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Ashley Belanger

@ashleybelanger.bsky.social
1.5K followers 189 following 79 posts

Cursed to love reading legal docs. Senior policy reporter for Ars Technica ashleybelanger.com Signal: @ashleybelanger.77

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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I was interested to see if Microsoft would possibly entertain making a new kind of deal that could meaningfully benefit communities neighboring their data centers in the long-term. But then I found out Microsoft got really weird any time anyone asked about it. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Microsoft goes quiet after church groups ask for 1% of data center costs
“Microsoft claims to want to be a good neighbor, but the jury is still out."
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
News plaintiffs claim to have compelling evidence that destroys fair use arguments, with one lawyer saying newly unsealed docs show “OpenAI and Microsoft knew that what they were doing was wrong.” arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history”
Microsoft, OpenAI emails reveal fear of AI “doom loop” killing news orgs.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Is OpenAI socially obligated to talk to people living with mental health conditions about fixing its AI psychosis problem? So far, the company has not involved them at all. And they won’t talk about independent research they funded that brings in these voices for the first time.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 10/09/2026
arstechnica.com
Panic builds over bankrupt Spirit’s looming data sale to Google
Bankruptcy cannot become the new land grab for AI.”...
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This has not gotten as much coverage as other ChatGPT cases linked to teen deaths and murder. But it's the first case laser-focused on demanding accountability for AI psychosis, which is likely underreported and definitely under-researched. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Man told ChatGPT he was feeling delusional. ChatGPT insisted he was Jesus.
Man with bipolar disorder sued OpenAI after surviving ChatGPT-linked suicide attempt.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 04/09/2026
arstechnica.com
Musk wins court order to block use of “Twitter,” but not “tweet” and bird logo
Saying X is “formerly Twitter” in App Store lets Musk block use of Twitter name.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 02/09/2026
arstechnica.com
Trump may be forced to reveal secret rules feds use for AI safety testing
Trump’s secret reviews of frontier AI models may hide corruption, lawsuit says.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 21/08/2026
arstechnica.com
Meta AI glasses may get creepier—and apps that detect them aren’t perfect
Ars looks at Zuckoff, the latest free app detecting Meta AI glasses amid privacy backlash.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I was wondering what the odds are Google could re-identify the Spirit Airlines data it won in an auction where other bidders seemingly had sketchier plans for handling the data. It turns out that flight attendants had the same question: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Flight attendants freaked out that Google is buying tons of Spirit employee data
Bankrupt Spirit accused of selling out workers in massive data sale to Google.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 19/08/2026
arstechnica.com
Flight attendants freaked out that Google to buy tons of Spirit employee data
Bankrupt Spirit accused of selling out workers in massive data sale to Google.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
After seeing Gillian Anderson in an old cabin crammed full of candy, I decided to write about a mesmerizing movie instead of tech policy today, as a little treat...
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 14/08/2026
arstechnica.com
Suspecting court of using AI, man injected prompts in filings to try to win case
Judge warns pro se litigants are using chatbots wrong and getting desperate.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Anthropic didn't want to answer my questions about the new Claude watermarks, but luckily my editor-in-chief is very knowledgeable about the EU's AI Act and helped me break down why they seem to be largely meaningless and go beyond what the law requires: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Claude's new Scarlet Letter watermark is invisible—for now
The mark flags anything Claude processed, even human writing it only edited.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I might be guilty of loving old books.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
I have to go back to Chicago today, but I snuck in a quick visit to the Blaschka glass flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History because they stay on my mind
Yellow glass flowers in a display case at the Harvard Museum of Natural HistoryGlass May Apple flowers in a display case at the Harvard Museum of Natural HistoryGlass chollas in a display case at the Harvard Museum of Natural HistoryGlass asters in a display case at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 31/07/2026
arstechnica.com
Man invested $45M in a Nicolas Cage movie. It got stolen off Netflix’s desk.
Filmmaker sues Netflix over stolen screener of unreleased Nicolas Cage movie.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 31/07/2026
arstechnica.com
High school defends staying silent while boys made AI nudes of 59 classmates
Gaps in laws may help Pennsylvania high school escape AI nudes scandal.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 29/07/2026
arstechnica.com
Elon Musk’s xAI is trying to sue its way out of a Grok reckoning
Musk defends Grok, says Minnesota's nudifying app ban is unconstitutional.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
I read all of X Money's FAQs, terms, and little footnotes, so you don't have to...
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
@mrose.ink confirmed my suspicions that the Google and Reddit fight with a web scraper over public search results is exactly as weird as I thought it was.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 27/07/2026
arstechnica.com
Artist sues AI meme generator for selling deeply personal comic as ad template
Meme generator may have screwed up by using templates in outputs, expert says.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 21/07/2026
arstechnica.com
Judge approves Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright settlement with authors
Anthropic blocks authors from opting out of $1.5B settlement at last minute.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 08/07/2026
arstechnica.com
Lawsuit: Grok user made 7K child sex images; xAI only reported one gang rape prompt
More young girls sue X over Grok CSAM; X accused of shielding child predators.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 30/06/2026
arstechnica.com
Trump's plan to redesign every .gov website leads to AI-designed horrors
A year in, National Design Studio delays plan to update government web standards.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
For folks reaching out: Kroll will likely extend the deadline to sign up for free monitoring if you ask. Most likely, they will not tell you specifically how your data got breached, though, and the process to get the extension will likely require more than one call. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
My SSN was exposed in a breach at Columbia—a school I have no connection with
Columbia admits last year’s data breach exposed victims beyond its students, staff.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Columbia’s hidden victims are a weird case, a data breach expert told me, bc normally it’s shady data brokers covering up data no one knows they got, not trusted institutions. And we’ll never know how they got it, bc they somehow deleted those files but not the SSNs. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
