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January 10, 2025, 3:15 AM
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Top News

Casey Newton / Platformer:
Meta's new policies for contractors and staff moderating Facebook and Instagram allow dehumanizing speech, like “a trans person isn't a he or she, it's an it”  —  “A trans person isn't a he or she, it's an it,” reads a new guideline telling moderators what is now allowed on Facebook and Instagram
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Sources: many of Meta's employees are furious about its moderation changes allowing “allegations of mental illness” when based on “gender or sexual orientation”  —  Meta's decision to specifically allow users to call LGBTQ+ people “mentally ill” has sparked widespread backlash at the company.
Colby Hall / Mediaite:
GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin says Mark Zuckerberg met with Donald Trump the day before announcing that Meta would replace fact-checking with Community Notes
More: The National Pulse, Gizmodo, The Hill, and Salon
Bluesky: @noupside, @noupside, and @noupside.  Threads: @aaron.rupar.  X: @bennyjohnson
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
Joseph Cox / Wired:
A hack of location data firm Gravy reveals Candy Crush, Tinder, and thousands of other apps are being used to steal user location data; apps may not even know  —  A hack of location data company Gravy Analytics has revealed which apps are—knowingly or not—being used to collect your information behind the scenes.
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
The Linux Foundation launches an initiative to fund developing Chromium projects in a “neutral space”, with support from Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Opera  —  But it's really a “neutral space” for funding and support, corralling together some big names with a stake in the future of Chrome's open source roots, Chromium.
Financial Times:
Sources: Elon Musk and his right-wing allies discussed how to destabilize the UK Labour government and remove PM Keir Starmer, beyond Musk's aggressive X posts  —  Technology billionaire interested in building support for another political party, notably Reform UK
Financial Times:
Analysis: Elon Musk's UK obsession is driven by a few X accounts; an ex-Twitter exec says Musk may be the first tech leader to be radicalized by his own product
Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat / Reuters:
Frank McCourt's Project Liberty says it made a formal bid to ByteDance to acquire TikTok's US assets, aiming to keep the app alive without its current algorithm  —  Entrepreneur and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt's Project Liberty and its consortium of partners in The People's Bid …
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Court docs: Mark Zuckerberg approved the Meta team that trains AI Llama models to use data from LibGen, a “links aggregator” to pirated, copyrighted material  —  Counsel for plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit filed against Meta allege that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the green light …
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Google and Microsoft donate $1M to Trump's inauguration; Google says the donation, a YouTube livestream, and a homepage event link align with past inaugurations  —  Google donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration fund, becoming the latest major tech company to try …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Ubisoft says it is appointing advisers to review and pursue strategic options after an October 2024 report said its majority backers were considering a buyout  —  French video game publisher Ubisoft said Thursday it's appointing advisors to review and pursue strategic options after a report …
Automattic:
Automattic plans to cut its WordPress contributions to 45 hours per week “due to the lawsuits from WP Engine”, focusing mostly on security and critical updates  —  Automattic has always been deeply committed to the success of WordPress, dedicating significant resources and talent to its development for almost two decades.
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A US judge rules that Google must face a class action claiming Google collected users' personal data from their phones after they turned off Web & App Activity  —  Google failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a privacy class action claiming it collected personal data …
Heather Landi / Fierce Healthcare:
Hippocratic AI, which is building an LLM for health care use cases, raised a $141M Series B at a $1.64B valuation, and launches a health care AI agent app store  —  Hippocratic AI funding round generative AI Kleiner Perkins  —  Hippocratic AI is kicking off 2025 with a bang.
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
Innovaccer, which aggregates medical data and plans to offer health care AI co-pilots and agents, raised a $275M Series F, a source says at a ~$3.45B valuation

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:15 AM ET, January 10, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

TMZ.com:
Sources: Paramount told the offices of LA Mayor Karen Bass and CA AG Rob Bonta the company would announce Tuesday it was leaving the state; no announcement came

Andrew Marchand / The Athletic:
Sources: Joe Buck agreed to a new, six-year contract with ESPN worth ~$108M that will keep him as the voice of Monday Night Football through the 2031 Super Bowl

Rebecca Rubin / Variety:
Spider-Man: Brand New Day tops 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens to be the highest-grossing domestic release ever, earning $936.773M vs. Force Awakens' $936M

More News

Stephen Totilo / Game File:
December court filing: Activision revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops III cost $450M+ to make, Modern Warfare cost $640M+, and Black Ops Cold War cost $700M+
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon launches Amazon Retail Ad Service to let companies show ads in search results, product pages, and other areas of their own websites, initially in the US

Earlier Picks

Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Apple says it “has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles” and never sold it for advertising or other purposes, after paying $95M to settle a lawsuit
Lillian Rizzo / CNBC:
Disney says it has an estimated 157M global MAUs watching ad-supported content across its streaming services Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, including 112M US users
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Ivanti warns that threat actors exploited a critical-rated zero-day in its widely used Connect Secure VPN tool to compromise its corporate customers' networks
Sarah Emerson / Forbes:
Sources: Eric Schmidt has spent the last few months working on Hooglee, an AI startup that describes its mission as “democratizing video creation with AI”
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
xAI launches a Grok app in beta for iOS in multiple countries, including the US, Australia, and India, and is preparing a dedicated Grok.com website
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