Techmeme
January 8, 2025, 11:15 PM

Top News

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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
Bloomberg:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out Daily Listen, which uses AI to generate a five-minute personalized audio overview of stories and topics that a user follows, to 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.
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri says Meta is adding political content recommendations to Instagram and Threads; Threads' political content control setting will have three options  —  It's been nearly a year since Instagram and Threads defaulted to blocking recommendations of “political” content from accounts …
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 …
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
Taylor Nicole Rogers / Financial Times:
Analysts say that contract negotiations between US dockworkers and the shipping industry over automation could help provide a template for agreements nationwide  —  As automation becomes a reality everywhere from retail warehouses to restaurant kitchens, the use of robots is increasingly controversial
Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:
Microsoft open sources its 14B-parameter AI model Phi-4 and its weights, available on Hugging Face under an 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.
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …

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:
Regulatory compliance for enterprise email  —  Enterprise email security and regulatory compliance are now essential, not luxuryIn today's threat landscape, the inbox isn't just a productivity tool, it's a security perimeter.
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

The Social Radars:
Paul Graham, Founder, Y Combinator
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
The Upstarts Podcast:
Star Catcher's Andrew Rush: Harnessing The Sun To Build The First Energy Grid In Space
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show:
Why Countries Go to War
Nick Bilton, Dick Costolo, and Paul Kedrosky pull back the curtain on AI, startups, and the future rushing toward us, all with healthy dose of irreverence.
Subscribe to The Nick, Dick and Paul Show.
Great Chat:
Are startup HR teams okay?
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'The Pogue Feature', With David Pogue
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Everybody Goes Home: How technology is helping prevent wildfires from spreading
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:15 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:
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Stephen Nellis / Reuters: