Content warning: this story discusses suicide, self-harm, sexual abuse, eating disorders and other disturbing topics.
In October of last year, a Google-backed startup called Character.AI was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/characterai-lawsuit-teen-suicide.html">hit by a lawsuit</a> making an eyebrow-raising claim: that one of its chatbots had driven a 14-year-old high school student to suicide.
As Futurism's reporting found afterward, the behavior of Character.AI's chatbots can indeed be deeply alarming — and clearly inappropriate for underage users — in ways that both corroborate and augment the suit's concerns. Among others, we found chatbots on the service designed to roleplay scenarios of <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/suicide-chatbots-character-ai">suicidal ideation</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-teens-self-harm">self-harm</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-school-shooters-victims">school shootings</a>, <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-pedophile-chatbots">child sexual abuse</a>, as well as <a class="underline hover:text-futurism hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-eating-disorder-chatbots">encourage eating disorders</a>. (The company has responded to our reporting piecemeal, by taking down individual bots we flagged, but it's still trivially easy to find nauseating content on its platform.)
Now, Character.AI — which received a $<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/noam-shazeer-google-ai-deal-d3605697">2.7 billion cash injection</a> from tech giant Google last year — has responded to the suit, brought by the boy's mother, in a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.433581/gov.uscourts.flmd.433581.59.0.pdf">motion to dismiss</a>. Its defense? Basically, that the First Amendment protects it against liability for "allegedly harmful speech, including speech allegedly resulting in suicide."
In <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/24/in-motion-to-dismiss-chatbot-platform-character-ai-claims-it-is-protected-by-the-first-amendment/">TechCrunch's analysis</a>, the motion to dismiss may not be successful, but it likely provides a glimpse of Character.AI's planned defense (it's now facing an <a href="https://futurism.com/google-character-ai-children-lawsuit">additional suit</a>, brought by more parents who say their children were harmed by interactions with the site's bots.)
Essentially, Character.AI's legal team is saying that holding it accountable for the actions of its chatbots would restrict its users' right to free speech — a claim that it connects to prior attempts to crack down on other controversial media like violent video games and music.
"Like earlier dismissed suits about music, movies, television, and video games," reads the motion, the case "squarely alleges that a user was harmed by speech and seeks sweeping relief that would restrict the public’s right to receive protected speech."
Of course, there are key differences that the court will have to contend with. The output of Character.AI's bots isn't a finite work created by human artists, like Grand Theft Auto or an album by Judas Priest, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070825065157/http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/sep/25/video-game-maker-blamed-04-killing/">both of which</a> have <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070825065157/http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/sep/25/video-game-maker-blamed-04-killing/">been targets</a> of legal action in the past. Instead, it's an AI system that users engage to produce a limitless variety of conversations.
A Grand Theft Auto game might contain reprehensible material, in other words, but it was created by human artists and developers to express an artistic vision; a service like Character.AI is a statistical model that can output more or anything based on its training data, far outside the control of its human creators.
In a bigger sense, the motion illustrates a tension for AI outfits like Character.AI: unless the AI industry can find a way to reliably control its tech — a quest that's <a href="https://futurism.com/openai-asks-permission-important">so far eluded</a> even its most powerful players — some of the interactions users have with its products are going to be abhorrent, either by the users' design or when the chatbots <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/technology/bing-chatbot-microsoft-chatgpt.html">inevitably go off the rails</a>.
After all, Character.AI has made changes in response to the lawsuits and our reporting, by pulling down offensive chatbots and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterAI/comments/1hiqa0t/announcement_additional_changes_for_under18_users/">tweaking its tech</a> in an effort to serve less objectionable material to underage users.
So while it's actively taking steps to get its sometimes-unconscionable AI under control, it's also saying that any legal attempts to curtail its tech fall afoul of the First Amendment.
It's worth asking where the line actually falls. A pedophile convicted of sex crimes against children can't use the excuse that they were simply exercising their right to free speech; Character.AI is actively hosting chatbots designed to prey on users who say they're underage. At some point, the law presumably has to step in.
Add it all up, and the company is walking a delicate line: actively catering to underage users — and publicly expressing concern for their wellbeing — while vociferously fighting any legal attempt to regulate its AI's behavior toward them.
"C.AI cares deeply about the wellbeing of its users and extends its sincerest sympathies to Plaintiff for the tragic death of her son," reads the motion. "But the relief Plaintiff seeks would impose liability for expressive content and violate the rights of millions of C.AI users to engage in and receive protected speech."
More on Character.AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/character-ai-hiring-trust-safety">Embattled Character.AI Hiring Trust and Safety Staff</a>

Suit Up

That's a defense, all right.

