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Image: the Internet Archive

Google Search is now adding links to archived websites in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. That’s a bit of good news for anybody lamenting the disappearance of the cached pages link from Google’s results.
The Internet Archive hosts billions of archived webpages, as it notes in its blog post today about the change. The Wayback Machine is a very helpful tool for looking at older versions of websites to see what may have changed compared to past versions, which, in some cases, can go back decades.

Hey, catching up. Yes, it’s been removed. I know, it’s sad. I’m sad too. It’s one of our oldest features. But it was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to…— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 1, 2024

Google Search liaison Danny Sullivan wrote in February that he hoped to bring Internet Archive links into search results after the company deprecated cached results. With this blog post, it seems he’s now gotten his wish. Google also confirmed the change to 9to5Google.

You can get to the results by clicking the three dots next to a specific link in the results, then click “More about this page” to get to a link to the Wayback Machine page, the post says. I tested this and didn’t find any links to the Internet Archive’s digital backlog. Although the change is apparently rolling out today, it often takes some time before Google’s changes show up for everyone.

Image: the Internet Archive

Google Search is now adding links to archived websites in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. That’s a bit of good news for anybody lamenting the disappearance of the cached pages link from Google’s results.

The Internet Archive hosts billions of archived webpages, as it notes in its blog post today about the change. The Wayback Machine is a very helpful tool for looking at older versions of websites to see what may have changed compared to past versions, which, in some cases, can go back decades.

Google Search liaison Danny Sullivan wrote in February that he hoped to bring Internet Archive links into search results after the company deprecated cached results. With this blog post, it seems he’s now gotten his wish. Google also confirmed the change to 9to5Google.

You can get to the results by clicking the three dots next to a specific link in the results, then click “More about this page” to get to a link to the Wayback Machine page, the post says. I tested this and didn’t find any links to the Internet Archive’s digital backlog. Although the change is apparently rolling out today, it often takes some time before Google’s changes show up for everyone.

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Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images

Following last night’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, several users on X homed in on the vice president’s earrings — speculating that she was using them to get her talking points. Echoing a long history of political conspiracy theories, X users claimed she wore the Nova H1 Audio Earrings, which double as wireless earpieces. But anyone who looks closely can tell those aren’t what Harris was wearing.
The Nova H1 Audio Earrings were announced last year as part of a Kickstarter campaign. They feature real pearls that hide a pair of wireless speakers, which transmit audio up and into your ears. They’re also almost certainly not what Harris was wearing.

Apart from the large pearls on both Harris’ earrings and the Nova H1 Audio Earrings, there are clear visual differences. The Nova H1 Audio Earrings feature a much thicker hoop, while Harris’ earrings very clearly have two thin loops that wrap around her earlobes. Harris appears to be wearing the Tiffany South Sea Pearl Earrings, as previously identified by the site What Kamala Wore. Susan Kelley, the journalist behind the style tracking blog, confirmed to The Verge that Harris has been spotted wearing these same Tiffany earrings for months.

Image: Icebach Sound Solutions
These are the Nova H1 Audio Earrings conspiracy theorists claim Harris wore. Note the single thick hoop.

The Harris campaign declined to comment, and Tiffany didn’t immediately return an email from The Verge.
It’s also not clear if the Nova H1 Audio Earrings ever made it into the hands of backers. Some people on the Kickstarter campaign from last year called it a “scam” and asked if they would ever get their money back. The earrings aren’t for sale on the company’s website, either. Icebach Sound Solutions, the company behind them, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Screenshot: The Verge

Despite the obvious differences, conspiracy theorists are leaning into the theory — and so is Icebach. The company updated its homepage with a graphic of the 2024 presidential election with a caption that says a “special edition” of the earrings for presidential debates (arguably the only edition, since you can’t order anything else) will soon be “available for everyone.” In a now-deleted post on LinkedIn, Icebach Sound Solutions CEO Malte Iversen also reposted a story about the claim, saying, “We can neither confirm nor deny.”
This is far from the first time that Republicans and right-wing conspiracy theorists have spread claims about Democrats wearing earpieces. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was accused of wearing a wire during her presidential debate performance, and Trump pushed similar claims against President Joe Biden in 2020. If Harris were wearing earring speakers, she probably would have found a slightly more stylish solution — but again, there’s absolutely no indication she did.

Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images

Following last night’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, several users on X homed in on the vice president’s earrings — speculating that she was using them to get her talking points. Echoing a long history of political conspiracy theories, X users claimed she wore the Nova H1 Audio Earrings, which double as wireless earpieces. But anyone who looks closely can tell those aren’t what Harris was wearing.

The Nova H1 Audio Earrings were announced last year as part of a Kickstarter campaign. They feature real pearls that hide a pair of wireless speakers, which transmit audio up and into your ears. They’re also almost certainly not what Harris was wearing.

Apart from the large pearls on both Harris’ earrings and the Nova H1 Audio Earrings, there are clear visual differences. The Nova H1 Audio Earrings feature a much thicker hoop, while Harris’ earrings very clearly have two thin loops that wrap around her earlobes. Harris appears to be wearing the Tiffany South Sea Pearl Earrings, as previously identified by the site What Kamala Wore. Susan Kelley, the journalist behind the style tracking blog, confirmed to The Verge that Harris has been spotted wearing these same Tiffany earrings for months.

Image: Icebach Sound Solutions
These are the Nova H1 Audio Earrings conspiracy theorists claim Harris wore. Note the single thick hoop.

The Harris campaign declined to comment, and Tiffany didn’t immediately return an email from The Verge.

It’s also not clear if the Nova H1 Audio Earrings ever made it into the hands of backers. Some people on the Kickstarter campaign from last year called it a “scam” and asked if they would ever get their money back. The earrings aren’t for sale on the company’s website, either. Icebach Sound Solutions, the company behind them, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Screenshot: The Verge

Despite the obvious differences, conspiracy theorists are leaning into the theory — and so is Icebach. The company updated its homepage with a graphic of the 2024 presidential election with a caption that says a “special edition” of the earrings for presidential debates (arguably the only edition, since you can’t order anything else) will soon be “available for everyone.” In a now-deleted post on LinkedIn, Icebach Sound Solutions CEO Malte Iversen also reposted a story about the claim, saying, “We can neither confirm nor deny.”

This is far from the first time that Republicans and right-wing conspiracy theorists have spread claims about Democrats wearing earpieces. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was accused of wearing a wire during her presidential debate performance, and Trump pushed similar claims against President Joe Biden in 2020. If Harris were wearing earring speakers, she probably would have found a slightly more stylish solution — but again, there’s absolutely no indication she did.

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A Ram 1500 truck assembly process at Stellantis’ Sterling Heights, Michigan plant. | Image: Stellantis

Stellantis, the European parent company of American brands Ram, Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep, is retooling its Michigan plants to enable more electric vehicle production.
The automaker says it will put more than $400 million into three Michigan facilities to support its “multi-energy strategy,” enabling manufacturing of electric and gas versions of the same vehicles to be built in the same facilities. Most of the money will roll into the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP), where the upcoming 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger, an EV truck with a gas-powered range extender, will be built alongside the all-combustion engine versions of the pickup.
Much of the investment will help EV and gas Ram trucks coexist on the same assembly line
SHAP will also be Stellantis’ first US plant to build a fully electric vehicle, specifically the all-electric Ram 1500 REV, which is slated for delivery by the end of the year.
Investment is also going towards helping retool the Warren Truck Assembly Plant to support the production of a future electric Jeep Wagoneer (perhaps the Wagoneer S), one of four EV models under the brand planned for launch before the end of 2025. Internal combustion Jeeps, including the Wagoneer, Wagoneer L, Grand Wagoneer, and Grand Wagoneer L, will be built on the same lines.
The last share of the investment will go to the Dundee Engine Plant, where Stellantis plans to retool the facility so it can weld and test battery trays for its STLA Frame architecture for production in 2024. STLA underpins the Ram 1500 REV, Jeep Wagoneer S, Dodge Charger Daytona, and other EVs under Stellantis.
And for 2026, the plant will also machine the frame’s front and rear beams. The facility is also building gas engines like the GME-T4 EVO for later this year, along with other engines and hybrid parts for launch in 2025.
Separate from the new investment, Stellantis is also receiving federal funding to revive idled plants in Indiana and Illinois, part of a $1.7 billion pool the Biden administration announced in July.

