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January 18, 2025, 3:45 AM
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Greg Stohr / Bloomberg:
SCOTUS upholds the TikTok divest-or-ban law, saying free speech rights must yield to concerns that Chinese control of the app creates a national-security risk  —  The Supreme Court upheld a law that threatens to shut down the wildly popular TikTok social media platform in the US as soon as Sunday …
More: Supreme Court of the United States, CNBC, The White House, Reuters, The Verge, Wired, NPR, New Scientist, BBC, Adweek, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The American Spectator, The Information, The Torment Nexus, US Department of Justice, Fox News, Hindustan Times, WPRI-TV, BuzzFeed, Time, Asia's Premier News Agency, Politico, TechInformed, CBS News, Times of India, New York Times, ZB, JURIST, GSMArena.com, ComputerWeekly.com, Game Rant, Common Dreams, Boing Boing, SiliconANGLE, Deseret News, The Verge, Screen, Axios, and Fast Company
Bluesky: @mmasnick, @cyberciti.biz, @mattdpearce.com, @timmarchman, @mattdpearce.com, @nytceciliakang, @makenakelly, @petersterne.com, @lucas.meyerperin.org, @zeyiyang, @trevor, @caseynewton, @authormattrouse.hookdm.com, @ebakerwhite, @menaganey, @willoremus.com, @thedextriarchy, @willoremus.com, @klonick, @christopherterry, @mjsdc, @mjsdc, and @mjsdc
Mastodon: @nixCraft@mastodon.social, @carnage4life@mas.to, and @Dhmspector@mastodon.social.  Threads: @chancehmiller
X: @pamelabrowncnn, @senatorcantwell, @kyurieff, @binarybits, @danprimack, @fromedome, @jkarl26, @armankhon, @committeeonccp, @willguyatt, @richlightshed, @msuster, @pkafka, @jacobfisherdf, @adamkovac, @mikesacksesq, @trungtphan, @sentomcotton, @pkafka, @pkafka, @russwarne, @danprimack, @danprimack, @danielahanley, @amir, @kevinbankston, @saraeisen, @craigcaplan, @appcensorship, @rabois, @matthewstoller, @mikesacksesq, @geiger_capital, @timsweeneyepic, @ali_lev, @senatorcantwell, @becauseculture, @tiktokpolicy, @dannyctkemp, @adrianweckler, @mgsiegler, @mikeisaac, @jason_kint, @thatmoni, @senatorcantwell, @nikitabier, @cremieuxrecueil, @danprimack, @mikesacksesq, @ali_lev, @pkafka, @georgemonbiot, @adamkovac, and @geoffreyfowler
LinkedIn: Emil Protalinski, Jon Adams, and Mark Lemley
Forums: r/China, r/technology, r/Music, r/RedditIPO, r/technology, r/democrats, r/NewsOfTheStupid, r/NPR, r/Destiny, r/popculturechat, r/politics, r/news, r/law, r/moderatepolitics, r/neoliberal, and r/scotus
See also Mediagazer
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
TikTok says it will go dark in the US on Sunday unless the Biden admin provides a “definitive statement” to critical service providers assuring non-enforcement  —  TikTok said its services will go dark on Sunday unless the Biden administration gives a definitive statement providing assurances …
Lauren Feiner / The Verge:
After SCOTUS upheld the TikTok law, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeals to Donald Trump in a TikTok video to find a solution that keeps the app available in the US  —  In his first statement since the Supreme Court upheld a law that could ban TikTok from the US on Sunday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew offered …
CNN:
Donald Trump says he will “be making the decision” about TikTok and confirms he talked with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the app
NBC News:
Some US congressional leaders who championed the TikTok law now want to delay the ban from going into effect, showing how much politics has shifted on the issue
Andrew Hayward / Decrypt:
Donald Trump is promoting a Solana memecoin called TRUMP from his social media accounts, with 200M $TRUMP available now and growing to 1B “over three years”  —  Talk about a Friday night surprise.  President-elect Donald Trump's social media accounts shared what appears …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Zuckerberg says there's a “bogus narrative saying I blamed Sheryl for a bunch of stuff” and he was just addressing the origin of “bring your whole self to work”  —  Well, specifically, they want me to know.  —  On Thursday, The New York Times published a lengthy story …
Bloomberg:
The FTC says Genshin Impact maker Cognosphere will pay $20M to settle claims that it deceived players about the cost of winning prizes and mishandled kids' data  —  - FTC said maker of Genshin Impact mishandled children's data  — Company also accused of deceiving players on cost of prizes
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
Digital Currency Group agrees to settle and pay $38.5M in civil penalties to the US SEC over charges that it misled investors via crypto lender Genesis Global  —  - The SEC said that one of Genesis' largest borrowers was asset hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and said on June 13 that the fund “failed to meet a margin call.”
Bloomberg:
The US FTC releases a report saying Microsoft's $13B investment in OpenAI raises concerns that the company could extend its cloud computing dominance into AI  —  - Federal Trade Commission probed big tech, AI relationships  — Agency opened inquiry into tech investments last year
Antonio Regalado / MIT Technology Review:
OpenAI worked with Retro Biosciences to develop GPT-4b micro, an AI model that it says can engineer proteins capable of turning regular cells into stem cells  —  When you think of AI's contributions to science, you probably think of AlphaFold, the Google DeepMind protein-folding program that earned its creator a Nobel Prize last year.
Caitlin Webber / Reuters:
The US sanctions a China-based cybersecurity company involved in the Salt Typhoon hacks and a Shanghai-based hacker involved in the recent US Treasury breach  —  The U.S. Treasury department on Friday issued cyber-related sanctions related to the Salt Typhoon hack on Singaporean Yin Kechen …
Brady Dale / Axios:
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong endorses a US bitcoin strategic reserve in a blog post on “economic freedom” that calls on world leaders to embrace crypto  —  - This is the first time Coinbase has specifically addressed the idea of a strategic bitcoin reserve, doing …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Bluesky 2024 moderation report: Bluesky gained 23M+ users, its moderation team grew to ~100, and its moderation service received 6.48M reports, up 17x from 2023  —  Bluesky on Friday published its moderation report for the past year, noting the sizable growth the social network experienced …
Mia Sato / The Verge:
Instagram adds a new tab in the Reels feed that will show videos that a user's friends have liked or added commentary to  —  Instagram is bringing back one of its more chaotic features, now reworked for the short-form video era.  —  A new tab in the Reels feed will serve up videos …
The Hollywood Reporter:
A look at efforts by Meta, YouTube, Snap, X, and Substack to attract TikTok's 170M US creators and users; Substack is offering a $25K “TikTok Liberation Prize”  —  Tech giants like Meta and YouTube want to poach TikTokers, with Snapchat, X, Substack and others also planning efforts to coax them to their platforms.
New York Times:
Sources: Instagram and YouTube gear up to welcome TikTok users; two Meta employees say execs discussed resource allocation on January 15 to handle TikTok users