A Mother Says an AI Startup's Chatbot Drove Her Son to Suicide. Its Response: the First Amendment Protects "Speech Allegedly Resulting in Suicide"

Never content to rest on their hoarded wealth, institutional power, and oligarchic control over our government, a growing number of moneyed right-wingers and their influential allies are <a href="https://www.citationneeded.news/elon-musk-and-the-rights-war-on-wikipedia/">now targeting</a> the acclaimed online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Take a recent trove of documents, <a href="https://forward.com/news/686797/heritage-foundation-wikipedia-antisemitism/">obtained by the </a><a href="https://forward.com/news/686797/heritage-foundation-wikipedia-antisemitism/">Forward</a>, that reveal plans by right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation to use cyber espionage tactics to "identify and target Wikipedia editors abusing their position by analyzing text patterns, usernames, and technical data."
The influential organization behind Trump's infamous Project 2025 joins a host of groups like the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/08/anti-defamation-league-surveillance">Anti-Defamation League</a>, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/181534/trump-republican-donors-group-doxxing-pro-palestine-students">Accuracy in Media</a>, and the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/canary-mission-israel-covert-operations/">Canary Mission</a> in the practice of "<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/15/business/palestinian-americans-activists-doxxing/index.html">doxxing</a>" individuals they label antisemitic. As <a href="https://jewishcurrents.org/civil-rights-law-pro-palestine-speech-israel-trump">Jewish Currents reports</a>, that charge has been increasingly <a href="https://time.com/6977457/weaponizing-antisemitism/">weaponized</a> by right-wing groups in recent months to silence <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/antisemitism-executive-order-trump-chilling-effect">Jewish groups</a>, <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ihra-definition-antisemitism/">peace activists</a>, <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-802446">lawyers</a>, and <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/186577/ta-nehisi-coates-media-antisemitism">journalists</a> who don't support their political or ideological goals. The Forward — an award-winning Jewish publication — is also suspicious the charge is being deployed overbroadly by the Heritage Foundation to deter fair coverage on Wikipedia of topics including Israel's actions in the Middle East.
In order to wage this <a href="https://forward.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Heritage-Wikipedia-Oversight-Project-Forward.pdf">doxxing campaign</a> against Wikipedia's editors, the Forward reports, the <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237327730">extremely well-funded</a> think tank is organizing to capture IP addresses, browser fingerprints, device data, geolocations, ISP information, and network details from planted links that log unsecured data. Employees of the Heritage Foundation also shared plans, according to the Forward's reporting, to utilize social engineering through "curated sock puppet accounts to reveal patterns and provoke reactions [and] information disclosure," while cataloging sensitive info through facial recognition software and exploiting "breached datasets for reused names, emails, and online identities."
Also joining the fray is Elon Musk, who is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-wikipedia-nazi-salute-inauguration-b2684183.html">reportedly furious</a> at the inclusion of his <a href="https://futurism.com/elon-musk-before-inauguration-salute">Nazi salute</a> on his Wikipedia entry, <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881752947379642825">posting</a> "defund Wikipedia until balance is restored!" (in reality, the bulk of Wikipedia's funding comes from <a href="https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/FAQ">small donations from individuals</a>; the irony of a man under fire for a Nazi salute and a <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/jewish-leaders-elon-musk-holocaust-jokes">barrage of Holocaust jokes</a> claiming to take a stand against antisemitism is also pretty striking.)
Not to be left out, Musk was joined in his broadsides against Wikipedia by fellow tech guys <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/molly.wiki/post/3lgbqbi3wpk2d">including</a> billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya and Sequoia Capital general partner Shaun Maguire.
Why are these billionaires all so mad? One compelling explanation is that Wikipedia is starting to feel like one of the last free information spaces available online, as Big Tech shoves <a href="https://futurism.com/google-image-corn-ai-slop">AI slop</a> down our throats and social media is increasingly overrun with <a href="https://futurism.com/disgusted-facebook-ai-users">artificial users</a>, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/brands-horrified-twitter-ads-nazi-posts">neo-Nazis</a>, and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/startup-spams-reddit-slop">AI marketing startups</a>.
The volunteers who famously donate their <a href="https://www.brusselstimes.com/1080893/how-wikipedia-stops-fake-news">time and effort</a> to edit the world's largest trove of freely accessible information have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/14/business/wikipedia-meta-x-fact-check-nightcap/index.html">gladly resisted</a> these trends, which most of the old web has fallen prey to.
Luckily, and barring any acts of God — or executive orders — Wikipedia's webmaster and cofounder Jimmy Wales wants to keep it that way.
"I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale," Wales posted nonchalantly on <a href="https://x.com/jimmy_wales/status/1881782024476012597">X-formerly-Twitter</a>.
"I hope his campaign to defund us results in lots of donations from people who care about the truth," he added. "If Elon wanted to help, he'd be encouraging kind and thoughtful intellectual people he agrees with to engage."
More on Wikipedia: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/wikipedia-declares-war-ai-slop">Wikipedia Declares War on AI Slop</a>

Wiki Woes

Twitter and Facebook apparently weren't enough.

Leaked Documents Show Plot to Dox Anonymous Wikipedia Editors Using Hacking and Facial Recognition