A Ram 1500 truck assembly process at Stellantis’ Sterling Heights, Michigan plant. | Image: Stellantis

Stellantis, the European parent company of American brands Ram, Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep, is retooling its Michigan plants to enable more electric vehicle production.

The automaker says it will put more than $400 million into three Michigan facilities to support its “multi-energy strategy,” enabling manufacturing of electric and gas versions of the same vehicles to be built in the same facilities. Most of the money will roll into the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP), where the upcoming 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger, an EV truck with a gas-powered range extender, will be built alongside the all-combustion engine versions of the pickup.

SHAP will also be Stellantis’ first US plant to build a fully electric vehicle, specifically the all-electric Ram 1500 REV, which is slated for delivery by the end of the year.

Investment is also going towards helping retool the Warren Truck Assembly Plant to support the production of a future electric Jeep Wagoneer (perhaps the Wagoneer S), one of four EV models under the brand planned for launch before the end of 2025. Internal combustion Jeeps, including the Wagoneer, Wagoneer L, Grand Wagoneer, and Grand Wagoneer L, will be built on the same lines.

The last share of the investment will go to the Dundee Engine Plant, where Stellantis plans to retool the facility so it can weld and test battery trays for its STLA Frame architecture for production in 2024. STLA underpins the Ram 1500 REV, Jeep Wagoneer S, Dodge Charger Daytona, and other EVs under Stellantis.

And for 2026, the plant will also machine the frame’s front and rear beams. The facility is also building gas engines like the GME-T4 EVO for later this year, along with other engines and hybrid parts for launch in 2025.

Separate from the new investment, Stellantis is also receiving federal funding to revive idled plants in Indiana and Illinois, part of a $1.7 billion pool the Biden administration announced in July.

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Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Want a PS5, but don’t want to spend $700 on a PS5 Pro? Thanks to Sony’s new refurbished web for PS5s, you’ll soon be able to buy an older version of the console for a lot less money than the PS5 Pro’s eye-watering cost.
You can see everything that’s on offer on Sony’s certified refurbished website, which lists a bunch of products as “coming soon.” A refurbished PS5 in the original launch design with a disc drive will cost $399.99 (a $100 discount from a new PS5 slim with a disc drive), while a refurbished all-digital PS5, also in the original design, will cost $349.99 (also a $100 discount).

Image: Sony

The store features refurbished DualSense controllers, too, with white and black controllers for $59.99 and purple, pink, and gray camo controllers priced at $64.99. (Those prices are a $15 discount off the newly-bumped DualSense controller cost.)

“Every PlayStation certified refurbished product completes a rigorous recertification process that includes full testing that meets the same functional standards as new PlayStation products,” according to Sony. “Your certified refurbished product works like new.” However, in a footnote, Sony says the refurbished products “may have minor cosmetic imperfections.” The refurbished products will also come with a one-year limited warranty.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Want a PS5, but don’t want to spend $700 on a PS5 Pro? Thanks to Sony’s new refurbished web for PS5s, you’ll soon be able to buy an older version of the console for a lot less money than the PS5 Pro’s eye-watering cost.

You can see everything that’s on offer on Sony’s certified refurbished website, which lists a bunch of products as “coming soon.” A refurbished PS5 in the original launch design with a disc drive will cost $399.99 (a $100 discount from a new PS5 slim with a disc drive), while a refurbished all-digital PS5, also in the original design, will cost $349.99 (also a $100 discount).

Image: Sony

The store features refurbished DualSense controllers, too, with white and black controllers for $59.99 and purple, pink, and gray camo controllers priced at $64.99. (Those prices are a $15 discount off the newly-bumped DualSense controller cost.)

“Every PlayStation certified refurbished product completes a rigorous recertification process that includes full testing that meets the same functional standards as new PlayStation products,” according to Sony. “Your certified refurbished product works like new.” However, in a footnote, Sony says the refurbished products “may have minor cosmetic imperfections.” The refurbished products will also come with a one-year limited warranty.

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Photo: Emilio Madrid

Talking with writer Max Wolf Friedlich about his Broadway play that confronts the horrifying work of online content moderation. When I spoke with Max Wolf Friedlich, he was calling from a place I wouldn’t have expected to find a buzzy young playwright with a show currently featured in the US’s biggest theater neighborhood. He was at a camp for live-action roleplay, better known as larping.
But more on that later. His new play, Job, is the closest thing you’ll find to a thriller on Broadway. From the very first scene — which I am trying very hard not to spoil here — the stakes are a matter of life and death.
Over Job’s brisk 80-minute runtime, the intensity rarely lets up. But as the play’s themes emerge, we start to see the generational divide between its two characters, Gen Z tech worker Jane and her therapist Loyd (played by Sydney Lemmon and Peter Friedman, who you’ll recognize from Succession). It’s a rift created by the internet, dramatized to heighten the psychological damage of being Too Online. So, it makes sense that Jane is revealed to be a content moderator, part of the unsung workforce that witnesses the most harrowing parts of the internet in order to sanitize it for the rest of us. As someone who has edited a lot of reporting about content moderation and the toll it takes on the workers who do that job, I was curious to see its side effects rendered onstage. But more than anything, Job gripped me.
The winner of a writing competition hosted by the SoHo Playhouse, Job was extended after a one-night run to a five-week one. It then leapt to the Connelly Theater in the East Village, and now it’s at the Hayes Theater on Broadway. Friedlich credits a lot of Job’s success to word of mouth, especially from TikTok — fitting for a play that founds its anxieties on the internet.
As Job wraps the last few weeks of its run at the Hayes Theater, I spoke with Friedlich about why he chose to base a play around content moderation, how he ran the Instagram account of a fake influencer, and what it meant to translate all of that to Broadway.
But first, he tells me about summer camp.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Photo: Andy Henderson
Max Wolf Friedlich on opening night.

You’re a camp counselor now?
Yeah, I grew up going to this live-action roleplaying summer camp called the Wayfinder Experience, which is the nerdiest imaginable thing.
It sounds quite nerdy.
It’s really incredible. It’s so fun. I didn’t go for a long time, as one does with one’s summer camp. And then in covid, thinking about the things that I really care about and that make me happy, I started going again. And now I work here one or two weeks of summer.
It happened to line up with the opening of the show on Broadway, which has been a very strange, beautiful whiplash.
In what way?
Something I don’t really like about my chosen career is the individuated attention. I understand being interested in the writer, but my experience of making the play is so collaborative that I genuinely feel like the team is what’s interesting to me. It’s just really nice to be in an environment that’s not about me at all. And I’m constantly being confronted with very surmountable problems here, where kids are like, “Hey, I miss my mom.” And I’m like, “Great, we can talk about that.”
Versus like, “Hey, should we raise our average ticket price?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.”
“You can’t just open on Broadway and be in The New York Times. You have to really tell the story of the show.”
Are those questions a writer usually deals with?
No, and even in this instance, not really. But my partner is also the lead producer of the play. The bones of our particular production started as a group of friends. So, I think I’m more across things than most people are. I’m deeply involved in the social media and the marketing.
And do you like that, or would you like to wash your hands of it?
There’s elements of it that I do like. I really think that, especially in a digital landscape, marketing is part of storytelling for better or for worse. The first contact that people make with the play is often on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. It just is the reality. You can’t just open on Broadway and be in The New York Times. You have to really tell the story of the show.
What made you want to write a play where one of the main characters is a content moderator?
I met someone who was a content moderator at a party — super briefly — and found it fascinating. I was in San Francisco visiting family friends. She worked at one of these big tech giant places and seemed really not well. And I think as a very online person, I’m fascinated by how ubiquitous the internet is and yet how little we understand as laymen about how it works — like how it literally functions, literally how are we doing this [being on a Zoom call] right now, down to the science, down to the energy cost of it.

