Tech
Republicans Claimed Biden Censored YouTube. 20 Employees Seem to Say Otherwise
In a letter to a House committee last month, legal counsel for Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, claimed that president Joe Biden’s administration sought to “influence” the company to crack down on Covid-19 misinformation. Republicans celebrated the letter as an apparent admission of Democratic censorship.
But Democrats seem to be throwing cold water on the allegations. In a new letter to YouTube CEO Neal Mohan first reported by WIRED, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee Jamie Raskin shares half a dozen excerpts of transcripts with 20 Alphabet employees. According to the letter, none of them claim they were ever pressured to suppress or remove content at the behest of the Biden administration. The interviews come from several years of conversations with Youtube employees focused on policy and health, and in trust and safety roles; they appear to undercut years of GOP accusations of the Biden administration censoring social media platforms during the pandemic.
“As thousands of pages of transcripts of testimony make clear, not a single one of Alphabet’s employees testified about any coercion or undue pressure from the Biden administration,” Jamie Raskin, the committee’s top Democrat, says in the letter. “Are you now asserting that all of these witnesses lied to or misled the Committee? Is it more likely that all of these 20 witnesses got together to plan and provide false testimony or that you wrote an unsworn letter contradicting all of them to placate President Trump and his servants?”
The release of the full transcripts would need to be approved by Republicans on the committee, a spokesperson for the Democrats tells WIRED. (Congressman Jim Jordan’s office did not respond to a request for comment. He is the GOP leader of the committee.)
“Jim Jordan’s quest to find evidence of a censorship regime that never existed is well into its third year, and he continues to suppress the testimonies of the many, many witnesses who contradict his fantasy,” claims Renée DiResta, a disinformation expert and associate research professor at Georgetown University.
A week after counsel on behalf of Alphabet sent that letter to the committee in September claiming that they were pressed by the Biden administration, YouTube agreed to dismiss and settle a lawsuit involving the suspension of President Donald Trump’s account on the platform after the January 6 US Capitol riots (YouTube, which paid $24.5 million, admitted no fault in the settlement).
Tech
Nancy Mace Curses, Berates Confused Cops in Airport Meltdown: Police Report
Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Republican congresswoman, unleashed a tirade against law enforcement at the Charleston International Airport on Thursday, WIRED has learned.
According to an incident report obtained by WIRED under South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act, Mace cursed at police officers, making repeated derogatory comments toward them. The report says that a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) supervisor told officers that Mace had treated their staff similarly and that they would be reporting her to their superiors.
According to the report, officers with the Charleston County Aviation Authority Police Department were tasked with meeting Mace at 6:30 am to escort her from the curb to her flight and had been told that she would be arriving in a white BMW at the ticketing curb area. Around 6:35, the report says, they were told she was running late; they never saw the car arrive.
Shortly before 7 am, the report stated, dispatch told the officers that Mace was at the entrance for the Known Crewmember program—a trusted access lane with a smaller checkpoint overseen by the TSA and intended for flight crew members.
When officers quickly located her, according to a supplemental incident report filed by one of the officers, the congresswoman immediately began “loudly cursing and making derogatory comments to us about the department. She repeatedly stated we were ‘Fucking incompetent,’ and ‘this is no way to treat a fucking US Representative,’” the report states.
As officers escorted her to her gate, according to the report, she brought a South Carolina Senate colleague into the fracas.
“She also said we would never treat Tim Scott like this,” says one officer tasked with escorting Mace says in the report.
“The entire walk to gate B-8 she was cursing and complaining and often doing the same into her phone,” an officer writes in the report. In the main incident report, an officer notes that Mace was yelling into her phone, either on a phone call or dictating text messages. “After standing in the vicinity of B-8 for several minutes with her continuing her tirade, she finally boarded the aircraft.”
After Mace’s flight took off, the report states, an American Airlines gate agent approached the officers. According to the report, he “stated he was in disbelief regarding her behavior. He implied that a US Representative should not be acting the way she was.”
The report goes on to state that officers checked with a TSA supervisor, who told the officers “he was very upset with how she acted at the checkpoint.” This supervisor, according to the report, told the officers that Mace had “talked to several TSA agents the same way” and that they would be “submitting a report to his superiors about her unacceptable behavior.” TSA agents are not currently being fully paid, due to the ongoing government shutdown.
Tech
Disney content has gone dark on YouTube TV. Here’s what customers should know
Disney content has gone dark on YouTube TV, leaving subscribers of the Google-owned live streaming platform without access to major networks like ESPN and ABC.
That’s because the companies have failed to reach a new licensing deal to keep Disney channels on YouTube TV. Depending on how long it lasts, the dispute could particularly impact coverage of U.S. college football matchups over the weekend—as well as NBA and NFL games—on top of other news and entertainment disruptions that have already arrived.
In the meantime, YouTube TV subscribers who want to watch Disney channels could have little choice other than turning to traditional broadcasting or the company’s own platforms—which come with their own price tags.
Here’s what we know.
Why is Disney content not on YouTube TV today?
Disney content was pulled from YouTube TV after a carriage agreement expired on Thursday. The two sides have been unable to reach a new deal to continue licensing Disney channels on the platform—resulting in the current blackout.
YouTube TV says that Disney is proposing terms that would be too costly, resulting in higher prices and fewer choices for its subscribers. Google’s streamer has accused Disney of following through on “the threat of a blackout on YouTube TV as a negotiating tactic”—and claims that the move also benefits Disney’s own streaming products like Hulu + Live TV and Fubo.
