Morning Brew Daily
2025 Laws Take on Social Media and Minimum Wage & Tesla Suffers First Sales Slip
Fri, 03 Jan 2025
Episode 489: Neal and Toby recap the major laws on AI, social media, guns, and cannabis that go into effect in 2025. Then, both the New Orleans attack and Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion were vehicles rented on the car-renting app Turo, which raises the company’s vetting process. Also, Tesla has its first-ever annual sales decline in over a decade. Meanwhile, Squid Game Season 2 is this (short) week’s Stock of the Week, and the norovirus outbreaks is the Dog of the Week. Lastly, a headline roundup to get you through the weekend. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow 00:00 - Ins/Outs of 2025 02:00 - New Laws in 2025 07:45 - What is Turo? 12:40 - Tesla Sales Drop 16:00 - Stock of the Week 19:30 - Dog of the Week 22:30 - Headlines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the major new laws for 2025?
That Netflix just had its biggest TV debut of all time, and it had nothing to do with the NFL. It's Friday, January 3rd. Let's ride.
It's that time of the year, the very beginning, when everyone is posting what's in and what's out for 2025. Toby, you consider yourself a tastemaker. You even have a segment called Toby's Trends, after all. So what's going to be in this year and what's going to be passe?
All right. In this year is earnestness. Out is aloofness. We are trying hard and taking things seriously in 2025. In, long-distance running. Out, long-distance relationships. Just move already. It's good for the soul. In, pronouncing words incorrectly, oddly enough. So we're giving ourselves some grace. Out is saying it Chipotle or Nvidia. Those two are crossing the line. And then finally, in...
Business news podcast. Absolutely. Out. Being uninformed. I feel like that one speaks for itself. Neil, you don't have a Toby's Trends segment, but do you have an in and out?
I have a few. My first one has to do with running as well. I think running clubs are out. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Too many. Swimming is in. Connections is out. Crosswords are in. I think TikTok is out, whether there's a ban or not. And it's going to be a big year for LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is in. And then my last one is the concept of vibes are out.
There's been too much talk of vibes over the past few years. No one really knows what it means. What's in is going to be data based decision making.
Okay, here's what I want to hear from you guys. Tell us if Toby's in and out are in or out, and then tell us if Neil's in and out are in and out. That might be a little confusing, but give us some feedback here.
All right, like all of you, U.S. states make their own resolutions on New Year's, but those come in the form of new laws. Tens of thousands of new laws went into effect on January 1st across the country, impacting everything from social media use to minimum wages to Taylor Swift tickets.
Toby and I are going to give you a quick tour of the most important and bizarre laws that are now active so you can learn something and also avoid jail time. First, let's talk internet. Florida's first of its kind controversial law that bans children under 14 from having social media accounts is technically in effect now.
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Chapter 2: How does Florida's social media law affect children?
Yeah, let's dive into that social media law from Florida because it also extends to something beyond social media, and that is adult content websites. The law also requires adult content websites to age verify for access with the goal of protecting kids from certain websites on the internet. It's not just Florida either. We are seeing this really across the South and across the country.
Tennessee, South Carolina, and a growing list of 14 other states now have residents who can no longer access those popular adult content websites, those popular pornography websites because of age verification laws. ALO Networks, which owns some of the biggest adult content websites out there, they decided to just block users because they don't think that they can
Chapter 3: What are the implications of the minimum wage increase?
actually comply and perform these reasonable AIDS verification requests. And there's been some pushback, obviously. Some free speech advocates say that it's just going to push people to even darker and more dangerous parts of the Internet. And they're not doing much to protect the actual people that they are trying to protect here.
So there's definitely going to be some Supreme Court arguments that do come down related to these cases. But I do think that's a theme of some of the laws that you described here is just protecting— child protections when it comes to online activity.
Right, I just want to put a point on it. 17 states across the US South and other parts of the United States can no longer access Pornhub and other adult content websites because they are deciding to not comply with these age verification rules over privacy concerns. They say, we don't want to be collecting this information, so we're just going to block you.
And that has been a huge trend over the past few years, started with Louisiana two years ago. And what you see after all of these bans come into effect is a massive spike in VPN use so people can skirt these blocks. So when this happened on Florida, in Florida on January 1st, two days ago, there was a VPN search spike of 1,150% within hours of it going into effect.
So people will have their point of whether it's blocked or not. And that's very similar to what we saw in other states like Utah saw a 967% spike in VPN use in 2023 when their law went into effect and Texas had a similar spike when that law went into effect But you're right.
This is going to the Supreme Court likely because free speech advocates have taken the site, taken the side of these adult content websites and have challenged this Texas law specifically. So we'll probably hear arguments on that. Well, I won't. But the Supreme Court will on January 15th. So that could have widespread impacts for all of these states that have put up these barriers.
