How video games are reshaping tech, culture, politics and the way we interact with each other.

Gaming

How companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook are shaping our world.

Big Tech

How false information is seeping into our daily interactions.

Misinformation

What to know about the next generation network that will revolutionize the way we live and work.

All about the treasure trove of data collected at every turn.

Data privacy

Who's watching you and what they're seeing.

Surveillance

The latest developments in the robot revolution.

Automation and AI

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

National

Federal election regulators are scaling back a major digital ad transparency measure after an effort to speed it through the regulatory process drew intense internal and external pushback, records show.

Why it matters: A little-noticed, two-word change to a proposed Federal Election Commission regulation could exempt wide swaths of digital ads from new rules designed to step up disclosure in a fast-growing segment of political advertising.

How we got here: Earlier this month, the FEC proposed a rule that would force "paid for by" disclaimers on most paid political promotions online.

The proposal was broad: it would include not just traditional video and banner ads, but also social media promotions and so-called influencer marketing efforts.

The FEC unveiled the rule days before it was set to vote on the measure, and indicated it would be forgoing a public comment period — generally required before new regulations can be enacted.

The intrigue: Days later, the FEC pulled the proposal from its docket after outside groups criticized the lack of comment period and the breadth of its language.

"[K]ey portions of the draft are unclear. If it’s not clear, then how will speakers who can’t afford lawyers be able to follow something they can’t understand?" wrote Brad Smith, a former FEC chairman and the founder of the Institute for Free Speech.

What's happening: A new version of the rule appeared on the FEC site on Monday, and the commission is set to consider it at a Thursday meeting.

The previous version would impose disclosure requirements on "communications placed or promoted for a fee on another person’s website, digital device, application, service, or advertising platform."

The new version is nearly identical, but removes "or promoted" from that standard.

Between the lines: That small change significantly reduces the scope of the regulation.

It would no longer capture ad spending paid to, for instance, a third-party social media user for promotion on a major social platform.

The regulation might not even capture more traditional paid advertising on platforms such as Facebook, where ads are simply traditional posts that are boosted through paid promotion.

Yes, but: It might make the rule more palatable for the notoriously fractious commission — and reduce the risk of legal challenges after the fact.

The "or promoted" language represented the sort of substantive change that could require a new public comment period.

That could have opened up the broader regulation to legal challenges under the Administrative Procedure Act.

FEC scales back digital ad transparency rule after backlash

A small change significantly reduces the scope of the regulation.

Photo: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Campaign finance

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

Axios Codebook

A pro-China Twitter-based disinformation campaign is actively targeting a human rights group that exposed a secret Beijing operation, researchers at NewsGuard first tell Axios.

Why it matters: Twitter is struggling to grapple with an influx of Chinese-language accounts spreading disinformation following company staff reductions. 

The big picture: Pro-China actors are known to rely on Twitter and other social media sites to push back on critical voices.

Over the weekend, a group of previously dormant, suspected Chinese government-linked Twitter accounts spammed the site with adult content to drown out news about ongoing protests, per the Washington Post.

Last month, Google-owned threat intelligence firm Mandiant uncovered a pro-China disinformation campaign targeting the U.S. elections across social media. 

Details: NewsGuard analyst Macrina Wang identified 127 inauthentic Twitter accounts as of Nov. 17 pushing false narratives about nongovernmental organization Safeguard Defenders. 

In September, Safeguard Defenders published a report detailing how police in China, in coordination with Chinese Communist Party-run entities, had set up a network of overseas police "service stations" across Europe and the rest of the world. 

Now, a network of English- and Chinese-language Twitter accounts is spreading false information about the Madrid-based NGO, claiming that Safeguard Defenders is working on behalf of the U.S. government “to mess up other countries” and that the organization falsely identifies alleged criminals as political dissidents.

The intrigue: NewsGuard cannot definitively say if the new campaign is directly tied to the Chinese government.

However, NewsGuard says the involved Twitter accounts are inauthentic given each one was created only recently, has a low follower count, and almost exclusively posts content about Safeguard Defenders. 

