When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Your used CPU might come with someone else's Valorant ban Anti-cheat systems for online multiplayer games can flag individual PC parts, which can be a problem if you're trying to find a deal on secondhand hardware. With PC hardware more expensive than it's ever been, doubly so for gamers, you might be tempted to hunt for used parts. In addition to the usual problems of used goods with no warranty, you might just find yourself banned from your favorite online multiplayer game after you boot up with that new upgrade installed. Yes, this is a real thing that happens to people.

Welcome back to In the Loop, new twice-weekly newsletter about AI. If you're reading this in your browser, why not subscribe to have the next one delivered straight to your inbox? In the past few weeks, many tech leaders have made bold predictions about what AI will achieve in 2026, from mastering the field of biology to surpassing human intelligence outright . But in 2026's first week, the most visible use of AI has been X users employing Grok to digitally disrobe women. Elon Musk's platform X has been flooded with nonconsensual AI-created images, requested by users, of unclothed or scantily-clad women, men and children, sometimes in sexual positions.

When Everything Is Fake, What's the Point of Social Media? Earlier this week, a heartwarming post about a girl, a puppy, and a police officer went viral across social media platforms. The post consisted of two dashcam images of a distraught 12-year-old who, desperate to heal her sick puppy, got behind the wheel for the first time and tried to drive to the vet. She was pulled over, but commended by a police officer for being "amazing, strong, compassionate, and smart," and the puppy was saved. Comments flooded in celebrating the bond between a girl and her furry best friend.

Chi Onwurah, the committee chair, has said she was disappointed in the government's response on AI and digital advertising in particular. Chi Onwurah, the committee chair, has said she was disappointed in the government's response on AI and digital advertising in particular. Failures to properly tackle online misinformation mean it is "only a matter of time" before viral content triggers a repeat of the 2024 summer riots, MPs have warned. Chi Onwurah, the chair of the Commons science and technology select committee, said ministers seemed complacent about the threat and this was putting the public at risk. The committee said it was disappointed in the government's response to its recent report warning social media companies' business models contributed to disturbances after the Southport murders .

A House Democrat is moving to block the Trump administration from being able to use military-grade drones to surveil protests in the U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., introduced the bill in response to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reportedly using MQ-9 Reaper drones to monitor the protests in Los Angeles earlier this year. "The U.S. government should never use military drones to spy on its own people. Not under anyone," Gomez told Fox News Digital in a statement. "This bill would stop Trump's abuse of power and get these combat drones out of our neighborhoods." An MQ-9 Reaper flies by on a training mission at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada.

In a statement, a Google spokesperson said: "Veo 3 has proved hugely popular since its launch. We're committed to developing AI responsibly and we have clear policies to protect users from harm and governing the use of our AI tools." Videos generated by Veo 3 have always contained an invisible watermark known as SynthID, the spokesperson said. Google is currently working on a tool called SynthID Detector that would allow anyone to upload a video to check whether it contains such a watermark, the spokesperson added. However, this tool is not yet publicly available.

The UK government is expected to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the roll of social media in summer riots, particularly around the use of generative AI, The Guardian reported. As part of that, MPs (members of Parliament) wish to cross-examine X owner Elon Musk, along with senior executives from Meta and TikTok, as part of a Commons science and technology select committee social media inquiry. "[Musk] has very strong views on multiple aspects of this," said Labour chair of the select committee, Chi Onwurah. "I would certainly like the opportunity to cross-examine him to see … how he reconciles his promotion of freedom of expression with his promotion of pure disinformation. The government is looking into the use of fake images created by generative AI, often containing Islamophobic content, which were widely shared in social media posts on Facebook and X.

Meta's push to deploy its artificial intelligence system inside Britain's public sector has taken a step forward after the tech giant awarded development funding to technology aimed at shortening NHS A&E waiting times. Amid rival efforts by Silicon Valley tech companies to work with national and local government, Meta ran its first "hackathon" in Europe asking more than 200 programmers to devise ways to use its Llama AI system in UK public services and, one senior Meta executive said, "focused on the priorities of the Labour party". The event came after it emerged that Palantir, another US tech company, has been lobbying the Ministry of Justice and government ministers including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Microsoft also recently agreed a five-year deal with Whitehall departments to supply its AI Copilot technology to civil servants. Meta's hackathon was addressed by Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister and now Meta's president of global affairs based in California.

Given the deluge of bad news emanating from the games industry over the past 10 months, it was somewhat reassuring this weekend to sit in a crowd of 20,000 happy, passionate fans, watching the biggest event in the esports calendar: the League of Legends world championship finals. The event, at the O2 arena in London, was the culmination of a globetrotting five-week competition to discover the best team in the world. Never having attended before – mostly because the final is usually held in Asia, where the best players tend to come from – I wasn't really sure what to expect. Would I be able to follow what was happening? It turns out the answers to those questions were "sort of" and "hell, yes".

Westminster needs to wean itself off X, a close ally of Keir Starmer has said, as he suggested that Elon Musk was deliberately manipulating its algorithm to boost his own political and personal interests. Josh Simons, the MP for Makerfield and former head of the Starmerite thinktank Labour Together, said he believed the British political class was dangerously addicted to the platform, formerly known as Twitter. Simons maintains an active X profile, but says he is keen not to "overuse" it. His comments reflect a growing concern among Labour MPs about the impact of X after the summer's riots, during which misinformation spread rapidly on the platform. But they also threaten to exacerbate tensions between the government and the company, with Musk continuing to attack Starmer over ministers' response to the violence.