A company-wide email from Comcast executives, sent to everyone working at NBCUniversal on Friday morning, mourns right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk’s death and reminds employees that saying the wrong thing about Kirk’s legacy can get you fired swiftly. 

The email, obtained by 404 Media and first reported by Variety, has the subject line “A message from Brian Roberts, Mike Cavanagh, and Mark Lazarus.” In it, the executives eulogize Kirk, calling him an “advocate for open debate, whose faith was important to him.” 

Roberts is the Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation, Cavanagh is the president, and Lazarus is the prospective CEO of VERSANT, Comcast’s new spinoff that will include the majority of its NBCUniversal cable network portfolio. NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and more journalistic and entertainment properties are under the NBCUniversal umbrella.

“You may have seen that MSNBC recently ended its association with a contributor who made an unacceptable and insensitive comment about this horrific event,” the executives wrote. “That coverage was at odds with fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the points of view of those who have differing opinions.” 

Political analyst Matthew Dowd was fired from MSNBC on Wednesday after speaking about Kirk’s death on air. During a broadcast on Wednesday following the shooting, anchor Katy Tur asked Dowd about “the environment in which a shooting like this happens,” according to Variety. Dowd answered: “He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.”

MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler issued an apology in response, calling Dowd’s words “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable.” Dowd also apologized publicly, posting on Bluesky: “On an earlier appearance on MSNBC I was asked a question on the environment we are in. I apologize for my tone and words. Let me be clear, I in no way intended for my comments to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack.” 

Charlie Kirk Was Not Practicing Politics the Right Way

The mainstream media seems entirely uninterested in explaining Charlie Kirk’s work.

404 MediaJason Koebler

MSNBC is a division of NBCUniversal. The letter from Comcast executives reiterates to current employees that their jobs are on the line if they stray from bland, milquetoast statements about a man who spent his life fomenting hate will have consequences on their careers. The entire mainstream media environment has been working overtime to sanitize Kirk’s legacy since his murder—a legacy that includes targeted harassment of professors at schools across the country and normalizing the notion that basic human rights are up for “debate.” 

The full email is below.

Dear Comcast NBCUniversal Team,

The tragic loss of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old father, husband, and advocate for open debate, whose faith was important to him, reminds us of the fragility of life and the urgent need for unity in our nation. Our hearts are heavy, as his passing leaves a grieving family and a country grappling with division. There is no place for violence or hate in our society.

You may have seen that MSNBC recently ended its association with a contributor who made an unacceptable and insensitive comment about this horrific event. That coverage was at odds with fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the points of view of those who have differing opinions. We should be able to disagree, robustly and passionately, but, ultimately, with respect. We need to do better.

Charlie Kirk believed that "when people stop talking, really bad stuff starts." Regardless of whether you agreed with his political views, his words and actions underscore the urgency to maintain a respectful exchange of ideas a principle we must champion. We believe in the power of communication to bring us together. Today, that belief feels more vital than ever. Something essential has fractured in our public discourse, and as a company that values the power of information, we have a responsibility to help mend it.

As employees, we ask you to embody our values in your work and communities. We should engage with respect, listen, and treat people with kindness.

Critics are slamming Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) new AI policy framework, which they claim would give the White House unprecedented authority to allow Big Tech companies to make "sweetheart" deals with the Trump administration to void laws designed to protect the public from reckless AI experiments.

Under the framework, Cruz calls for a "light-touch" regulatory approach to "advance American leadership" in AI and ensure that "American values" are at the heart of the world's leading technology—not Chinese values.

Unsurprisingly, the framework requires blocking "burdensome" state AI regulations, as well as foreign ones. Cruz unsuccessfully helped push for a similar decadelong moratorium on state AI laws as part of Republicans' "big beautiful" budget bill. And more recently, he lost a bid to punish states for regulating AI, ultimately voting against his own measure in the face of overwhelming bipartisan opposition.

As the first step toward limiting AI regulations to prioritize innovation, Cruz announced the SANDBOX Act—which is shorthand for "Strengthening Artificial intelligence Normalization and Diffusion By Oversight and eXperimentation."

If passed, the SANDBOX Act would let AI companies apply to temporarily avoid enforcement of federal laws that could limit their testing of new AI products. As part of the application, companies would be asked to detail known risks or harms and any steps that could be taken to mitigate harms, as well as outline benefits that could outweigh harms.

Each agency in charge of enforcing each law would then weigh potential harms, with enforcement to be modified based on how much of the application each agency approves.

However, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) would have the power to overrule decisions from independent agencies dedicated to consumer protection, alarming critics who fear AI companies could bribe officials through political donations to void laws.

