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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed suit against Meta Platforms and WhatsApp, alleging the companies collected biometric data from millions of Texans without proper consent. The petition targets facial recognition and voice data practices, and signals that state-level pressure on Big Tech is intensifying well beyond Washington.
Separately, and perhaps more chilling, a Texas woman is now suing after being arrested for a Facebook post warning her community about potentially poisoned drinking water. She says local authorities used her social media activity to justify the arrest, raising serious questions about where the line falls between public safety speech and criminal liability in the social media age.
And on a broader stage, a widely-read piece this week argues that Google has fundamentally betrayed the open web — prioritizing its own products, AI-generated answers, and ad revenue over the ecosystem of independent publishers and creators that once made search worth using. It is a pointed critique, and one that is resonating with developers and journalists alike who feel the search giant has quietly pulled up the ladder behind it.
Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
