(This article is part of Today’s Cache, The Hindu’s newsletter on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, innovation and policy. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
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Twitter verifies dead celebrities
A number of celebrities on Twitter who were verified for free before CEO Elon Musk’s takeover have been given back their blue ticks via a Blue subscription they did not pay for - including celebrities who died years ago.
Among others, late celebrities like Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput, chef Anthony Bourdain, and Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi were all verified with a blue tick. The three have more than one million Twitter followers each. However, a banner on their profiles falsely claimed the three celebrities had subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.
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Other living celebrities, such as novelist Stephen King, have been given Twitter Blue verification with Musk footing the bill.
Britain to take on Big Tech
Britain has plans to bring about a new law to better regulate Big Tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon to make sure they do not abuse their market dominance and damage competition in their sectors.
While the UK has a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) regulator with a Digital Markets Unit, there are concerns that the antitrust watchdog does not have enough power to execute its responsibilities and regulate Big Tech firms. A tentative bill could give the unit more authority to handle companies that have a British turnover of more than one billion pounds. The bill will also let the watchdog frame more rules that tech companies will have to comply with to prevent antitrust challenges.
Apple’s antitrust happenings
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal upheld an antitrust case order from two years ago that could mean Apple would have to let developers provide options for App Store customers to pay via third-party in-app payment options.
While Apple may appeal this decision in the future, the legal proceedings were in its favour for nine other matters. The court also said that Apple’s App Store rules were not violating antitrust laws. The case was brought by Epic Games, which has created offerings such as ‘Fortnite.’