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Meta held talks to buy Thinking Machines, Perplexity, and Safe Superintelligence

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10 months ago

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Meta held talks to buy Thinking Machines, Perplexity, and Safe Superintelligence

At this point, it’s becoming easier to say which AI startups Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t looked at acquiring.

In addition to Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence (SSI), sources tell me the Meta CEO recently discussed buying ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab and Perplexity, the AI-native Google rival. None of these talks progressed to the formal offer stage for various reasons, including disagreements over deal prices and strategy, but together they illustrate how aggressively Zuckerberg has been canvassing the industry to reboot his AI efforts.

Now, details about the team Zuckerberg is assembling are starting to come into view: SSI co-founder and CEO Daniel Gross, along with ex-Github CEO Nat Friedman, are poised to co-lead the Meta AI assistant. Both men will report to Alexandr Wang, the former Scale CEO Zuckerberg just paid over $14 billion to quickly hire. Wang told his Scale team goodbye last Friday and was in the Meta office on Monday. This week, he has been meeting with top Meta leaders (more on that below) and continuing to recruit for the new AI team Zuckerberg has tasked him with building. I expect the team to be unveiled as soon as next week.

Rather than join Meta, Sutskever, Murati, and Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas have all gone on to raise more money at higher valuations. Sutskever, a titan of the AI research community who co-founded OpenAI, recently raised a couple of billion dollars for SSI. Both Meta and Google are investors in his company, I’m told. Murati also just raised a couple of billion dollars. Neither she nor Sutskever is close to releasing a product. Srinivas, meanwhile, is in the process of raising around $500 million for Perplexity.

Spokespeople for all the companies involved either declined to comment or didn’t respond in time for publication. The Information and CNBC first reported Zuckerberg’s talks with Safe Superintelligence, while Bloomberg first reported the Perplexity talks.

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While Zuckerberg’s recruiting drive is motivated by the urgency he feels to fix Meta’s AI strategy, the situation also highlights the fierce competition for top AI talent these days. In my conversations this week, those on the inside of the industry aren’t surprised by Zuckerberg making nine-figure — or even, yes, 10-figure — compensation offers for the best AI talent. There are certain senior people at OpenAI, for example, who are already compensated in that ballpark, thanks to the company’s meteoric increase in valuation over the last few years.

Speaking of OpenAI, it’s clear that CEO Sam Altman is at least a bit rattled by Zuckerberg’s hiring spree. His decision to appear on his brother’s podcast this week and say that “none of our best people” are leaving for Meta was probably meant to convey a position of strength, but in reality, it looks like he is throwing his former colleagues under the bus. I was confused by Altman’s suggestion that Meta paying a lot upfront for talent won’t “set up a great culture.” After all, didn’t OpenAI just pay $6.5 billion to hire Jony Ive and his small hardware team?

Alex Himel.

“We think that glasses are the best form factor for AI”

When I joined a Zoom call with Alex Himel, Meta’s VP of wearables, this week, he had just gotten off a call with Zuckerberg’s new AI chief, Alexandr Wang.

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“There’s an increasing number of Alexes that I talk to on a regular basis,” Himel joked as we started our conversation about Meta’s new glasses release with Oakley. “I was just in my first meeting with him. There were like three people in a room with the camera real far away, and I was like, ‘Who is talking right now?’ And then I was like, ‘Oh, hey, it’s Alex.’”

The following Q&A has been edited for length and clarity:

How did your meeting with Alex just now go?

The meeting was about how to make AI as awesome as it can be for glasses. Obviously, there are some unique use cases in the glasses that aren’t stuff you do on a phone. The thing we’re trying to figure out is how to balance it all, because AI can be everything to everyone or it could be amazing for more specific use cases.

We’re trying to figure out how to strike the right balance because there’s a ton of stuff in the underlying Llama models and that whole pipeline that we don’t care about on glasses. Then there’s stuff we really, really care about, like egocentric view and trying to feed video into the models to help with some of the really aspirational use cases that we wouldn’t build otherwise.

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You are referring to this new lineup with Oakley as “AI glasses.” Is that the new branding for this category? They are AI glasses, not smart glasses?

We refer to the category as AI glasses. You saw Orion. You used it for longer than anyone else in the demo, which I commend you for. We used to think that’s what you needed to hit scale for this new category. You needed the big field of view and display to overlay virtual content. Our opinion of that has definitely changed. We think we can hit scale faster, and AI is the reason we think that’s possible.