Between the lines: Experts worry that nation-state actors — and the groups that work on their behalf — will increasingly turn to Twitter to spread disinformation after Elon Musk drastically reduced the company's content moderation teams.

Sign up for Axios’ cybersecurity newsletter Codebook here.

New pro-China disinfo Twitter campaign zeros in on critical NGO

More than 100 Twitter accounts are targeting Safeguard Defenders after a report detailing secret police activity.

Illustration of a computer keyboard with a red return key resembling China's flag 

Cybersecurity

"Stay" by The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber is the top global song of the year, Apple Music announced Tuesday.

Why it matters: Apple Music released its top charts and user-listening habits ahead of Spotify, which usually dominates the end-of-year conversation through the Spotify Wrapped tool.

Details: Apple announced the data through the redesigned Replay experience, which is seen as a direct competitor to Wrapped.

The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber's mega-hit "Stay" topped the global song chart for Apple Music in 2022, according to Apple's data. The song spent seven weeks atop the Billboard Top 100 this past summer, AP reports.

Elton John and Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix)” topped the Shazam chart, which was a list of songs that received the most Shazam searches.

And “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” — the catchy tune from Disney's "Encanto" — was the platform's song with the most-read lyrics, according to Apple.

Other top songs from Apple Music's global chart included:

“Wait For U” by Future featuring Drake and Tems

Of note: Bad Bunny — who secured Apple Music’s 2022 Artist of the Year award — became the first Latin artist to have the biggest album of the year on the platform, too, according to Apple. 

What we're watching: Spotify posted its first teaser for the Spotify Wrapped campaign on Monday, suggesting that the annual review of listener data is coming soon.

Spotify CEO says company isn't seeing impact of economic downturn yet

Spotify to acquire music trivia game Heardle

Apple reveals top songs, charts for 2022 before Spotify

Apple Music's Replay experience appears to be a direct competitor to Spotify Wrapped.

Illustration of a the Apple logo wearing headphones

Apple Music

A massive Twitter staff exodus in the first month of Elon Musk's ownership is only exacerbating the company's long list of existing data security problems, experts tell Axios. 

Why it matters: While Twitter's list of cybersecurity challenges hasn't appeared to change yet, dwindling staff numbers mean the company could struggle to fix security flaws or respond in the event of a massive hack. 

The departures of Twitter's chief information security officer and other top security employees have created a new layer of concern about the company's long-existing data-security issues. 

The big picture: Twitter already had a troubled history of data breaches, account takeovers and poor internal cybersecurity hygiene.

Earlier this year, former Twitter CISO Peiter "Mudge" Zatko filed a whistleblower complaint detailing the extent of Twitter's security problems, from a lack of employee access controls to a company culture that failed to take cybersecurity seriously.

In 2020, a 22-year-old hacker broke into Twitter and took over accounts belonging to then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama and Musk himself.

Between the lines: Cybersecurity alarm bells in the last month mostly stem from reports of the company's quickly shrinking staff numbers rather than new and emerging threats.

But without a full security team, it's hard to see how the company can respond quickly to patch vulnerabilities in its systems or a massive data breach of its systems, says Erick Galinkin, an analyst at cybersecurity company Rapid7. 

Glitches have already started at Twitter, presumably due to low staff levels, including a bug that broke Twitter's multifactor authentication tool shortly after the latest employee exodus.

Threat level: Experts have anticipated that ongoing turbulence at Twitter will only motivate more hackers and scammers to target the company and its users. 

Most data breaches would affect data that's likely already floating around on the dark web from past hacks, including email addresses, passwords and birthdates. 

Twitter doesn't collect someone's most sensitive information, such as their Social Security number, and it has financial information only for Twitter Blue subscribers.

Yes, but: Hackers and Twitter employees could potentially learn a lot from someone's private direct messages depending on what information is shared.

Some users may have shared personal information in what they perceived as secure private messages, for example.

It's likely more hackers will be newly motivated to "leak every Twitter DM" just to embarrass Musk's leadership, Galinkin says.

