Welcome back. After taking a week off for my family’s spring break, here’s my first News Round-Up, complete with a swanky logo, thanks to Chaos_Theory on 99 Designs.
Google questions family's X-rated Gemini account-ban story
Think you have parenting problems? A Reddit post from the UK went viral claiming that their whole family’s accounts were suspended after their teenage son did something unmentionable on video with Gemini Live. Like previous stories of Google account terminations, the impact was truly sad, such as an older sister at university who lost access to their dissertation draft just before the deadline.
But wait. Google couldn’t corroborate the story. Their internal data didn’t show anyone matching the alleged pattern of behavior and bans, and nobody had filed an appeal. Google’s systems aren’t designed to suspend parent accounts for child misbehavior, anyway. The original Reddit poster never responded or provided more details, suggesting the whole thing was fishy.
This is another example of why I promote due process and transparency. It would help companies, not just community members. It’s hard to give Google the benefit of the doubt when we can’t validate their claims about how their system works or what their internal data shows. If Google published records of their enforcement actions, journalists could have asked the Reddit poster to provide a case number and investigated the situation independently.
Meta has discussed ending funding to the Oversight Board
Casey Newton reported that Meta is continuing to scale back its commitment to its Oversight Board, and might end funding entirely after 2028.
The Oversight Board, sometimes referred to as “the Facebook Supreme Court,” was founded in 2019 to provide independent review of major policy decisions. Meta has given the Board at least $280 million over the years, but seems to have lost interest with the ascension of the current government regime in the US. Marc Zuckerberg intervened personally to relax policies, and there has been an overall reduction in trust and safety funding that the Oversight Board is caught up in.
I can’t get over the senseless waste of this Board having been given $280 million and running out of money already. That endowment could have supplied an annual $10 million budget forever, supporting a permanent staff of at least 25-50 people depending on overhead, tech costs, etc. There are so many worthwhile efforts in the social media industry that could make a global impact with that kind of funding — ROOST, New_Public, the Integrity Institute, the Applied Social Media Lab, and many more.
Instead, squandering a literal fortune, with very few tangible improvements to our online lives to show for it, gives the entire premise of independent social media governance a bad name. From a pure greed point of view, this might be a good outcome for Meta since it lets them operate with even fewer constraints, but it’s a gold-plated disappointment for the rest of us.
Bluesky Agonistes
The latest round of Bluesky drama broke at the end of the 2026 ATmosphere Conference in Vancouver. By most accounts, it was an inspiring gathering of people working hard to make the AT Protocol ecosystem succeed. The good vibes came crashing down at the end, when Bluesky PBC’s outgoing CEO / new Chief Innovation Officer Jay Graber and CTO Paul Frazee introduced Attie. Attie is a new app that uses AI to let users roll their own social media feeds and apps using natural language.
This is a great idea, and I’m not just saying that because it’s reminiscent of my own suggestion of a “vibe parenting” tool to make it easier to manage kids’ social media experience. The problem is that Attie will compete with Graze.social, one of the most promising startups in the Atmosphere and a major sponsor of the conference, whose flagship product is… a custom feed generator. Since Bluesky has raised $100 million in funding compared to $1 million for Graze, it’s not even a fair fight.
I can see the logic from a business point of view. Bluesky’s daily users (posters and likers) have been on a slow decline for a while now, and they have been absolutely dwarfed by Threads. That’s not enough to make their huge venture-capital investment pay off.
What’s sad is that it seems to be putting Bluesky PBC in the position of trying to serve a different community than the one that’s actually using their tools today. It would be nice if sustaining a small community were its own reward, like being the owner of a beloved local restaurant. Unfortunately, Bluesky seems to have placed its bet on being the next Chipotle.
Debanking is a confusing nightmare
You can say to someone: “You’ve done something wrong, we’re not going to tell you what it is, and we’re just going to put you through hell.”
Sound familiar? This piece about losing bank accounts could have been copy and pasted from any recent article about online account terminations. All the same beats are here — regular people who can’t get a straight answer until they generate bad PR; accusations of politicized enforcement (especially from the right); and meaningless corporate statements.
There are two relevant differences. First, banks give themselves a lot more leeway to make arbitrary decisions using the term “reputation risk.” This covers everything from suspicious activity that the bank can’t prove is illegal, to not doing business with anyone with a toxic public image. By comparison, Internet companies have painted themselves into a corner with exhaustive lists of specific policies.
The other difference is that banks seem to always eventually give people their money back, unless the government steps in. When you lose your online account, you usually lose all of your files and content, too. I wrote about ownership rights before the break.
Happy 2nd birthday, The Onion!
Two years ago, Ben Collins and friends bought The Onion from G/O Media and committed to bringing it back to its former glory, including as a print product. I am very grateful that they are thriving, not least because it helped me crack up my entire family with a dramatic reading of their recent print op-ed I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake, by A Horse.
I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone else ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, “You know who deserves cake? That horse. The horse whose back we are always on.”
Ideas? Feedback? Criticism? I want to hear it, because I am sure that I am going to get a lot of things wrong along the way. I will share what I learn with the community as we go. Reach out any time at [email protected].
