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February 20, 2025, 6:05 PM
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Top News

Kate Rooney / CNBC:
OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap says the startup hit 400M weekly active users in February 2025, up 33% from 300M in December 2024, and 2M paying enterprise customers  —  OpenAI appears to be growing quickly despite increasing competition.  —  The San Francisco-based tech company …
Emily Birnbaum / Bloomberg:
FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson announces an inquiry into “Big Tech censorship”, which he says is “un-American” and “potentially illegal”  —  - FTC Chair Ferguson invites public comment about tech platforms  — Conservatives claim ideas, affiliations have been censored
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
The US SEC announces the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit to protect investors from bad actors in crypto and AI, replacing the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit  —  - The agency announced the new unit on Thursday, calling it the Cyber and Emerging Technologies Unit, or CETU.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Amazon plans to discontinue its Appstore for Android and its Coins program on August 20, 2025, but keep its Appstore on its devices like Fire TV and Fire Tablet  —  Amazon will discontinue its app store for Android on August 20 this year.  The company sent a notice to developers indicating …
Dominic Preston / The Verge:
Oppo launches the Find N5, the world's thinnest foldable at 8.93mm closed and 4.21mm open, with IPX6, X8, and X9 ratings, in Europe and Asia for ~$1,870  —  Oppo's Find N5 is the thinnest book-style foldable yet, and it's launching worldwide — but it's another foldable the US just won't get.
Bloomberg:
Alibaba reports Q3 revenue up 8% YoY to ~$38.6B, the fastest growth in over a year and above ~$38B est., and a ~$6.7B net income, as AI boosts its business  —  - Revenue beats estimates thanks to strong growth in cloud arm  — Alibaba is staging a comeback as AI initiatives bear fruit
Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
YouTube plans to add a “premium lite” tier, a source says for the US, Australia, Germany, and Thailand, offering podcasts without ads and music videos with ads  —  - The service will continue to put ads in music videos  — The tier will launch in areas that include the US, Australia
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Twitch plans to implement a 100-hour storage cap for Highlights and Uploads from April 19, automatically deleting content from streamers who exceed the limit  —  Streamers who have exceeded this limit will have their content automatically deleted until it meets the threshold.
Matt Novak / Gizmodo:
Elon Musk says he will “fix” Community Notes as they are “increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media”, after disagreeing with notes about Ukraine  —  The billionaire has a history of manipulating X to fit his far-right worldview.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon plans to end support for its videoconferencing tool Chime on February 20, 2026; report: Amazon is adopting Zoom as its standard app for internal meetings  —  Amazon Chime, the tech giant's underwhelming alternative to Zoom and Google Meet, is shutting down for good.
New York Times:
Sources: the Trump administration targets officials fighting foreign interference in US elections, focused on those combating cyberattacks and false content  —  The Trump administration has reassigned or forced out several dozen government employees who had been working to fight foreign interference …
More: Default.  Bluesky: @noupside, @lawfare, and @daphnek.  Mastodon: @metacurity@infosec.exchange
Forums: r/technology and r/politics
Jess Weatherbed / The Verge:
Spotify begins accepting AI-narrated audiobooks recorded using ElevenLabs' software; Spotify already allows AI-recorded audiobooks, with several restrictions  —  A new ElevenLabs partnership aims to help authors bring AI-narrated audiobooks to Spotify listeners.
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
CISA and the FBI: attackers deploying Ghost ransomware breached victims from multiple industry sectors across 70+ countries, including critical infrastructure  —  CISA and the FBI said attackers deploying Ghost ransomware have breached victims from multiple industry sectors across over 70 countries …
Ryan Christoffel / 9to5Mac:
Kuo: all iPhone 17 models will have Apple's in-house Wi-Fi chips, enhancing connectivity and cutting costs; only the slim iPhone 17 will have the C1 modem chip  —  Apple just launched its brand new C1 modem yesterday with the iPhone 16e.  But there's another new Apple-designed chip coming soon …
Wired:
Investigation: Google's Display & Video 360 ad platform openly serves up sensitive information about Americans, despite Google's rules against such practices  —  Google enables marketers to target people with serious illnesses and crushing debt—against its policies …
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg:
Palantir's stock fell 10% on February 19 after WaPo reported that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to cut military spending; PLTR is up 40%+ in 2025  —  - Spending shift would affect 8% of US defense spending  — AI-focused Palantir has become major government contractor
Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: top X executives hinted to Interpublic and other ad firms that not spending on X could lead to legal woes, due to X's lawsuit against some advertisers
Nikkei Asia:
Tokyo-based Sakana AI details its AI CUDA Engineer, which it says can speed up AI training and inference 10x to 100x by “breeding” more efficient instructions  —  TOKYO — Tokyo-based startup Sakana AI says it has developed a system capable of accelerating artificial intelligence development …
Pew Research Center:
US survey: views of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk tilt negative; Democrats and Republicans view Zuckerberg unfavorably; Musk is polarizing along party lines  —  Americans' views of two prominent tech executives - Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg - tilt more negative than positive.
RT Watson / The Block:
Nansen: 86% of traders lost $251M in total on the Solana memecoin Libra that Argentine President Milei promoted, while the remaining traders profited $180M  —  - Citing onchain data, Nansen Research said that through Tuesday, 86% of traders lost a total of $251 million on the LIBRA token …

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About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:05 PM ET, February 20, 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.

From Mediagazer

Andrew Trunsky / New York Times:
A profile of Natalie Winters, a Steve Bannon protégée, War Room reporter, and Piers Morgan Uncensored contributor, who now has a White House press pass

Harshita Mary Varghese / Reuters:
Warner Bros. Discovery says John Malone is not seeking re-election to the board of directors and will instead take on the role of chairman emeritus

Tony Maglio / The Hollywood Reporter:
The WGA says TV writer jobs fell 42% YoY, or by 1,319 positions, for the 2023-2024 season, including 642 jobs lost at the co-executive producer or higher level

More News

Ben Lang / Road to VR:
Meta announces a $50M creator fund for Horizon Worlds; CTO Andrew Bosworth reportedly told staff that 2025 is a make-or-break year for Meta's XR ambitions

Earlier Picks

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch:
Global Witness: ahead of Germany's election, TikTok's and X's For You feeds show a substantial far-right bias; 78% of TikTok's recommendations supported the AfD
Kim Zetter / Wired:
Source: 19-year-old Edward Coristine and Kyle Schutt, both DOGE engineers, are now on staff at the CISA; Coristine was briefly an intern for Neuralink
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Muse AI, a first-of-its-kind generative AI model that can generate a game environment based on visuals, players' controller actions, or both
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