Ultimately, federal agencies and the OSTP could grant two-year moratoriums on enforcement of AI laws to enable AI experiments on the public, which can be renewed up to four times for a maximum of 10 years. The bill also prompts Congress to make permanent any "successful" moratoriums found to benefit the US, Cruz's one-pager said. After its passage, Cruz expects to introduce more laws to support his framework, likely paving the way for similar future moratoriums to be granted to block state laws.

Critics warn bill is a gift to Big Tech

According to Cruz, the SANDBOX Act follows through on Donald Trump's demand for a regulatory sandbox in his AI Action Plan, which strives to make the US the global leader in AI (but critics suggest may violate the Constitution).

Cruz's sandbox program supposedly "gives AI developers space to test and launch new AI technologies without being held back by outdated or inflexible federal rules," while mitigating "against health, public safety, or fraud risks" through an expedited review process.

The Tech Oversight Project, a nonprofit tech industry watchdog group, warned that, if passed, the law would make it easier for AI firms to make "sweetheart" deals. It could perhaps incentivize the White House to favor Big Tech companies "donating to Trump" over smaller AI firms that can't afford to pay for such political leverage and may be bound to a different set of rules, the group suggested.

Cruz's SANDBOX Act "would give unprecedented authority for the Trump Administration to trade away protections for children and seniors and dole out favors to Big Tech companies like Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI," the Tech Oversight Project alleged.

The bill's text suggests that health and safety risks that could result in a request for non-enforcement to be denied included risks of "bodily harm to a human life," "loss of human life," and "a substantial adverse effect on the health of a human." But the rushed review process may make it harder for officials—likely working in agencies recently gutted by the Department of Government Efficiency—to adequately weigh potential harms.

Cruz's bill requires agencies to review AI companies' requests within 14 days. Once the review process begins, agencies can hire advisory boards or working groups to assess risks, but they must reach a decision within 60 days or the AI firms' requests will be presumed approved. Only one request for a 30-day extension may be granted.

For AI companies that may benefit from rolling out products more quickly through the framework, Cruz requires reporting within 72 hours of "any incident that results in harm to the health and safety of a consumer, economic damage, or an unfair or deceptive trade practice." Firms will then be granted 30 days to fix the problem or risk enforcement of the law they sought to avoid, while the public is alerted and provided an opportunity to comment.

In a statement, a nonprofit dedicated to informing the public about AI risks, the Alliance for Secure AI, warned that Cruz's bill seeks to remove government oversight at "the wrong time."

"Ideally, Big Tech companies and frontier labs would make safety a top priority and work to prevent harm to Americans," Brendan Steinhauser, the nonprofit's CEO, said. "However, we have seen again and again that they have not done so. The SANDBOX Act removes much-needed oversight as Big Tech refuses to remain transparent with the public about the risks of advanced AI."

A nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, Public Citizen, agreed that Cruz seemed to be handing "Big Tech the keys to experiment on the public while weakening oversight, undermining regulatory authority, and pressuring Congress to permanently roll back essential safeguards."

Supporters say Cruz’s bill strikes the right balance

Supporters of the bill so far include the US Chamber of Commerce and NetChoice—a trade association representing Big Tech companies—as well as right-leaning and global policy research groups, including the Abundance Institute, the Information Technology Council, and the R Street Institute.

Adam Therrier, an R Street Institute senior fellow, suggested that too much of AI policy debate focuses on "new types of regulation for AI systems and applications," while ignoring that the SANDBOX Act would also help AI firms avoid being bogged down by the "many laws and regulations already on the books that cover—or could come to cover—algorithmic applications."

In the one-pager, Cruz noted that "most US rules and regulations do not squarely apply to emerging technologies like AI." So "rather than force AI developers to design inferior products just to comply with outdated Federal rules, our regulations should become more flexible," Cruz argued.

Therrier noted that once regulations are passed, they're rarely updated and backed Cruz's logic that AI firms may need support to override old rules that could restrict AI innovation. Consider the "many new applications in healthcare, transportation, and financial services," Therrier said, which "could offer the public important new life-enriching service" unless "archaic rules" are relied on to "block those benefits by standing in the way of marketplace experimentation."

"When red tape grows without constraint and becomes untethered from modern marketplace realities, it can undermine innovation and investment, undermine entrepreneurship and competition, raise costs to consumers, limit worker opportunities, and undermine long-term economic growth," Therrier wrote.

But Therrier acknowledged that Cruz seems particularly focused on propping up a national framework to "address the rapid proliferation of AI legislative proposals happening across the nation," noting that over 1,000 AI-related bills were introduced in the first half of this year.

Netchoice similarly celebrated the bill's "innovation-first approach," claiming "the SANDBOX Act strikes an important balance" between "giving AI developers room to experiment" and "preserving necessary safeguards."

To critics, the bill's potential to constrict new safeguards remains a primary concern. Steinhauser, of the Alliance for Secure AI, suggested that critics may get answers to their biggest questions about how well the law would work to protect public safety "in the coming days."