Right now, the top two use cases for the glasses are audio — phone calls, music, podcasts — and taking photos and videos. We look at participation rates of our active users, and those have been one and two since launch. Audio is one. A very close second is photos and videos.

AI has been number three from the start. As we’ve been launching more markets — we’re now in 18 — and we’ve been adding more features, AI is creeping up. Our biggest investment by a mile on the software side is AI functionality, because we think that glasses are the best form factor for AI. They are something you’re already wearing all the time. They can see what you see. They can hear what you hear. They’re super accessible.

Is your goal to have AI supersede audio and photo to be the most used feature for glasses, or is that not how you think about it?

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From a math standpoint, at best, you could tie. We do want AI to be something that’s increasingly used by more people more frequently. We think there’s definitely room for the audio to get better. There’s definitely room for image quality to get better. The AI stuff has much more headroom.

How much of the AI is onboard the glasses versus the cloud? I imagine you have lots of physical constraints with this kind of device.

We’ve now got one billion-parameter models that can run on the frame. So, increasingly, there’s stuff there. Then we have stuff running on the phone.

If you were watching WWDC, Apple made a couple of announcements that we haven’t had a chance to test yet, but we’re excited about. One is the Wi-Fi Aware APIs. We should be able to transfer photos and videos without having people tap that annoying dialogue box every time. That’d be great. The second one was processor background access, which should allow us to do image processing when you transfer the media over. Syncing would work just like it does on Android.

Do you think the market for these new Oakley glasses will be as big as the Ray-Bans? Or is it more niche because they are more outdoors and athlete-focused?

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We work with EssilorLuxottica, which is a great partner. Ray-Ban is their largest brand. Within that, the most popular style is Wayfair. When we launched the original Ray-Ban Meta glasses, we went with the most popular style for the most popular brand.

Their second biggest brand is Oakley. A lot of people wear them. The Holbrook is really popular. The HSTN, which is what we’re launching, is a really popular analog frame. We increasingly see people using the Ray-Ban Meta glasses for active use cases. This is our first step into the performance category. There’s more to come.

What’s your reaction to Google’s announcements at I/O for their XR glasses platform and eyewear partnerships?

We’ve been working with EssilorLuxottica for like five years now. That’s a long time for a partnership. It takes a while to get really in sync. I feel very good about the state of our partnership. We’re able to work quickly. The Oakley Meta glasses are the fastest program we’ve had by quite a bit. It took less than nine months.

I thought the demos they [Google] did were pretty good. I thought some of those were pretty compelling. They didn’t announce a product, so I can’t react specifically to what they’re doing. It’s flattering that people see the traction we’re getting and want to jump in as well.

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On the AR glasses front, what have you been learning from Orion now that you’ve been showing it to the outside world?

We’ve been going full speed on that. We’ve actually hit some pretty good internal milestones for the next version of it, which is the one we plan to sell. The biggest learning from using them is that we feel increasingly good about the input and interaction model with eye tracking and the neural band. I wore mine during March Madness in the office. I was literally watching the games. Picture yourself sitting at a table with a virtual TV just above people’s heads. It was amazing.

  • TikTok gets to keep operating illegally. As expected, President Trump extended his enforcement deadline for the law that has banned a China-owned TikTok in the US. It’s essential to understand what is really happening here: Trump is instructing his Attorney General not to enforce earth-shattering fines on Apple, Google, and every other American company that helps operate TikTok. The idea that he wouldn’t use this immense leverage to extract whatever he wants from these companies is naive, and this whole process makes a mockery of everyone involved, not to mention the US legal system.
  • Amazon will hire fewer people because of AI. When you make an employee memo a press release, you’re trying to tell the whole world what’s coming. In this case, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wants to make clear that he’s going to fully embrace AI to cut costs. Roughly 30 percent of Amazon’s code is already written by AI, and I’m sure Jassy is looking at human-intensive areas, such as sales and customer service, to further automate.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe to The Verge, which includes unlimited access to Command Line and all of our reporting.

As always, I welcome your feedback, especially if you’ve also turned down Zuck. You can respond here or ping me securely on Signal.

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Technology

YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts

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10 hours ago

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April 15, 2026

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YouTube now lets you turn off Shorts

YouTube’s time management settings now have an option to put a zero-minute time limit on Shorts, effectively removing them from your app in Android and iOS. The option is an update to the Shorts timer YouTube originally announced in October; the lowest previous option was 15 minutes.

