Lawmakers in Virginia are preparing fresh efforts to regulate AI as concerns grow over its influence on minors and vulnerable users.
Legislators will return in January with a set of proposals focused on limiting the capabilities of chatbots, curbing deepfakes and restricting automated ticket-buying systems. The push follows a series of failed attempts last year to define high-risk AI systems and expand protections for consumers.
Delegate Michelle Maldonado aims to introduce measures that restrict what conversational agents can say in therapeutic interactions instead of allowing them to mimic emotional support.
Her plans follow the well-publicised case of a sixteen-year-old who discussed suicidal thoughts with a chatbot before taking his own life. She argues that young people rely heavily on these tools and need stronger safeguards that recognise dangerous language and redirect users towards human help.
Maldonado will also revive a previous bill on high-risk AI, refining it to address particular sectors rather than broad categories.
Delegate Cliff Hayes is preparing legislation to require labels for synthetic media and to block AI systems from buying event tickets in bulk instead of letting automated tools distort prices.
Hayes already secured a law preventing predictions from AI tools from being the sole basis for criminal justice decisions. He warns that the technology has advanced too quickly for policy to remain passive and urges a balance between innovation and protection.
Proposals that come as the state continues to evaluate its regulatory environment under an executive order issued by Governor Glenn Youngkin.
The order directs AI systems to scan the state code for unnecessary or conflicting rules, encouraging streamlined governance instead of strict statutory frameworks. Observers argue that human oversight remains essential as legislators search for common ground on how far to extend regulatory control.
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Yesterday, Australia entered a new phase of its online safety framework after the introduction of the Social Media Minimum Age policy.
eSafety has established a new Parent Advisory Group to support families as the country transitions to enhanced safeguards for young people. The group held its first meeting, with the Commissioner underlining the need for practical and accessible guidance for carers.
The initiative brings together twelve organisations representing a broad cross-section of communities in Australia, including First Nations families, culturally diverse groups, parents of children with disability and households in regional areas.
Their role is to help eSafety refine its approach, so parents can navigate social platforms with greater confidence, rather than feeling unsupported during rapid regulatory change.
A group that will advise on parent engagement, offer evidence-informed insights and test updated resources such as the redeveloped Online Safety Parent Guide.
Their advice will aim to ensure materials remain relevant, inclusive and able to reach priority communities that often miss out on official communications.
Members will serve voluntarily until June 2026 and will work with eSafety to improve distribution networks and strengthen the national conversation on digital literacy. Their collective expertise is expected to shape guidance that reflects real family experiences instead of abstract policy expectations.
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Germany has launched the INQUBATOR initiative to help companies, particularly SMEs, prepare for the industrial impact of quantum computing. The four-year programme offers structured support to firms facing high entry barriers and limited access to advanced technologies.
A central feature is affordable access to quantum systems from multiple vendors, paired with workshops and hands-on training. Companies can test algorithms, assess business relevance and adapt processes without investing in costly hardware or specialist infrastructure.
The project is coordinated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid-State Physics and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology. It brings together several Fraunhofer institutes to guide firms from early exploration to applied solutions.
Initial pilot projects span medicine, cybersecurity, insurance and automotive sectors. These examples are intended to demonstrate measurable advantages and will be followed by an open call for further use cases across a broader range of industries.
INQUBATOR aims to reduce financial and technical obstacles while expanding quantum expertise and industrial readiness in Germany. By enabling practical experimentation, it seeks to build a competitive ecosystem of quantum-literate companies over the next four years.
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The internet has become part of almost everything we do. It helps us work, stay in touch with friends and family, buy things, plan trips, and handle tasks that would have felt impossible until recently. Most people cannot imagine getting through the day without it.
But there is a hidden cost to all this convenience. Most of the time, online services run smoothly, with countless systems working together in the background. But every now and then, though, a key cog slips out of place.
When that happens, the effects can spread fast, taking down apps, websites, and even entire industries within minutes. These moments remind us how much we rely on digital services, and how quickly everything can unravel when something goes wrong. It raises an uncomfortable question. Is digital dependence worth the convenience, or are we building a house of cards that could collapse, pulling us back into reality?