Photo: Emilio Madrid

I was really fascinated at this idea that to do the most passive brain rot-y activity of scrolling mindlessly on my phone, there was a real human labor cost and that these spiritual and physical and scientific laws of equivalence still apply to the internet. When I first lived in Los Angeles, I accidentally began working for this tech company called Brud that built a fictional influencer called Lil Miquela. I spent about a year sort of cosplaying or larping as this fictional woman on the internet and these two supplementary characters. And while I wasn’t doing content moderation work, at its peak while I was there, I think she was at 1.2 million followers. [Ed note: @lilmiquela is at 2.5 million followers now.]
So, I was talking to people all day and being told to kill myself and being told that I was beautiful and that I was an inspiration and that I was an abomination. That experience of being an open wound to the internet while also being anonymous, and being deeply confronted with humanity while also being de-personified, was an experience that led me to the play.
And the third answer I’ll give is that all of the plays that I’m interested in writing have to come from a place of fun. This content moderation world and those ideas that I just touched on are really fun and interesting to me. And I don’t know, I can never be fascinated enough by something that it could override having fun with it.
What about content moderation to you is fun? Because everything you laid out to me seems kind of dark or a little bleak.
Those things are fun to work on in a play format. It’s fun to bring really incredible actors into that and really mine it and really explore it. I mean, it’s just the strange nature of the thing that we’re drawn to, of playing pretend. I’m at this live-action roleplaying camp, and we have about 60 kids, and they all have individual characters in this fantasy world that we’re playing in the woods.
“I think larping is the highest form of theater.”
And some of them want to be traumatized. They want the person playing their mom to force them to shoot the person playing their brother. There’s something cathartic and fun for them about that. Everything that we do at this camp is couched in play. I’ve been coming here since I was nine, and it’s fortunate in a way to be talking to you from here. But the core of theater to me is play and play as an ideological thing, this human need that I think is often neglected.
But it’s not to say the content moderation itself is fun, but to me, to get a group of people together to really try to explore the false dichotomy of online and offline that I think we’re living in right now. That comes out of this idea of content moderation. The word play doesn’t need to connote positive emotion to me. It just means “not real.” It just means enacting something that doesn’t actually have real human ramifications.
To take something like content moderation and play with it and to have fun with it isn’t to me at all necessarily to undercut how serious it is. I think that the best way to transmute an idea is by falling in love with it. And if you’re having fun with it and we’re able to be excited about it, I think that’s the way to reach people and hopefully communicate something.
So, I guess, do you think live-action roleplay is a form of theater?
Absolutely. I think larping is the highest form of theater. While some would argue that implicit in the idea of theater is the idea of an audience, I would argue that larping is just gift giving and gift receiving. It’s theater that is embodied. You’re only doing it for the people you’re doing it with.
I can’t really speak to how most larp works. I can only really speak to our program. I’ve never larped outside of this sphere. But so much of it is about building cool scenes that feel good and feel fun. To me, larping is kind of the zenith because you can only do it from a place of passion. If you’re not enjoying it and you’re not giving, again, gifts to the people around you, there’s no audience, there’s no praise, there’s no external validation.
And while it’s amazing to put on a show that thousands of people have seen and responded to, I’m not trying to juxtapose those two experiences, when you can have a scene with three kids where they come up to you after and they’re like, “That was awesome.” It’s great. We all did that together. That was this gift that we gave each other. To me, it’s pure theater. Maybe I’ll amend that and say maybe it’s not theater at its zenith, but it’s theater in its rawest and most cardinal basic human need form.
And I think theater comes from play, and this is play.
When I went last Thursday, I wouldn’t say the audience was young, but I think it was younger than your average Broadway audience. Do you think there’s something about the play itself that resonates with younger people?
I wrote most of it when I was 25 to 27. Michael [Herwitz], our director, is 28. Our lead producers are in their 30s, which is young to be a lead producer. I just think we are young, and we’re just trying to speak at eye level. One of the funniest interactions I had is I had a family friend who didn’t really love it.
They said that to you?
They were like, “Yeah, it’s kind of more like a movie.” And I was like, “Yeah, I hear that.” I think I get that piece of feedback. And then this young kid came up to me and was like, “That was so amazing. It was just like a movie.”
I don’t like saying Job is for young people because it’s for everyone. But it hopefully speaks a language that avidly resonates with people who don’t see theater, which, to me, is the most exciting demographic. I think about it like elections, which is you don’t win an election by catering to your base or pooh-poohing your opposition. You win an election by bringing people out who don’t vote. And I think that’s the most exciting thing in theater, and that’s what real theatrical success is to me: can you convert audience members who don’t see plays?

Photo: Emilio Madrid

Talking with writer Max Wolf Friedlich about his Broadway play that confronts the horrifying work of online content moderation.

When I spoke with Max Wolf Friedlich, he was calling from a place I wouldn’t have expected to find a buzzy young playwright with a show currently featured in the US’s biggest theater neighborhood. He was at a camp for live-action roleplay, better known as larping.

But more on that later. His new play, Job, is the closest thing you’ll find to a thriller on Broadway. From the very first scene — which I am trying very hard not to spoil here — the stakes are a matter of life and death.

Over Job’s brisk 80-minute runtime, the intensity rarely lets up. But as the play’s themes emerge, we start to see the generational divide between its two characters, Gen Z tech worker Jane and her therapist Loyd (played by Sydney Lemmon and Peter Friedman, who you’ll recognize from Succession). It’s a rift created by the internet, dramatized to heighten the psychological damage of being Too Online. So, it makes sense that Jane is revealed to be a content moderator, part of the unsung workforce that witnesses the most harrowing parts of the internet in order to sanitize it for the rest of us. As someone who has edited a lot of reporting about content moderation and the toll it takes on the workers who do that job, I was curious to see its side effects rendered onstage. But more than anything, Job gripped me.

The winner of a writing competition hosted by the SoHo Playhouse, Job was extended after a one-night run to a five-week one. It then leapt to the Connelly Theater in the East Village, and now it’s at the Hayes Theater on Broadway. Friedlich credits a lot of Job’s success to word of mouth, especially from TikTok — fitting for a play that founds its anxieties on the internet.

As Job wraps the last few weeks of its run at the Hayes Theater, I spoke with Friedlich about why he chose to base a play around content moderation, how he ran the Instagram account of a fake influencer, and what it meant to translate all of that to Broadway.

But first, he tells me about summer camp.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

You’re a camp counselor now?

Yeah, I grew up going to this live-action roleplaying summer camp called the Wayfinder Experience, which is the nerdiest imaginable thing.

It sounds quite nerdy.