The feature was expanded in January to give parents some control over how long their kids spend scrolling through Shorts, with an option for zero minutes “coming soon.” According to YouTube spokesperson Makenzie Spiller, the option to set the timer to zero is now “live for all parents, and is currently being rolled out to everyone,” including users with regular adult accounts.

Regardless of age, it can be a handy tool for anyone who wants to spend a little less time scrolling. The Shorts tab won’t show any videos once you hit your limit, just a notification that you’ve “reached your Shorts feed limit.” In our tests, hitting the time limit also removes Shorts from the Home screen, so by setting the timer to zero you can ignore Shorts entirely if you want. To turn on the timer, go to the settings in the YouTube app and select “time management” then toggle on the Shorts feed limit and select a time for it.

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Technology

5 worrisome privacy clauses hidden in smart home devices

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10 hours ago

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April 15, 2026

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5 worrisome privacy clauses hidden in smart home devices

Most voters fear AI could overtake humans, new poll finds

Kurt ‘CyberGuy’ Knutsson discusses a new poll on American voters’ concerns about artificial intelligence, explains how robots are being deployed to help seniors combat social isolation, and more on ‘Fox & Friends First.’

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Many of the apps and devices we use every day contain privacy terms most people never read. Yet those clauses often allow extensive data harvesting, behavioral tracking and long-term storage of personal information. Some even allow companies to access recordings or share data with partners.

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The reality is simple. Smart devices inside your home and car can build detailed profiles about your daily life. Your schedule. Your habits. Even your conversations. One way I explain this to people is simple. Your phone knows where you go. Your smart home knows what you do when you get there. I unpack how this works in everyday life on my Beyond Connected podcast at getbeyondconnected.com. In many cases, these devices are not just reacting to you. They are actively logging, analyzing, and storing your behavior by default, often without you realizing it.

Let’s walk through five privacy clauses that surprise most people. We will start with number five and count down to the most unsettling one.

YOUR PHONE SHARES DATA AT NIGHT: HERE’S HOW TO STOP IT

The Nest Audio, the newest speaker with a virtual assistant by Google, is being exhibited on the Android Smart Home display during the Mobile World Congress 2023 on March 2, 2023, in Barcelona, Spain. (Joan Cros/NurPhoto)

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Clause No. 5: ‘We log and share your driving data’

Today’s vehicles are no longer just transportation. Many now operate as connected computers on wheels. Connected vehicle platforms and systems, such as Android Automotive OS, collect large amounts of telemetry data.

That can include:

  • Vehicle speed
  • Seat usage
  • Climate controls
  • Location and trip data

Researchers have found that vehicles may gather dozens or even hundreds of data points during normal driving. In some cases, researchers found that vehicle speed can be logged as frequently as 25 times per second, creating a highly detailed record of how you drive.

What this means for drivers

Your car may know:

  • Where you drive
  • When you drive
  • How aggressively you accelerate or brake
  • Which seats are occupied

That data can be used to infer stops, turns, and even risky driving behavior. In some cases, it may also be shared with third parties for advertising, insurance, or financing purposes. In other words, your vehicle can create a detailed picture of your driving behavior and routines. Many drivers never realize how much information their car collects.

The new Alexa+ is powered by a more responsive AI. (iStock)

Clause No. 4: ‘We track what you watch’

Your television may be one of the most active data collectors in your home. Many smart TVs from brands like Samsung, LG, and Roku use a technology called Automatic Content Recognition, often shortened to ACR.

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ACR can analyze what appears on your screen across:

  • Streaming apps
  • Cable television
  • Gaming consoles
  • HDMI devices

This technology works in real time, identifying what you are watching and reporting that information back to the company. Some policies even state that snippets of audio or video may be shared with third parties to match ads to your viewing. Some lawsuits have alleged that certain TVs capture screenshots extremely frequently to identify content.

Why this matters

Your TV can learn:

  • What shows you watch
  • When you watch them
  • How long you stay on each program
  • Which devices you connect to the TV

That means the show you binge, the time you watch it, and even how long you stay engaged can be packaged and sold to advertisers almost instantly. That viewing data may then be shared with advertising partners to build detailed marketing profiles.

Clause No. 3: ‘We track your behavior and location’

Video doorbells are designed to increase home security. Yet they can also gather large amounts of behavioral data. Devices like the Ring Video Doorbell may automatically collect information such as:

  • Device identifiers
  • Browsing activity
  • Usage patterns
  • Timestamps

Privacy disclosures also show that these devices can collect geolocation data, IP addresses, and details about the devices connected to your network.