Warning shots of the dot-com Era and the infancy of Cloud services
In its early years, the internet saw several major malfunctions that disrupted key online services. Incidents like the Morris worm in 1988, which crashed about 10 percent of all internet-connected systems, and the 1996 AOL outage that left six million users offline, revealed how unprepared the early infrastructure was for growing digital demand.
A decade later, the weaknesses were still clear. In 2007, Skype, then with over 270 million users, went down for nearly two days after a surge in logins triggered by a Windows update overwhelmed its network. Since video calls were still in their early days, the impact was not as severe, and most users simply waited it out, postponing chats with friends and family until the issue was fixed.
As the dot-com era faded and the 2010s began, the shift to cloud computing introduced a new kind of fragility. When Amazon’s EC2 and EBS systems in the US-East region went down in 2011, the outage took down services like Reddit, Quora, and IMDb for days, exposing how quickly failures in shared infrastructure can cascade.
A year later, GoDaddy’s DNS failure took millions of websites offline, while large-scale Gmail disruptions affected users around the world, early signs that the cloud’s growing influence came with increasingly high stakes.
By the mid-2010s, it was clear that the internet had evolved from a patchwork of standalone services to a heavily interconnected ecosystem. When cloud or DNS providers stumbled, their failures rippled simultaneously across countless platforms. The move to centralised infrastructure made development faster and more accessible, but it also marked the beginning of an era where a single glitch could shake the entire web.
Centralised infrastructure and the age of cascading failures
The late 2000s and early 2010s saw a rapid rise in internet use, with nearly 2 billion people worldwide online. As access grew, more businesses moved into the digital space, offering e-commerce, social platforms, and new forms of online entertainment to a quickly expanding audience.
With so much activity shifting online, the foundation beneath these services became increasingly important, and increasingly centralised, setting the stage for outages that could ripple far beyond a single website or app.
The next major hit came in 2016, when a massive DDoS attack crippled major websites across the USA and Europe. Platforms like Netflix, Reddit, Twitter, and CNN were suddenly unreachable, not because they were directly targeted, but because Dyn, a major DNS provider, had been overwhelmed.
The attack used the Mirai botnet malware to hijack hundreds of thousands of insecure IoT devices and flood Dyn’s servers with traffic. It was one of the clearest demonstrations yet that knocking out a single infrastructure provider could take down major parts of the internet in one stroke.
In 2017, another major outage occurred, with Amazon at the centre once again. On 28 February, the company’s Simple Storage Service (S3) went down for about 4 hours, disrupting access across a large part of the US-EAST-1 region. While investigating a slowdown in the billing system, an Amazon engineer accidentally entered a typo in a command, taking more servers offline than intended.
That small error was enough to knock out services like Slack, Quora, Coursera, Expedia and countless other websites that relied on S3 for storage or media delivery. The financial impact was substantial; S&P 500 companies alone were estimated to have lost roughly 150 million dollars during the outage.
Amazon quickly published a clear explanation and apology, but transparency could not undo the economic damage nor (yet another) sudden reminder that a single mistake in a centralised system could ripple across the entire web.
Outages in the roaring 2020s
The S3 incident made one thing clear. Outages were no longer just about a single platform going dark. As more services leaned on shared infrastructure, even small missteps could take down enormous parts of the internet. And this fragility did not stop at cloud storage.
Over the next few years, attention shifted to another layer of the online ecosystem: content delivery networks and edge providers that most people had never heard of but that nearly every website depended on.
The 2020s opened with one of the most memorable outages to date. On 4 October 2021, Facebook and its sister platforms, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, vanished from the internet for nearly 7 hours after a faulty BGP configuration effectively removed the company’s services from the global routing table.
Millions of users flocked to other platforms to vent their frustration, overwhelming Twitter, Telegram, Discord, and Signal’s servers and causing performance issues across the board. It was a rare moment when a single company’s outage sent measurable shockwaves across the entire social media ecosystem.
But what happens when outages hit industries far more essential than social media? In 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration was forced to delay more than 10,000 flights, the first nationwide grounding of air traffic since the aftermath of September 11.
A corrupted database file brought the agency’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system to a standstill, leaving pilots without critical safety updates and forcing the entire aviation network to pause. The incident sent airline stocks dipping and dealt another blow to public confidence, showing just how disruptive a single technical failure can be when it strikes at the heart of critical infrastructure.
