NEW RESOURCES

Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab: Welcome to LIL’s Data.gov Archive Search. “Today, we’re pleased to share Data.gov Archive Search, an interface for exploring this important collection of government datasets. Our work builds on recent advancements in lightweight, browser-based querying to enable discovery of more than 311,000 datasets comprising some 17.9 terabytes of data on topics ranging from automotive recalls to chronic disease indicators.”

PR Newswire: Find trusted, high-quality hospitals nationwide with HealthLocator (PRESS RELEASE). “HealthLocator, a new, free digital tool launches today to help patients and families find hospitals that consistently provide high-quality care. HealthLocator gathers national quality data into a single, easy-to-navigate tool that allows users to search by city, specialty, or hospital. With just a few clicks, people can compare hospitals based on performance and make more informed choices about their care.”

University of Kentucky: Find food assistance, community support through FindHelpNowKY.org. “Kentuckians experiencing food insecurity can access immediate, local assistance through FindHelpNowKY.org, an online tool that helps users quickly locate food, housing and other community resources by ZIP code or city.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

TechCrunch: Character.AI is ending its chatbot experience for kids. “Character.AI will phase out teen chatbot access by November 25, starting with a two-hour daily limit that shrinks progressively until it hits zero. To ensure this ban remains with under 18 users, the platform will deploy an in-house age verification tool that analyzes user behavior, as well as third-party tools like Persona.”

Mashable: The celebrity Halloween costumes that took over the internet. “Celebs traded couture for cosplay, turning Halloween into a high-production content drop. The members of KATSEYE embodied different Mariah Carey eras in a stylish red-carpet spoof featuring Bowen Yang. Demi Lovato leaned into memehood by resurrecting her infamous alter ego, Poot Lovato. And Kim Kardashian dressed up as a TikTokker, a reminder of just how much influence these social media stars now hold.”

Business Insider: Elon Musk and Sam Altman are still trading jabs over OpenAI. “The feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman showed no signs of slowing down on Sunday, when the tech leaders again bumped heads on X over OpenAI. ‘You stole a non-profit,’ Musk said in an X post on Saturday, in response to a post from Altman about trying to cancel a Tesla order.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

PressGazette: Google promotes fake content to millions on Discover news platform. “The US search giant will still have made money from the articles (every sixth article on the Discover feed is a sponsored post with all revenue going to Google). And the posts will have made tens of thousands in revenue for the creators of the fraudulent websites promoted by Google, which are packed with advertising.”

PC Magazine: ‘Keep Android Open’ Campaign Pushes Back on Google’s Sideloading Restrictions. “Free Android app store F-Droid asks users to lobby government regulators to take action. Google says the move is needed to reduce the risk of malware infecting Android devices.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

BBC: ‘No idea who he is,’ says Trump after pardoning crypto tycoon. “US President Donald Trump says he does not know who Changpeng Zhao is, despite pardoning the cryptocurrency multi-billionaire last month. Trump was asked about the pardon during an interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes programme, which was broadcast on Sunday.”

TorrentFreak: Meta: Pirated Adult Film Downloads Were For “Personal Use,” Not AI Training. “Meta is using a classic BitTorrent defense in its legal battle with adult film producer Strike 3 Holdings. In its motion to dismiss, the tech company argues that IP-address evidence is insufficient to prove who the infringer is. Meta further counters that the ‘sporadic’ downloads on its corporate network began years before its relevant AI research started. Instead of AI training, Meta argues the activity was likely just for ‘private personal use’.”

The Register: Claude code will send your data to crims … if they ask it nicely . “A researcher has found a way to trick Claude into uploading private data to an attacker’s account using indirect prompt injection. Anthropic says it has already documented the risk, and its foolproof solution is: keep an eye on your screen.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

LiveScience: AI models refuse to shut themselves down when prompted — they might be developing a new ‘survival drive,’ study claims. “The research, conducted by scientists at Palisade Research, assigned tasks to popular artificial intelligence (AI) models before instructing them to shut themselves off. But, as a study published Sept. 13 on the arXiv pre-print server detailed, some of these models — including Google’s Gemini 2.5, OpenAI’s GPT-o3 and GPT-5, and xAI’s Grok 4 — not only resisted this shutoff command, but found ways to outright sabotage it.” Good morning, Internet…

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