His group noted that just during this summer alone, "multiple companies have come under bipartisan fire for refusing to take Americans’ safety seriously and institute proper guardrails on their AI systems, leading to avoidable tragedies." They cited Meta allowing chatbots to be creepy to kids and OpenAI rushing to make changes after a child died after using ChatGPT to research a suicide.

Under Cruz's bill, the primary consumer protection seems to be requiring companies to provide warnings that consumers may be exposed to certain risks by interacting with experimental products. Those warnings would explain that consumers can attempt to hold companies civilly or criminally liable for any loss or damages, the bill said, while warning that the product could be discontinued at any time. Warnings must also provide contact information to send any complaints to the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office, the bill said.

However, critics who worry particularly about child safety are worried that warnings aren't enough. Consider how chatbots providing warnings that they're not real people or licensed therapists has not prevented some users from dangerously blurring the line between AI worlds and reality.

"This legislation is a victory for Big Tech CEOs, who have consistently failed to protect Americans from social and psychological harms caused by their products," Alliance for Secure AI warned.

So far, states have led efforts to police AI. Notably, Illinois banned AI therapy after research found chatbot therapists fuel delusions, and California is close to becoming the first state to restrict companion bots to protect kids. Other state protections, Tech Policy Press reported, cover "critical areas of life like housing, education, employment, and credit," as well as addressing deepfakes that could impact elections and public safety.

Critics are hoping that bipartisan support for these state efforts, as well as federal efforts like the Take It Down Act (which Cruz supported), will ensure that Cruz's framework and sandbox bill aren't adopted as drafted.

"It’s unconscionable to risk the American public’s safety to enrich AI companies that are already collectively worth trillions," Public Citizen said. "The sob stories of AI companies being ‘held back’ by regulation are simply not true and the record company valuations show it. Lawmakers should stand with the public, not corporate lobbyists, and slam the brakes on this reckless proposal. Congress should focus on legislation that delivers real accountability, transparency, and consumer protection in the age of AI."

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Verizon lost an attempt to overturn a $46.9 million fine for selling customer location data without its users' consent. The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit rejected Verizon's challenge in a ruling issued today.

The Federal Communications Commission fined the three major carriers last year for violations revealed in 2018. The companies sued the FCC in three different courts, with varying results.

AT&T beat the FCC in the reliably conservative US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, while T-Mobile lost in the District of Columbia Circuit. Although FCC Chairman Brendan Carr voted against the fine last year, when the commission had a Democratic majority, his FCC urged the courts to uphold the Biden-era decisions.

A ruling against the FCC could gut the agency's ability to issue financial penalties. The different rulings from different circuits raise the odds of the cases being taken up by the Supreme Court.

Today's 2nd Circuit ruling against Verizon was issued unanimously by a panel of three judges, and it comes to the same legal conclusions as the DC Circuit did in the T-Mobile case. The court did not accept the carrier's argument that the fine violated its Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial and that the location data wasn't protected under the law used by the FCC to issue the penalties.

"We disagree [with Verizon]," the 2nd Circuit ruling said. "The customer data at issue plainly qualifies as customer proprietary network information, triggering the Communication Act's privacy protections. And the forfeiture order both soundly imposed liability and remained within the strictures of the penalty cap. Nothing about the Commission's proceedings, moreover, transgressed the Seventh Amendment's jury trial guarantee. Indeed, Verizon had, and chose to forgo, the opportunity for a jury trial in federal court. Thus, we DENY Verizon's petition."

Verizon claimed law doesn’t cover device location data

Until 2019, Verizon "ran a 'location-based services' program that sold access to certain kinds of wireless customer location data," the ruling said. "As part of that program, Verizon contracted with 'location information aggregators,' which collected customer data and resold it to third-party location-based services providers. Verizon had arrangements with two aggregators, LocationSmart and Zumigo, which in turn contracted with 63 third-party entities."

Instead of providing notice to customers and obtaining or verifying customer consent itself, Verizon "largely delegated those functions via contract," the court said. This system and its shortcomings were revealed in 2018 when "the New York Times published an article reporting security breaches involving Verizon's (and other major carriers') location-based services program," the court said.

Securus Technologies, a provider of communications services to correctional facilities, "was misusing the program to enable law enforcement officers to access location data without customers' knowledge or consent, so long as the officers uploaded a warrant or some other legal authorization," the ruling said. A Missouri sheriff "was able to access customer data with no legal process at all" because Securus did not review the documents that law enforcement uploaded.

Verizon claimed that Section 222 of the Communications Act covers only call-location data, as opposed to device location data. The court disagreed, pointing to the law's text stating that customer proprietary network information includes data that is related to the location of a telecommunications service, and which is made available to the carrier "solely by virtue of the carrier-customer relationship."