Outages that defined 2025
The year 2025 saw an unprecedented wave of outages, with server overloads, software glitches and coding errors disrupting services across the globe. The Microsoft 365 suite outage in January, the Southwest Airlines and FAA synchronisation failure in April, and the Meta messaging blackout in July all stood out for their scale and impact.
But the most disruptive failures were still to come. In October, Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage in its US-East-1 region, knocking out everything from social apps to banking services and reminding the world that a fault in a single cloud region can ripple across thousands of platforms.
Just weeks later, the Cloudflare November outage became the defining digital breakdown of the year. A logic bug inside its bot management system triggered a cascading collapse that took down social networks, AI tools, gaming platforms, transit systems and countless everyday websites in minutes. It was the clearest sign yet that when core infrastructure falters, the impact is immediate, global and largely unavoidable.
And yet, we continue to place more weight on these shared foundations, trusting they will hold because they usually do. Every outage, whether caused by a typo, a corrupted file, or a misconfigured update, exposes how quickly things can fall apart when one key piece gives way.
Going forward, resilience needs to matter as much as innovation. That means reducing single points of failure, improving transparency, and designing systems that can fail without dragging everything down. The more clearly we see the fragility of the digital ecosystem, the better equipped we are to strengthen it.
Outages will keep happening, and no amount of engineering can promise perfect uptime. But acknowledging the cracks is the first step toward reinforcing what we’ve built — and making sure the next slipped cog does not bring the whole machine to a stop.
The smoke and mirrors of the digital infrastructure
The internet is far from destined to collapse, but resilience can no longer be an afterthought. Redundancy, decentralisation and smarter oversight need to be part of the discussion, not just for engineers, but for policymakers as well.
Outages do not just interrupt our routines. They reveal the systems we have quietly built our lives around. Each failure shows how deeply intertwined our digital world has become, and how fast everything can stop when a single piece gives way.
Will we learn enough from each one to build a digital ecosystem that can absorb the next shock instead of amplifying it? Only time will tell.
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EU lawmakers have accused national governments of stalling a major customs overhaul aimed at tackling the rise in low-cost parcels from China. Parliament’s lead negotiator Dirk Gotink argues that only stronger EU-level powers can help authorities regain control of soaring e-commerce volumes.
Talks have slowed over a proposed e-commerce data hub linking national customs services. Parliament wants European prosecutors to gain direct access to the hub, while capitals insist that national authorities must remain the gatekeepers to sensitive information.
Gotink warns that limiting access would undermine efforts to stop non-compliant goods such as those from China, entering the single market. Senior MEP Anna Cavazzini echoes the concern, saying EU-level oversight is essential to keep consumers safer and improve coordination across borders.
The Danish Council Presidency aims to conclude negotiations in mid-December but concedes that major disputes remain. Trade groups urge a swift deal, arguing that a modernised customs system must support enforcement against surging online imports.
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European policymakers are being urged to accelerate the adoption of AI, as Christine Lagarde warns that Europe risks missing another major technological shift. Her message highlights that global AI investment is soaring, yet its economic impact remains limited, similar to that of earlier innovation waves.
Lagarde argues that AI could boost productivity faster than past technologies because the infrastructure already exists, and the systems can improve their own performance. Scientific progress powered by AI, such as the rapid prediction of protein structures, signals how R&D can scale far quicker than before.
Europe’s challenge, she notes, is not building frontier models but ensuring rapid deployment across industries. Strong uptake of generative AI by European firms is encouraging, but fragmented regulation, high energy costs and limited risk capital remain significant frictions.
Strategic resilience in chips, data centres and interoperable standards is also essential to avoid deeper dependence on non-European systems.
Greater cooperation in shared data spaces, such as Manufacturing-X and the European Health Data Space, could unlock competitive advantages. Lagarde emphasises that Europe must act swiftly, as delays would hinder adoption and erode industrial competitiveness.
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UN human rights chief Volker Türk has highlighted growing challenges posed by powerful corporations and rapidly advancing technologies. At the 14th UN Forum, he warned that the misuse of generative AI could threaten human rights.
He called for robust rules, independent oversight, and safeguards to ensure innovation benefits society rather than exploiting it.
