Every Met Gala has some sort of controversy, whether it’s about the dress code and theme, the guest list, or a now-infamous brawl in an elevator at an afterparty. Because this is 2024, it’s only fitting that the outrage began this year because of a TikTok audio track.
Technology
Why TikTok users are blocking celebrities
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25448209/247112_TikTok_Blockout2024_CVirginia_A.jpg?ssl=1 "Why TikTok users are blocking celebrities")
In a now-deleted video, an influencer named Haley Kalil shows off her elaborate floral dress and headpiece as she prepares to host a pre-Met Gala red carpet event. Her misstep was using an audio snippet in the background taken from the 2006 film Marie Antoinette, in which the titular character smirks and delivers one of the most famous (and spurious) one-liners of history: “Let them eat cake.” The sound has been circulating on TikTok for months, mostly used in makeup tutorials, fashion videos, and things of that nature.
The backlash was swift and brutal. Audiences compared the event to The Hunger Games, a dystopia where the wealthy sit back as everyone else fights to the death. TikTok users flooded Kalil’s comments saying she was clueless, callous, or purposefully trying to manufacture outrage. Kalil insisted it was an honest mistake, but the optics were bad: as thousands die, starve, and are displaced in Gaza, reveling in opulence will inevitably rub some the wrong way.
For seven months, social media audiences have watched violence rain down on Palestinians in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7th attack in Israel. Instagram feeds have been inundated with infographics, charts, and gruesome images of death and destruction. TikTok — once an app primarily known for goofy dances — has become a battleground for shaping the public narrative around the long-standing Israel-Palestine conflict. For many — especially younger people — their entire exposure to the conflict has been on social media, as opposed to learning of it on a college campus, through family, or via traditional media. It only makes sense, then, that these same platforms have become an outlet for their responses, whether in the form of frustration, activism, or some combination thereof.
At the same time that Kalil’s video was being debated and discussed, a seemingly unplanned grassroots movement dubbed “Blockout 2024” was picking up steam. Last week, a TikTok user shared a video about blocking celebrities on social media platforms in order to stymie their reach and, by extension, their earnings from ads or sponsored content. The video was in response to clips from the Met Gala interspersed with news footage of Gaza, and the intended message was clear: celebrities don’t care about what happens to everyone else. The least normal people could do is try to cut the powerful off however they can.
Since then, a litany of “block lists” have circulated, created by different people and for different reasons. The targets vary, but Kim Kardashian, Tom Brady, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Selena Gomez are frequently listed, along with many others. (Kalil, unsurprisingly, has also been mentioned.) It’s a diffuse movement with no established leadership or stated goals, but it’s clearly resonated: tens of thousands of posts have been made on TikTok and Instagram using related hashtags, and comment sections are filled with “#blockout” and pro-Palestine messages.
The Blockout is coinciding with more direct forms of mutual aid, with pressure directed at celebrities and influencers to promote these efforts. Sending funds and other resources to Gaza has been difficult over the past several months due to the legal system, the collapse of infrastructure, and Israel’s physical blocking of aid going into Gaza. Some content creators have publicly called on celebrities to support organizations like Operation Olive Branch, a grassroots effort to directly fundraise for Palestinian families. Artists and creators like Lizzo and Hank Green have posted in support of the organizations, spurred in part by comedian Erin Hattamer’s call for fundraising.
Social media-based activism can be fleeting: followers lose interest; momentum dies down; and the reach of movements is limited by algorithms. To be fair, the Blockout is still in its early days, and it’s unclear if it will have a measurable impact. But for a conflict that’s unfolding via shortform videos, live selfie-style updates, and Instagram posts, this will likely not be the last we hear of it.
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When Oregon resident Isabelle Reksopuro heard Google was gobbling up public land to fuel its data centers in her home state, she didn’t initially know what to believe. “There’s a lot of misinformation about data centers,” she said. “Google has denied taking that land.”
