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Washington Post:
Sources: Elon Musk takes over Twitter, and has fired several top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and policy head Vijaya Gadde — Musk's $44 billion deal to acquire the social media company closed on Thursday night. — SAN FRANCISCO — Elon Musk became Twitter's owner late Thursday …
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Todd Spangler / Variety:
Elon Musk pens an open letter to calm Twitter advertisers, arguing his goal is not “to make more money” and the service “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape” — Mega-billionaire Elon Musk, nearing the finish line in his rocky takeover of Twitter …
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Wall Street Journal:
Sources: ahead of Elon Musk's takeover, advertisers on Twitter are concerned about looser content moderation and potential conflicts of interest for car ads — Marketers worry about the Tesla CEO's stance on content moderation, potential conflicts in auto advertising if the Twitter deal completes
Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
A reassessment of The New York Times' apology and James Bennet's firing after Sen. Tom Cotton's op-ed: Bennet was right and Publisher A.G. Sulzberger was wrong — Controversy over an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) consumed the New York Times in June 2020 and claimed the job of then-editorial page editor James Bennet.
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Mediaite, @easterbrookg, @jennifersey, @davidfolkenflik, @thomaschattwill, @levinejonathan, @rubensteinadam, @davidharsanyi, @nprinskeep, @heerjeet, @bariweiss, @jeffreyasachs, @toley88, @jeffreyasachs, @jeffjarvis, @nickgillespie, @bariweiss, @matthewfoldi, @sethamandel, @jonathanchait, @tomscocca, @coreypein, @mtracey, @fka_tabs, @tomscocca, @froomkin, @sethamandel, @coreypein, @razibkhan, @mattwelch, @sullydish, @anncoulter, @tomscocca, @__seab, @marcbodnick, @garylegum, @tomscocca, @repbrendanboyle, @jbarro, @anncoulter, @isaac_schorr, @semaforben, @kcjohnson9, @jtlol, @nycsouthpaw, @sivavaid, @lukeoneil47, @__seab, @joeconchatv, @coreypein, @coreypein, @sethamandel, @conor64, Fox News and Overtime
Defector:
Defector reports $3.8M in annual revenue, up from $3.2M in 2021, $3.7M in expenses, up from $3M in 2021, and 38K subscribers, who generated 95% of its revenue — Purpose of this report — Defector continues to have no outside investors and no intention of raising outside capital.
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David Gutman / The Seattle Times:
A Washington judge fines Meta $24.66M, the maximum possible amount, after finding the company intentionally violated campaign finance disclosure laws 822 times — Meta, Facebook's parent company, was fined nearly $25 million Wednesday for intentionally and repeatedly violating Washington's campaign finance laws.
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Washington State, @katieharbath, @jvagle, The Hill, @agowa, CNET, @evelyndouek, Gizmodo, Associated Press and MediaPost
Gerry Smith / Bloomberg:
CNN names Athan Stephanopoulos, previously the president of Vox Media's news site NowThis, as its chief digital officer, starting on November 14 — CNN has named Athan Stephanopoulos as its new chief digital officer, appointing a veteran of the online video business to grow its audience as the network braces for further cost-cutting.
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CNN, @versharma, Advanced Television, Variety, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter
The Verge:
Spotify updates its iOS app to remove audiobook purchasing instructions, replaced with a message saying “it's not ideal”, to comply with Apple's App Store rules — An update for Spotify's iOS app released Thursday had a big change for its audiobooks vertical — and not for the better.
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@caseynewton, @chrismessina, @jake_k, XDA Developers, @marcoarment, 9to5Mac and AppleInsider, more at Techmeme »
Lauren Forristal / TechCrunch:
Source: Snapchat now pays creators using its TikTok clone Spotlight millions per year collectively, down from millions per week in 2021 and $1M per day in 2020 — Snapchat has changed the way it pays creators through its Spotlight reward fund. Creators that use Snapchat's TikTok clone …
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@blackamazon, @carnage4life, XDA Developers and The Verge, more at Techmeme »
Georg Szalai / The Hollywood Reporter:
Comcast reports NBCU revenue down 4% to $9.6B and EBITDA up 24.6% YoY to $1.7B; Peacock has 15M+ subscribers, up 70% YTD, and accounted for a $614M EBITDA loss — Parent company Comcast also updates broadband subscriber trends at its cable systems business amid growth challenges across the industry.
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Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Following complaints from prominent developers, Apple says the company “paused ads related to gambling and a few other categories on App Store product pages” — Original story from October 25 follows. — Apple today rolled out new ad placements in the App Store on the iPhone …
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CNBC, The Verge, 9to5Mac, @film_girl, TechCrunch, Insider and XDA Developers
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Apple's Services revenue grew 4.98% YoY to $19.19B vs. $20.1B expected in Q4; fiscal year Services growth was above 14%, slower than 2021's 16% and 2020's 27% — - Apple reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations on revenue and earnings per share.
Discussion:
Apple, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, 9to5Mac, Engadget, Variety, @carnage4life, @jsnell, Apple Inc., MacRumors, @claireatki, @samifathi_, The Verge, TechCrunch and AppleInsider, more at Techmeme »