Meta made “influencers” a legitimate socio-economic powerhouse in the modern world. Now, it’s using them to run teen social media ban campaigns. “By laundering its talking points through trusted influencers, the company is trying to paint a rosy picture of its Teen Accounts, despite clear evidence of their limitations,” says the Tech Transparency Project. Elsewhere, the Fairphone, which you can fix and repair with your own hands, has finally made its way to the US shores. Over in China, a poorly animated cow movie became a sleeper hit and even went toe-to-toe against Nolan’s Odyssey. The gist? Human art and hard work still hold some value against the onslaught of AI slop. And yeah, so-bad-that-it’s-good was also a key vibe here.

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As governments around the world moved to ban or restrict teenagers from using social media, Meta quietly built a global influencer operation designed to fight back. A new report from the Tech Transparency Project reveals that since 2024, Meta has recruited lifestyle, parenting, and mental health creators in Australia, Indonesia, India, Brazil, and elsewhere, timing its campaigns to coincide with legislative discussions in each country. The company hosted branded events like its "Instagram Safety Camp" in Sydney, sponsored influencer posts, and enlisted financially connected advocacy groups and think tanks to amplify its core message: that blanket bans are ineffective and that its own teen account features already give parents the tools they need to keep children safe.

The strategy reflects what the Tech Transparency Project's director Katie Paul describes as a recognition that Meta can no longer make that case on its own credibility. The company's brand, she argues, has become a liability, and third-party voices carry the trust that Meta itself cannot. Critics, including Facebook whistleblower Artu, say the influencer campaigns amount to a false promise, pointing out that teens using so-called protected accounts can still surface harmful content through Meta's own search recommendations. Meta disputes that characterization and says its safety features represent genuine progress, adding that restrictions simply push young people toward less regulated corners of the internet.

A Chinese animated film called Niu Lai has clawed its way out of obscurity and into a full-blown box office phenomenon, and the explanation is almost too simple: the animation looks awful, and audiences can't stop watching. The title translates roughly to "Here Comes the Cow," which also happens to be the name of the film's bovine hero. A mother and son made it. The two of them handled production, animation, and voice work by themselves, on a budget so thin that the finished product turned into a viral meme all over Chinese social media.

The early numbers were bleak. Across its first ten days, Niu Lai pulled in 7,705 yuan, or about $1,140. It has since blown past 11.4 million yuan, roughly $1.7 million. There's something bigger driving the affection than pure mockery. Viewers have latched onto the film's handmade earnestness precisely because it stands against the industry's steady march toward generative AI, and that has turned its success into a small, strange act of defiance. The appetite has grown so far beyond anyone's expectations that theaters keep tacking on extra screenings.

The phone you can actually repair yourself is finally coming to the US. The Dutch company, known across Europe for building devices you can crack open and fix yourself, just launched the Fairphone 6+ stateside, and it arrives with credentials no major brand can match. iFixit handed it a perfect 10/10 repairability score. The warranty runs five years. Software support stretches to 2033. Compare that to what happens when you break a screen on an Apple, Samsung, or Google phone, where a single repair can cost $300 or more.

Twelve modular components sit inside the 6+, and every one of them is designed to be swapped at home. No technician, no appointment, no sealed enclosure. Ordering a replacement screen? That's $90. A fresh battery is $40. The USB-C port, which tends to be the first thing to fail on any phone, costs $20 to replace. The hardware itself is capable rather than flashy: a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chip paired with 12GB of RAM. Fairphone lists it at $650 on Fairphone.com, and it works on both T-Mobile and AT&T.

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