<h2>Bait and Switch</h2>
The fine print of a sweeping executive order seemingly grants Elon Musk — the wealthiest and arguably most powerful unelected figure in the world — and his associates at the somehow-still-real Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to all unclassified data held by US government agencies, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/doge-elon-musk/">according to Wired</a>.
Since the evening of his inauguration, president Donald Trump has been busy signing a still-growing wave of sweeping <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-admin-accused-ai-executive-orders">executive actions</a>. Among them was <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/establishing-and-implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency/">the establishment of the unfortunately-named DOGE</a>, which per the order will be tasked with "modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity."
When DOGE was announced late last year, it was widely believed that the "department" would operate as a federal advisory committee, a type of consultative group subject to fairly strict transparency rules.
But as flagged by Wired, under the executive order, the Trump Administration didn't create a new federal advisory committee. It instead repurposed the United States Digital Service (USDS), an existing government organization with sweeping access to vast caches of data across government agencies, including the sensitive information of US citizens, as the "United States DOGE Service" — a move that seemingly opens the door for Musk and his operatives to access a massive amount of data without much transparency oversight.
"It's quite a clever way of integrating DOGE into the federal government that I think will work," George Washington University law professor Richard Pierce told Wired, "in the sense of giving it a platform for surveillance and recommendations."
<h2>Inside Out</h2>
A former USDS employee told Wired that the rebranding of the organization was an "A+ bureaucratic jiu-jitsu move" — and warned of dystopian, surveillance-driven outcomes that access to USDS-held data could foster.
"Is this technical talent going to be pointed toward using data from the federal government to track down opponents?" they told Wired. "To track down particular populations of interest to this administration for the purposes of either targeting them or singling them out or whatever it might end up being?" (That in mind: <a href="https://www.nextgov.com/people/2025/01/us-digital-service-employees-are-being-re-interviewed-under-doge-transition/402423/">reporting from NextGov this week revealed that</a> USDS workers are already being re-interviewed for their jobs, in part to gauge their perceived loyalty to the new president.)
As Wired notes, DOGE could still face some headaches regarding the complexities of inter-agency information sharing and the accessing of certain sensitive data, particularly in cases where department members lack certain clearances. Even so, according to experts, our federal government is wading into muddy, unknown waters.
"It could be a bipartisan effort to make government technology work better. It could be an oligarch extracting resources from the government," University of Michigan public policy Don Moynihan told Wired. "We just really don't know."
More on DOGE: <a href="https://futurism.com/doge-website-ai-american-flag">DOGE.gov Website Launches With Mangled, AI-Generated American Flag</a>

Insider Job

Money buys you this.

Trump Gives Elon Musk Access to All Unclassified Data in the US Government

President Donald Trump's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-ai-infrastructure-deal">behemoth $500 billion AI infrastructure project</a>, dubbed Stargate, may be doomed from the start.
Trump made the sweeping announcement earlier this week, revealing that the ChatGPT maker, investment company SoftBank, tech giant Oracle, and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-ai-stargate-uae-human-rights">Abu Dhabi state-run AI fund MGX</a> would initially spend a total of $100 billion on the project, with the eventual goal of reaching half a trillion dollars in just a few years.
But in reality, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4541c07b-f5d8-40bd-b83c-12c0fd662bd9">according to the Financial Times' sources</a>, Stargate may be facing insurmountable financial challenges as it attempts to get off the ground.
"They haven’t figured out the structure, they haven’t figured out the financing, they don’t have the money committed," an unnamed source told the newspaper.
Did Trump put the cart before the horse by making a splashy announcement before the pieces were in place? Critics of the project think it's entirely possible.
The FT's reporting is especially interesting considering this is exactly what multi-hyphenate Elon Musk, a personal enemy of Altman's, <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-blasts-donald-trump-ai-infrastructure-deal">accused OpenAI of earlier this week</a>.
"They don’t actually have the money," the mercurial CEO  <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881923570458304780">tweeted</a> just hours after the project was announced.
"SoftBank has well under $10B secured," Musk wrote in a <a class="underline hover:text-the-byte hover:no-underline transition-all duration-200 ease-in-out" href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881944244480565497">followup</a> an hour later. "I have that on good authority."
It's difficult to gauge the legitimacy of either Musk's or the FT's claims. Could Stargate actually collapse under its own weight, stumbling at the starting line without the necessary funds to build out data centers in the United States?
It's true that SoftBank has had a troubled history with past investments, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/11/softbank-full-year-2022-earnings-vision-fund-posts-32-billion-loss.html">posting a record $32 billion loss</a> for its Vision Fund in 2023. Many companies the lender has backed have shuttered or filed for bankruptcy, with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/softbanks-wework-once-most-valuable-us-startup-succumbs-bankruptcy-2023-11-07/">WeWork being a particularly notable example</a>.
Musk certainly has plenty to gain from voicing his doubts, having founded his own AI company that was passed over by the Stargate program. He's has <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-altman-elon-musk-corruption">had an extremely strained relationship</a> with Altman for years.
OpenAI and SoftBank are each expected to commit $19 billion to fund Stargate, as <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-softbank-each-commit-19-billion-to-stargate-data-center-venture">The Information reported</a> on Wednesday. Effectively, each company will hold a 40 percent interest in the project.
The companies behind Stargate claim that work has already begun. Construction began for an Oracle-funded data center in Abilene, Texas, in June 2023, well over a year before Stargate was announced.
But other than that, details about Stargate are notably thin.
"There’s a real intent to do this, but the details haven’t been fleshed out," an unnamed source told the FT. "People want to do splashy things in the first week of Trump being in office."
More on Stargate: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-ai-stargate-uae-human-rights">Trump's $500 Billion AI Deal Includes Funding by UAE Royal Family Linked to Astonishing Number of Scandals, Including Human Torture</a>

Stargate Gate

"The intent is not to become a data center provider for the world, it’s for OpenAI."

