Technology

The FTC says nearly half of Epic Games' $520 million settlement will go to "refunds for tricking" Fortnite "users into making unwanted charges."

Arts

Could you be eligible for a Fortnite refund?

12:44pm December 20, 2022

by Elizabeth Blair

Epic Games has agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission $520 million over allegations of privacy violations and unwanted charges. Nearly half of the money will go to refund consumers.

Three TikTok phenomena of 2022: the pop star Bad Bunny; an Inuit mother and daughter who teach how to say yes with your eyebrows; and one of the Iranians who cut their hair in solidarity with 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in custody after being detained by Iran's morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab inappropriately.

Health & Safety

Popular global TikToks of 2022: Bad Bunny leads the fluffle!

4:32pm December 19, 2022

TikTok is more than just goofy dances and challenges. Here are some of the most widely viewed — and engaging — global TikToks of the year.

Enter a prompt into ChatGPT, and it becomes your very own virtual assistant.

Education

A new AI chatbot might do your homework for you. But it's still not an A+ student

5:00am December 19, 2022

by Emma Bowman

ChatGPT gives users their very own virtual assistant. It could transform academia, experts say — for better and worse.

Spyware's threat to democracies

5:06pm December 18, 2022

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with political scientist Ronald Deibert about the increased use of spyware among autocratic and democratic governments to track and thwart dissent.

Elon Musk suspends — then restores — the Twitter accounts of several journalists

5:09pm December 17, 2022

NPR's Michel Martin talks with Joan Donovan of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government about Elon Musk's decision to suspend and then reinstate the Twitter accounts of several high-profile journalists.

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on Nov. 4. The United Nations and the European Union are among the groups that condemned Elon Musk's decision to suspend several journalists from the social media platform.

National

Elon Musk reinstates suspended journalists on Twitter after a backlash

4:59pm December 17, 2022

by Juliana Kim

The United Nations and the European Union are among the groups that condemned Musk's sudden decision to suspend several journalists from the social media platform.

Servers at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi are still not back to normal two weeks after they were hacked and the data was held for ransom.

Cyberattacks on hospitals thwart India's push to digitize health care

8:33am December 17, 2022

by Raksha Kumar

Prime Minister Modi's ambitious plan to transition all Indians' health records online is running up against weak cybersecurity systems and a lack of data protection laws.

Abrham Amare, one of the plaintiffs named in a new lawsuit filed against Facebook's parent company, Meta, claims that social media posts directly led to his father's murder in Ethiopia last year.

World News

A $1.6 billion lawsuit alleges Facebook's inaction fueled violence in Ethiopia

5:01am December 17, 2022

by Emily Olson

One of the plaintiffs says he contacted Facebook several times about posts threatening violence against his father, who was murdered by members of a militant group.

A sampling of NPR's favorite games of 2022.

Arts

Best games of 2022 chosen by NPR

6:18pm December 16, 2022

by James Perkins Mastromarino

From Elden Ring to Immortality, 2022 delivered long-anticipated titles and ambitious indie games. NPR staff and contributors list their favorites.

Has AI reached the point where a software program can do better work than you?

5:08am December 16, 2022

NPR's Rob Schmitz talks to Ethan Mollick of the University of Pennsylvania about an artificial intelligence program that uses AI to compose college essays, news stories, poems and even sitcoms.