What that data can reveal

Over time, a doorbell camera can build a timeline that shows:

  • When you leave home
  • When deliveries arrive
  • How often visitors come
  • Which devices connect to your network

Put together, this creates a detailed map of your daily routine, including when you are home, when you are away, and how your household operates. Individually, these signals seem harmless. Together, they can reveal detailed patterns about your household. If an account is ever compromised, that data can act as a blueprint of your life, not just a camera feed.

Clause No. 2: ‘Humans may review your recordings’

Some smart devices store recordings that help improve voice recognition and AI systems. Devices that may store recordings include:

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Past regulatory findings have raised concerns about how companies manage that stored data. In some cases, recordings may be accessed by:

  • Human reviewers
  • Contractors
  • Internal teams that are training AI systems

Some company disclosures state that a small number of recordings may be reviewed by research and development teams to improve products and services.

Why this clause raises eyebrows

The goal of human review is often to improve voice assistants or detect errors. Still, many users never realize that recordings captured inside their homes may be reviewed by people. That means a conversation in your living room or a clip from your front door could be seen or heard by someone you have never met. Transparency about how this process works remains an ongoing discussion across the tech industry.

Clause No. 1: ‘We store your voice indefinitely’

Voice assistants sit quietly in kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms waiting for their wake word. Devices like the Amazon Echo process voice commands in the cloud.

According to company disclosures, voice interactions can include:

  • Audio recordings sent to cloud servers
  • Transcripts stored in your account
  • Voice data used to improve services

In many cases, these recordings are saved by default and can remain stored indefinitely unless you manually delete them or change your settings.

Why this is the most surprising clause

Over time, your voice assistant may accumulate years of audio interactions. That can include everything from grocery lists and song requests to conversations you did not even realize were captured. That history can reveal daily routines, requests, shopping habits, and personal questions. Most people never review or delete those recordings.

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Why smart devices are a privacy multiplier

Each individual device collects only part of the picture. Together, they can reveal an astonishing amount of detail about your life. Smart devices inside your home and vehicle may capture:

  • Conversations
  • Daily schedules
  • Viewing habits
  • Location history
  • Visitor patterns
  • Voice biometrics

Combined, this data allows companies to build extremely detailed behavioral profiles. That is why privacy experts call connected homes a data multiplier. In many cases, the value of that data is part of the business model, helping offset the cost of the devices themselves.

5 privacy moves to take back control of your tech

The good news is you still have ways to reduce how much information your devices collect. Here are a few practical steps that can make a big difference. 

An Amazon Echo Show 8 smart-home device during the Amazon Devices and Services event at the HQ2 campus in Arlington, Virginia, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023. Amazon.com Inc. previewed a push into generative artificial intelligence with new features for its Alexa voice assistant. (Al Drago/Bloomberg)

 

No. 5: Audit your app permissions

Start by reviewing what access your apps have to your devices. If you use smart home apps like Ring, also check in-app privacy settings such as Control Center and turn off sharing with third parties where available.

On iPhone

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  • Open Settings
  • Tap Privacy & Security
  • Select Location Services, Microphone or Camera
  • Review which apps have access

Whenever possible, set location access to While Using the App rather than Always.

On Android

Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer

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  • Open Settings
  • Tap Security and Privacy
  • Tap More privacy settings 
  • Select Permission Manager
  • Review Location, Microphone, and Camera permissions

Whenever possible, set location access to Allow only while using the app rather than Allow all the time.

Removing unnecessary permissions helps limit background tracking.

No. 4: Turn off smart TV tracking

Most TVs include a setting that controls content tracking.

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Look for options such as:

  • ACR
  • Viewing Data
  • Interest-Based Ads

On Roku, go to Settings → Privacy → Smart TV Experience and disable it. On Samsung, look for Viewing Information Services and turn it off.

Turn these features off in the privacy or advertising section of your TV settings. 

No. 3: Use stronger passwords

Smart home devices often connect to important accounts. If attackers access those accounts, they may control cameras, speakers, or home automation systems. Use strong, unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication (2FA)  whenever available. A password manager can help generate and store secure passwords.

Next, see if your email has been exposed in past breaches. Our No. 1 password manager (see Cyberguy.com) pick includes a built-in breach scanner that checks whether your email address or passwords have appeared in known leaks. If you discover a match, immediately change any reused passwords and secure those accounts with new, unique credentials.