There's Apparently a Huge Financial Problem With Trump's Massive AI Project

<h2>Rent Seeking</h2>
As Trump hits the asphalt with a <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-admin-accused-ai-executive-orders">bevy of executive orders</a>, it's becoming clearer what he and his tech bro buddies imagine for the future of US labor: AI doing jobs instead of people, which could be very bad for US workers.
News of Trump's <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-blasts-donald-trump-ai-infrastructure-deal">$500 billion AI infrastructure project</a> Stargate has spawned a swarm of questions from friends and critics alike. His <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-behavior-certain-hatreds-people">chief frenemy</a> <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-elon-musk-behavior-certain-hatreds-people">Elon Musk</a>, for example, is questioning <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/22/tech/elon-musk-trump-stargate-openai/index.htmlhttps://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/22/tech/elon-musk-trump-stargate-openai/index.html">where the money will come from</a>, while New Scientist tech analyst Jeremy Hsu <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2465408-trump-backed-stargate-project-could-strain-the-us-energy-grid/">has questions</a> about the venture's energy consumption.
But the question that's probably most important for the American people is: how will this impact employment?
The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-trump-stargate-build-agi-us-2025-1">official line</a> is that the unprecedented AI program will create "hundreds of thousands of American jobs," as declared by Trump well before the project is even funded.
While carving out the Central Park-sized data center may create some <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stargate-first-data-center-size-202854022.html">temporary construction jobs</a>, though, the entire venture is a <a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/03/ai-artificial-intelligence-art-chatgpt-jobs-capitalism">bet on the opposite</a> — that AI will become so ubiquitous that it will take over economically meaningful amounts of work from humans, especially knowledge workers.
As senior writer Kelsey Piper <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/396548/openai-trump-artificial-intelligence-elon-musk-sam-altman-chinahttps://www.vox.com/future-perfect/396548/openai-trump-artificial-intelligence-elon-musk-sam-altman-china">pines in Vox</a>, the "only plausible way for investors to get their money back on this project is if, as the company has been betting, OpenAI will soon develop AI systems that can do most work humans can do on a computer."
"[That] we will replace all office work with AI," quips Piper, "which is fairly widely understood to be OpenAI’s business model — is an absurd plan to spin as a jobs program."
<h2>Gamblin' Man</h2>
At the cost of $500 billion, the task of recouping Stargate's investment via profit will demand nothing short of flooding our productive sectors with AI.
Though a massive amount of digital ink has been spilled imagining the theoretical threats AI poses to the job market, it's important to remember that this gamble likely won't pay off.
AI is <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-tinkerbell">nowhere near ready</a> to assume the responsibility of office workers whose labor more or less moves the largest economy in the world. Of the total US work force, office workers made up 12.2 percent — the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2024/18-5-million-office-and-administrative-support-jobs-in-may-2023-12-2-percent-of-total-employment.htm">largest occupational group</a> as of May, 2023.
Imagine over 18 million people out of the job in a span of a few years, which is basically Stargate's bet. If the program recoups its costs, and that's a big if, the US will still face a crisis in retraining and rehiring millions of workers into new sectors — while AI and robots chew into them as well, of course.
That's why some urge caution. Dartmouth academic Nathan Zorzi believes that one key to preserving worker's rights is an <a href="https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2022/06/study-slowing-down-automation-may-have-economic-benefits">automation tax</a>, in order to assist those displaced by AI.
"The proceeds of the tax could be used to finance retraining," says Zorzi, "or compensate displaced workers through federal programs similar to the Reemployment Trade Adjustment Assistance."
Though that isn't likely under the new regime, we can dream of a world where <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/media-technology/ai-taking-over-jobs">common sense policy</a> like Zorzi's prevails; or maybe we could just <a href="https://techwontsave.us/episode/259_how_to_see_tech_like_a_luddite_w_jathan_sadowski">burn the whole thing down</a>.
More on AI and labor: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/people-hate-ai-customer-service">Ordinary People Are Absolutely Repulsed by AI-Powered Customer Service</a>

Hard Work

It's a $500 billion bet.

A Key Trump Goal Emerges: Replacing Human Jobs With AI

UnitedHealthcare has just promoted one of its C-Suiters to CEO — and the dark humor is already pouring in.
Six weeks after <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/replies-insurance-ceo-social-media-chilling">Brian Thompson was gunned down</a> in the streets of Manhattan, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/tim-noel-named-next-ceo-of-unitedhealthcare-brian-thompson-successor/">UHC announced that it was naming Tim Noel</a>, who formerly ran the insurance company's Medicare and retirement department, to the chief executive role. Almost as soon as that news dropped, social media lit up with gallows humor about the position's deadly history.
"Imagine getting that promotion?" <a href="https://x.com/DavidSimon91819/status/1882576875941409270">wrote</a> one X-formerly-Twitter user wrote. "I'm thinking Tim Noel may just be the bravest CEO in all of America."
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Tim Noel: <a href="https://t.co/nbqfjxWz6u">https://t.co/nbqfjxWz6u</a> <a href="https://t.co/mC0BCVkt8i">pic.twitter.com/mC0BCVkt8i</a>
&mdash; The Pint (@ReadThePint) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReadThePint/status/1882541798901547175?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Others were far more pointed in their welcomes to the longtime UHC executive.
"I don't think it's THAT interesting that Tim Noel, new CEO for UnitedHealth, lives in Minneapolis," a Bluesky user <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/criminalerin.bsky.social/post/3lgixtkrqos2j">quipped</a>. "Minneapolis is where the UnitedHealth headquarters are located, so it just makes sense that he, and other CEOs, would live there, in Minneapolis, which as everyone on earth knows, is in Minnesota!"
On the <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EatTheRich/comments/1i8hqba/new_unitedhealthcare_ceo_tim_noel_fyi/">Eat the Rich subreddit</a>, meanwhile, the vibe was nothing short of feral.
"Looks scrawny," <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EatTheRich/comments/1i8hqba/comment/m8txuim/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">wrote</a> a user whose display image features <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-versions-luigi-mangione">suspected Thompson assassin Luigi Mangione</a> dressed like a saint. "Needs fattening up like the last one. Then it’ll be good eating!"
Obviously, nobody is actually calling for any harm to Noel, who has worked at UHC since 2007. As with Thompson's murder, these jokes instead <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/reactions-health-insurance-ceo">highlight the rampant frustration</a> Americans have with the gatekeepers of their healthcare — a bitter resentment that <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/americans-unitedhealthcare-tried-kill-first">burst to the forefront of the national conversation </a>after Thompson's assassination last month.
That anger was on full display in other posts and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/EatTheRich/comments/1i8hqba/comment/m8ued4f/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=web3x&amp;utm_name=web3xcss&amp;utm_term=1&amp;utm_content=share_button">comments accusing Noel</a> of being a "<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/caroleeena.bsky.social/post/3lgitzqyhrk2s">serial killer</a>." Given that he likely ran UHC's Medicare department during at least part of the period when the company nearly <a href="https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/medicare-advantage-AI-denials-cvs-humana-unitedhealthcare-senate-report/730383/">tripled its post-acute services denial rate</a> from 8.7 to 22.7 percent for Medicare patients, they might not be that far off the money, at least technically speaking.
More on Mangione: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/chinese-app-rednote-luigi-mangione">Americans Flood Chinese App RedNote, Discover Its Users Are Obsessed With Luigi Mangione</a>