It’s really incredible. It’s so fun. I didn’t go for a long time, as one does with one’s summer camp. And then in covid, thinking about the things that I really care about and that make me happy, I started going again. And now I work here one or two weeks of summer.

It happened to line up with the opening of the show on Broadway, which has been a very strange, beautiful whiplash.

In what way?

Something I don’t really like about my chosen career is the individuated attention. I understand being interested in the writer, but my experience of making the play is so collaborative that I genuinely feel like the team is what’s interesting to me. It’s just really nice to be in an environment that’s not about me at all. And I’m constantly being confronted with very surmountable problems here, where kids are like, “Hey, I miss my mom.” And I’m like, “Great, we can talk about that.”

Versus like, “Hey, should we raise our average ticket price?” And I’m like, “I don’t know.”

Are those questions a writer usually deals with?

No, and even in this instance, not really. But my partner is also the lead producer of the play. The bones of our particular production started as a group of friends. So, I think I’m more across things than most people are. I’m deeply involved in the social media and the marketing.

And do you like that, or would you like to wash your hands of it?

There’s elements of it that I do like. I really think that, especially in a digital landscape, marketing is part of storytelling for better or for worse. The first contact that people make with the play is often on Instagram or TikTok or whatever. It just is the reality. You can’t just open on Broadway and be in The New York Times. You have to really tell the story of the show.

What made you want to write a play where one of the main characters is a content moderator?

I met someone who was a content moderator at a party — super briefly — and found it fascinating. I was in San Francisco visiting family friends. She worked at one of these big tech giant places and seemed really not well. And I think as a very online person, I’m fascinated by how ubiquitous the internet is and yet how little we understand as laymen about how it works — like how it literally functions, literally how are we doing this [being on a Zoom call] right now, down to the science, down to the energy cost of it.

Photo: Emilio Madrid

I was really fascinated at this idea that to do the most passive brain rot-y activity of scrolling mindlessly on my phone, there was a real human labor cost and that these spiritual and physical and scientific laws of equivalence still apply to the internet. When I first lived in Los Angeles, I accidentally began working for this tech company called Brud that built a fictional influencer called Lil Miquela. I spent about a year sort of cosplaying or larping as this fictional woman on the internet and these two supplementary characters. And while I wasn’t doing content moderation work, at its peak while I was there, I think she was at 1.2 million followers. [Ed note: @lilmiquela is at 2.5 million followers now.]

So, I was talking to people all day and being told to kill myself and being told that I was beautiful and that I was an inspiration and that I was an abomination. That experience of being an open wound to the internet while also being anonymous, and being deeply confronted with humanity while also being de-personified, was an experience that led me to the play.

And the third answer I’ll give is that all of the plays that I’m interested in writing have to come from a place of fun. This content moderation world and those ideas that I just touched on are really fun and interesting to me. And I don’t know, I can never be fascinated enough by something that it could override having fun with it.

What about content moderation to you is fun? Because everything you laid out to me seems kind of dark or a little bleak.

Those things are fun to work on in a play format. It’s fun to bring really incredible actors into that and really mine it and really explore it. I mean, it’s just the strange nature of the thing that we’re drawn to, of playing pretend. I’m at this live-action roleplaying camp, and we have about 60 kids, and they all have individual characters in this fantasy world that we’re playing in the woods.

And some of them want to be traumatized. They want the person playing their mom to force them to shoot the person playing their brother. There’s something cathartic and fun for them about that. Everything that we do at this camp is couched in play. I’ve been coming here since I was nine, and it’s fortunate in a way to be talking to you from here. But the core of theater to me is play and play as an ideological thing, this human need that I think is often neglected.

But it’s not to say the content moderation itself is fun, but to me, to get a group of people together to really try to explore the false dichotomy of online and offline that I think we’re living in right now. That comes out of this idea of content moderation. The word play doesn’t need to connote positive emotion to me. It just means “not real.” It just means enacting something that doesn’t actually have real human ramifications.

To take something like content moderation and play with it and to have fun with it isn’t to me at all necessarily to undercut how serious it is. I think that the best way to transmute an idea is by falling in love with it. And if you’re having fun with it and we’re able to be excited about it, I think that’s the way to reach people and hopefully communicate something.

So, I guess, do you think live-action roleplay is a form of theater?

Absolutely. I think larping is the highest form of theater. While some would argue that implicit in the idea of theater is the idea of an audience, I would argue that larping is just gift giving and gift receiving. It’s theater that is embodied. You’re only doing it for the people you’re doing it with.

I can’t really speak to how most larp works. I can only really speak to our program. I’ve never larped outside of this sphere. But so much of it is about building cool scenes that feel good and feel fun. To me, larping is kind of the zenith because you can only do it from a place of passion. If you’re not enjoying it and you’re not giving, again, gifts to the people around you, there’s no audience, there’s no praise, there’s no external validation.

And while it’s amazing to put on a show that thousands of people have seen and responded to, I’m not trying to juxtapose those two experiences, when you can have a scene with three kids where they come up to you after and they’re like, “That was awesome.” It’s great. We all did that together. That was this gift that we gave each other. To me, it’s pure theater. Maybe I’ll amend that and say maybe it’s not theater at its zenith, but it’s theater in its rawest and most cardinal basic human need form.

And I think theater comes from play, and this is play.

When I went last Thursday, I wouldn’t say the audience was young, but I think it was younger than your average Broadway audience. Do you think there’s something about the play itself that resonates with younger people?

I wrote most of it when I was 25 to 27. Michael [Herwitz], our director, is 28. Our lead producers are in their 30s, which is young to be a lead producer. I just think we are young, and we’re just trying to speak at eye level. One of the funniest interactions I had is I had a family friend who didn’t really love it.

They said that to you?

They were like, “Yeah, it’s kind of more like a movie.” And I was like, “Yeah, I hear that.” I think I get that piece of feedback. And then this young kid came up to me and was like, “That was so amazing. It was just like a movie.”

I don’t like saying Job is for young people because it’s for everyone. But it hopefully speaks a language that avidly resonates with people who don’t see theater, which, to me, is the most exciting demographic. I think about it like elections, which is you don’t win an election by catering to your base or pooh-poohing your opposition. You win an election by bringing people out who don’t vote. And I think that’s the most exciting thing in theater, and that’s what real theatrical success is to me: can you convert audience members who don’t see plays?

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The PS5 Pro’s announcement yesterday wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was the price: at $699.99, it debuts as Sony’s most expensive console ever. It brought back memories of the PS3’s controversial price tag, a console that when adjusted for inflation is the same $779 price point of a PS5 Pro with the additional disc drive. It’s a very expensive PlayStation, and I fear it’s a test of what’s to come for next-gen console pricing.
For years, console gamers have been used to purchasing hardware at a significantly reduced price compared to what you could build yourself in the PC gaming space. Yes, you can find components that match the PS5 or Xbox Series X on paper, but it’s still difficult to hit the price points that consoles sell for, especially when they’re discounted during promotions. Besides, the easy plug-and-play model, simplified UI, and hassle-free warranty process are all big benefits over having to build or find a good prebuilt PC and then deal with Windows and driver updates. Consoles sell in their millions because they’re far more consumer-friendly than PCs.
It increasingly feels like that gap between console and PC is blurring, though. Microsoft and Sony both pushed this current generation in the direction of having the type of CPU, storage, and GPU power that you’d find inside a gaming PC. The PS5 and Xbox Series X / S have far more capable CPUs for gaming instead of underpowered laptop-like ones and improve the performance of your existing library of games just like a GPU upgrade would on the PC side. That’s why I called the Xbox Series X a next-gen PC when I reviewed it in 2020.

Image: Sony
The PS5 Pro ships without a disc drive.

