to punish countries for social media rules
The US State Department has launched its latest rebuke against Europe and other countries over their attempts to regulate digital platforms.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday that the US would restrict visas for 'foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States.' He called it 'unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on U.S. citizens or U.S. residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on U.S. soil' and 'for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States.'
It's not yet clear how or against whom the policy will be enforced, but seems to implicate Europe's Digital Services Act, a law that came into effect in 2023 with the goal of making online platforms safer by imposing requirements on the largest platforms around removing illegal content and providing transparency about their content moderation. Though it's not mentioned directly in the press release about the visa restrictions, the Trump administration has slammed the law on multiple occasions, including in remarks earlier this year by Vice President JD Vance.
It's 'unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies'
The State Department's homepage currently links to an article on its official Substack, where senior advisor for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Samuel Samson critiques the DSA as a tool to 'silence dissident voices through Orwellian content moderation.' He adds that, 'Independent regulators now police social media companies, including prominent American platforms like X, and threaten immense fines for non-compliance with their strict speech regulations.'
Though President Donald Trump has claimed to take actions to crack down on censorship domestically, some moves by his administration have threatened to limit speech within the US. Government websites and institutions that rely on government funding have scrubbed words associated with diversity to avoid his wrath, and The White House cut The Associated Press' access to press briefings when the outlet declined to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
'We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty,' Rubio says in the announcement, 'especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
21 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Switzerland Follows European Union in Lifting Sanctions on Syria
Switzerland is lifting economic sanctions on Syria, following an European Union decision to the same end.
CBS News
22 minutes ago
- CBS News
$200,000 home equity loan vs. $200,000 HELOC: Which is less expensive now?
We may receive commissions from some links to products on this page. Promotions are subject to availability and retailer terms. Before borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of home equity, owners should calculate their potential repayment costs. Getty Images/iStockphoto The average home equity level has been consistently rising in recent years, and according to recent reports, it has remained at a steadily high level. The cumulative home equity level in the United States hit a record high of $17.6 trillion in the first quarter of 2025, based on a report released earlier in June. The average homeowner, meanwhile, has over $300,000 worth of equity that they can borrow from with a home equity loan or home equity line of credit (HELOC). Accounting for the 20% equity threshold many lenders prefer borrowers maintain in their home at all times, that still leaves more than $200,000 worth of equity to utilize right now. And with inflation stubborn, if significantly cooled, interest rates still high and economic concerns broad now, this could be one of the better ways to borrow a large, six-figure sum of money. To ensure borrowing success, however, which is critical when utilizing your home as the funding source, you should first calculate your potential repayment costs. Failure to pay here could result in your home being foreclosed on. So you'll want to know exactly what you'll pay long term. And with rates on home equity loans and HELOCs different, both in how high they are and how they're structured, it's particularly important to compare the potential costs of both before getting started. But which is less expensive now: a $200,000 home equity loan or a $200,000 HELOC? That's what we'll examine below. Start by seeing how much home equity you could potentially borrow here. $200,000 home equity loan vs. $200,000 HELOC: Which is less expensive now? In June 2025, the repayment costs of a home equity loan and HELOC, no matter the amount borrowed, are essentially the same. With the median home equity loan rate at 8.25% and the average HELOC rate at 8.25%, you won't see a material difference in repayments right now. But that's this month, not long-term. Since home equity loan rates have fixed rates that won't change until refinanced and HELOCs have variable rates that change over time, this similarity is not likely to stay consistent. Here's what they would look like calculated against 10- and 15-year repayment periods now, assuming the HELOC rate remains unchanged: 10-year home equity loan at 8.25%: $2,453.05 per month $2,453.05 per month 15-year home equity loan at 8.25%: $1,940.28 per month 10-year HELOC at 8.27%: $2,455.18 per month $2,455.18 per month 15-year HELOC at 8.27%: $1,942.61 per month And here's how they would compare if HELOC rates decline by 25 basis points during this time: 10-year home equity loan at 8.25%: $2,453.05 per month $2,453.05 per month 15-year home equity loan at 8.25%: $1,940.28 per month 10-year HELOC at 8.02%: $2,428.67 per month $2,428.67 per month 15-year HELOC at 8.02%: $1,913.61 per month And here's what they would look like if HELOC rates rise by 25 basis points from today's averages: 10-year home equity loan at 8.25%: $2,453.05 per month $2,453.05 per month 15-year home equity loan at 8.25%: $1,940.28 per month 10-year HELOC at 8.52%: $2,481.85 per month $2,481.85 per month 15-year HELOC at 8.52%: $1,971.82 per month In short, a $200,000 home equity loan is marginally less expensive than a $200,000 HELOC is now. But that dynamic can and almost assuredly will change over a multiple-year repayment period. Borrowers will need to weigh those changes, then, against what they can lock in with a fixed home equity loan rate instead. And remember that home equity loans and HELOCs can always be refinanced in the future, should the rate climate or your borrowing needs change, so don't get too focused on long-term rate change scenarios, either. Compare your HELOC and home equity loan rate offers here to learn more. The bottom line $200,000 home equity loans and HELOCs come with similar payments now but they may not stay that way for very long, thanks to the latter's variable rate. That noted, HELOCs come with interest-only payment requirements for borrowers who want to utilize their equity that way during the draw period, so interest rates may be less of a concern than they'd be with a home equity loan which requires full monthly repayments immediately thanks to the disbursement of the funds in a single, lump sum. Compare both options carefully before getting started, then, to better ensure borrowing success both now and in the years to come.
