Ben Goggin

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Nazis appeared to find a friendly reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference this year. Throughout the conference, racist extremists, some of whom had secured official CPAC badges, openly mingled with conference attendees and espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories. The presence of these individuals has been a persistent issue at CPAC. In previous years, conference organizers have ejected well-known Nazis and white supremacists such as Nick Fuentes. But thi…

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Jack Posobiec set off a wave of alarm after a video of his welcome speech at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference went viral. In the video, the right-wing activist and media personality said he wanted to end democracy and finish the mission of Jan. 6, installing a God-first government. “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely,” he said Thursday. “We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of i…

Canada’s watchdog for child exploitation issued a warning to parents Tuesday about Wizz, a Tinder-like app for teens, after it reappeared in Apple’s app store. Cybertip.ca, the tip line run by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, known as C3P, published a release telling parents that they should consider removing Wizz from their children’s phones. The organization, which is designated by Canada’s government to collect information about allegations of child sexual exploitation, said that it…

WASHINGTON — Tech CEOs are set to testify Wednesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about child safety issues on social media platforms and will offer rare policy commitments and regulatory endorsements, company representatives said. The hearing, which has attracted significant attention in the tech industry and Washington, will bring together the CEOs of X, TikTok, Discord, Meta and Snap to address concerns and questions about how platforms are considering their impact on children. Suc…

Wizz, a social media app growing popular among teens in the U.S., was removed from the Apple app store and Google Play this week. Apple removed the app Tuesday after the National Center on Sexual Exploitation contacted the company with concerns about the alleged use of Wizz in sextortion scams, according to a series of emails reviewed by NBC News. In an email from an Apple representative in response to the center, a representative wrote, “We take App Store violations seriously and appreciate you…

Ella Irwin, Elon Musk’s former head of trust and safety at X, has found a new post at Stability AI, the company that’s largely taken credit for the development of the text-to-image generation model called Stable Diffusion. Irwin joined the company in the second half of December as its senior vice president of integrity, NBC News has learned. Irwin led X’s trust and safety work during what appeared to be some of the company’s most tumultuous and controversial periods. At Stability AI, she will o…

The Iowa gunman who opened fire on Perry High School last week appeared to have an active account on the internet chat platform Discord where he previously discussed school shootings and described “gearing up” moments before Thursday’s attack, NBC News has learned. Dylan Butler, 17, killed sixth grader Ahmir Jolliff, 11, and injured four other students and three staff members, including principal Dan Marburger, before he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police said they also found an imp…

A feature meant to give Instagram users control over how Meta’s fact-checking process affects their feeds is sparking backlash and speculation after the company rolled it out quietly with little explanation. In an update Tuesday to a blog post originally published in July, Meta said Instagram had recently added new user controls to its “Fact-Checked Control program.” “The Fact-Checked Control allows you to choose how fact-checked content that we usually reduce, appears in your feed from accounts…

Meta said Wednesday that end-to-end encryption would now be the default setting for messages and calls on Messenger and Facebook, two of the most widely used apps on the internet. The technology, which uses cryptography to add a layer of security to digital communications, has been widely promoted and lauded by security experts, who have said that it can prevent intrusions like unlawful surveillance and certain types of hacking. But child safety groups and certain law enforcement organizations a…

In February 2014, Airbnb made a commitment: The company would require hosts to confirm that carbon monoxide detectors were installed in every listing by the end of the year. Months earlier, the short-term rental company faced one of its first reported deaths involving carbon monoxide: a Canadian citizen staying in an Airbnb in Taiwan. The company wanted to do more, it said in a now-deleted blog post. “By the end of 2014, we’ll require all Airbnb hosts to confirm that they have these devices ins…