The PS5 Pro demonstrates that trend even more clearly. Sony’s entire selling point is a $700 upgrade for existing and new games to hit better frame rates while maintaining visual quality. That’s been the selling point of GPUs for decades, and now Sony is about to test if console gamers are willing to upgrade their hardware in the same way PC gamers build entire new rigs.
The big difference this time is that Sony wants you to pay out for that upgrade in the same way that PC gamers have begrudgingly gotten used to GPU prices skyrocketing in recent years. Both Sony and Microsoft typically sell consoles at a loss initially to subsidize the hardware and grow the market for next-gen systems. These initial hardware losses are usually covered by digital game revenues and in-game purchases.
The PS5 Pro is all about digital sales, shipping without a disc drive. Sure, you can buy one separately ($79.99), but if you don’t bother, Sony will benefit from this digital sales push and the 30 percent cut it gets on most purchases. Microsoft and Sony are both pushing toward a discless future for consoles, and it seems likely that next-gen systems won’t ship with disc drives as standard. Hopefully you’ll still be able to purchase one separately, though.
It also seems likely that next-gen consoles will be a lot more expensive than we’re used to. Component costs aren’t coming down, the console market isn’t growing, and Microsoft’s Xbox chief Phil Spencer admitted earlier this year that subsidizing hardware is now challenging because the price of components isn’t dropping fast enough.
Last year, a Microsoft document revealed that the company had planned to subsidize the Xbox Series X and S to the tune of $1.5 billion in 2021 to hit its price targets of $499 and $299, respectively. “That’s our largest hardware subsidy ever” in Microsoft’s profit and loss for its gaming division, the document revealed. With Xbox Series S / X sales still lagging behind the PS5, it’s unlikely that Microsoft is going to gamble again on highly subsidized Xbox hardware for its next-gen consoles.

Image: Sony
The PS5 Pro promises better visuals at higher frame rates.

Sony already appears to be at the point of not heavily subsidizing its PlayStation consoles. The lack of a disc drive helps drive console costs down for Sony on both the PS5 Slim and Pro models. The pricing of the PS5 Pro also looks like it’s designed to be profitable from day one, instead of months or years later. It took Sony nearly a year to no longer sell the $499 PS5 at a loss, and the company then hiked PS5 prices outside the US a year later to cover inflation and component costs. In 2022, PS5 prices jumped by 10 percent in Europe, 12.5 percent in Japan, and by around 6 percent in the UK. Sony has hiked PS5 prices in Japan three times since the console’s launch in 2020.
Crucially, Sony hasn’t ever increased the price of the PS5 in the US, the one market where it still faces competition from Xbox sales. Microsoft admitted last year that it has a 20 percent market share in Europe, compared to Sony’s 80 percent share. When there’s no competition in Europe, Sony can adjust prices by 10 percent or sell a new PS5 Pro for €799.99 (about $884).
Pricing is even worse in the UK for the PS5 Pro. The PS5 originally launched at £449 in the UK and $499 in the US — a currency gap given the weaker value of the British pound over the past decade. After the price hike to £479 in 2022, the UK is now facing £699 pricing for the PS5 Pro compared to the $699 launch price in the US. If you want to purchase a PS5 Pro and the separate disc drive in the UK, it works out to a steep $1,045. In the US, it’s as little as $818 with sales tax in many states for the same console and disc drive, nearly a $230 difference.
Sony faces little competition in Europe and the UK from Xbox console sales, and Microsoft’s plans for an Xbox Series X redesign have been put on hold. It seems to be skipping a mid-generation spec bump in favor of an all-digital white version of the Xbox Series X and a 2TB limited-edition model. Neither of these offers the improved GPU that the PS5 Pro includes, and it leaves a gap for Sony to set the PS5 Pro pricing around the world accordingly.
While I’m hopeful that the price of next-gen consoles won’t push close to $999, I can’t help but think that a $699 price tag wouldn’t be all that surprising by the time next-gen hardware arrives. Maybe we’ll all need to work more hours to afford one. We’re heading into uncharted territory for console generations, and Sony’s PS5 Pro pricing is about to test the waters for the decisions that Sony and Microsoft are making right now for their next-gen hardware choices. Hold on to your disc drives and wallets, because consoles are about to get expensive.

The PS5 Pro’s announcement yesterday wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was the price: at $699.99, it debuts as Sony’s most expensive console ever. It brought back memories of the PS3’s controversial price tag, a console that when adjusted for inflation is the same $779 price point of a PS5 Pro with the additional disc drive. It’s a very expensive PlayStation, and I fear it’s a test of what’s to come for next-gen console pricing.

For years, console gamers have been used to purchasing hardware at a significantly reduced price compared to what you could build yourself in the PC gaming space. Yes, you can find components that match the PS5 or Xbox Series X on paper, but it’s still difficult to hit the price points that consoles sell for, especially when they’re discounted during promotions. Besides, the easy plug-and-play model, simplified UI, and hassle-free warranty process are all big benefits over having to build or find a good prebuilt PC and then deal with Windows and driver updates. Consoles sell in their millions because they’re far more consumer-friendly than PCs.

It increasingly feels like that gap between console and PC is blurring, though. Microsoft and Sony both pushed this current generation in the direction of having the type of CPU, storage, and GPU power that you’d find inside a gaming PC. The PS5 and Xbox Series X / S have far more capable CPUs for gaming instead of underpowered laptop-like ones and improve the performance of your existing library of games just like a GPU upgrade would on the PC side. That’s why I called the Xbox Series X a next-gen PC when I reviewed it in 2020.

Image: Sony
The PS5 Pro ships without a disc drive.

The PS5 Pro demonstrates that trend even more clearly. Sony’s entire selling point is a $700 upgrade for existing and new games to hit better frame rates while maintaining visual quality. That’s been the selling point of GPUs for decades, and now Sony is about to test if console gamers are willing to upgrade their hardware in the same way PC gamers build entire new rigs.

The big difference this time is that Sony wants you to pay out for that upgrade in the same way that PC gamers have begrudgingly gotten used to GPU prices skyrocketing in recent years. Both Sony and Microsoft typically sell consoles at a loss initially to subsidize the hardware and grow the market for next-gen systems. These initial hardware losses are usually covered by digital game revenues and in-game purchases.

The PS5 Pro is all about digital sales, shipping without a disc drive. Sure, you can buy one separately ($79.99), but if you don’t bother, Sony will benefit from this digital sales push and the 30 percent cut it gets on most purchases. Microsoft and Sony are both pushing toward a discless future for consoles, and it seems likely that next-gen systems won’t ship with disc drives as standard. Hopefully you’ll still be able to purchase one separately, though.

It also seems likely that next-gen consoles will be a lot more expensive than we’re used to. Component costs aren’t coming down, the console market isn’t growing, and Microsoft’s Xbox chief Phil Spencer admitted earlier this year that subsidizing hardware is now challenging because the price of components isn’t dropping fast enough.

Last year, a Microsoft document revealed that the company had planned to subsidize the Xbox Series X and S to the tune of $1.5 billion in 2021 to hit its price targets of $499 and $299, respectively. “That’s our largest hardware subsidy ever” in Microsoft’s profit and loss for its gaming division, the document revealed. With Xbox Series S / X sales still lagging behind the PS5, it’s unlikely that Microsoft is going to gamble again on highly subsidized Xbox hardware for its next-gen consoles.

Image: Sony
The PS5 Pro promises better visuals at higher frame rates.

