Happy Tuesday! Here’s your Tuesday Tech Drop, the past week’s top stories from the intersection of politics and technology.

TikTok avoids trial in addiction lawsuit

TikTok reached a settlement Tuesday that will allow the social media company to avoid going to trial as a defendant in a potentially landmark case involving allegations that TikTok and other platforms fuel addiction.

As the Associated Press reports:

The social video platform was one of three companies — along with Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube — facing claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap Inc., settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

Details of the settlement with TikTok were not disclosed, and the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more at the Associated Press.

Newsom goes after TikTok

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that he’s launching a review of allegations of pro-Trump censorship at TikTok after the sale of its U.S. operations to Trump-supporting billionaire Larry Ellison’s investment group.

Read more at PC Mag.

Robots writing the rules

The Trump administration plans to use artificial intelligence to draft regulations … seriously. The Transportation Department is preparing to use Google’s Gemini to write some of its rules, with one attorney touting AI’s “potential to revolutionize the way we draft rulemakings.”

Read more at ProPublica.

MAGA streamer’s response to Pretti shooting

MAGA streamer Zack Hoyt, who goes by the name “Asmongold” and has advocated violent extremism, warned that the Trump administration’s federal immigration agents risk looking like the Nazi Gestapo after the fatal shooting of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Read more at MS NOW.

EU ignores Trump administration’s threats

The European Union defied the Trump administration’s threats this week when it launched an official investigation into X owner Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, after multiple controversies, including one involving sexually explicit imagery of children.

Read more at MS NOW.

Speaking of Grok …

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and socialite Paris Hilton linked up on Capitol Hill last week to promote the Defiance Act, legislation that would set up new protections against the creation of nonconsensual deepfake pornography.

Dems press Meta and Google

Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and Becca Balint of Vermont are demanding answers from Meta and Google about claims that their platforms were used to promote Immigration and Customs Enforcement ads featuring white nationalist rhetoric and imagery.

Read their letters to the CEOs of Meta and Google here.

Big Tech employees oppose ICE

A group of self-described tech industry employees pressing for Big Tech CEOs to disavow ICE says it has obtained hundreds of signatures for its “ICE out” pledge, which includes calls for executives to take concrete measures to help curb the violence and intimidation being meted out in Donald Trump’s racist anti-immigration crackdown.

Read more at ICEout.tech.

Stale databases

Dozens of databases that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has maintained for tracking purposes — including several related to vaccines — are not being updated, according to new research from the Annals of Internal Medicine journal.

Read more at NBC News.

The post TikTok avoids trial in social media addiction lawsuit appeared first on MS NOW.