Gallows Posting

Americans' anger is boiling over.

UnitedHealthcare's New CEO Announcement Draws a Frenzy of Dark Humor

Trump is ringing in his second term with a <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-admin-accused-ai-executive-orders">barrage of executive orders</a> — and many are laying the groundwork for a massive genetic surveillance campaign targeting migrants.
That's <a href="https://www.forever-wars.com/mass-deportations-war-on-terror-dna/?ref=forever-wars-newsletter">according to analysis</a> by award-winning National Security journalist Spencer Ackerman, who writes that "along with the attorney general, the secretary of homeland security will 'fulfill the requirements of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/1606">DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005</a>,' according to the '<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/securing-our-borders/">Securing Our Borders</a>' executive order," referencing one of the numerous presidential actions targeting migrants signed by Trump on his first day back.
"In other words," Ackerman continues, "[the] DHS and the Justice Department will create and manage a migrant DNA database."
Many crucial questions remain: how that database will look, who will have access to it, what data will be collected, and from whom. After all, many actual American citizens lack documentation of their legal status, like the poor and homeless — will their DNA be swept up in wanton collection efforts that trample the privacy rights of citizens and non-citizens alike?
With tech moguls lining up to pitch Trump on <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-ai-border">dystopian border tech</a>, we can be sure the surveillance effort <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/30/trump-deportation-plan-economic-disaster">won't come cheap</a> for American taxpayers.
It'll also almost certainly come with new cruelty. In addition to inevitable family separations, a rise in lost children, heightened processing time due to missed court hearings, documented and undocumented residents alike are going to be contending with aggressive new efforts at domestic surveillance.
"[The] DHS is empowered to use 'any available technologies and procedures' to adjudicate migrants' 'claimed familiar relationships' with people in the United States," Ackerman's analysis warns. "So this is designed to be not only vastly intrusive <a href="https://www.texasobserver.org/border-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-tech/">beyond the border</a>, but a windfall opportunity for, say, artificial intelligence and biometrics firms."
Ackerman — who was among the <a href="https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/guardian-us">Guardian team</a> to win the 2014 Pulitzer for public service journalism for reporting on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order">NSA spying debacle</a> — has noticed the rhetoric used in Trump's orders mirrors vague national security directives from the days of the War on Terror.
For example, the "<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion/">Protecting the American People Against Invasion</a>" order claims that "many of these aliens unlawfully within the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans."
"Others are engaged in hostile activities," the mandate continues, "including espionage, economic espionage, and preparations for terror-related activities."
To Ackerman, that last bit is striking, because in this context, "terror-related activities" have not been defined. Vaguely worded presidential decrees like this are crucial in that they allow agencies like the NSA or the DHS to operate with impunity — building the American surveillance state between the ink.
Though their power is increasing under Trump, these surveillance mechanisms are nothing new. Ackerman <a href="https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/_file/clinics/NSEERS_report.pdf?ref=forever-wars.com">notes that the measure</a> to harvest migrant DNA seems "reminiscent of the biometrics database created under the Bush administration for Muslim travelers known as NSEERS," a similarly troubling moment in American history which some of Trump's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/protecting-the-united-states-from-foreign-terrorists-and-othernational-security-and-public-safety-threats/?ref=forever-wars.com">executive orders</a> are predicated on.
More recently, Biden's approach to the immigration crisis was also a decidedly invasive one, thanks in part to the Customs and Border Patrol's CBP One app which rolled out in October of 2020. In 2023, that app got a <a href="https://www.biometricupdate.com/202408/cbp-one-app-found-to-have-issues-vetting-users-security-vulnerabilities">controversial update</a>: a Visa-lottery system for hopeful migrants to schedule meetings for processing into the United States.
That app came with a host of <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2025/01/16/2024-update-dhss-use-face-recognition-face-capture-technologies">privacy concerns</a>, not least of which was the harvesting of applicant <a href="https://fedscoop.com/cbp-one-app-biometrics-immigrants-rights/">biometric and geolocation data</a> for case processing.
Rather than delete that data after an individual has been processed, as the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/360952/summer-travel-airport-facial-recognition-scan">TSA</a> claims it does, the <a href="https://fedscoop.com/cbp-one-app-biometrics-immigrants-rights/">DHS collects it</a> into two federal databases — the <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/publication/automated-targeting-system-ats-update" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dhs.gov/publication/automated-targeting-system-ats-update&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1737731109099000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2YNU-yYiGKq-Z17cddgDEE">Traveler Verification System</a> and <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/publication/automated-targeting-system-ats-update" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.dhs.gov/publication/automated-targeting-system-ats-update&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1737731109099000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2YNU-yYiGKq-Z17cddgDEE">Automated Targeting System</a>. CBP One has since been <a href="https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-removes-scheduling-functionality-cbp-one-app">shut down by Trump</a>, canceling thousands of applicant's appointments and stranding them at the border, but the personal data its collected is likely still being held by the federal government.
It's likewise been reported that, as of 2020, the DHS has already captured data from over 1.5 million immigrants crossing the border in its <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dna-migrants-immigration-biden-trump-dhs-1903131">Combined DNA Index System</a>. That DNA harvesting program is laundered as a law enforcement index — though the collection includes hundreds of thousands of migrants who have only ever been administratively detained, and have <a href="https://fedscoop.com/cbp-one-app-biometrics-immigrants-rights/">never been charged with a crime</a>.
Many immigrants report not being informed of the DNA collection, believing DNA swabs to be medical procedures, despite the DHS' internal guidelines mandating disclosure.
While Trump <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/dna-tests-southern-border-immigration-new-bill-2013836https://www.newsweek.com/dna-tests-southern-border-immigration-new-bill-2013836">isn't the only electected official </a>pushing to harvest the DNA of every incoming immigrant, his influence will certainly have the most impact as his nominees shape their agencies to his <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/01/18/us-news/robots-to-ai-the-technology-behind-trumps-plan-to-seal-the-southern-border/">dystopian image</a>.
More on mass surveillance: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/billionaire-constant-ai-surveillance">Billionaire Drools That "Citizens Will Be on Their Best Behavior" Under Constant AI Surveillance</a>

