{"slug": "a-question-of-jurisdiction", "title": "a question of jurisdiction?", "summary": "San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu ordered Meta to stop serving ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material, but Meta responded that the ads fall \"outside the city attorney's jurisdiction.\" The article suggests California cities could pressure Meta indirectly by drafting wiretapping rules for city suppliers, since tracking pixels and conversions APIs are illegal under California's wiretapping law, and notes Meta previously gave the UK a special scam reporting tool to settle the Martin Lewis case.", "body_md": "In the news: [San\nFrancisco Orders Meta to Stop ‘Allowing’ AI Child Abuse Ads](https://www.wired.com/story/san-francisco-orders-meta-to-stop-allowing-ai-child-abuse-ads/). San\nFrancisco’s city attorney, David Chiu, wants Meta to stop serving ads\ncontaining AI-generated CSAM, but Meta says they don’t have to care. The\nads are “outside the city attorney’s jurisdiction.”\n\nBut this is California. So even though Meta can afford to spend more on lawyers than the city can, the city has other ways to get Meta to pay attention.\n\nMuch of the data that Meta uses to target people for CSAM, [scams](https://www.kqed.org/news/12083109/santa-clara-county-takes-on-meta-scam-ads-in-lawsuit),\nand [AI-Generated\nQuack Cures](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-ai-doctors-quake-cures) is data that gets provided to Meta by legitimate\nbusinesses.\n\nThose businesses—Meta’s often under-informed enablers—are a better leverage point than going up against the company directly.\n\nA city attorney in California who has a problem with Meta can start by drafting a new addition to the paperwork that goes out to city suppliers. A few simple points.\n\nWiretapping is [illegal](https://blog.zgp.org/cipa-commercial/) in\nCalifornia.\n\nInternet surveillance methods, such as tracking pixels and conversions APIs, are wiretapping under California law.\n\nThe city will investigate wiretapping, with particular attention\nto Internet wiretapping that enables large-scale criminal activity.\n(Don’t have to call out Meta by name, if you mention big-time crime on\nthe Internet, people will get that it’s about Meta and/or [Google](https://blog.zgp.org/winners-don-t-click-search-ads/).)\n\nThey can even make it a little vague on whether number 3 applies to just wiretapping of city employees, or anybody in the city.\n\nThen offer a free pass to a city-organized “how to do business on the\nweb without wiretapping and enabling crime” event. If you provide a\nvenue and enough lead time, web developers and legit advertising and\nmarketing people will speak at this, do Q&A, and so on. ([Big\nTech’s economic takeover can be beat](https://rjionline.org/news/big-techs-economic-takeover-can-be-beat/).)\n\nThe draft wiretapping policy wouldn’t even have to become official in\norder to get some response from Meta. They’ll try to turn it into a “why\nis the city picking on small business” story, but the city can lean on\nthe “enabling crime” angle, and in my experience, the more that people\nhear about how Meta tracking works, the madder they are at anyone\ninvolved in it. So in order to prevent the story from dragging on too\nlong, Meta would be likely to do something for the city on CSAM, like\nstaffing up on moderators. They [gave\nthe UK a special scam reporting tool to settle the Martin Lewis\ncase](https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/23/18194435/facebook-martin-lewis-lawsuit-cryptocurrency-ad-scam-settlement-donation), and this issue is a lot creepier.\n\n[WEBSITE\nTRACKING UNDER CIPA: Surviving Motion to Dismiss Without Technical\nSpecificity.](https://cipaworld.com/2026/09/14/website-tracking-under-cipa-surviving-motion-to-dismiss-without-technical-specificity/)\n\nDid I miss something? And you can [turn off\nthe ads on Samsung refrigerators now](https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10007562/)?\n\n[Tesco\nalerts police as supermarket becomes latest victim of scam ‘endorsement’\nads](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/sep/13/tesco-scam-endorsement-haaland-bellingham-casino) by Rob Davies. ([Meta’s\nadvertising system is designed to give advantages to deceptive\nadvertisers](https://blog.zgp.org/but-i-want-to-turn-people-into-dinosaurs/).)\n\n[How\nMeta tried, and failed, to grab its employees’ data for AI](https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-ai-program-prompted-internal-revolt-program-suspended-2026-9) by\nCharles Rollet. (Employees “revolted” over *employee*\nsurveillance, but not any of the other…all this?)\n\n[Meta\nReleases Uber-Creepy AI Chatbot as Its Platforms Crumble Under Grotesque\nChild Abuse](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-creepy-ai-chatbot-muse) by Victor Tangermann, [Facebook\nIs Hosting Huge Numbers of Horrifying AI-Generated Videos of Violent\nChild Abuse, and Meta Is Barely Even Pretending to Care About Taking\nThem Down](https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/facebook-meta-ai-generated-violent-child-abuse) by Jon Christian.\n\n[What\nthe settlement left out: Meta can still collect data from kids](https://theconversation.com/what-the-settlement-left-out-meta-can-still-collect-data-from-kids-291130) by\nRandolph A Robinson II. [W]hile Meta agreed to some limited changes\nto safeguard young users, it also succeeded in protecting its\nsurveillance-based business model.\n\n[Billions\nin fines might not change Big Tech, but $5,000 per victim payouts just\nmight](https://bobsullivan.net/cybercrime/billions-in-fines-might-not-change-big-tech-but-5000-per-victim-payouts-just-might/) by Bob Sullivan. But last year’s Flo Health period tracking\napp case is different. It went to trial. Victims testified. Experts\nexposed Meta’s misbehaviors. A jury weighed the evidence and found Meta\nguilty. And most of all, consumers are probably going to get something\nfor their trouble. California residents who used the app during the time\ncovered in the case are entitled to $5,000 compensation, as long as the\nclass action judgment holds.\n\n[Here’s\nHow to Protect Your Privacy If Someone Is Recording You With Their\nGlasses](https://lifehacker.com/tech/protect-privacy-meta-glasses-recording) by Eric Ravenscraft. Meta’s smart glasses are earning a\nreputation for being a privacy nightmare—to put it mildly….Know your\nrights if someone is recording you.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-question-of-jurisdiction", "canonical_source": "https://blog.zgp.org/a-question-of-jurisdiction/", "published_at": "2026-09-14 00:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-15 04:31:48.098834+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-ethics", "ai-policy", "generative-ai"], "entities": ["Meta", "David Chiu", "San Francisco", "California", "Google", "Martin Lewis", "Tesco", "Samsung"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-question-of-jurisdiction", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-question-of-jurisdiction.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-question-of-jurisdiction.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/a-question-of-jurisdiction.jsonld"}}