Everything Is Content for the'Clicktatorship' In the second Trump administration, online conspiracy theories are shaping real-world policies like never before. In President Donald Trump's second term, everything is content . Videos of immigration raids are shared widely on X by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), conspiracy theories dictate policy, and prominent right-wing podcasters and influencers have occupied high-level government roles. The second Trump administration is, to put it bluntly, very online. Trump and his supporters have long trafficked in--and benefited from-- misinformation and conspiracy theories, leveraging them to build visibility on social media platforms and set the tone of national conversations.

DOGE dominated the news this year as Elon Musk's operatives shook up several US government agencies. Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the brainchild of billionaire Elon Musk, has gone through several iterations, leading periodically to claims-- most recently from the director of the Office of Personnel Management--that the group doesn't exist, or has vanished altogether. Many of its original members are in full-time roles at various government agencies, and the new National Design Studio (NDS) is headed by Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, a close ally of Musk's. Even if DOGE doesn't survive another year, or until the US semiquincentennial--its original expiration date, per the executive order establishing it--the organization's larger project will continue. DOGE from its inception was used for two things, both of which have continued apace: the destruction of the administrative state and the wholesale consolidation of data in service of concentrating power in the executive branch.

During the torture ritual that was doing my taxes this year, I was surprised to find myself giddy after reading these words: "You are now chatting with IRS Representative-1004671045." I had gotten stuck trying to parse my W-2, which, under "Box 14: Other," contained a mysterious 389.70 deduction from my overall pay last year. I tapped the chat button on my tax software for help, expecting to be sucked into customer-service hell. Instead, a real IRS employee answered my question in less than two minutes. The program is not TurboTax, or any one of its many competitors that will give you the white-glove treatment only after you pony up. It is Direct File, a new pilot program made by the IRS.

The family's wrongful death lawsuit, which indicates it was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Paul and Janet Moynihan, claims that their daughter's boss, Greg Restituito, initially lied to investigators in the Anaheim Police Department who were looking into her death in a hotel room at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, concealing that he had a sexual relationship with Moynihan. Restituito did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

When the pandemic put the world on pause and we retreated to our living rooms, video games gave us a horizon to head towards when in reality we had nowhere to go. But, as the most recent UK games industry census showed, the people who make those video game landscapes all tend to look alike: 70% of the game development workforce is male, and just 10% are BAME. This creates a sort of gaming Stepford – miles and miles of video game real estate where characters and stories are almost identical to the ones that came before, because the architects all look the same and want the same things. The survey showed that 81% of people in the UK games industry are educated to at least undergraduate level, which is considerably higher than the 57% average for other creative industries. Meanwhile, 62% of those in British games studios grew up in households where the main earner worked in a professional or managerial role.

"We're a world leading artificial intelligence (AI) platform that monitors real time and real-world events and provides all-round risk detection and solutions," Rod Moynihan told Insurance Business. Moynihan is the managing director of Dataminr in Australia and New Zealand, a global real-time information discovery company that is pioneering what it sees as ground-breaking technology for detecting, classifying, and determining the significance of public information in real time. Moynihan recently gave an interview to Insurance Business to explain how the platform works and how it can aid insurers. Using public information and data available from across the world, Dataminr's AI platform finds, dissects and quantifies a large amount of data to make sense of potentially large impact events that can affect customers. "It sorts through millions upon millions of publicly available data," explained Moynihan.

Shawn Moynihan is Editor-in-Chief of National Underwriter Property & Casualty. A St. John's University alum, Moynihan has earned 11 Jesse H. Neal Awards, the Pulitzers of the business press; seven Azbee Awards, from the American Society of Business Press Editors; two Folio Awards; and a SABEW award, from the Society of American Business Editors & Writers. Prior to joining ALM, he served as Managing Editor/Online Editor of journalism institution Editor & Publisher, the trade bible of the newspaper industry. Moynihan also has held editorial positions with AOL, Metro New York, and Newhouse Newspapers. He can be reached at smoynihan@alm.com.