What's next: Musk appears to be trying to create a slightly more secure Twitter based on his reported plans to encrypt direct messages and support encrypted video and voice calling between accounts, as The Verge reports. But it's unclear how quickly those plans will come to fruition, especially with a smaller staff. 

Security could become an even bigger priority as Musk pushes to grow subscriber numbers and pursues projects to support in-app payments. 

Twitter is likely to face further regulatory pressure to improve its internal security practices as the Federal Trade Commission watches Musk's takeover unfold. 

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Be smart: While the data security concerns at Twitter are nothing new, they do serve as a reminder to be mindful of what you share on the internet. 

"You don't need to be any more worried than you should have been a month ago," Galinkin says.

Breaking down the cybersecurity risks at Elon Musk's Twitter

Shrinking staff numbers mean the company could struggle to fix security flaws or respond to a massive hack.

Illustration of the twitter bird logo as an open padlock

Twitter no longer enforcing COVID misinformation policy

This is the latest in a series of changes to the platform that have accompanied Elon Musk's takeover.

The Twitter Inc. logo is displayed on the facade of the company's headquarters in San Francisco, California

The Twitter logo is displayed on the facade of the company's headquarters in San Francisco. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Twitter

Coronavirus

The U.S. faces a range of health care flashpoints — unaffordable drugs, opioids, vaping — as we debate whether to adopt universal care. For now, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, but Republicans want to issue it a final death blow.

Health

A decade after voice assistant technology captured the world's imagination, Alexa and Siri appear to be on the wane.

Why it matters: Alexa's rise and fall shows that for every winner in the tech industry's neverending game of "dominate the next platform," there are multiple money-incinerating losers.

Driving the news: Amid tech’s biggest slump in two decades, companies are tightening their belts and decreasing investments in secondary devices and voice assistants.

Earlier this month, a report from Insider detailed that Amazon workers had determined that Alexa was a “colossal failure of imagination” and “wasted opportunity.” Insider reports its division was on track to lose up to $10 billion in 2022.

This was followed by news of Amazon’s biggest layoffs to date, with Alexa's team reportedly among those heavily affected by the cuts.

A month ago, Google reportedly decided to scale back development and support for its Google Assistant.

Flashback: When Siri first hit the market with the iPhone 4S in 2011, it was championed as “probably one of the most novel applications Apple has ever produced.” 

Amazon released the first Echo featuring Alexa in 2014 and it was a hit, selling 5 million devices in the first two years. Investments followed, and in 2018, Amazon said it had over 10,000 engineers working on Alexa and Echo products.

One high-water mark for the cultural optimism about the technology was "Her," the 2013 movie whose main character falls in love with his voice assistant.

Between the lines: Though voice assistants have become a literal fixture in millions of homes, they have not delivered on their creators' revenue targets. 

Amazon’s goal with Alexa was not to make money selling the devices but to give users an even easier way of ordering from the retail giant.

Insider reports that a few years into Alexa’s life, Amazon saw billion of interactions a week, but most of them were trivial usages that did not open money-making opportunities.

“We kept waiting, waiting, waiting for a huge percentage of consumers to say, ‘I bought a pizza’ [on my Echo],” Consumer Intelligence Research Partners cofounder Michael Levin told Fast Company. “It never materialized. People do not buy stuff, by and large.”

What they're saying: Amazon points to internal statistics showing a 30% increase in Alexa interactions over the past year and says it's "still in the earliest days of what Alexa will become."

"The fact is, Alexa has changed how people interact with technology, and we are observing incredible momentum with our customers. We are as committed as ever to Alexa, and will continue to invest heavily in it," an Amazon spokesperson told Axios.

Though voice assistants have slowly evolved to understand more complex commands, research shows that most people use them for simpler tasks like checking the weather or making a call.

The tech has also become something of a punchline as jokes center on Alexa or Siri mishearing a user or providing unhelpful information.

Meanwhile, a February report from Voicebot Research showed that fewer Americans used voice assistants in 2021 compared with 2020.

