Newsom Forces Apple And Google To Track Kids’ Ages Under New California Law
'Must do it responsibly'
Europe shows us what happens when bureaucrats win
Americans are accustomed to innovation improving their lives. From smartphones to artificial intelligence, breakthroughs keep coming — and most of them happen in the United States, where freedom fuels invention. But across the Atlantic, the story is very different. Europe’s regulators have built a bureaucracy that smothers creativity.
The lesson is simple: Innovation thrives where government steps back, not where it rules from Brussels.
Europe doesn’t need more commissions or consultations. It needs courage to scrap bad laws and let innovation breathe again.
A recent analysis from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation drives home the point. All seven of the world’s trillion-dollar tech firms are American. Europe can claim only 28 companies worth more than $100 billion. Over the past decade, European firms raised about $426 billion — $800 billion less than their U.S. counterparts.
Rather than learn from failure, Brussels tightened its grip — proving again that when regulators fail, they regulate harder. Their Digital Markets Act and Copyright Directive saddle companies with costly mandates that make life harder for both innovators and consumers.
EU regulators insist that their rules ensure fairness, transparency, and competition. In reality, they’re strangling convenience and driving users crazy.
Take Google Maps. Because of DMA rules, Europeans can no longer click directly into expanded map views. As one user complained on Reddit, it’s become “a severe pain in the butt.” The new restrictions also hobble tourism. Google Search can’t link directly to airlines or hotels, forcing travelers through clunky intermediaries that waste time and money.
The Copyright Directive makes things worse. It tells search engines to display only “very short” snippets of news articles — without defining what that means. Bureaucrats promise to judge “the impact on the effectiveness of the new right,” which means nothing. By contrast, American courts have long recognized that snippets are fair use and help people find what they need. U.S. policy treats information as a public good; the EU treats it as a privilege controlled by the state.
The damage goes beyond search results. The EU now forces Apple and other “gatekeepers” to make their devices interoperable with third-party software — a costly demand that undermines engineering efficiency. Features like iPhone-to-Mac mirroring and real-time translation could disappear from European markets because of it.
As Cato Institute’s Jennifer Huddleston noted, “The real-time translation feature would be immensely helpful in Europe with so many languages; however, the consequence of European regulation is that it might not be available.”
RELATED: Can anyone save America from European-style digital ID?
And when companies don’t comply fast enough, Brussels slaps them with massive fines. Apple got hit with 500 million euros (around $580 million), Meta with 200 million euros (around $232 million) — punished not for misconduct but for trying to innovate.
The EU now says it will review whether the DMA “achieves its objectives of ensuring contestable and fair digital markets.” That’s bureaucratic code for “we might make it worse.” Meanwhile, the Copyright Directive’s vague language grows even more dangerous in the age of AI, where machine learning depends on large-scale data use that Brussels can’t seem to comprehend.
Europe doesn’t need more commissions or consultations. It needs courage to scrap bad laws and let innovation breathe again. If Brussels wants to compete with America, it should stop punishing success and start trusting its own entrepreneurs. A lighter-touch approach has worked for the United States — and it could save Europe from technological irrelevance.
Davis: The Government And Big Tech Censored Americans. It Must Never Happen Again
'It is time to return to a world where we can say what we wish without fear of being censored, or deplatformed, or shot dead'The visa that ate America’s tech jobs
Last month, Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) introduced the American Tech Workforce Act — legislation aimed at curbing abuses in the H-1B visa program and protecting American workers. One key provision would restrict remote work by foreign nationals employed in the United States under H-1B visas.
Yes, you read that right. Foreign workers can enter the country and “work remotely,” often from locations nowhere near the companies that hired them. A foreign national can take a tech job with a firm in San Francisco or Dallas, then live and work from Peoria or Plattsburgh. The arrangement makes little sense — unless your goal is to undercut American wages.
Congressshould demand that US companies use remote work to employ Americans — not to offshore jobs inside our own borders.
The H-1B program was sold to Americans as a way to fill gaps in “specialty occupations” that supposedly lacked qualified domestic talent. In practice, it became a pipeline for cheap, compliant foreign labor. Vague definitions of “specialty occupation” and toothless wage protections made it easy for corporations to game the system and drive down costs.
Workers from India, China, and the Philippines accept lower pay for two simple reasons. First, they see the H-1B as a path to permanent residence and eventual citizenship. Many arrive and immediately ask their employers to petition for green cards. They believe that if they keep quiet and work long hours for less money, they’ll earn the right to stay.