Sony already appears to be at the point of not heavily subsidizing its PlayStation consoles. The lack of a disc drive helps drive console costs down for Sony on both the PS5 Slim and Pro models. The pricing of the PS5 Pro also looks like it’s designed to be profitable from day one, instead of months or years later. It took Sony nearly a year to no longer sell the $499 PS5 at a loss, and the company then hiked PS5 prices outside the US a year later to cover inflation and component costs. In 2022, PS5 prices jumped by 10 percent in Europe, 12.5 percent in Japan, and by around 6 percent in the UK. Sony has hiked PS5 prices in Japan three times since the console’s launch in 2020.

Crucially, Sony hasn’t ever increased the price of the PS5 in the US, the one market where it still faces competition from Xbox sales. Microsoft admitted last year that it has a 20 percent market share in Europe, compared to Sony’s 80 percent share. When there’s no competition in Europe, Sony can adjust prices by 10 percent or sell a new PS5 Pro for €799.99 (about $884).

Pricing is even worse in the UK for the PS5 Pro. The PS5 originally launched at £449 in the UK and $499 in the US — a currency gap given the weaker value of the British pound over the past decade. After the price hike to £479 in 2022, the UK is now facing £699 pricing for the PS5 Pro compared to the $699 launch price in the US. If you want to purchase a PS5 Pro and the separate disc drive in the UK, it works out to a steep $1,045. In the US, it’s as little as $818 with sales tax in many states for the same console and disc drive, nearly a $230 difference.

Sony faces little competition in Europe and the UK from Xbox console sales, and Microsoft’s plans for an Xbox Series X redesign have been put on hold. It seems to be skipping a mid-generation spec bump in favor of an all-digital white version of the Xbox Series X and a 2TB limited-edition model. Neither of these offers the improved GPU that the PS5 Pro includes, and it leaves a gap for Sony to set the PS5 Pro pricing around the world accordingly.

While I’m hopeful that the price of next-gen consoles won’t push close to $999, I can’t help but think that a $699 price tag wouldn’t be all that surprising by the time next-gen hardware arrives. Maybe we’ll all need to work more hours to afford one. We’re heading into uncharted territory for console generations, and Sony’s PS5 Pro pricing is about to test the waters for the decisions that Sony and Microsoft are making right now for their next-gen hardware choices. Hold on to your disc drives and wallets, because consoles are about to get expensive.

Read More 

Image: A24

We’re in a pretty great period for established actors doing weird shit. Obviously, there’s Nic Cage, playing everything from an ancient vampire to a deranged satanist to an average man who haunts your dreams. But the likes of Amy Adams (mom who transforms into a dog) and Hugh Grant (oompa loompa and evil wizard) are also in experimental eras. Now, Grant has taken perhaps his most surprising role: the antagonist in A24’s horror movie Heretic from codirectors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Even more surprising? He’s scary as hell.
Heretic is centered on two young Mormon missionaries — Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) — who aren’t having much luck preaching the good word door-to-door. So, when they meet Mr. Reed (Grant), who is extremely interested in a religious discussion, they let their guard down a little too much. But the bad signs are there: a wife that never seems to appear, a fake blueberry pie baking in the oven. By the time they realize they need to get out of there, it’s obviously too late.
Mr. Reed doesn’t immediately get violent or aggressive. Instead, he turns the tables. After outlining his beliefs — namely that all religion is nonsense, no different than fast food or Monopoly or pop music — he becomes the one trying to convert his new captives. Barnes is defiant, staying true to her beliefs despite Reed dissuading her, while Paxton initially just says whatever she thinks will get her out of the house.
What makes this so scary, before the film’s psychological scares eventually turn gruesome and violent, is Grant himself. Part of the reason he’s played the lead in so many romantic comedies is that he has a very particular bumbling charm. Grant isn’t the perfect, chiseled leading man. He’s awkward and comforting in a way that puts you at ease. As Mr. Reed, this disarming nature turns into a trap.

I won’t spoil too much about what he’s selling, but Mr. Reed is essentially a theological debate bro. He’s extremely well-versed in seemingly all of the world’s religions, and he wants someone to challenge his ideas — not to change his mind but so that he can prove how smart he is by winning the argument. He has spent his life anticipating questions and finding his answers. This pathological need to be right is pushed to its extreme as Heretic moves along; it starts out a little silly and funny but eventually is just terrifying.
And it’s echoed in Mr. Reed’s own home: a warm and cozy front room gives way to an unsettling labyrinth that puts Barbarian to shame. The further into its depths you see, the more fucked up Mr. Reed’s philosophies become. He just can’t be wrong, and he’ll do anything to keep that from happening. Those lengths range from casual murder to singing Radiohead’s “Creep” despite having a terrible voice.
The interesting part of Heretic isn’t its views on religion — which, it seems, boil down to all of them being equally bad, though Reed’s solution turns out to be far worse — but rather how Grant is the ideal vehicle to explore how boring evil can initially seem. He’s a bookish nerd in a cardigan with dogeared copies of The Bible and The Book of Mormon. He offers you pie and drinks when you enter his home. He’s Hugh Grant: he’s not scary at all. But then he suddenly is, driven by the force of his twisted beliefs. And that turn to terror is as scary as any fictional monster.
Heretic hits theaters on November 15th.

Image: A24

We’re in a pretty great period for established actors doing weird shit. Obviously, there’s Nic Cage, playing everything from an ancient vampire to a deranged satanist to an average man who haunts your dreams. But the likes of Amy Adams (mom who transforms into a dog) and Hugh Grant (oompa loompa and evil wizard) are also in experimental eras. Now, Grant has taken perhaps his most surprising role: the antagonist in A24’s horror movie Heretic from codirectors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Even more surprising? He’s scary as hell.

Heretic is centered on two young Mormon missionaries — Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) — who aren’t having much luck preaching the good word door-to-door. So, when they meet Mr. Reed (Grant), who is extremely interested in a religious discussion, they let their guard down a little too much. But the bad signs are there: a wife that never seems to appear, a fake blueberry pie baking in the oven. By the time they realize they need to get out of there, it’s obviously too late.

Mr. Reed doesn’t immediately get violent or aggressive. Instead, he turns the tables. After outlining his beliefs — namely that all religion is nonsense, no different than fast food or Monopoly or pop music — he becomes the one trying to convert his new captives. Barnes is defiant, staying true to her beliefs despite Reed dissuading her, while Paxton initially just says whatever she thinks will get her out of the house.

What makes this so scary, before the film’s psychological scares eventually turn gruesome and violent, is Grant himself. Part of the reason he’s played the lead in so many romantic comedies is that he has a very particular bumbling charm. Grant isn’t the perfect, chiseled leading man. He’s awkward and comforting in a way that puts you at ease. As Mr. Reed, this disarming nature turns into a trap.

I won’t spoil too much about what he’s selling, but Mr. Reed is essentially a theological debate bro. He’s extremely well-versed in seemingly all of the world’s religions, and he wants someone to challenge his ideas — not to change his mind but so that he can prove how smart he is by winning the argument. He has spent his life anticipating questions and finding his answers. This pathological need to be right is pushed to its extreme as Heretic moves along; it starts out a little silly and funny but eventually is just terrifying.

And it’s echoed in Mr. Reed’s own home: a warm and cozy front room gives way to an unsettling labyrinth that puts Barbarian to shame. The further into its depths you see, the more fucked up Mr. Reed’s philosophies become. He just can’t be wrong, and he’ll do anything to keep that from happening. Those lengths range from casual murder to singing Radiohead’s “Creep” despite having a terrible voice.