Smaller efforts from big companies, like Microsoft’s Cortana and Samsung’s Bixby, have also seemingly failed to gain traction in the market.

The intrigue: Voice assistants have also faced growing concerns over consumer privacy.

A 2020 survey from DataGrail found that over 82% of respondents had concerns about monitoring or data collection from phone microphones, laptop webcams, home devices like Amazon Echo, or devices with location tracking.

In 2019, Bloomberg reported that Amazon had a team of thousands who listened to conversations recorded through Alexa in efforts to improve the service.

Also in 2019, The Guardian reported that some private conversations and audio recorded by Siri was being shared by Apple with contractors.

Yes, but: Voice assistants have proven to have a wide range of applications and champions, even if not in the ways Amazon and Apple originally planned.

Voice input has been hugely important in providing greater tech accessibility, offering those with limited vision, motor impairments or other challenges a smoother way to interact with devices.

The world of “Internet of Things” products has produced an ecosystem of devices that can be controlled with users’ voices.

Voice has also proven to be an invaluable secondary input when users' hands are otherwise busy.

Using voice commands has increasingly allowed drivers to keep their hands on steering wheels. And a 2016 study showed that 62% of iPhone users used Siri in the car.

Additionally, innovations in wearables like VR headsets and AR glasses have also leaned on voice inputs so users don't have to keep touching their heads or carry around awkward controllers.

What's next: Voice could see a revival if the dreams of metaverse pioneers and AR innovators come true. 

Good night, Alexa: Voice assistants face deep cuts

As companies tighten their belts, they're trimming budgets for voice assistants that haven't yet delivered revenue boosts.

Illustration of an Amazon Echo with a red "no" symbol around the top

Amazon

The "chief metaverse officers" hired at big companies around the world in recent months are spending their days crafting big-picture strategy and evangelizing for the underlying technology, even as the metaverse itself — meaning shared, interconnected virtual worlds — remains a fragmented dream.

Why it matters: Proponents say the metaverse — essentially the internet made immersive, thanks in part to virtual and augmented reality — is the next big thing in connectivity and commerce.

Many Fortune 500 companies are at least metaverse-curious, for fear of missing out on what might be the next big tech opportunity.

Backstory: Some companies launched or amped up their metaverse efforts after Facebook rebranded itself as Meta late last year and announced a full-bore effort to realize the metaverse.

A year later, however, Meta is struggling to make that happen while also keeping investors happy. 

What's happening: The metaverse execs who spoke with Axios for this story generally said they're doing a combination of research, strategy and working with colleagues and clients to figure out how to approach the metaverse and related technologies, such as web3. 

"I spent a year researching, learning, and now educating and bringing the team along because I see the metaverse and web3 technology as not only having fascinating consumer-facing applications, but also as an important part of creating value inside of organizations as tools that can impact all of our working functions," says Sebastian Brauer, head of metaverse and web3 at furniture retailer Crate & Barrel.

Over at talent agency CAA, chief metaverse officer Joanna Popper is helping clients understand and capitalize on the space while seeking investment opportunities: "[We] very much see this as a moment to be aligning, testing, learning, experimenting and growing with the industry, but also making bets that are going to pay out over time."

Edwina Fitzmaurice, chief customer success officer at consulting firm EY, has been working on the recently launched EY metaverse lab — a "sandbox" where clients can "build out worlds and experiences" before they're ready for the public, she says.

Yes, but: The "metaverse" has become entangled with related but distinct emerging technologies, such as cryptocurrency. And as the crypto market tumbles, it could get harder for metaverse evangelists to convince skeptics — both internally and externally.

The other side: Popper argues that the strongest companies of the current web era — your Googles and Facebooks — arose from the ashes of the dot-com bust. 

"So many of the companies that are synonymous with how we think about technology companies today ... were built coming out of that winter," she says, referring to the early 2000s.

Of note: Fitzmaurice's team is working with disabled, blind and neurodiverse people to better understand how metaverse spaces can be made accessible from the beginning.

"We're experimenting and looking at the metaverse worlds from all these angles because we believe that the metaverse should be there for everybody," she says.