Technically, she explains, The Dalles, a city near the Washington state border, sought to reclaim that land, “and Google is just a big, unnamed power user.” The city had in fact asked for ownership of a 150-acre portion of Mount Hood National Forest, claiming it needs access to Mount Hood’s watershed to meet municipal needs as its population — 16,010 as of the 2020 census — grows. But critics, including environmentalists, say the city is trying to secure more water for Google, which has a sprawling data center campus in The Dalles that already consumes about one-third of the city’s water supply.
This controversy made Reksopuro curious about the backlash to data centers being built in other communities. So Reksopuro, a student at the University of Washington who studies the connections between tech and public policy, decided to map it out. Using information collected by Epoch AI and data scraped from legislation on data centers, she built an interactive map tracking AI policy around the world. She designed it to be simple enough for anyone to use. “I wanted it to be something that my younger sisters could play through and explore to understand what are the data centers in the area and what’s actually being done about it,” Reksopuro said. She hoped to shift their opinions that way, “instead of like, through TikTok.”
Four times a day, the map searches for new sources and checks them against the existing database Reksopuro built out. “Once it does that, it will write a new summary, add it to the news feed, and populate it on the sidebar,” she said. “I wanted it to be self-updating, since I’m also a student.”
Reksopuro isn’t against data centers, but she thinks tech giants benefit from a lack of transparency around data center policies. “Right now, it’s this really opaque thing — and all of a sudden, there’s a facility,” she said. “I think that if people knew about data centers beforehand, it would give them leverage. They would be able to negotiate: ask for job training programs, tax revenue, environmental monitoring, things to improve their community.”
UCF commencement speaker Gloria Caulfield (University of Central Florida via Storyful)
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TOUGH CROWD: During a recent commencement ceremony at the University of Central Florida, a speaker was met with loud boos from the graduating class after declaring that artificial intelligence represents the next industrial revolution. Fox News Digital reporting captures this tense cultural moment, illustrating the mixed public sentiment and skepticism surrounding AI’s growing footprint in daily life.
A statue on the campus of the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida. (iStock)
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FBI Director Kash Patel listened as Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche spoke during a press conference at the Department of Justice on April 28, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
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ROAD HAZARD: Waymo is issuing a sweeping recall of its autonomous vehicle fleet following a concerning incident that highlighted significant safety issues with the self-driving technology. Fox News Digital reporting outlines the specifics of the recall, the nature of the safety flaw, and what this setback means for the future of fully autonomous transportation on public roads.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the 2026 Infrastructure Summit in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 2026. (Kylie Cooper/Reuters)
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Microsoft Edge is adding a new feature that will allow its Copilot AI chatbot to gather information from all of your open tabs. When you start a conversation with Copilot, you can ask the chatbot questions about what’s in your tabs, compare the products you’re looking at, summarize your open articles, and more.
In its announcement, Microsoft says you can “select which experiences you want or leave off the ones you don’t.” The company is retiring Copilot Mode as well, which could similarly draw information from your tabs but offered some agentic features, like the ability to book a reservation on your behalf. Microsoft has since folded these agentic capabilities into its “Browse with Copilot” tool.
Several other AI features are coming to Edge, including an AI-powered “Study and Learn” mode that can turn the article you’re looking at into a study session or interactive quiz. There’s a new tool that turns your tabs into AI-powered podcasts as well, similar to what you’d find on NotebookLM, and an AI writing assistant that will pop up when you start entering text on a webpage.
You can also give Copilot permission to access your browsing history to provide more “relevant, high-quality answers,” according to Microsoft. Copilot in Edge on desktop and mobile will come with “long-term memory” as well, which can tailor its responses based on your previous conversations. And, when you open up a new tab, you’ll see a redesigned page that combines chat, search, and web navigation, along with the Journeys feature, which uses AI to organize your browsing history into categories that you can revisit.
Meanwhile, an update to Edge’s mobile app will allow you to share your screen with Copilot and talk through the questions about what you’re seeing. Microsoft says you’ll see “clear visual cues” when Copilot is active, “so you know when it’s taking an action, helping, listening, or viewing.”
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