"Device-location data comfortably satisfies both conditions," the court said.

Verizon chose to pay fine, giving up right to jury trial

As for Verizon's claim that the FCC violated its right to a jury trial, the court said that "Verizon could have gotten such a trial" if it had "declined to pay the forfeiture and preserved its opportunity for a de novo jury trial if the government sought to collect." Instead, Verizon chose to pay the fine "and seek immediate review in our Court."

By contrast, the 5th Circuit decision in AT&T's favor said the FCC "acted as prosecutor, jury, and judge," violating the right to a jury trial. The 5th Circuit said it was guided by the Supreme Court's June 2024 ruling in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, which held that "when the SEC seeks civil penalties against a defendant for securities fraud, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant to a jury trial."

The 2nd Circuit ruling said there are key differences between US telecom law and the securities laws considered in Jarkesy. It's because of those differences that Verizon had the option of declining to pay the penalty and preserving its right to a jury trial, the court said.

In the Jarkesy case, the problem "was that the SEC could 'siphon' its securities fraud claims away from Article III courts and compel payment without a jury trial," the 2nd Circuit panel said. "The FCC's forfeiture order, however, does not, by itself, compel payment. The government needs to initiate a collection action to do that. Against this backdrop, the agency's proceedings before a § 504(a) trial create no Seventh Amendment injury."

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Someone might want to tell David Zaslav to read the room. Despite people’s ongoing frustration with the rising prices of streaming services—and just about everything else—the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) thinks that there is reason for HBO Max to charge more.

Zaslav shared his sentiments while speaking at the Goldman Sachs Cornucopia + Technology conference today in San Francisco. The Hollywood Reporter quoted Zaslav as saying:

The fact that this is quality—and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production [and] streaming quality—we all ... think that gives us a chance to raise price. We think we’re way underpriced.

Today, HBO Max starts at $10 per month with ads, $17/month for no ads, and $21/month for no ads and premium features (4K streaming, Dolby Atmos, and the ability to stream from more devices simultaneously and perform more downloads). The streaming platform has raised prices twice since launching (as Max) in May 2023. In June 2024, the Standard, ad-free plan went from $16/month to $17/month, and annual subscription fees went up by $20 or $10, depending on the plan. Subscription fees also increased in January 2023.

One of the ways the recently re-renamed HBO Max will try to make more money from its viewership is by getting tougher about subscribers sharing passwords with other households. The streaming service was supposed to crack down on password sharing in 2024, but Zaslav said today that HBO Max hasn't “been pushing” against password sharing yet. That’s largely because WBD is trying to get people to “fall in love" with HBO Max's content first, Zaslav noted.

Once viewers are seemingly hooked on HBO Max, WBD would ideally like to charge more. Per Variety, Zaslav said today that WBD has a "real ability" to raise prices as "people become more and more in love with the quality that we have, and the series that we have, and the offering that we have."

The executive reportedly recalled a time when people relied on broadcast and cable for their TV entertainment and paid more than what the average person pays for streaming today:

Consumers in America would pay twice as much 10 years ago for content. People were spending, on average, $55 for content 10 years ago, and the quality of the content, the amount of content that we’re getting, the spend is 10 or 12 fold and they’re paying dramatically less. I think we want a good deal for consumers, but I think over time, there’s real opportunity, particularly for us, in that quality area, to raise price.

A question of quality

Zaslav is arguing that the quality of the shows and movies on HBO Max warrants an eventual price bump. But, in general, viewers find streaming services are getting less impressive. A Q4 2024 report from TiVo found that the percentage of people who think the streaming services that they use have "moderate to very good quality" has been declining since Q4 2021.

Research also points to people being at their limit when it comes to TV spending. Hub Entertainment Research’s latest “Monetizing Video” study, released last month, found that for consumers, low prices "by far still matters most to the value of a TV service."

Meanwhile, niche streaming services have been gaining in popularity as streaming subscribers grow bored with the libraries of mainstream streaming platforms and/or feel like they’ve already seen the best of what those services have to offer. Antenna, a research firm focused on consumer subscription services, reported this month that specialty streaming service subscriptions increased 12 percent year over year in 2025 thus far and grew 22 percent in the first half of 2024.

Zaslav would likely claim that HBO Max is an outlier when it comes to streaming library dissatisfaction. Although WBD’s streaming business (which includes Discovery+) turned a $293 million profit and grew subscriber-related revenue (which includes ad revenues) in its most recent earnings report, investors would likely be unhappy if the company rested on its financial laurels. WBD has one of the most profitable streaming businesses, but it still trails far behind Netflix, which posted an operating income of $3.8 billion in its most recent earnings.

Still, increasing prices is rarely welcomed by customers. With many other options for streaming these days (including free ones), HBO Max will have to do more to convince people that it is worth the extra money than merely making the claim.

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