Second, even when underpaid by American standards, they make far more than they could at home. A senior computer engineer in India earns roughly $16,000 to $28,000 per year. In the United States, even a low-paid engineer makes about $58,000. The math works for them — but not for American graduates struggling to enter the same field.
Depressing wages, rewarding compliance
The results have been devastating for American STEM professionals. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that between 1994 and 2001, the flood of foreign tech workers suppressed wages for U.S. computer scientists by as much as 5% and reduced domestic employment in the field by up to 10%.
And because so many H-1B workers hope for green cards, they rarely complain about long hours, weekends, or holidays. Employers know it. The system rewards docility. Today, about 19% of the STEM workforce is foreign-born — higher than their share of the total U.S. workforce. Cheap, compliant labor is now baked into the model, while American graduates are being priced out.
The remote work loophole
If companies truly wanted to cut costs, they could use remote work to hire American workers from lower-cost regions. A Boston tech firm can employ skilled programmers in West Virginia or Alabama without having to build new offices. Everyone wins: The company saves money, the workers get good jobs, and local economies benefit.
So why import foreign workers for jobs that can be done anywhere with a Wi-Fi signal? The answer is simple — because they can. Without limits on remote work for H-1Bs, corporations will exploit the system further, hiring foreign workers who are cheaper still. An Indian programmer working remotely from South Carolina costs less than an American one, even after relocation.
RELATED: The H-1B brouhaha: Here's what you need to know
America First means Americans first
The H-1B program has always benefited foreign nationals and corporate bottom lines at the expense of American citizens. It’s long past time for Congress to reverse that and adopt an America First position to protect U.S. tech workers.
Lawmakers should pass the American Tech Workforce Act as a first step. But reform shouldn’t stop there. They should demand that U.S. companies use remote work to employ Americans — not to offshore jobs inside our own borders.
If tech firms want to save money, they can hire young American graduates eager to work. What they shouldn’t be allowed to do is import cheaper labor under a visa meant for skills we already have. Remote work should expand opportunities for citizens, not serve as another back door for replacing them.
California’s Vague ‘Hate Speech’ Bill Would Force Big Tech To Censor Mainstream Conservative Views
SB-771 threatens to turn digital platforms into ideological enforcers, punishing those who hold traditional, faith-based viewpoints.Britain’s Big Brother ID law is the globalist dream for America
On Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stood at the podium at the Global Progressive Action Conference in London and made an announcement that should send a chill down the spine of anyone who loves liberty. By the end of this Parliament, he promised, every worker in the U.K. will be required to hold a “free-of-charge” digital ID. Without it, Britons will not be able to work.
No digital ID, no job.
The government is introducing a system that punishes law-abiding citizens by tying their right to work to a government-issued pass.
Starmer framed this as a commonsense response to poverty, climate change, and illegal immigration. He claimed Britain cannot solve these problems without “looking upstream” and tackling root causes. But behind the rhetoric lies a policy that shifts power away from individuals and places it squarely in the hands of government.
Solving the problem they created
This is progressivism in action. Leaders open their borders, invite in mass illegal immigration, and refuse to enforce their own laws. Then, when public frustration boils over, they unveil a prepackaged “solution” — in this case, digital identity — that entrenches government control.
Britain isn’t the first to embrace this system. Switzerland recently approved a digital ID system. Australia already has one. The World Economic Forum has openly pitched digital IDs as the key to accessing everything from health care to bank accounts to travel. And once the infrastructure is in place, digital currency will follow soon after, giving governments the power to track every purchase, approve or block transactions, and dictate where and how you spend your money.
All of your data — your medical history, insurance, banking, food purchases, travel, social media engagement, tax information — would be funneled into a centralized database under government oversight.
The fiction of enforcement
Starmer says this is about cracking down on illegal work. The BBC even pressed him on the point, asking why a mandatory digital ID would stop human traffickers and rogue employers who already ignore national insurance cards. He had no answer.
Bad actors will still break the law. Bosses who pay sweatshop wages under the table will not suddenly check digital IDs. Criminals will not line up to comply. This isn’t about stopping illegal immigration. If it were, the U.K. would simply enforce existing laws, close the loopholes, and deport those working illegally.
Instead, the government is introducing a system that punishes law-abiding citizens by tying their right to work to a government-issued pass.