The interesting part of Heretic isn’t its views on religion — which, it seems, boil down to all of them being equally bad, though Reed’s solution turns out to be far worse — but rather how Grant is the ideal vehicle to explore how boring evil can initially seem. He’s a bookish nerd in a cardigan with dogeared copies of The Bible and The Book of Mormon. He offers you pie and drinks when you enter his home. He’s Hugh Grant: he’s not scary at all. But then he suddenly is, driven by the force of his twisted beliefs. And that turn to terror is as scary as any fictional monster.

Heretic hits theaters on November 15th.

Read More 

Even in shadow, the new SUV looks like any SUV. | Image: Lucid

Lucid revealed new information about the EV charge port of its upcoming Gravity SUV and teased an all-new, more affordable vehicle at Tuesday’s Technology and Manufacturing Day event.
The Lucid Gravity, slated for its first deliveries later this year, will come equipped with a native Tesla-compatible port “in 2025.” The Tesla connector, now known as the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, is being adopted by largely every auto manufacturer for their future EVs.
So far, Hyundai has shown off its 2025 Ioniq 5 with a native NACS port, and Rivian’s upcoming R2 SUV is also confirmed to have it. Lucid, however, might be the first to include the port on the driver’s side rear, which is the same as Tesla vehicles. That means it likely won’t block access to multiple Supercharger stalls when it’s plugged in. All EVs today require a difficult-to-acquire CCS-to-NACS adapter to use Superchargers or need to visit rare stations with “MagicDock” that include adapters. Also, only Ford and Rivian have issued software updates to allow their EVs to “talk” to Tesla’s charging stations.

Lucid also revealed an “under $50,000” midsize SUV for late 2026. The vehicle will be built on a new, still-in-development Midsize Platform and will operate on a next-generation “Atlas” drive unit designed for “enhanced value.”
The new vehicle will be key to competing in the growing electric SUV and crossover space in the US, which is also dominated by the bestselling car in the world: Tesla’s Model Y. Another unannounced Lucid vehicle is positioned to square off with Tesla’s Model 3.
Lucid’s only vehicle in the market today, the Air, is very expensive, and the company has been burning through a lot of cash, trying to sell and lease more while attempting to grow its lineup. But with the help of Saudi investors, who own a majority share in Lucid, the company has managed to stay afloat. Lucid says it has delivered more vehicles to customers this year than in all of 2023.

Even in shadow, the new SUV looks like any SUV. | Image: Lucid

Lucid revealed new information about the EV charge port of its upcoming Gravity SUV and teased an all-new, more affordable vehicle at Tuesday’s Technology and Manufacturing Day event.

The Lucid Gravity, slated for its first deliveries later this year, will come equipped with a native Tesla-compatible port “in 2025.” The Tesla connector, now known as the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, is being adopted by largely every auto manufacturer for their future EVs.

So far, Hyundai has shown off its 2025 Ioniq 5 with a native NACS port, and Rivian’s upcoming R2 SUV is also confirmed to have it. Lucid, however, might be the first to include the port on the driver’s side rear, which is the same as Tesla vehicles. That means it likely won’t block access to multiple Supercharger stalls when it’s plugged in. All EVs today require a difficult-to-acquire CCS-to-NACS adapter to use Superchargers or need to visit rare stations with “MagicDock” that include adapters. Also, only Ford and Rivian have issued software updates to allow their EVs to “talk” to Tesla’s charging stations.

Lucid also revealed an “under $50,000” midsize SUV for late 2026. The vehicle will be built on a new, still-in-development Midsize Platform and will operate on a next-generation “Atlas” drive unit designed for “enhanced value.”

The new vehicle will be key to competing in the growing electric SUV and crossover space in the US, which is also dominated by the bestselling car in the world: Tesla’s Model Y. Another unannounced Lucid vehicle is positioned to square off with Tesla’s Model 3.

Lucid’s only vehicle in the market today, the Air, is very expensive, and the company has been burning through a lot of cash, trying to sell and lease more while attempting to grow its lineup. But with the help of Saudi investors, who own a majority share in Lucid, the company has managed to stay afloat. Lucid says it has delivered more vehicles to customers this year than in all of 2023.

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Image: The Verge

A federal judge halted a Utah child safety law requiring social platforms to verify the ages of their users. In an order on Tuesday, Judge Robert J. Shelby issued a preliminary injunction in favor of NetChoice, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment.
NetChoice, the technology trade association that includes Meta, Snap, Google, and X, sued the state to block the law in December 2023, alleging it “violates the constitutional rights of all Utahns.” In addition to verifying the ages of users, the law would require social platforms to “enable maximum default privacy settings” on children’s accounts as well as disable features “that lead to excessive use,” such as endless scrolling and push notifications.
Although Utah initially introduced the social media legislation in 2023, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed off on an amended version in March of this year after facing criticism over whether it violates free speech. The law was supposed to go into effect on October 1st. However, the changes made to the law weren’t enough to convince the judge of its constitutionality.
“The court recognizes the State’s earnest desire to protect young people from the novel challenges associated with social media use,” Judge Shelby writes. “But owing to the First Amendment’s paramount place in our democratic system, even well-intentioned legislation that regulates speech based on content must satisfy a tremendously high level of constitutional scrutiny.”
NetChoice has succeeded in blocking other online child safety laws that have popped up in states across the US, including Mississippi, California, Arkansas, and Ohio. The Supreme Court also ruled in NetChoice’s favor in a decision related to content moderation.
“Utah’s law not only violates the First Amendment, but if enforced would backfire and endanger the very people it’s meant to help,” Chris Marchese, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, says in a statement. “We look forward to seeing this law, and others like it, permanently struck down and online speech and privacy fully protected across the country.”

Image: The Verge

A federal judge halted a Utah child safety law requiring social platforms to verify the ages of their users. In an order on Tuesday, Judge Robert J. Shelby issued a preliminary injunction in favor of NetChoice, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment.

NetChoice, the technology trade association that includes Meta, Snap, Google, and X, sued the state to block the law in December 2023, alleging it “violates the constitutional rights of all Utahns.” In addition to verifying the ages of users, the law would require social platforms to “enable maximum default privacy settings” on children’s accounts as well as disable features “that lead to excessive use,” such as endless scrolling and push notifications.

Although Utah initially introduced the social media legislation in 2023, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed off on an amended version in March of this year after facing criticism over whether it violates free speech. The law was supposed to go into effect on October 1st. However, the changes made to the law weren’t enough to convince the judge of its constitutionality.

“The court recognizes the State’s earnest desire to protect young people from the novel challenges associated with social media use,” Judge Shelby writes. “But owing to the First Amendment’s paramount place in our democratic system, even well-intentioned legislation that regulates speech based on content must satisfy a tremendously high level of constitutional scrutiny.”

NetChoice has succeeded in blocking other online child safety laws that have popped up in states across the US, including Mississippi, California, Arkansas, and Ohio. The Supreme Court also ruled in NetChoice’s favor in a decision related to content moderation.

“Utah’s law not only violates the First Amendment, but if enforced would backfire and endanger the very people it’s meant to help,” Chris Marchese, director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, says in a statement. “We look forward to seeing this law, and others like it, permanently struck down and online speech and privacy fully protected across the country.”