💬 Alex's thought bubble: Games like Roblox and Minecraft are the closest thing we have to a fully-formed metaverse, and that'll probably stay true for a while — most consumers don't see the point in shared virtual worlds just yet.

What's next: That said, expect major companies to start rolling out more metaverse initiatives as the underlying tech (like VR headsets) keeps developing.

Today's metaverse experiences are like the tip of an iceberg, Brauer says: "What most companies are building now is underwater, and you can't really see them."

"But technology has evolved to a place where now we're able to unlock all these experiences. And I think that's coming rather soon."

What are all those "chief metaverse officers" actually doing?

Metaverse execs are working on strategy, evangelizing and more.

Illustration of a hand reaching out of a portal into the metaverse holding a magnifying glass. 

Metaverse

Axios Markets

Wordle has an editor now — every day's solution has been programmed by Tracy Bennett, who curates the word list. The result has not made everybody HAPPY (which was Sunday's answer). 

Why it matters: Bennett picked themed solutions for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Wednesday's answer was DRIVE; Thursday's was FEAST; and Sunday's was HAPPY. 

How it works: Before this month, Wordle solutions were randomly selected from a preset word list. 

Occasionally, that would cause problems, as when FETUS showed up as a solution during a major national debate over abortion. 

By programming the solutions, the NYT can avoid such controversy — and, at least in principle, can delight users by timing answers in a felicitous manner. 

The big picture: In the wake of Wednesday's themed answer, many puzzlers — including Axios' Kate Marino and Felix Salmon — got FEAST on their first guess. 

"It felt cheap," says Kate, who felt cheated by the lack of problem-solving. 

For the record: Back on November 10, John Farmer, a puzzler in Los Angeles, left a comment on the NYT website. 

"You don't want to think, Oh, it's Thanksgiving week and Tracy probably picked FEAST today," he wrote.

What they're saying: New York Times spokesperson Jordan Cohen told Axios that there were "two thematic choices" during Thanksgiving week.  

"While we have not made any decisions about future thematic content, Wordle will continue to be curated to respect the randomness of gameplay every day," he added.

My thought bubble: You can be curated or you can be random, but you can't be both. 

By the numbers: In an informal Twitter poll, about 85% of respondents said the themed answers were "too cute by half". 

The bottom line: Puzzlers are conservative, and don't like change. 

Wordle gets more intentional

Illustration of teary-eyed smiling emojis in each Wordle square

The New York Times

Axios Crypto

Kraken, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, has agreed to pay $362,159 in a settlement over apparent violations of the U.S. Treasury Department's sanctions program.

Driving the news: "Kraken processed 826 transactions, totaling approximately $1,680,577.10, on behalf of individuals who appeared to have been located in Iran at the time," Treasury said in a statement.

Context: Iran has been under sanctions of various kinds by the United States since 1979. 

Specifically, 32 CFR 560.204 forbids transactions of various kinds with Iran.

Details: The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) found fault in Kraken's failure to check the whereabouts of users. The company vetted the location of people when signing up, but didn't check on their locations later, when they were signing in from within sanctioned nations.

That said, OFAC also noted that Kraken had been proactive about correcting the shortcomings, first through self-reporting the violations.

It has also added significant compliance measures, such as new analysis tools and additional staff training.

As part of the settlement, the company agreed to invest an additional $100,000 in certain sanctions compliance controls.

What they're saying: "The settlement amount reflects OFAC’s determination that Kraken’s apparent violations were non-egregious and voluntarily self-disclosed," Treasury's statement says. 

The other side: “Kraken is pleased to have resolved this matter, which we discovered, voluntarily self-reported and swiftly corrected," Marco Santori, the firm's chief legal officer, said in a statement via a spokesperson. 

The big picture: Treasury has been focusing more on cryptocurrency this year. Earlier this year, it sanctioned the decentralized privacy application, Tornado Cash.

Kraken settles $1 million in apparent sanctions violations for $360,000

The crypto exchange's settlement with U.S. Treasury followed self-reporting.