Vulnerable workers, including migrants, women, and those in informal sectors, remain at high risk of exploitation. Mr Türk criticised rollbacks of human rights obligations by some governments and condemned attacks on human rights defenders.
He also raised concerns over climate responsibility, noting that fossil fuel profits continue while the poorest communities face environmental harm and displacement.
Courts and lawmakers in countries such as Brazil, the UK, the US, Thailand, and Colombia are increasingly holding companies accountable for abuses linked to operations, supply chains, and environmental practices.
To support implementation, the UN has launched an OHCHR Helpdesk on Business and Human Rights, offering guidance to governments, companies, and civil society organisations.
Closing the forum, Mr Türk urged stronger global cooperation and broader backing for human rights systems. He proposed the creation of a Global Alliance for human rights, emphasising that human rights should guide decisions shaping the world’s future.
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Google says Europe faces a pivotal moment as AI reshapes global competitiveness, arguing that the region has the talent to lead the way. It points to growing demand for tools that help businesses innovate and expand. Startups like Idoven are highlighted as examples of Europe’s emerging strengths.
Google highlights its long-standing partnership with Europe, pointing to significant investments in infrastructure, security, and research. It has more than 40 offices and 31,000 staff across the region. DeepMind’s scientific advances, including broad use of AlphaFold, remain central to that work.
Despite this foundation, Google warns that Europe risks falling behind other regions without faster access to advanced AI models.
Only 14% of European companies currently utilise AI, which is significantly lower than the adoption rates in China and the United States. Google says outdated technology limits competitiveness across sectors.
Regulatory complexity is another concern, with more than 100 digital rules introduced since 2019. Google supports regulation but notes that abrupt changes and overlapping requirements can slow product launches and hinder smaller developers. The company calls for more straightforward, more explicit rules that avoid penalising innovation.
Google argues that Europe must also expand AI skills, from technical expertise to leadership and workforce readiness. It cites a decade of training initiatives that helped 15 million Europeans gain digital skills. With the right tools and support, Google says Europe could unlock €1.2 trillion in economic value.
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The European Commission has approved €450 million in Czech support for a new integrated Onsemi semiconductor facility in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm.
A project that will help strengthen Europe’s technological autonomy by advancing Silicon Carbide power device production instead of relying on non-European manufacturing.
The Czech Republic plans to back a €1.64 billion investment that will create the first EU facility covering every stage from crystal growth to finished components. These products will be central to electric vehicles, fast charging systems and renewable energy technologies.
Onsemi has agreed to contribute new skills programmes, support the development of next-generation 200 mm SiC technology and follow priority-rated orders in future supply shortages.
The Commission reviewed the measure under Article 107(3)(c) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and concluded that the aid is necessary, proportionate and limited to the minimum required to trigger the investment.
In a scheme that addresses a segment of the semiconductor market where the EU lacks sufficient supply, which improves resilience rather than distorts competition.
The facility is expected to begin commercial activity by 2027 and will support the wider European semiconductor ecosystem.
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Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, has announced that an investigation will be launched against Meta following concerns over a possible large-scale violation of user privacy.
The company will be required to explain its conduct before the parliamentary committee on economy, trade and digital transformation instead of continuing to handle the issue privately.
Several research centres in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands uncovered a concealed tracking tool used on Android devices for almost a year.
Their findings showed that web browsing data had been linked to identities on Facebook and Instagram even when users relied on incognito mode or a VPN.
The practice may have contravened key European rules such as the GDPR, the ePrivacy Directive, the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act, while class action lawsuits are already underway in Germany, the US and Canada.
Pedro Sánchez explained that the investigation aims to clarify events, demand accountability from company leadership and defend any fundamental rights that might have been undermined.
He stressed that the law in Spain prevails over algorithms, platforms or corporate size, and those who infringe on rights will face consequences.
The prime minister also revealed a package of upcoming measures to counter four major threats in the digital environment. A plan that focuses on disinformation, child protection, hate speech and privacy defence instead of reactive or fragmented actions.
He argued that social media offers value yet has evolved into a space shaped by profit over well-being, where engagement incentives overshadow rights. He concluded that the sector needs to be rebuilt to restore social cohesion and democratic resilience.
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