Control masked as compassion
This is part of an old playbook. Politicians claim their hands are tied and promise that only sweeping new powers will solve the crisis. They selectively enforce laws to maintain the problem, then use the problem to justify expanding control.
RELATED: Europe pushes for digital ID to help 'crack down' on completely unrelated problems
If Britain truly wanted to curb illegal immigration, it could. It is an island. The Channel Tunnel has clear entry points. Enforcement is not impossible. But a digital ID allows for something far more valuable to bureaucrats than border security: total oversight of their own citizens.
The American warning
Think digital ID can’t happen here? Think again. The same arguments are already echoing in Washington, D.C. Illegal immigration is out of control. Progressives know voters are angry. When the digital ID pitch arrives, it will be wrapped in patriotic language about fairness, security, and compassion.
But the goal isn’t compassion. It’s control — of your movement, your money, your speech, your future.
We don’t need digital IDs to enforce immigration law. We need leaders with the courage to enforce existing law. Until then, digital ID schemes will keep spreading, sold as a cure for the very problems they helped create.
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AI in the classroom is here — what parents need to know
For decades, artificial intelligence was something students only encountered in science fiction books. They read stories about robots, ultramodern computers, and machines that could think for themselves. But in just the past few years, the AI revolution has leapt off the page and into real life, quickly reshaping virtually every aspect of our society, including our education system.
The AI revolution is happening so quickly that we must work fast to wrap our heads around the reality and implications of it in education before it’s too late. For parents, especially those concerned about what’s happening in our schools, AI represents both an opportunity and a potentially serious threat. Like social media before it, this technology is advancing faster than most of us can keep up with, and the decisions we make today will determine how it influences our kids for the rest of their lives.
AI doesn’t have to be a threat to our children. But if parents don’t get involved now, this powerful technology will shape our kids without our vital input.
If you are a parent, you cannot afford to ignore what AI is doing in education. Here are five things every parent must understand:
AI is already in your child’s classroom
The AI revolution isn’t some looming event; it’s already here. Schools throughout the country are already adopting “smart” learning platforms, tutoring apps, and grading and curriculum systems powered by AI.
Some school districts are experimenting with AI software that generates lesson plans, constructs writing assignments, and even helps teachers communicate with students. One platform called MagicSchool bills itself as “the go-to AI assistant for educators worldwide, designed to simplify teaching tasks, save time, and combat teacher burnout.” MagicSchool has existing relationships with numerous public school systems, including Atlanta, Denver, New York City, Seattle, and many others.
This means decisions about how your child learns, what material they see, and even how their performance is evaluated are increasingly influenced by Big Tech algorithms. The question is: Who controls those algorithms, and what values are embedded into them? Parents deserve answers before handing their children’s education to algorithms.
AI is a great tool and could be a great indoctrinator
AI can certainly be a valuable tool for educators and students. It can open the door to new levels of personalized learning that provide help to struggling students.
Used well, it can identify where a child is falling behind and provide extra practice, tailor lessons to a student’s strengths and weaknesses, and even spark new excitement for subjects that once felt out of reach. In an educational environment where one-on-one interaction is lacking, AI could offer desperately needed specialization.
AI can also carry significant hidden biases. The people who design AI systems decide what information is “correct,” what is “misinformation,” what viewpoints are acceptable, what viewpoints are “harmful,” and how to present material. For example, several studies show that the leading AI models have left-leaning political slants. These entrenched biases, coupled with the personalization capabilities of AI, could be a very powerful tool for indoctrination.
If you think debates over curriculum were intense before, imagine an invisible algorithm quietly steering how your child learns history, civics, or even basic facts about the world. AI could become the most effective indoctrination device ever placed in a classroom.
AI comes with major privacy and safety risks
AI feeds on data. And when it comes to schools, that is your child’s data. Everything from test scores and study habits to behavioral patterns and even emotional responses can be collected, stored, and used to refine Big Tech algorithms.
Where does that data go? Who has access to it? Can it be sold, tracked, or used years later when your child applies for a job or college? Parents must demand transparency and strict limitations. Protecting the privacy of all children in the age of AI is essential.
Lawsuits are already popping up on this issue. For instance, Google is currently facing a lawsuit over allegations that it collected data on millions of students through its educational tools, raising serious privacy concerns about how much information tech companies gather on kids without parental consent.
AI can damage mental health
Education is about far more than memorizing facts. It includes mentorship, human connection, and building social and emotional skills that prepare kids for life. If AI tutors, chatbots, or grading systems replace too much of a teacher’s role, children risk becoming isolated and less resilient.