Meanwhile, Disney says that YouTube TV has refused to pay fair rates of its channels—and is therefore choosing “to deny their subscribers the content they value most.” The California entertainment giant also accused Google of “using its market dominance to eliminate competition and undercut the industry-standard terms we’ve successfully negotiated with every other distributor.”
In a Friday note to employees, Disney Entertainment Co-Chairs Dana Walden and Alan Bergman and ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro added that YouTube TV pulled Disney content Thursday night “prior to the midnight expiration of our deal”—and noted the platform also deleted subscribers’ previously-recorded programming. The Associated Press reached out to Google for further comment.

What channels are impacted?
ESPN and ABC are among the biggest networks that YouTube TV subscribers can no longer access amid the dispute.
And beyond those top sports and news offerings, other Disney-owned content that is now dark on the platform include channels specific to U.S. college athletic regions, like the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Southeastern Conference. NatGeo and FX are also impacted.
Here’s a recap of the full list outlined by YouTube TV:
1. ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews and ESPN Deportes (Spanish Plan)
2. ABC and ABC News Live
3. Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild and Nat Geo Mundo (Spanish Plan)
4. Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD
5. FX, FXX and FXM
6. SEC Network and ACC Network
7. Freeform
8. Localish
9. Baby TV Español (Spanish Plan)
Google says that streamer adds-ons like 4K Plus and Spanish Plus are also affected.
Where else can I watch ESPN and ABC?
Consumers can continue to watch Disney’s sports programming on the company’s own ESPN offerings—but it will come with an additional cost. For streaming, the network launched its own platform earlier this year under the same ESPN name, starting at $29.99 a month.
Other Disney content can be found on platforms like Hulu, Disney+ and Fubo. Again, those come with their own price tags. Disney also allows people to bundle ESPN along with Hulu and Disney+ for $35.99 a month—or $29.99 a month for the first year.
Disney also directed customers to a website called KeepMyNetworks.com to explore other options, which includes more traditional broadcast services.
But if you’re a YouTube TV subscriber and don’t have these streaming subscriptions or broadcast offerings, you might be left without access to this Disney content as long as the impasse lasts. YouTube TV said it would give subscribers a $20 credit if Disney content unavailable “for an extended period of time.”
YouTube TV’s base subscription plan costs $82.99 per month. Beyond Disney content, the platform currently offers live TV from networks like NBC, CBS, Fox, BBC, PBS, Hallmark, Food Network and more.
How long could the dispute last?
YouTube TV and Disney have acknowledged that the disruption is frustrating—and both maintain that they’re still committed to finding a resolution. But only time will tell.
The current blackout marks the latest in growing list of licensing disputes that impact consumers’ access to content.
From sports events to awards shows, live programming that was once reserved for broadcast has increasingly made its way into the streaming world over the years—as more and more consumers ditch traditional cable or satellite TV subscriptions for content they can get online. But renewing carriage agreements can also mean tense contract negotiations, particularly amid growing competition in the space.
YouTube TV and Disney have been down this road before. In 2021, YouTube TV subscribers also briefly lost access to all Disney content on the platform after a similar contract breakdown between the two companies. That outage lasted less than two days, with the companies eventually reaching an agreement.
Some past impasses have been shorter and limited to a matter of hours—or found a way to temporarily ward of disruptions at the last minute. In August, for example, YouTube TV reached a “short-term extension” in its contract dispute with Fox, and the two later reached a new licensing deal.
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Tech
Meta Claims Downloaded Porn at Center of AI Lawsuit Was for ‘Personal Use’
Further, that alleged activity can’t even reliably be linked to any Meta employee, Meta claims.
Strike 3 “does not identify any of the individuals who supposedly used these Meta IP addresses, allege that any were employed by Meta or had any role in AI training at Meta, or specify whether (and which) content allegedly downloaded was used to train any particular Meta model,” Meta wrote.
Meanwhile, “tens of thousands of employees,” as well as “innumerable contractors, visitors, and third parties access the internet at Meta every day,” Meta argued. So while it’s “possible one or more Meta employees” downloaded Strike 3’s content over the past seven years, “it is just as possible” that a “guest, or freeloader,” or “contractor, or vendor, or repair person—or any combination of such persons—was responsible for that activity,” Meta claims.
Other alleged activity included a claim that a Meta contractor was directed to download adult content at his father’s house, but those downloads, too, “are plainly indicative of personal consumption,” Meta argued. That contractor worked as an “automation engineer,” Meta noted, with no apparent basis provided for why he would be expected to source AI training data in that role. “No facts plausibly” tie “Meta to those downloads,” Meta claims.
“The fact that the torrenting allegedly stopped when his contract with Meta ended says nothing about whether the alleged torrenting was performed with Meta’s knowledge or at its direction,” Meta wrote.
Meta Slams AI Training Theory as “Nonsensical”
Possibly most baffling to Meta in Strike 3’s complaint, however, is the claim about the “stealth network” of hidden IPs. This presents “yet another conundrum” that Strike 3 “fails to address,” Meta claims, writing, “why would Meta seek to ‘conceal’ certain alleged downloads of Plaintiffs’ and third-party content, but use easily traceable Meta corporate IP addresses for many hundreds of others?”
“The obvious answer is that it would not do so,” Meta claims, slamming Strike 3’s “entire AI training theory” as “nonsensical and unsupported.”
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