Data Hazard

United States of surveillance.

Trump Admin Announces Plans to Build Database of Migrant DNA

<h2>Wheels Up</h2>
The wins keep coming after Manhattan initiated its <a href="https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/01/05/congestion-pricing-has-begun-here-is-the-only-explainer-you-need">congestion toll</a> on cars early this month. Now, the latest data is showing a massive decrease in crash related injuries.
New data from the first 12 days of congestion pricing shows that total injuries below 60th street — the zone where congestion pricing takes effect, charging drivers up to $9 to enter — dropped 51 percent compared to the same period in 2024. Total crashes, meanwhile, dropped 55 percent.
The analysis comes courtesy of <a href="https://youtu.be/W1J5nuA1QNs">outspoken transit advocate</a> Gersh Kuntzman and his team at Streetsblog NYC. He cautions that it's too early to take a victory lap, given that the figures do not account for variations in weather between 2024 and 2025, but they are promising. This is the latest indicator that the congestion pricing is working as intended — kids are <a href="https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/01/17/congestion-pricing-gets-kids-to-school-on-time-data-shows">getting to school faster</a>, the city is <a href="https://autos.yahoo.com/yorks-congestion-pricing-already-given-165000924.html">quieter</a>, bridges and tunnels are seeing <a href="https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/01/13/its-working-initial-data-show-congestion-pricing-has-stemmed-the-tide-of-years-of-increasing-traffic">significantly less traffic</a>, and the air is becoming a <a href="https://grist.org/article/the-climate-benefits-of-nycs-hard-won-congestion-pricing-plan/">bit cleaner</a>. And these are just the knock-on effects of traffic reduction.
The real winners are New York City's <a href="https://gothamist.com/news/as-congestion-pricing-launches-new-yorkers-say-theyre-eager-for-better-safer-subways">public transit riders</a>, whom the congestion toll is meant to directly benefit via station improvements, critical infrastructure repairs, extended bus routes, and a resumption of the much-needed <a href="https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/infrastructure/press-release/55250614/tectonic-engineering-consultants-geologists-land-surveyors-dpc-mta-selects-tectonic-engineering-to-lead-construction-management-services-for-second-avenue-subway-phase-2-project">2nd avenue subway extension project</a>, which had been <a href="https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/a-brief-history-of-the-long-awaited-second-avenue-subway">stalled for years</a>.
In other words, if the good news keeps coming, the initiative could become a compelling proof-of-concept for other areas of New York and more crowded cities around the country.
<h2>Cutting Edge</h2>
That's in a perfect world, of course. While adding friction for cars is looking like a major win for New York so far, it comes at a time when common-sense transit projects across the country are flailing. Some are <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-21/high-speed-rail">way overbudget</a>, outsourced to <a href="https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/investigates-jacksonville-transportation-authoritys-autonomous-shuttle-challenges/OCAWZFX5VBH33EG7XMSH2KXLM4/">pie-in-the-sky tech startups</a>, or falling to a <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/septa-funding-public-transit-josh-shapiro-pennsylvania-20241028.html">busted legislative process</a>.
And that's even if a city <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2024/05/01/detroit-regional-transit-nfl-draft-qline-ddot-smart-bus/73505830007/">ponies up the will</a> to make affordable, car-free transit a priority at all.
Going forward, there's very little evidence that investments in crucial infrastructure will be coming from the federal government — Trump has already cut Biden's <a href="https://www.governing.com/politics/what-trumps-infrastructure-announcements-mean-for-states">Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act</a> in favor of his <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-blasts-donald-trump-ai-infrastructure-deal">Stargate gamble</a> — making state and local policy like the Big Apple's congestion pricing all the more crucial.
While other cities spend taxpayer money to <a href="https://outliermedia.org/downtown-detroit-parking-lot-owners-dda-public-funding/">beautify parking lots</a>, New City is leading by example and showing the rest of the country what people-first transit policy can do for their communities. In a country dominated by cars, this rare win for public transit is worth <a href="https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/boston-congestion-pricing-traffic/3608553/">imitating</a>.
More on transit: <a href="https://futurism.com/leftists-want-trump-rail-system">Leftists Plead With Trump Not to Build High Speed Rail System Connecting America's Major Cities</a>