Parents need to insist that AI supplements teachers, not replaces them. A screen is no substitute for a caring adult who knows your child, believes in them, and holds them accountable.
Another risk comes from what researchers call “AI sycophancy.” This is when chatbots or AI tutors simply tell students what they want to hear, reinforcing their opinions instead of challenging them. Over time, that can stunt critical thinking and give kids a distorted sense of reality. This is especially troubling in an educational setting.
Parents must be the first line of defense
The lessons of social media are clear: Parents cannot rely on bureaucrats, politicians, or tech companies to put kids’ best interests first.
The same is true with AI. Parents have the right and responsibility to ask tough questions. What AI tools are used in your child’s school? What data is being collected? What guardrails are in place? And most importantly: Who is in control?
RELATED: Virtual schooling a viable alternative? Thank woke teachers, school closures, and AI
Parents should also demand policies that protect children’s privacy, dignity, and freedom of thought. Our kids’ future is too important to leave in the hands of unaccountable algorithms.
AI doesn’t have to be a threat to our children. But if parents don’t get involved now, this powerful technology will shape our kids without our vital input. Parents must lead the way in demanding transparency, accountability, and human-centered education.
Our children deserve schools that prepare them for the future without compromising their privacy, freedom, or humanity. That’s only possible if parents step up now, before it’s too late.
Why Trump’s TikTok takeover won’t stop China’s digital Trojan horse
President Donald Trump and his team deserve considerable credit for the skillful way they gained control of TikTok, the video-sharing app that has become one of America’s main sources of news.
The deal could have gone down badly. Critics could have called it “proto-socialism,” especially after the government’s recent purchase of a 10% stake in Intel and its “golden share” of U.S. Steel. Moreover, the same bureaucrats who can’t run the IRS and the post office without getting egg on their faces probably aren’t equipped to run a $30 trillion annual economy either.
Every embedded Chinese system carries a national security risk. Each piece of foreign tech installed in American supply chains is another listening device, another lever of control.
However, most otherwise critical observers gave this deal a pass because the change in TikTok’s control wasn’t about market meddling; it was about national security.
Digital espionage
Despite the platform’s American majority of investors, TikTok still posed a significant national security threat. China’s tactic of using electronics for espionage purposes is well-documented. The targets of this espionage go beyond China’s enemies to friends, neighbors, and competitors alike — including the U.S. government. Technologists working on Beijing’s behalf have hacked their way through secure U.S. government systems for at least a decade, if not longer.
In that vein, TikTok’s role in Beijing’s espionage apparatus is clear. Its nearly ubiquitous presence on smartphones presents Beijing with tantalizing opportunities: a nearly endless network through which viruses can spread, or a means of obtaining private data from a global consumer base. But turning TikTok over to American management doesn’t solve the problem — not by a long shot.
The Chinese telecommunications industry is not like “Ma Bell.” It operates as an adjunct of state security forces, sometimes gathering and reporting requested data back to Beijing. The British press has reported extensively on how Huawei was doing just that: leaving secret back doors open in its equipment that the People’s Liberation Army could walk through anytime it wanted.
Spying through shopping
Huawei isn’t the only offender. A lesser-known firm called Hanshow supplies “smart electronic shelf labels” to supermarkets, a price and inventory control tool that provides Beijing with data about what Americans are buying and in real time, wherever it’s installed.
In the midst of a trade war — with America overly dependent on China for essential consumer goods and medical supplies — that information could be used against us. It’s not just marketplace ephemera; it’s a road map to identify choke points of a major competitor that could disrupt our daily patterns of life.
RELATED: TikTok is finally coming home
That’s only one of the products Hanshow sells. It also offers AI-powered cameras, inventory robots, and smart shopping carts, which are all tied to a proprietary IT platform called All-Star. These products together provide the company and its associates in the Chinese security services with an entry point into supermarket IT networks, from point-of-sale systems to vendor portals.
Like Huawei, Hanshow is backed by investors tied to the regime and is legally bound to cooperate with the Chinese military. Its footprint is expanding, with its technology and systems used in some capacity by major customers in the American marketplace, including Instacart, Kroger, and Walmart. By some estimates, tens of millions of American shoppers have already transmitted critical financial and personal data through portals linked to Hanshow devices. By 2025, it could be more than 150 million.
