Plus: The economics of installing a giant anime statue in your town ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

March 26, 2026 | Read online
# Meta, YouTube landmark legal losses, QLD cyber L and using AI to fight being sacked for overusing AI Plus: The economics of installing a giant anime statue in your town
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Edition 2530
"1983-albert-apple-clone-photo" by Michael Nadeau is licensed under CC0
Mentioned in today’s edition: Meta, YouTube, Fujifilm, ChatGPT, Dario Amodei, Reddit, TurboQuant, Evangelion Unit-01 and Elon Musk. Plus, deals on HP Omen gaming monitors, Ugreen power banks and Vodafone prepaid plans.
# The News
### Meta and YouTube lose landmark mental health and child exploitation legal cases
Meta and YouTube have both suffered significant legal losses that could open the floodgates to further lawsuits. The two companies were found by a California court to have negligently harmed the mental health of a 20 year old woman through the addictive design of their platforms (NYT, gift link). In a New Mexico court, Meta was determined to have enabled the sexual exploitation of young users and misled others about the steps it was taking to protect those users (Politico). Meta is set to appeal both decisions.
Sizzler gtch shared this pic in Slack. What’s he thinking?
The Sizzle: This is a pretty substantial moment. Yes, the damages in the California trial are small (just a couple of million bucks) and even the US$375m fine in Nevada is a small fraction of Meta's profit. Yet, the California suit was a 'bellwether' case that tested a new legal claim: that it was Meta's platform design, not the speech on the platform, that was harming users. There will be many more cases. All that being said: civil suits are not the way to deal with this. Not everyone can afford to file a lawsuit, or wait the years it takes to fight things in court against teams of the world's best paid lawyers. If we have reason to believe that certain features are hurting people, then those need to be directly regulated.
This has always been my view. When I've pointed out the potential flaws of the teen social ban, it's always been in the context that restricting 13-16-year-olds doesn't address harmful features for all ages. If we're getting to the point where courts are deciding that companies like Meta are actively being harmful to users by allowing things like infinite scroll or recommendation engines, then it's about time politicians get off their asses and do something about it.
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Queensland's government cybersecurity is looking a little bit shaky
Three Queensland government entities have been embarrassed in a cybersecurity audit that found that all three were essentially defenceless (QAO). Sizzler Rohan shared a state Audit Office report detailing how three unnamed government bodies all had "significant failings". This included allowing unauthorised access to their systems, storing credentials in cleartext, and usually not having any requirement for vendors to report cyberattacks. In one case, auditors were able to create a fake third-party account, make it an admin in the systems, and delete audit logs that would have shown their presence. Not good folks!
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
### Generally it is frowned upon to use AI in court to fight being sacked for overusing AI
A senior Java developer has been criticised in a court for using AI to write his submissions claiming that he had been unfairly dismissed in part for using AI too much at work (Jade). Marcus Wibmer was fired from Fujifilm after an HR process including his claim that being told to put on a shirt at work was sexual harassment and allegedly fabricating an email from a boss. But key among the issues was Wibmer's use of AI to author voluminous complaint emails and openly using ChatGPT in disciplinary meetings to answer questions. Wibmer also used it in court, unsuccessfully, to challenge his termination.
this is “you fucked up” in legalese
The Commission's Deputy President ultimately found that it was "not wise" to rely on AI to write "discursive and difficult to follow" submissions that, ultimately, "led to his [legal] demise". I feel a bit bad for the guy because this doesn't seem like normal behaviour, but, yeah, yikes!
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Leftovers
Australia (and NZ):
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei expected to visit Australia (Crikey, $) No wonder there's been so much pressure from the government to get these AI things done! Tesla chair Robyn Denholm: Energy crisis won’t affect data centre rollout (The Australian, $) Fake news on everything from whales to wind farms: Australia is flooded with climate misinformation (The Conversation) Health NZ staff told to stop using ChatGPT to write clinical notes (RNZ) It will tow your boat: MG wins approval for its first electric ute in Australia (The Driven) Sizzler Ketan wrote on this: "The life cycle emissions of this luxury grocery collection monstrosity are probably higher than some small fossil fuel combustion cars"
Rest of World:
Britain pilots social media bans, time limits and curfews for children (Reuters) Reddit accounts with 'fishy' bot-like behavior will soon need to prove they're human (The Verge) Paid AI accounts are now a hot underground commodity (BleepingComputer) TurboQuant: redefining AI efficiency with extreme compression (Google) I don't entirely understand this but it seems like it could be useful? Running Tesla Model 3's computer on my desk using parts from crashed cars (xdavidhu) Elon Musk pauses changes to X's creator revenue-sharing program after backlash (TechCrunch)
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Oh, Also
### The economics of installing a giant anime statue in your town
"What possible reason could you have for installing an Evangelion statue in your town," you might ask? Well, obviously, it's sick. Another reason: it makes economic sense (Automation). Or at least it has in the case of the Japanese city of Hamamatsu (population 770,000) that spent about AU$470,000 on installing a 6 metre statue of Evangelion Unit-01 in their city but calculated a $10 million economic impact from all the tourism. That's like 20x returns.
PUT ONE IN GATTON
So, the real question is, why hasn't Wagga Wagga or Geraldton installed a giant anime statue?
Discuss in Slack or Forum.
# Bargains
Electronics
Reolink Duo Floodlight PoE, 4K Camera for Security System, 1800 Lumen Floodlights - $206 at Reolink AU (Down from $269) Zemismart Matter Over Thread Slide Curtain HomeKit SmartThings Google Control 3m - $214 at Zemismart SMALLRIG RC 220B Pro 220W COB Video Light Bi-Colour 2700K-6500K - $440 at SMALLRIG
Computing
GIGABYTE X870 Gaming WIFI6 AM5 - $265 at Amazon Omen 27k - HP 27 Inch UHD 144hz Gaming Monitor - $374 at HP Biostar GeForce RTX 3080 GDDR6X 10GB Video Card - $699 at Mwave (Down from $799) Gaming PC: R5 7500F, RX 9060 XT 16GB, 1TB Gen4 SSD, 32GB RAM, B650M GAMING PLUS Mobo, 650W PSU - $1648 at Nebula PC Dell 7920 Workstation 2x Xeon Gold 5217, 32GB RAM, 256GB NVMe, Quadro RTX 5000 (Refurbished) - $1980 at ACT Networks
Mobile
Ugreen 130w Nexode Power Bank 20000mAh - $79.99 at Amazon (Down from $99) Vodafone 200GB 12-Month Prepaid Plus Starter Pack - $169 at Vodafone (Down from $250)
# The End
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