Techmeme
January 8, 2025, 8:40 PM

Top News

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko says Meta's moderation changes are “deeply troubling”, and Mastodon will take action on Threads accounts violating Mastodon's policies  —  Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko has spoken out about the significant moderation changes announced by Meta on Tuesday …
Philip Blenkinsop / Reuters:
EU rejects Zuckerberg's claim that “Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship”, saying it only requires illegal content removal  —  The European Commission rejected on Wednesday Meta (META.O) chief Mark Zuckerberg's assertion that European Union …
Cristiano Lima-Strong / Washington Post:
Meta's fact-checking overhaul is set to deepen a growing schism between how platforms handle content moderation in the US and in stricter regions like Europe  —  As platform scales back moderation in line with conservative demands in the United States, it still has to maneuver through stiffer regulations in Europe and elsewhere.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Meta revamping its content moderation systems with Community Notes is good, but Zuckerberg pretending it's about free speech is bad, and the timing is stupid  —  from the misinformation-about-disinformation dept  —  When the NY Times declared in September that “Mark Zuckerberg is Done With Politics …
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Mosseri says Meta is adding recommendations of political content on Instagram and Threads; Threads' control setting for political content will get three options  —  It's been nearly a year since Instagram and Threads defaulted to blocking recommendations of “political” content from accounts …
Bloomberg:
Wall Street Journal:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out Daily Listen, which uses AI to generate a 5-minute personalized audio overview of stories and topics that a user follows, on its mobile app  —  Google is kicking off a new experiment in Search Labs today called “Daily Listen.”  It's a bit like NotebookLM's Audio Overviews, while there are also podcast parallels.
Samuel Stolton / Bloomberg:
Meta tests showing eBay listings on Facebook Marketplace in Germany, France, and the US, after the EU fined it €798M for abusing dominance; EBAY closes up 9.86%  —  - Company was fined €798 million by EU for abusing dominance  — Meta still challenging landmark fine through EU courts
Cheyenne Ligon / CoinDesk:
Do Kwon's criminal fraud trial in the US is scheduled for January 2026; prosecutors expect challenges accessing encrypted devices and translating communications  —  NEW YORK, NY — Terraform Labs co-founder and former CEO Do Kwon's criminal fraud trial in the U.S. has been tentatively scheduled …
Bernadette Christina / Reuters:
Indonesia says Apple still can't sell its iPhone 16 in the country, despite a deal to build a local production facility, as it hasn't met domestic content rules  —  Apple (AAPL.O) still cannot sell its iPhone 16 in Indonesia despite striking a deal to build a local production facility there …
Jeran Wittenstein / Bloomberg:
Major quantum computing stocks, up 300%+ in the past year, fell on January 7 after Jensen Huang said “very useful” quantum computers are likely decades away  —  The shares of IonQ Inc. and other companies linked to quantum computing tumbled in premarket trading on Wednesday …
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Microsoft open sources the 14B-parameter AI model Phi-4 and its weights, available on Hugging Face under a MIT License, after releasing it in December 2024  —  Even as its big investment partner OpenAI continues to announce more powerful reasoning models such as the latest o3 series, Microsoft is not sitting idly by.
Leo Schwartz / Fortune:
Sources: Movement Labs, which is building a layer-2 Ethereum blockchain, is set to raise a $100M Series B at a ~$3B valuation, after raising $38M in April 2024  —  Movement Labs, a San Francisco-based software developing team building a layer-2 blockchain on Ethereum, is close to wrapping …
Stephen Nellis / Reuters:
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says that MediaTek will be able to sell the CPU chip that the two companies unveiled for Project DIGITS, Nvidia's new desktop computer  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) Chief Executive Jensen Huang said on Tuesday that MediaTek (2454.TW) will be able to sell the desktop central processor chip …
Reuters:
In a first, an EU court fines the EC €400 for breaching its own data protection rules by transferring a citizen's data to the US via “Sign in with Facebook”  —  In a first, the EU General Court ruled on Wednesday that the European Commission must pay damages to a German citizen …
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Google says Nest hubs, Chromecasts, Google TV devices on Android 14, and more can now control Matter devices locally, and opens its Home APIs to all developers  —  One of the key changes Matter is bringing to the smart home is a standardized way to enable local control of smart devices.
Simon Sharwood / The Register:
Akamai plans to end its CDN services in China on June 30, 2026, moving clients to an Akamai CDN outside China unless they switch to a local option like Tencent  —  Akamai has decided to end its content delivery network services in China, but not because it's finding it hard to do business in the Middle Kingdom.
More: AkamaiForums: Hacker News and Slashdot
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Whatnot, which lets users sell comics and other items through live videos, raised a $265M Series E at a $4.97B valuation, and says its annual GMV passed $3B  —  Whatnot, the platform that allows users to sell items such as trading cards, comics, and sneakers through live videos …

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
WorkDrive 6.0: Advancing toward intelligent enterprise content management (Phase 1)  —  Artificial intelligence is redefining how enterprises process data.  Large language models can understand context …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Cheeky Pint:
Compliance at scale and why TAM is a distraction with Christina Cacioppo of Vanta
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
Invest Like the Best:
Sergey Levine - Building LLMs for the Physical World
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'You're Going to Have the Niggles', With Christina Warren
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Lenny's Podcast:
From skeptic to true believer: How OpenClaw changed my life | Claire Vo
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
Why OpenAI Killed Sora, Did Apple Just Save Siri?, Meta's Big Loss
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:40 PM ET, January 8, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Pranav Dixit / Business Insider:
Tim Culpan / Culpium:
Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Arno Rosenfeld / The Forward: