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December 12, 2025, 5:00 PM
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Axios:
Policymakers behind key state AI bills scoff at Trump's EO; some GOP governors are pushing ahead with their own AI bills; Steve Bannon says Sacks misled Trump  —  States are forging ahead with AI laws despite President Trump's new executive order aimed at reining them in.
Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
Trump's AI executive order directs federal agencies to look into withholding federal funding from states passing “the most onerous and excessive laws” around AI  —  The new executive order comes as a growing group of Republicans criticize Trump's staunch support of the tech industry's ambitions for artificial intelligence.
Bloomberg:
David Sacks says Trump's AI EO aims to ease companies' compliance burden and that the administration is working with Congress on a common AI oversight standard
Reuters:
President Trump signs an executive order aimed at preempting a growing number of state AI laws, saying “we want to have one central source of approval”
Igor Bonifacic / Engadget:
In his EO, Trump orders US AG Pam Bondi to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” that meets regularly with David Sacks to challenge “inconsistent” state AI laws
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Amazon Prime Video pulls its AI recaps, which it began testing in November, for Fallout, Bosch, and other shows after users noticed errors in the Fallout recaps  —  Fallout's season one recap wrongly stated that The Ghoul's flashback takes place in the 1950s, rather than the year 2077.
Stevie Bonifield / The Verge:
Google expands Google Translate's live speech translation from Pixel Buds to any headphones, supporting 70+ languages, in beta on compatible Android phones  —  Live speech translations were once only on the Pixel Buds. … Google Translate's latest update brings live speech translations …
Lucas Ropek / TechCrunch:
Sam Altman's Tools for Humanity updates World to make it a “super app” with encrypted chat integration and a Venmo-like tool for sending and requesting crypto  —  World, the biometric ID verification project co-founded by Sam Altman, released the newest version of its app today …
Nina Bambysheva / Forbes:
Kalshi integrates its event trading platform into the popular crypto wallet Phantom; Dune: in November, Kalshi's trading volume hit $5.8B vs. Polymarket's $3.7B  —  As Kalshi's trading volume surpasses Polymarket's, it will now offer prediction market access to Phantom's 15 million users on Solana.
Brody Ford / Bloomberg:
Sources: Oracle has delayed completion of some OpenAI data centers from 2027 to 2028, largely due to labor and material shortages; Oracle denies delays  —  Oracle Corp. has pushed back the completion dates for some of the data centers it's developing for the artificial intelligence model developer OpenAI …
Carmen Arroyo / Bloomberg:
Sources: X reported $752M in Q3 revenue, up 17% YoY, a net loss of $577.4M, and EBITDA of ~$454M, up 16%; revenue for the first nine months of 2025 was $2B+  —  Sales at Elon Musk's X jumped during the third quarter, but the social network is still dealing with significant costs …
Alex Heath / Sources:
An interview with Nikita Bier, who wants to lure journalists back to X with a rebuilt recommendation algorithm with no keyword suppression or manual downranking  —  Product chief Nikita Bier on journalists who left: “We have to earn their trust.”  Also: Fidji Simo on OpenAI's Code Red, and a new episode of ACCESS.
John Liu / Bloomberg:
Sources: China is considering a ~$28B-to-$70B incentives package, which would be separate from the $50B Big Fund III plan, to support its chipmaking industry  —  China is considering a package of incentives worth as much as $70 billion to bankroll and support its chipmaking industry …
Ben Weiss / Fortune:
YouTube launches an option for US-based creators to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD  —  Big Tech continues to tiptoe into crypto.  The latest example is a move by YouTube to let creators on the video platform choose to receive payouts in PayPal's stablecoin.
Thinking Machines Lab:
Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab makes Tinker, its API for fine-tuning language models, generally available, adds support for Kimi K2 Thinking, and more  —  Today we are announcing four updates to Tinker:  — No more waitlist  — New reasoning model: Kimi K2 Thinking
Reuters:
Reddit files a lawsuit against Australia to overturn its social media ban for under-16s, saying it “infringes the implied freedom of political communication”  —  Message board website Reddit (RDDT.N) on Friday filed a lawsuit asking the High Court to overturn Australia's social media ban …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Tim Sweeney: the Ninth Circuit's decision on the Epic v. Apple contempt ruling appeal “completely shuts down” App Store rules letting Apple collect “junk fees”  —  In an interview, Epic Games' CEO says that an appeals court ruling in its case against Apple is ‘really awesome for all developers.’
Bloomberg:
A US appeals court upholds a contempt ruling in Epic v. Apple, but says Apple can argue in a lower court to charge <27% for transactions outside the App Store

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:00 PM ET, December 12, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Nieman Lab:
The Guardian, FT, NYT, USA Today Co., and others are blocking or limiting the Internet Archive's crawlers to prevent AI crawlers from using IA as a backdoor

Roushni Nair / Reuters:
Australia's Nine Entertainment plans to sell its broadcast radio business to the Laundy family for AU$56M and buy digital outdoor ad firm QMS Media for AU$850M

Max Tani / Semafor:
To avert layoffs, WaPo's White House correspondents, not considered at risk, write a letter to Jeff Bezos highlighting collaborations among the paper's sections

More News

Xuedong Huang / Zoom:
Zoom says its “federated AI” model, combining its SLM with open- and closed-source models, got 48.1% on Humanity's Last Exam vs. 45.8% for Gemini 3 Pro w/ tools
Gergely Orosz / @gergelyorosz:
[Thread] Substack quietly added a feature that forced subscribers to download the app to read full newsletters, but says it reverted the change after complaints
Reuters:
EU finance ministers agree on a €3 customs duty on low-value parcels from July 2026, aiming to crack down on Chinese imports from retailers like Shein and Temu

Earlier Picks

Zachary Small / New York Times:
A look at France-based indie game studio Sandfall Interactive, whose critically acclaimed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 had a sub-$10M budget and sold 5M+ copies
Dara Kerr / The Guardian:
xAI partners with El Salvador to deploy Grok across 5,000+ public schools, reaching 1M+ students in an “AI-powered education program” over the next two years
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google launches Disco, a Gemini 3-powered experiment that suggests and creates GenTabs, web apps based on the user's open browser tabs and Gemini chat history
Axios:
The OpenAI deal gives Disney a fair amount of oversight and control over how its IP is used, including a joint steering committee to monitor user creations
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