Fast Company
23 minutes ago
- Fast Company
How this Parisian music streaming service is fighting AI fraud
Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters. Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently. The app will display an on-screen label warning about 'AI-generated content' and notify listeners that some tracks on an album were created with song generators. Deezer is a small player in music streaming, which is dominated by Spotify, Amazon and Apple, but the company said AI-generated music is an 'industry-wide issue.' It's committed to 'safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models,' CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release. Deezer's move underscores the disruption caused by generative AI systems, which are trained on the contents of the internet including text, images and audio available online. AI companies are facing a slew of lawsuits challenging their practice of scraping the web for such training data without paying for it. According to an AI song detection tool that Deezer rolled out this year, 18% of songs uploaded to its platform each day, or about 20,000 tracks, are now completely AI generated. Just three months earlier, that number was 10%, Lanternier said in a recent interview. AI has many benefits but it also 'creates a lot of questions' for the music industry, Lanternier told the Associated Press. Using AI to make music is fine as long as there's an artist behind it but the problem arises when anyone, or even a bot, can use it to make music, he said. Music fraudsters 'create tons of songs. They upload, they try to get on playlists or recommendations, and as a result they gather royalties,' he said. Musicians can't upload music directly to Deezer or rival platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Music labels or digital distribution platforms can do it for artists they have contracts with, while anyone else can use a 'self service' distribution company. Fully AI-generated music still accounts for only about 0.5% of total streams on Deezer. But the company said it's 'evident' that fraud is 'the primary purpose' for these songs because it suspects that as many as seven in 10 listens of an AI song are done by streaming 'farms' or bots, instead of humans. Any AI songs used for 'stream manipulation' will be cut off from royalty payments, Deezer said. AI has been a hot topic in the music industry, with debates swirling around its creative possibilities as well as concerns about its legality. Two of the most popular AI song generators, Suno and Udio, are being sued by record companies for copyright infringement, and face allegations they exploited recorded works of artists from Chuck Berry to Mariah Carey. Gema, a German royalty-collection group, is suing Suno in a similar case filed in Munich, accusing the service of generating songs that are 'confusingly similar' to original versions by artists it represents, including 'Forever Young' by Alphaville, 'Daddy Cool' by Boney M and Lou Bega's 'Mambo No. 5.' Major record labels are reportedly negotiating with Suno and Udio for compensation, according to news reports earlier this month. To detect songs for tagging, Lanternier says Deezer uses the same generators used to create songs to analyze their output. 'We identify patterns because the song creates such a complex signal. There is lots of information in the song,' Lanternier said. The AI music generators seem to be unable to produce songs without subtle but recognizable patterns, which change constantly. 'So you have to update your tool every day,' Lanternier said. 'So we keep generating songs to learn, to teach our algorithm. So we're fighting AI with AI.' Fraudsters can earn big money through streaming. Lanternier pointed to a criminal case last year in the U.S., which authorities said was the first ever involving artificially inflated music streaming. Prosecutors charged a man with wire fraud conspiracy, accusing him of generating hundreds of thousands of AI songs and using bots to automatically stream them billions of times, earning at least $10 million.