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Google’s tool that lets publishers sell ad space on their websites is ubiquitous, but that’s largely a testament to how hard it is for customers to get out of it, one former publishing executive testified in federal court on Tuesday.
“I felt like they were holding us hostage,” said Stephanie Layser, a former programmatic advertising executive at News Corp (which owns brands like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post) who now works at AWS. Layser was testifying as a government witness in the Justice Department’s second antitrust case against Google, which is accusing the company of monopolizing the markets for ad tech tools and illegally tying together two of its products.
Layser was one of three witnesses the court heard from on Tuesday, covering perspectives from the publisher side, the advertiser side, and inside of Google. Through their testimony, the government is attempting to paint a picture of a company that exerts so much control over the markets for ad tech tools that customers don’t walk away, even in the face of unfavorable changes. That’s because, according to the government, Google has protected its monopoly power, preventing adequate alternatives and true competition from emerging. Google, for its part, says the government is punishing it for success and trying to force it to deal with rivals on more favorable terms.
Layser felt captured by a change Google rolled out in 2019, which prevented publishers from setting higher floor prices just for Google’s ad exchange, AdX, under what it called unified pricing rules (UPR). With UPR, Layser said it was still possible to set different floors for other exchanges within each of their systems but not for Google’s. Publishers might want to set a higher floor price from AdX to enable more competition during ad auctions in the hope it would result in a higher price than the minimum they’re willing to accept, she said.
When Google introduced UPR, Layser set up a meeting with Google executives to express her concerns and said she believed the program was “in the best interest of Google and not in the best interest of their customers.” She didn’t recall how Google responded but said that “nothing changed,” and the program was implemented.
Despite her grievances, Layser said switching to a different tool was not a viable option. That’s because using Google’s publisher ad server, known at the time as DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) and today as Google Ad Manager, was the only way to access the large base of Google advertiser demand with real-time prices — which is important in a system where computer-run ad auctions happen in milliseconds.
Layser even helped put together an analysis at News Corp considering the pros and cons of switching to another publisher ad server, AppNexus (later bought by Microsoft and rebranded as Xandr), but determined the risk of losing revenue without the same access to Google Ads demand was too great.
The decision didn’t really have to do with the quality or price of Google’s product, however, Layser testified. “DFP is a 25- to 30-year-old piece of technology. It’s slow and clunky,” she told the court. Google also provided News Corp less insight into their transactions than they could have gotten with AppNexus, Layser said. She “begged” Google for what she called “log-level data” but never got it. And because of DFP’s limitations, Layser said she was unable to take on projects she felt could maximize revenue. “I couldn’t innovate,” she said. “I felt stuck.”
“DFP is a 25- to 30-year-old piece of technology. It’s slow and clunky.”
Despite DFP’s supposed drawbacks, the Department of Justice alleges the tool has nearly 90 percent market share in the US. Layser, who previously consulted for upward of 70 publishers, said she could think of “maybe three publications out of hundreds that don’t use DFP.” Because of its near universality, she said there are “legions” of publishing professionals who have only ever worked with the Google tool in their whole careers.
During cross-examination, Google’s attorneys pointed out that News Corp believed itself to be competitive with Google in some areas, underscoring its claim that the DOJ is trying to force deals with rivals. In the analysis about switching to AppNexus, News Corp wrote that because Google owns a media business, it was unlikely to have aligned interests with Google long term.
Later in the day, the court heard from Jay Friedman, CEO of the Goodway Group, who shed light on the advertiser side of the market. Friedman testified that Google’s AdX has been the only exchange his company has not been able to negotiate fees with, even though its rate is higher than others. “We were told it wasn’t an option,” he said.
Then, the court heard prerecorded deposition from Eisar Lipkovitz, a former VP of engineering for display and video ads at Google. Lipkovitz said he still has “PTSD” from his time at Google and expressed frustration with colleagues who disagreed with his view of how the tools should work or moved too slowly on projects.
Lipkovitz said he recognized a potential conflict of interest in the way DFP and AdX were integrated, and he described those in the company who denied it as making “self-interested arguments.” Still, he credited a lack of alternatives to Google’s DFP to the difficulty of running such a product. “It’s a business that nobody wants,” he said.

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Google’s tool that lets publishers sell ad space on their websites is ubiquitous, but that’s largely a testament to how hard it is for customers to get out of it, one former publishing executive testified in federal court on Tuesday.

“I felt like they were holding us hostage,” said Stephanie Layser, a former programmatic advertising executive at News Corp (which owns brands like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post) who now works at AWS. Layser was testifying as a government witness in the Justice Department’s second antitrust case against Google, which is accusing the company of monopolizing the markets for ad tech tools and illegally tying together two of its products.

Layser was one of three witnesses the court heard from on Tuesday, covering perspectives from the publisher side, the advertiser side, and inside of Google. Through their testimony, the government is attempting to paint a picture of a company that exerts so much control over the markets for ad tech tools that customers don’t walk away, even in the face of unfavorable changes. That’s because, according to the government, Google has protected its monopoly power, preventing adequate alternatives and true competition from emerging. Google, for its part, says the government is punishing it for success and trying to force it to deal with rivals on more favorable terms.

Layser felt captured by a change Google rolled out in 2019, which prevented publishers from setting higher floor prices just for Google’s ad exchange, AdX, under what it called unified pricing rules (UPR). With UPR, Layser said it was still possible to set different floors for other exchanges within each of their systems but not for Google’s. Publishers might want to set a higher floor price from AdX to enable more competition during ad auctions in the hope it would result in a higher price than the minimum they’re willing to accept, she said.

When Google introduced UPR, Layser set up a meeting with Google executives to express her concerns and said she believed the program was “in the best interest of Google and not in the best interest of their customers.” She didn’t recall how Google responded but said that “nothing changed,” and the program was implemented.

Despite her grievances, Layser said switching to a different tool was not a viable option. That’s because using Google’s publisher ad server, known at the time as DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) and today as Google Ad Manager, was the only way to access the large base of Google advertiser demand with real-time prices — which is important in a system where computer-run ad auctions happen in milliseconds.

Layser even helped put together an analysis at News Corp considering the pros and cons of switching to another publisher ad server, AppNexus (later bought by Microsoft and rebranded as Xandr), but determined the risk of losing revenue without the same access to Google Ads demand was too great.

The decision didn’t really have to do with the quality or price of Google’s product, however, Layser testified. “DFP is a 25- to 30-year-old piece of technology. It’s slow and clunky,” she told the court. Google also provided News Corp less insight into their transactions than they could have gotten with AppNexus, Layser said. She “begged” Google for what she called “log-level data” but never got it. And because of DFP’s limitations, Layser said she was unable to take on projects she felt could maximize revenue. “I couldn’t innovate,” she said. “I felt stuck.”

Despite DFP’s supposed drawbacks, the Department of Justice alleges the tool has nearly 90 percent market share in the US. Layser, who previously consulted for upward of 70 publishers, said she could think of “maybe three publications out of hundreds that don’t use DFP.” Because of its near universality, she said there are “legions” of publishing professionals who have only ever worked with the Google tool in their whole careers.

During cross-examination, Google’s attorneys pointed out that News Corp believed itself to be competitive with Google in some areas, underscoring its claim that the DOJ is trying to force deals with rivals. In the analysis about switching to AppNexus, News Corp wrote that because Google owns a media business, it was unlikely to have aligned interests with Google long term.

Later in the day, the court heard from Jay Friedman, CEO of the Goodway Group, who shed light on the advertiser side of the market. Friedman testified that Google’s AdX has been the only exchange his company has not been able to negotiate fees with, even though its rate is higher than others. “We were told it wasn’t an option,” he said.

Then, the court heard prerecorded deposition from Eisar Lipkovitz, a former VP of engineering for display and video ads at Google. Lipkovitz said he still has “PTSD” from his time at Google and expressed frustration with colleagues who disagreed with his view of how the tools should work or moved too slowly on projects.

Lipkovitz said he recognized a potential conflict of interest in the way DFP and AdX were integrated, and he described those in the company who denied it as making “self-interested arguments.” Still, he credited a lack of alternatives to Google’s DFP to the difficulty of running such a product. “It’s a business that nobody wants,” he said.

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