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:45 AM ET, January 18, 2025.

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From Mediagazer

Sara Fischer / Axios:
PBS and a public TV affiliate in Minnesota sue the Trump administration, saying his executive order to cut federal funding violated PBS' First Amendment rights

Max Tani / Semafor:
The California State Senate opens an inquiry into whether Paramount's reported $15M proposed settlement with Trump violated bribery and unfair competition laws

Chris Willman / Variety:
Taylor Swift acquires the rights to her first six albums from Shamrock Capital; sources say the deal was in the mid-$300M range

More News

Jay Peters / The Verge:
Adam Mosseri says Instagram profile grids will display content as rectangles instead of squares as part of a change rolling out “over the weekend”
Charles Rollet / TechCrunch:
Filing: ChatGPT's head of product, Nick Turley, will testify as a witness for the US DOJ in its antitrust case against Google, as a court decides penalties
Ross Douthat / New York Times:
Q&A with Marc Andreessen on his political evolution from a “normie Democrat” to a Donald Trump supporter, and what he and others expect from the administration

Earlier Picks

Dana Wollman / Bloomberg:
Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd will return to the company as CEO in mid-March, replacing current CEO Lidiane Jones, who is departing for “personal reasons”
Financial Times:
The EU expands its X probe, asking for internal docs about X's recommendation algorithm, after complaints from German politicians about X boosting the far right
Billy Perrigo / Time:
An in-depth look at the UK's AI Safety Institute, whose researchers test AI systems for risks and for capabilities that might become dangerous in the future
Bluesky: @billyperrigo.  Mastodon: @cigitalgem@sigmoid.social.  X: @robertwiblin and @billyperrigo.  LinkedIn: Billy Perrigo.  Forums: r/artificial
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
The FTC bans GM from selling driver behavior and geolocation data to consumer reporting agencies for five years, after finding GM didn't properly inform drivers
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