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A once-robust alliance of federal agencies, tech companies, election officials and researchers that worked together to thwart foreign propaganda and disinformation has fragmented after years of sustained Republican attacks.The GOP offensive started during the 2020 election as public critiques and has since escalated into lawsuits, governmental inquiries and public relations campaigns that have succeeded in stopping almost all coordination between the government and social media platforms.The most recent setback came when the FBI put an indefinite hold on most briefings to social media companies about Russian, Iranian and Chinese influence campaigns. Employees at two U.S. tech companies who used to receive regular briefings from the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force told NBC News that it has been months since the bureau reached out. In a testimony last week to the Senate Homeland Security Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray signaled a significant pullback in communications with tech companies and tied the move to rulings by a conservative federal judge and appeals court that said some government agencies and officials should be restricted from communicating and meeting with social media companies to moderate content. The case is now on hold pending Supreme Court review.“We’re having some interaction with social media companies,” Wray said. “But all of those interactions have changed fundamentally in the wake of the court rulings.”

Britain’s competition watchdog said Tuesday it’s looking into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, adding fresh regulatory scrutiny to investment money flooding into the AI industry. The Competition and Markets Authority said it’s seeking comments as it considers whether the deal between the two companies has resulted in a “substantial lessening of competition” in the United Kingdom for AI services. The watchdog said it will accept feedback from “any interested party” until Aug. 13 before deciding whether to open a formal investigation.

The Israeli military is using cloud storage and artificial intelligence services provided by U.S. tech titans for "direct participation and collaboration" in what many critics around the world call Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, according to an investigation published this week. Two Israeli publications—+972 Magazine and Local Call—on Sunday published a joint investigation revealing that the Israeli military is using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to store data gleaned from the mass surveillance in Gaza, where nearly 10 months of bombings and ground invasion have left more than 140,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to local and international estimates. Multiple sources told the outlets that pressure on the IDF since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel has "led to a dramatic increase in the purchase of services from Google Cloud, Amazon's AWS, and Microsoft Azure." The report states that cooperation between the IDF and AWS "is particularly close" and "even helped on rare occasions to confirm aerial assassination strikes in Gaza—strikes that would have also killed and harmed Palestinian civilians."