The Chinese digital Cerberus
Every embedded Chinese system carries a national security risk. Each piece of foreign tech installed in American supply chains is another listening device, another lever of control. The Chinese Communist Party has a head start, and Washington cannot afford to keep looking the other way.
Trump’s TikTok deal was the right move. But the broader fight isn’t about one app. It’s about defending American data and protecting national security. The United States needs a comprehensive response to China’s technological infiltration — starting yesterday.
AI isn’t feeding you
Mason County, Kentucky, sits just an hour from Cincinnati but feels like another world. Its beautiful rolling hills, deep farming roots, and traditions make it a bastion of conservative culture. Trump carried the county by 44 points. Residents distrust globalism, Big Tech, and government collusion.
Yet Mason has become the latest target for one of the largest data centers in the world. The company behind it hides its name, cloaks officials in nondisclosure agreements, and dangles cash at landowners while refusing to reveal how it will feed the massive hunger for power and water.
The question now is whether Kentucky — and America — will heed the warning or allow ‘progress’ to consume the very land, food, water, and power that make progress possible.
The plan calls for a sprawling 5,000-acre “technology campus” near Big Pond and Tuckahoe roads. Local officials admit the buyer is a Fortune 20 giant, described only as a “global, top 10” company with “hundreds of thousands of employees.”
Residents say the tactics are familiar. A few landowners get offers — $35,000 an acre in this case — while the broader community is left to bear the burden: displaced farmland, strained resources, and declining property values. Good luck selling to anyone but the data-center developer once the deal is in motion.
Power drain
The proposed complex in Maysville would demand 2.2 gigawatts of power, starting at 110 megawatts by 2026 and hitting full capacity by 2028-2031. That’s the annual energy use of 1.8 million American homes. For a county of 17,000 people, the numbers are staggering. The project alone would nearly double the East Kentucky Power Cooperative’s yearly output.
And that’s before accounting for water. Data centers require enormous cooling systems that siphon off local supplies. Add in the direct loss of 5,000 acres of farmland and timberland — in a nation already facing record-low cattle herds and shrinking food security — and the price tag for “progress” keeps rising.
By comparison, the average coal plant sits on 585 acres; a natural gas plant, only 30. Those facilities power the nation. This one would devour power and water to feed servers.
A national trend
This isn’t just about Mason County. Hyperscale data centers are sprouting everywhere with the help of state and federal officials eager to rezone farmland. Twenty such facilities are already planned for Kentucky, 10 for Ohio, and 35 for Indiana. Each site removes productive farmland, stresses infrastructure, and hands more of the food and energy supply to giant corporations.
The sales pitch is always the same: jobs and economic development. Yet the real math looks different. The U.S. lost more than 100,000 beef-cow operations between 2017 and 2022. Farmers face higher feed costs, tighter margins, and competition from giant meat-packers. Now, Big Tech threatens to take what’s left.
Cronyism exposed
Mason County Judge-Executive Owen McNeill and other officials signed NDAs while promoting the deal. Residents see it for what it is: promises of prosperity in exchange for their land, heritage, and way of life. On Facebook, 1,500 locals in “We Are Mason County” compare it to a Nigerian prince scam — big promises, little proof, and huge risks.
The scam extends to Frankfort. House Bill 775 exempts data centers from Kentucky’s 6% sales and use tax for 50 years. Servers, networking equipment, cooling systems — all tax-free. Farmers pay sales tax on every tractor and plow, but Google and Meta lobbied for an endless free ride.
RELATED: Time to pump the brakes on Big Tech’s AI boondoggle
Land, food, water, power
At stake are the four essentials of civilization. Land grows food. Water sustains life. Power keeps the lights on. Once given away, none of these can be reclaimed. The boosters of artificial intelligence say America must have the infrastructure for it at any cost. But if AI can’t survive without tax breaks, secrecy, and the seizure of farmland, maybe it isn’t the inevitable juggernaut Silicon Valley claims.
Mason County itself bears the name of George Mason, the anti-Federalist who warned that monopolies in trade and commerce would mean “no Security for ... the People for their Rights.” He did not live to see global monopolies seizing farmland in Kentucky, but he predicted the danger.
The question now is whether Kentucky — and America — will heed the warning or allow “progress” to consume the very land, food, water, and power that make progress possible.
If Big Tech Doesn’t Treat Leftist Terrorists Like It Did Donald Trump, Government Should Make Them
Social media titans have enabled irresponsible leftist rhetoric to proliferate and pollute civil discourse.Today's top stories
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