Mediagazer: Montana lawmakers approve a first-of-its-kind bill that bans TikTok and bars app stores from offering the app within the state, starting on January 1, 2024 (Wall Street Journal)

8:10 PM ET, April 14, 2023

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Sarah E. Needleman / Wall Street Journal:

Parlement Technologies sells Parler to digital media company Starboard, which plans to temporarily shut down the right-wing social network ahead of a relaunch — Social network popular with conservatives will be sold for an undisclosed amount and overhauled for a relaunch

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Wall Street Journal:

Montana lawmakers approve a first-of-its-kind bill that bans TikTok and bars app stores from offering the app within the state, starting on January 1, 2024 — Supporters of the first-of-its-kind-bill expect legal challenges if the governor signs the legislation

Patrick Frater / Variety:

Comcast invests $200M in James Murdoch and Uday Shankar's Bodhi Tree Systems, which will use the money to buy a minority stake in Indian media group Viacom18 — Comcast, the conglomerate behind NBCUniversal and the Sky European TV giant, is to invest $200 million in Bodhi Tree Systems …

Discussion: Reuters, The Hindu, Observer, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and TechCrunch

Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:

Instagram updates Reels with a section for trending audio and hashtags, expands gifts to more countries, enhances its editing tools, adds new metrics, and more — As governments around the world express growing concerns about TikTok, its rival Instagram Reels is getting a series of new updates aimed at creators.

Discussion: Instagram for Creators, @mosseri, Meta, MediaPost, Tubefilter, Social Media Today, The Verge, Engadget, @lovebunnycos, @mattnavarra, @jeffveillette and @nickcicero, more at Techmeme »

Ryan Barwick / Marketing Brew:

Since cutting Taboola and open-market programmatic ads, Bloomberg has replaced those advertisers with in-house promos worth ~$7.4M over the past few months — Spring cleaning came early for Bloomberg Media. Last fall, the publisher said it would cut ties with the programmatic open marketplace …

Discussion: @outlandishjosh, @marketingbrew, @ckrewson and Media Voices

Zac Ntim / Deadline:

French fashion house Saint Laurent is launching a production banner headed by its creative director Anthony Vaccarello and debuting two short films at Cannes — French fashion house Saint Laurent is moving into the world of cinema with an official production banner headed by house creative director Anthony Vaccarello.

Discussion: WWD, @wwd, The Hollywood Reporter, The Wrap and Variety

Pete Pachal / CoinDesk:

CoinDesk plans to stop using generative AI images and spells out its rules for AI use in different contexts, requiring disclosure for articles but not headlines — Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are changing the way we work - especially the media. Here are the rules of the road for CoinDesk.

Discussion: @petepachal, @coindesk and @bmorrissey

Andy Maxwell / TorrentFreak:

Noonoo TV, a South Korean movie and TV show piracy platform, shuts down, blaming high bandwidth charges and “pressure”, likely from a new anti-piracy coalition — One month ago, South Korean movie and TV show piracy platform Noonoo TV was riding the crest of a wave along with tens of millions of dedicated fans.

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:

A study of 33 UK media companies: the average median gender pay gap fell from 15.7% in 2017 to 12.1% in 2022 and the average mean gap fell from 17.7% to 13.7% — There are more men than women in the top-paid quartile at 91% of major UK media companies. — Men were paid more on average …

Discussion: @chartbeat, The Hill, @annieeaves, @dcnorg, @mattnavarra, @pressgazette and @pressgazette

Financial Times:

Sources: the European parliament is close to finalizing tough new measures on AI, including forcing chatbot makers to reveal if they use copyrighted material — Proposals include requiring chatbot makers to reveal if they are using copyrighted material — The European parliament …

Discussion: @tonyajoriley, @pt and @alexwitzleben, more at Techmeme »

Sheila Dang / Reuters:

Sensor Tower: Twitter's top 50 advertisers spent $83M over the past two months, down from $102M YoY; Mars, AT&T, Volkswagen, and Stellantis haven't returned — Twitter-owner Elon Musk has said advertisers are returning to the social media platform, but statements from several companies …

Discussion: @reuters and Media Matters for America, more at Techmeme »

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John Boudreau / Bloomberg:
The US tells Vietnam to release blogger and Radio Free Asia contributor Nguyen Lan Thang, sentenced on April 12 to six years in prison for anti-state activities

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Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
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Nicholas Quah / Vulture:
A look at the Economist's aloof and listenable podcasts, which averaged ~25M downloads in March 2023 and have ~5M listeners, as the content gets more ambitious

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Amanda Meade / The Guardian:
Screen Australia study: of 361 TV drama programs, 26% had entirely Anglo-Celtic main casts; First Nations main characters rose from 4.8% to 7.2% in five years

Discussion: @gregjamesbarton, @jason_om, Variety, Crikey, Mumbrella and Deadline

Dade Hayes / Deadline:
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Elsa Keslassy / Variety:
Apple and Canal+ sign a deal to give Canal+ subscribers Apple TV+ in France, French-speaking Switzerland, Czechia, and Slovakia for no extra cost from April 20

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Brian Stelter / Vanity Fair:
Examining the key “reckless disregard” question in the Dominion-Fox trial, set to start next week; a source says Fox pursued settlement talks multiple times

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Substack CEO Chris Best about Notes, asking for investment without sharing financial details, and more, as he evades some content moderation questions

Megan Lebowitz / NBC News:
The New York Times, Politico, and seven other outlets sue for copies of the January 6 Capitol riot surveillance videos that Kevin McCarthy gave to Fox News

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Philip Oltermann / The Guardian:
Die Zeit publishes texts showing Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner tried to use Bild to influence Germany's last election, attacked climate activism, and more

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From Techmeme:

Bloomberg:
The Trump administration exempts smartphones, laptops, hard drives, processors, memory chips, and machines used to make semiconductors from reciprocal tariffs

Sankalp Phartiyal / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple produced $22B worth of iPhones in India in the 12 months ended March 2025, up nearly 60% YoY, and now makes 20% of its iPhones in the country

Martine Paris / Forbes:
Sam Altman says ChatGPT users had doubled in the past few weeks and that “10% of the world uses our systems”, which would peg the number closer to 800M users

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