So what else is going on other than these child protection laws, other than the minimum wage increases? Some other laws that are going into effect. Illinois gyms must allow memberships to be canceled by email or on their websites. I know a lot of people have had that really tough experience with the gym trying to actually cancel the membership. You may sign up for around the New Year's time.
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Chapter 4: What is Turo and why is it in the news?
California gave child influencers similar protections that child actors have. You have to, you know, if you are dancing on social media with your mom or dad, there are now new laws that do allow you to, you know, recoup some of the financial gain that they are receiving. Also, Minnesota adopted those ticketing transparency laws. Five states adopted privacy. pay transparency laws as well.
But then there's some weird laws that are going in effect as of 2025. California now allows marijuana dispensaries and venues to offer live entertainment. So think maybe similar to just like a club where you're drinking alcohol. Now they're having these clubs that can bring a band in where people are allowed to smoke marijuana.
Think like cannabis cafes in Amsterdam.
Yeah, Amsterdam is definitely going to be the kind of blueprint there. Washington, D.C. actually has a cashless retail prohibition law coming down that mandates retailers must accept cash payments. If you've ever seen those signs that say, we prefer charge, we do not accept cash here, that is now against the law in Washington, D.C.
And then New York passed a car wash promotion disclosure law, which requires car washes to clearly inform customers about promotion expiration dates.
You know what? That's very important.
It's very important. I can't believe people are driving in New York, let alone washing their cars. So again, Neil said this could potentially help you not run afoul of some of these laws. Hopefully none of these you're running into and you're not facing down any legal issues in 2025. But those are some of the laws that you should keep an eye on.
Moving on to the next story, the FBI has found no definitive link between the devastating New Orleans attack that killed 14 people on New Year's Day and the Cybertruck that was blown up in Las Vegas hours later. But there is one commonality between the two. Both the Cybertruck in Vegas and the Ford F-150 Lightning truck used in New Orleans were rented through the same car-sharing app, Turo.
It's put the once high-flying startup, which had plans to go public last year, squarely in the national crosshairs and raised questions about its security and vetting process. As of last year, Turo had 360,000 cars listed on its platform, where users could rent them out in a peer-to-peer system similar to Airbnb.
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Chapter 5: What caused Tesla's first annual sales decline?
Chapter 6: What is the Stock of the Week?
So there's definitely going to be some Supreme Court arguments that do come down related to these cases. But I do think that's a theme of some of the laws that you described here is just protecting— child protections when it comes to online activity.
Right, I just want to put a point on it. 17 states across the US South and other parts of the United States can no longer access Pornhub and other adult content websites because they are deciding to not comply with these age verification rules over privacy concerns. They say, we don't want to be collecting this information, so we're just going to block you.
And that has been a huge trend over the past few years, started with Louisiana two years ago. And what you see after all of these bans come into effect is a massive spike in VPN use so people can skirt these blocks. So when this happened on Florida, in Florida on January 1st, two days ago, there was a VPN search spike of 1,150% within hours of it going into effect.
Chapter 7: What are this week's headlines?
So people will have their point of whether it's blocked or not. And that's very similar to what we saw in other states like Utah saw a 967% spike in VPN use in 2023 when their law went into effect and Texas had a similar spike when that law went into effect But you're right.
This is going to the Supreme Court likely because free speech advocates have taken the site, taken the side of these adult content websites and have challenged this Texas law specifically. So we'll probably hear arguments on that. Well, I won't. But the Supreme Court will on January 15th. So that could have widespread impacts for all of these states that have put up these barriers.
So what else is going on other than these child protection laws, other than the minimum wage increases? Some other laws that are going into effect. Illinois gyms must allow memberships to be canceled by email or on their websites. I know a lot of people have had that really tough experience with the gym trying to actually cancel the membership. You may sign up for around the New Year's time.
California gave child influencers similar protections that child actors have. You have to, you know, if you are dancing on social media with your mom or dad, there are now new laws that do allow you to, you know, recoup some of the financial gain that they are receiving. Also, Minnesota adopted those ticketing transparency laws. Five states adopted privacy. pay transparency laws as well.
But then there's some weird laws that are going in effect as of 2025. California now allows marijuana dispensaries and venues to offer live entertainment. So think maybe similar to just like a club where you're drinking alcohol. Now they're having these clubs that can bring a band in where people are allowed to smoke marijuana.
Think like cannabis cafes in Amsterdam.
Yeah, Amsterdam is definitely going to be the kind of blueprint there. Washington, D.C. actually has a cashless retail prohibition law coming down that mandates retailers must accept cash payments. If you've ever seen those signs that say, we prefer charge, we do not accept cash here, that is now against the law in Washington, D.C.
And then New York passed a car wash promotion disclosure law, which requires car washes to clearly inform customers about promotion expiration dates.
You know what? That's very important.
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