Check out the best expert-reviewed password managers of 2026 at Cyberguy.com.

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5 TECH TERMS THAT SHAPE YOUR ONLINE PRIVACY

No. 2: Delete old apps and accounts

Dormant apps and forgotten services often keep your personal information for years.

Take time to:

  • Remove apps you no longer use
  • Close accounts tied to old services
  • Revoke unused permissions

Cleaning up digital clutter reduces your data footprint.

Remove apps you no longer use

On iPhone (iOS 18 and newer)

  • Find the app on your Home Screen
  • Press and hold the app icon
  • Tap Remove App
  • Tap Delete App
  • Tap Delete to confirm

You can also remove apps through storage settings:

  • Open Settings
  • Tap General
  • Tap iPhone Storage
  • Select the app
  • Tap Delete App
  • Tap Delete to confirm

Deleting the app removes it from your device and frees up storage space.

On Android (Android 14 and newer)

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Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer.

  • Find the app on your Home Screen or App Drawer
  • Press and hold the app icon
  • Tap Uninstall
  • Tap OK or Uninstall to confirm

You can also remove apps through settings:

  • Open Settings
  • Tap Apps or Apps & notifications
  • Select the app you want to remove
  • Tap Uninstall
  • Tap OK or Uninstall to confirm

Removing unused apps helps reduce the amount of data stored on your device.

Revoke unused permissions

Some apps continue accessing your camera, microphone or location even when you rarely use them.

On iPhone

  • Open Settings
  • Tap Privacy & Security
  • Select a category such as Location Services, Microphone or Camera
  • Review the apps listed
  • Turn off access for apps that do not need it

You can also control tracking:

5 MYTHS ABOUT IDENTITY THEFT THAT PUT YOUR DATA AT RISK

  • Go to Settings
  • Tap Privacy & Security
  • Tap Tracking
  • Turn off tracking for apps you do not trust.

On Android

Settings may vary depending on your Android phone’s manufacturer

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  • Open Settings
  • Tap Security & Privacy
  • Tap Privacy or More privacy settings 
  • Tap Permission Manager
  • Select Location, Camera or Microphone
  • Review the apps listed and remove access if needed

Android groups permissions by type so you can quickly see which apps access sensitive features.

A Ring security camera is seen on the fence of a home on June 1, 2023, in San Anselmo, California. Amazon has agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission over $30 million in a privacy settlement over its Ring cameras. The company’s Ring doorbell division paid $5.8 million for violating a portion of the FTC Act that prohibits unfair or deceptive business practices and $25 million for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by illegally retaining Alexa voice assistant profiles of thousands of children. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Today’s phones may automatically remove permissions from apps you have not used for a long time, but many apps still retain data tied to your account. Reviewing them manually helps reduce tracking and background data collection.

No. 1: Limit always-listening devices

Smart speakers constantly wait for wake words like “Alexa” or “Hey Google.” That means the microphone stays active so the device can detect commands. If you rarely use these features, limiting them can reduce how much audio data leaves your home. Here are some simple ways to reduce always-listening devices. 

Mute the microphone on smart speakers

Most smart speakers include a physical microphone mute button.

Press the mic mute button on devices like:

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  • Amazon Echo
  • Google Nest speakers
  • Apple HomePod

When muted, the device stops listening for wake words. 

Unplug devices in private spaces

Bedrooms and home offices are common places where people prefer extra privacy. If a speaker or smart display is rarely used in those rooms, unplugging it removes the microphone entirely.

Review voice recordings in your account

Many voice assistants store past interactions. You can review and delete recordings inside the companion apps, such as:

  • Alexa app
  • Google Home app
  • Apple Home app

Set recordings to auto-delete or choose not to save them at all, where that option exists. Removing stored recordings prevents them from accumulating over time.

Disable voice activation on some devices

Some smart TVs, phones and tablets include voice assistants. Look in device settings for options such as:

  • Voice assistant
  • Voice wake word
  • Hands-free voice control

Turning those features off stops devices from constantly listening. Even though devices listen only for wake words, the microphones remain active. Limiting where these devices operate helps reduce the amount of audio data collected inside your home. 