My SSN was exposed in a breach at Columbia—a school I have no connection with
Columbia admits last year’s data breach exposed victims beyond its students, staff.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
parseword @parseword.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Mystery (sort of) solved…
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
It took months of asking questions for Columbia to finally explain how my SSN got swept into its data breach, along with an untold number of other victims who never attended, applied to, or worked for the school and were never publicly acknowledged until now. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
My SSN was exposed in a breach at Columbia—a school I have no connection with
Columbia admits last year’s data breach exposed victims beyond its students, staff.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 12/05/2026
arstechnica.com
“Will I be OK?” Teen died after ChatGPT pushed deadly mix of drugs, lawsuit says
Teen trusted ChatGPT to help him “safely” experiment with drugs, logs show.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 11/05/2026
arstechnica.com
Data center used 30 million gallons of water without initially paying
Can AI save us from the AI industry’s endless thirst for water? Outlook not so good.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 07/05/2026
arstechnica.com
ICE protesters sue to stop DHS from seizing DNA samples
Lawsuit accuses DHS of plugging DNA database into ICE surveillance machine.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 06/05/2026
arstechnica.com
Everything that could go wrong with Trump's AI safety tests, according to experts
Trump forced to admit Biden was right on AI safety testing.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
I had not seen US cops recently charged a man for using Grok to make CSAM as recently as March, which seems relevant as the first state prepares to ban nudifying apps.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
SBF's MAGA makeover didn't work to get him a new trial...
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
PREACH: “I don’t want to expedite the process. That ruins the point for me." www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
‘They’re supposed to be handmade’: zine creators fight to resist AI influence
Artists and writers argue scrappy nature of self-published booklets is incompatible with artificial intelligence
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
I used to cover school shootings for Teen Vogue, so trust me when I say these cases are extremely hard to read. One mother whose daughter is still fighting for her life said she would do anything to go back, while Sam Altman says he's deeply sorry for OpenAI's actions arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
School-shooting lawsuits accuse OpenAI of hiding violent ChatGPT users
Lawsuits: OpenAI didn't report ChatGPT user to cops to protect Altman, IPO.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
I went through Musk and Altman's depositions, if you're curious what they're saying ahead of this wild trial where the judge has already called out both sides for BS arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Musk and Altman face off in trial that will determine OpenAI's future
Musk’s shifting stance on AI dangers may complicate trial over OpenAI’s mission.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Kyle Orland @kyleor.land · 27/04/2026
Here it is, over 4K words on what happened after the headline grabbing “$54 million in NFT sales” for Peter Molyneux’s game Legacy. Many players lost thousands chasing a “play to earn” hype train that evaporated almost immediately when the game launched. arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/...
arstechnica.com
Meet the players who lost big money on Peter Molyneux’s failed Legacy
After millions in NFT sales, the hyped “play to earn” game was effectively dead in weeks.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
an apparently necessary PSA against making fake AI sightings of lost animals...
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Ahead of the next Mar-a-Lago gala, I talked to a researcher analyzing suspected insider trading on Trump's memecoin and an ethicist who (with a grain of salt) thinks a crackdown on Trump's crypto empires may be coming soon... arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Investors lost billions on Trump’s memecoin. Another gala won’t fix that.
If Dems take Congress, Trump may face reckoning for “pay-to-play” memecoin galas.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 22/04/2026
arstechnica.com
Investors lost billions on Trump’s memecoin. Another gala won’t fix that.
If Dems take Congress, Trump may face reckoning for “pay-to-play” memecoin galas.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 21/04/2026
arstechnica.com
Internal emails show how Amazon raises prices across the Internet, lawsuit says
“It’s working!“: Amazon emails with vendors show pattern of disappearing deals.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 21/04/2026
arstechnica.com
Florida probes ChatGPT role in mass shooting. OpenAI says bot "not responsible."
Can ChatGPT be blamed for a mass shooting? Florida is investigating.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 10/04/2026
arstechnica.com
Dad stuck in support nightmare after teen lied about age on Discord
Data dump confirms dad's suspicions that Discord knew teen's age prior to hack.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 06/04/2026
arstechnica.com
“The problem is Sam Altman”: OpenAI Insiders don’t trust CEO
OpenAI brainstorms ways AI can benefit humanity in effort to counter bad vibes.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
If any copyright experts wanna chat about Meta hoping that SCOTUS ruling that ISPs aren’t liable for piracy will help defeat AI training data torrenting claims, I am all ears. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Authors' lucky break in court may help class action over Meta torrenting
Judge gave authors an easier attack on Meta’s torrenting. Meta hopes SCOTUS ruling will block it.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Bill Orcutt’s Music in Continuous Motion is the evening wind-down music I needed.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 26/03/2026
arstechnica.com
ChatGPT won't talk dirty any time soon as sexy mode turns off investors, report says
Some staff reportedly questioned how sexy ChatGPT benefits humanity.
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Ashley Belanger @ashleybelanger.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
I think it's hard for NCMEC to discuss platform failings outside of these big lawsuits. So it interested me that NCMEC joined law enforcement in testifying that Meta's CSAM reporting is "useless" due to an over-reliance on AI: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com
Meta loses trial after arguing child exploitation was “inevitable” on its apps
Meta plans to appeal as it faces down two other child safety trials.
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Reposted by Ashley Belanger
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 25/03/2026
“At trial, Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri testified that ‘harms to children, such as sexual exploitation and detriments to mental health, were inevitable on the company’s platforms due to their vast user bases…’”
arstechnica.com
Meta loses trial after arguing child exploitation was “inevitable” on its apps
Meta plans to appeal as it faces down two other child safety trials.
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