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1:20 PM ET, January 31, 2023

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 Top News: 
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launch a waitlist for Artifact, an app with a personalized news feed that will let users discuss articles  —  EXCLUSIVE: Meet Artifact, a kind of TikTok for text  —  Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back.
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times:
Spotify reports Q4 revenue up 18% YoY to €3.2B and a €270M loss, up from €39M YoY, as operating costs rose 44% YoY, and adds 10M paying subscribers to hit 205M  —  Music streaming group adds subscribers but is hit by rise in operating expenses
RELATED:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Spotify has deployed Google's User Choice Billing in 140 markets globally, to reduce Play Store commissions; details on how much it is saving are confidential  —  In its fourth-quarter earnings, Spotify announced today its User Choice Billing program has now expanded to more than 140 markets worldwide …
Discussion: MediaNama
Leonard Downie Jr / Washington Post:
In interviews with 75+ journalists and media experts, a Washington Post ex-executive editor finds that newsrooms that move beyond “objectivity” can build trust  —  Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post, is a professor at the Walter Cronkite School …
Matt Tamanini / The Streamable:
Paramount Global plans to merge its Showtime streaming service with Paramount+'s ad-free tier later in 2023 and call the new offering Paramount+ with SHOWTIME  —  It's been a long time coming, but later this year, Paramount Global will finally fully integrate the streaming arm …
RELATED:
Lesley Goldberg / The Hollywood Reporter:
Sources: Showtime has pulled short-lived shows from its streaming service, including American Gigolo, and is expected to let rights holders shop their series
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Sources detail Twitter's nascent moves to facilitate payments, a key to becoming a “super app”, as the company files for regulatory licenses across the US  —  Company has started applying for US state licences in bid for fresh revenues beyond advertising
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:
Penguin Random House CEO Madeline McIntosh is stepping down after four years, making her the third senior executive to leave PRH in the last two months  —  Madeline McIntosh is third top executive to leave company in past two months  —  Madeline McIntosh said she is stepping down as chief executive …
Corbin Bolies / The Daily Beast:
Sources detail the collapse of Insider's Washington DC bureau, launched in March 2020: steady staff exits and its head fired days before the 2022 US midterms  —  Back in 2020, Insider hyped a brand-new Beltway team aiming for impactful scoops.  Three years later, that team has all but collapsed.
Anne Kauranen / Reuters:
Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic unions quit the IFJ, accusing the union of undemocratic practices, unethical finances, and other “corruptive activity”  —  Finnish, Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic unions will quit a global media federation on Tuesday in protest at …
Wall Street Journal:
If the US wins its antitrust Google case, a spinoff is more likely than a sale, valuing the ad businesses at tens of billions and giving advertisers more choice  —  If government prevails, an asset spinoff is thought to be more likely than a sale  —  Google spent the better part …
Kristin Robinson / Billboard:
How Rick Astley's lawsuit against Yung Gravy may affect interpolation, a technique that avoids the costly and lengthy process of getting rights to music samples  —  Re-recording classic tracks has become more common for financial and creative reasons, but the “Betty (Get Money)” case may give producers pause.
Discussion: Boing Boing
David Satin / The Streamable:
NBCU source confirms Peacock has stopped offering its free tier to new subscribers, though it remains available to existing subscribers  —  Peacock will no longer offer their free tier for new subscribers, The Streamable has confirmed.  Instead, new users who attempt to sign …
 
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 More News: 
Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Warner Bros. Discovery signs deals to license some content that it pulled from HBO Max, including Westworld, to Roku and Tubi's free, ad-supported channels
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Bloomberg:
A look at Spanish-language livestreaming growth on Twitch; the platform's audience for Spanish, its fastest-growing language, grew sixfold from 2019 to 2022
Discussion: The Information
Jim Milliot / Publishers Weekly:
Memo: HarperCollins plans to cut 5% of its employees in North American by June 30, since the sales surge from the pandemic has “slowed significantly as of late”
 Earlier Picks: 
Julia Mueller / The Hill:
Donald Trump sues Bob Woodward over audio recordings for Woodward's book Rage that Trump says he didn't agree could be used in an audiobook, The Trump Tapes
Joseph Cox / VICE:
ElevenLabs found an uptick in “voice cloning misuse cases” during its recent beta; 4chan users made deepfake voices of Joe Rogan, Ben Sharpio, and Emma Watson
Ezra Klein / New York Times:
How Barnes & Noble came back from near death, as the company plans to open 30 new stores in 2023 and is increasingly seen as an ally of indie booksellers
 

 
From Techmeme:

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Meta details Llama 3: 8B- and 70B-parameter models, a focus on reducing false refusals, and an upcoming model trained on 15T+ tokens that has 400B+ parameters

Raffaele Huang / Wall Street Journal:
Apple removes WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China, saying it was ordered to do so by China's cyberspace officials citing national security concerns

Ryan Morrison / Tom's Guide:
Microsoft researchers introduce VASA-1, an AI model that creates a realistic talking face video from a portrait photo and an audio file, in research preview
 
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