Kurt’s key takeaways

Smart devices make daily life easier. They play music, answer questions, show visitors at the door and control lights with a voice command. But convenience often comes with hidden trade-offs. Many privacy clauses are buried deep in policies that most people never read. Over time, those permissions allow companies to gather enormous amounts of behavioral data. That does not mean you need to abandon smart technology. It simply means understanding what your devices collect and deciding what level of access you are comfortable with. Many of these settings are enabled by default, not because you chose them, but because you never knew they were there. A quick privacy audit today can prevent years of unnecessary data collection tomorrow. Oh, and if you want a deeper dive into how these hidden data practices affect your daily life, check out the latest episode of my Beyond Connected podcast at getbeyondconnected.com, where we break it down.

Here is a question worth asking yourself: If every smart device in your home combined its data into one timeline of your life, how comfortable would you feel with someone seeing it? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

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The new Tomodachi Life is made to be shared — even if Nintendo doesn’t want you to

Published

22 hours ago

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April 15, 2026

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The new Tomodachi Life is made to be shared — even if Nintendo doesn’t want you to

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is hard to explain. The best way to understand is to see it in action; a screenshot of Handsome Squidward and Bob Belcher falling in love over their shared appreciation of cannibalism makes it clear that, while it’s a life sim, the game is really a joke-generating machine. Living the Dream on the Nintendo Switch gives you more tools and fewer restrictions to make those jokes stranger and funnier. But while Living the Dream provides more freedom for creativity, it also has big restrictions on sharing those creations, and the game seems content with inside jokes staying within its virtual walls.

Living the Dream is the sequel to a 3DS game that, a decade ago, I called “the weirdest thing Nintendo has ever made.” It’s sort of like The Sims or Animal Crossing, and it’s also a little like a Tamagotchi. You play as an omniscient overseer of a small island that’s populated with Miis, Nintendo’s delightfully lo-fi avatar characters, and you have to feed them and make them happy by fostering relationships and playing games. As you do that, the island will expand with more residents and more things to interact with, so that eventually you’ll have a Ferris wheel, a restaurant, and a TV news station.

What makes the sequel interesting is that it really opens up what you’re able to do. The creation tools in particular are much more robust. There are lots of options for designing Miis such that, even though I am decidedly not artistically inclined, I was able to make very recognizable cartoon characters without too much effort. Notably, unlike its predecessor, Living the Dream has options for things like same-sex relationships and nonbinary characters, making it much more inclusive and open. The island itself similarly has a lot of customization options, though these slowly unlock over time.

The real meat of the experience is setting up situations and watching how things unfold. You can make characters become friends or romantic partners by literally picking them up and putting them next to each other. The game will even frequently ask you for topics that they might want to talk about, Mad Libs style. It’s an acquired taste, but for the right kind of person it can also be hilarious.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Living the Dream is that, at least as far as I can tell, there are no restrictions for what you can name characters or what you can make them say. To really test this, I let my 13-year-old kid run wild, tasking her with creating the most messed-up island her teenage brain could think of. Now my Switch is home to the cast of The Owl House, who love to chat to each other about Hitler, summoning Satan, and human trafficking. Nothing that she threw at the game was off-limits. (Also, I’m a little worried about her.)

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That’s all very surprising for a Nintendo game, particularly given the company’s squeaky-clean image and family-friendly fare. And it’s almost certainly the reason why Nintendo has made it so that you can’t share screenshots and videos using the Switch’s built-in sharing features. Without getting into specifics, Nintendo wrote on a support page that the Living the Dream’s freedom can “sometimes lead to humorous, surprising, or unpredictable moments during gameplay,” but also said that “we recognize that out-of-context scenes may be misunderstood or may not reflect the spirit in which the game is intended to be enjoyed.”

Given the problems Nintendo has run into with online sharing in the past, it’s an understandable position to take. It’s also not impossible to share things; you can get around the limitation with a capture card or by simply taking photos of the Switch’s screen. Players already started doing that when Living the Dream’s demo came out.

Since much of the fun of Tomodachi Life is pushing the game to its limits to see what you can make your little Miis do, maybe Nintendo understood that there probably wasn’t any kind of filter it could put in the game that inventive players wouldn’t be able to bypass. Perhaps a full-scale sharing ban was the only option. But that decision also runs counter to the spirit of Living the Dream. Whenever I land on a really good joke, I immediately take a screenshot because I want to show it to people. My kid and I have been comparing stupid images all week trying to one-up each other.

Nintendo’s restrictions aren’t going to stop the really dedicated players. TikTok will almost certainly be flooded with even more phone camera videos of cute little Miis talking about sex and violence. Because those kinds of players are exactly who this game is for.

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream launches on the Nintendo Switch on April 16th.

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