City Goals

Congestion pricing gets results.

Manhattan Shows Huge Reduction in Car Crashes After Instituting Congestion Pricing

During his announcement in late 2022 that he would be once again running for president of the United States, now-reelected president Donald Trump issued an outrageous threat: that he'd seek to punish drug dealers with the death penalty.
"We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts," Trump <a href="https://www.c-span.org/clip/campaign-2024/former-president-trump-calls-for-death-penalty-for-drug-dealers/5041276">told an audience</a> during his speech at his Mar-a-Lago estate at the time. "Because it's the only way."
Just over two years later, Trump appears to have completely reversed that position by <a href="https://futurism.com/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-plant">unconditionally pardoning Ross "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ulbricht</a> this week. Ulbricht ran Silk Road, the now infamous site that made history as the first dark web marketplace, offering a cornucopia of banned drugs in exchange for the then-nascent cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
Ulbricht was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-manhattan-federal-court-life-prison">sentenced to life in federal person in 2015</a> after he was busted by the FBI — and after Silk Road had facilitated the sale of over $200 million in illegal drugs and other illicit goods.
"Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people," Preet Bharara, then US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-life-federal-prison-creating">statement</a> at the time.
During his 2015 sentencing, district judge Katherine Forrest <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32941060">described Ulbricht</a> as "no better a person than any other drug dealer."
Forrest had a point. Ulbricht didn't just sell drugs; he disrupted the entire industry. He wasn't your neighborhood dealer; he was the Uber of plugs, singlehandedly creating an entire new model that directly connected drug buyers with drug sellers — and taking a handsome cut in the process. In terms of long term impact, Ubricht probably had more of an impact on the global drug trade than Pablo Escobar.
It's not that drug crimes actually deserve draconian punishments, but Trump's pardon serves as a painstakingly obvious attempt to curry favor with the crypto industry — <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-flip-flopped-crypto">which he also once reviled</a>, before gaining its financial support — as well as contradicting his earlier promise to literally punish drug dealers with death.
The pardon highlights Trump's fragile moral compass and well-documented willingness to abandon his stance on a given matter when <a href="https://futurism.com/crypto-execs-trump-meme-coin">presented with an opportunity to cash in</a>.
Ulbricht's life sentence has long been the subject of libertarian outrage, as <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/24/drug-marketplace-founder-ross-ulbricht-makes-first-remarks-on-trump-pardon">Al Jazeera reports</a>, with the crypto community arguing he was unfairly prosecuted as an example to others.
"I was doing life without parole, and I was locked up for more than 11 years but he let me out," he said in a <a href="https://x.com/RealRossU/status/1882609887878029519">video message</a> posted on X-formerly-Twitter. "I’m a free man now. So let it be known that Donald Trump is a man of his word."
Trump's decision to pardon him, however, had plenty of critics.
"Pardoning drug trafficking kingpins is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to his crimes," Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/SenCortezMasto/status/1882232916069265564">tweet</a>. "Donald Trump should have to explain to them how any of this makes America safer. It's an outrage."
Meanwhile, Trump signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/restoring-the-death-penalty-and-protecting-public-safety/">executive order</a> earlier this week, looking to reinstate the death penalty. Whether the Supreme Court will green-light the decision <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/trump-death-penalty-supreme-court-precedents-rcna188796">remains to be seen</a>.
During a campaign speech in September, Trump reiterated his desire to expand the death penalty to those who were convicted of drug trafficking.
"These are terrible, terrible, horrible people who are responsible for death, carnage and crime all over the country,"  he <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-wants-expand-federal-death-penalty-setting-legal-challenges-seco-rcna178979">said at the time</a>. "We’re going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts."
Yet somehow Ulbricht, who created an entire marketplace and new business model for the sale of drugs, has been set free.
More on Silk Road: <a href="https://futurism.com/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-plant">Silk Road Mastermind Ross Ulbricht Seen Leaving Prison Holding a Small Plant</a>

Crypto Prince's Bride

The hypocrisy is astounding.

