13 March 2026

Welcome

It’s a short one again this week. Just brief items with links rather than any longer items. As I mentioned last week, I’m moving house — in the next few days in fact — and things have been a bit hectic So let’s get on with it...

In the news this week

• Atlassian is laying off 1,600 staff, about 10% of its workforce, purportedly in a move to AI and enterprise sales.

• Over at Crikey, Cam Wilson has gotten hold of Palantir’s contract with Defence, which includes embedding staff in the department and mining Australian data.

• The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) finally released its report on robodebt, naming two officials who engaged in serious corrupt conduct: former human services department official Mark Withnell, and former social services deputy secretary Serena Wilson. Former PM Scott Morrison was cleared. Robodebt victims say that naming the officials is not enough.

• VPN downloads are soaring as porn sites start demanding age verification or blocking Australians. There’s more at The Sizzle.

• Snapchat told an Australian mother it wouldn’t delete her son’s account because his listed age was 25, reports the Guardian. “We investigated this report but given the declared age of the user is over 16 and all inferred age signals pointed to an age over 16, we could not verify that this user is under 16,” a Snap spokesperson said. The company doesn’t look at the contents of messages, y’see, so there’s not a lot to go on.

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Elsewhere

• Everything has to have his name on it: President Trump’s Cyber Strategy for America (PDF). It prioritises offensive operations and AI. The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) has further analysis.

• China's new five-year plan calls for AI throughout its economy.

• As we mentioned last week, AI company Anthropic has been declared a national security risk by the Pentagon. The firms reckons it will cost them billions. Several big tech companies are supporting Anthropic, including Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. ABC Religion & Ethics looks at what it means for Australians. Interestingly, Anthropic’s refusal to play by the Pentagon’s rules as led to increased trust and downloads.

• Meanwhile, Anthropic has announced it’s opening an office in Sydney. That’s not really “elsewhere” but it fits here quite nicely.

• Meta has bought Moltbook, a social media network for AI bots to chat with each other. This is the same Moltbook where the bots created a religion and exposed private data.

• Some chatbots will help you plan school shootings. Others will recommend sticking garlic up your arse.

• From Mother Jones, the observation that while AI fakes spread disinformation, they also create distrust and undermine our shared reality.

• In the UK, MPs have rejected a teen social media ban, instead backing flexible ministerial powers.

• Evidence is growing that Google’s AI overviews have eviscerated the media industry, reports Futurism.

• There’s an update on the social media addiction trial in California from the New York Times (gift link).

HOW’S THAT AI BUBBLE GOING? My most recent podcast episode is The 9pm S-Bend of Technology with David Gerard. He’s the editor of the Pivot to AI newsletter, video essay, and podcast. Look for The 9pm Edict in your podcast app.

Inquiries of note

• Treasury has released a second draft of Tranche 1 legislation for the Regulation of Payment Service Providers, taking into account the feedback on the first draft. Submissions close 9 April.

What’s next?

Parliament is on break next week, after which it returns for two weeks of sittings starting Monday 23 March — although the second is a short week before Easter.

DOES SOMETHING IN THE EMAIL LOOK WRONG? Let me know. If there’s ever a factual error, editing mistake, or confusing typo, it’ll be corrected in the web archives.