Trump, Who Called for Death Penalty for Drug Dealers, Pardons Most Influential Drug Dealer in Human History

If you weren't convinced we're spiraling toward an actual cyberpunk future, a new bill seeking to let AI prescribe controlled drugs just might.
The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/238/all-info">proposed law</a> was introduced in the House of Representatives by Arizona's David Schweikert this month, where it was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce for review. Its purpose: to "amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to clarify that artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies can qualify as a practitioner eligible to prescribe drugs."
In theory, it sounds good. Engaging with the American healthcare system often feels like hitting yourself with a slow-motion brick, so the prospect of a perfect AI-powered medical practitioner that could empathically advise on symptoms, promote a healthy lifestyle, and dispense crucial medication sounds like a promising alternative.
But in practice, today's AI isn't anywhere near where it'd need to be to provide any of that, nevermind prescribing potentially dangerous drugs, and it's not clear that it'll ever get there.
Schweikert's bill doesn't quite declare a free-for-all — it caveats that these robodoctors could only be deployed "if authorized by the State involved and approved, cleared, or authorized by the Food and Drug Administration" — but downrange, AI medicine is clearly the goal. Our lawmakers evidently feel the time — <a href="https://www.citizen.org/article/artificial-intelligence-lobbyists-descend-on-washington-dc/#_ftn10https://www.citizen.org/article/artificial-intelligence-lobbyists-descend-on-washington-dc/#_ftn10">and money</a> — is right to remove the brakes and start letting AI into the health care system.
The Congressman's optimism aside, AI has already fumbled in healthcare repeatedly — like the time an OpenAI-powered medical record tool was caught <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/medical-ai-doctor-lies-recordshttps://futurism.com/neoscope/medical-ai-doctor-lies-records">fabricating patients' medical histories</a>, or when a Microsoft diagnostic tool <a href="https://futurism.com/neoscope/microsoft-ai-biogpt-inaccurate">confidently asserted that</a> the average hospital was haunted by numerous ghosts, or when an eating disorder helpline's AI Chatbot went off the rails and <a href="https://futurism.com/eating-disorder-chatbot-down">started encouraging users</a> to engage in disordered eating.
Researchers agree. "Existing evaluations are insufficient to understand clinical utility and risks because LLMs [large language models] might unexpectedly alter clinical decision making," reads a <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(24)00060-8/fulltext">critical study</a> from medical journal The Lancet, adding that "physicians might use LLMs’ assessments instead of using LLM responses to facilitate the communication of their own assessments."
There's also a social concern: today's AI is notoriously easy to exploit, meaning patients would inevitably try — and likely succeed — to trick AI doctors into prescribing addictive drugs without any accountability or oversight.
For what it's worth, Schweikert used to agree. In a blurb from July of last year, <a href="https://schweikert.house.gov/2024/07/02/ai-can-enhance-health-care-and-enable-cost-savings-lawmaker-says/">the Congressman is quoted</a> saying that the "next step is understanding how this type of technology fits 'into everything from building medical records, tracking you, helping you manage any pharmaceuticals you use for your heart issues, even down to producing datasets for your cardiologist to remotely look at your data.'"
He seems to have moved on from that cautious optimism, instead adopting the <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/05/ai-safety-advocates-tell-founders-to-slow-down/">move-fast-break-things</a> grindset that spits <a href="https://www.disconnect.blog/p/self-driving-cars-still-arent-the">untested self driving cars</a> onto our roads and <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/facebook-hosting-ai-hitler">AI Hitlerbots</a> into <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242789/meta-training-ai-models-facebook-instagram-photo-post-data">our feeds</a> — all <a href="https://www.dataprovenance.org/consent-in-crisis-paper">without our consent</a>, of course.
As the race to profitability in AI heats up, the <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-hype-cliff-costs">demand</a> for real-world use cases is growing. And as it does, tech companies are faced with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/27/openai-shift-to-for-profit-company-may-lead-it-to-cut-corners-says-whistleblower">immense pressure</a> to pump out its latest iteration, the next big boom.
But the consequences of corner-cutting in the medical world are steep, and big tech has shown time and again that it would rather <a href="https://www.medpagetoday.com/hospitalbasedmedicine/nursing/109798">rush its products to market</a> and shunt social responsibility onto us — filling our schools with ahistorical <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-anne-frank-blame-holocaust">Anne Frank bots</a> and AI buddies that <a href="https://futurism.com/google-character-ai-children-lawsuit">drive teens toward suicide and self-harm</a>.
Deregulation like the kind Schweikert proposes is exactly how big tech gets away with these offenses, such as training GenAI models on <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/private-medical-photos-ai">patient records</a> without consent. It does nothing to ensure that subject matter experts are involved at any step in the process, or that we thoroughly consider the common good before the corporate good.
And as our lawmakers hand these tech firms the keys to the kingdom, it's often the most vulnerable who are harmed first — recall the bombshell revelation that the biggest and flashiest AI models are <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/millions-of-workers-are-training-ai-models-for-pennies/">built on the backs of sweatshop workers</a>.
When it comes to AI outpatient care, you don't need to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/cory-doctorow-radicalized-novella-healthcare-ceo-killing">Cory Doctorow</a> to imagine a world of stratified healthcare — well, anymore than we <a href="https://jacobin.com/2024/03/us-medical-debt-history-hospitals">already have</a> — where the wealthiest among us have access to real, human doctors, and the rest of us are left with the unpredictable AI equivalent.
And in the era of Donald Trump's full embrace of AI, it's not hard to imagine another <a href="https://futurism.com/trump-admin-accused-ai-executive-orders">executive order</a> or <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-ai-openai-oracle-softbank-son-altman-ellison-be261f8a8ee07a0623d4170397348c41">federal partnership</a> making AI pharmacists a reality without that pesky oversight.
More on tech and drugs: <a href="https://futurism.com/the-byte/congress-mark-zuckerberg-letter-drugs">Congress Furious With Mark Zuckerberg for Making Money From Illegal Drug Ads</a>