Top News:
Bruna Horvath / NBC News:
Zuckerberg says Meta will restore “free expression” on its platforms, including by replacing its fact-checking program with Community Notes, starting in the US — Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the move in a post Tuesday morning. — Meta is scrapping its fact-checking program …
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Brooke Singman / Fox News:
Meta's Joel Kaplan says the Trump administration is “a huge supporter of free expression”, which “gets us back to the values that Mark founded the company on” — Meta's chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, joins ‘Fox & Friends’ Tuesday morning for exclusive interview
Discussion:
Meta, Ad Age, Business Insider, Politico, WANE 15, Digby's Hullabaloo, Axios, The Bulwark, Daily Kos, ZeroHedge News, @alfalphamale.bsky.social, @ebakerwhite.bsky.social, Joel Kaplan on LinkedIn, RedState, @davidakaye.bsky.social, Reuters, Forbes, @mgeist.bsky.social, The Post Millennial, @davidclinchnews, @andymstone, @brookesingman, @brookesingman, @francisbrennan, @nickjcal.bsky.social, @mschenk.bsky.social, Raw Story, @brendannyhan.bsky.social, @brookesingman, @oliverdarcy.bsky.social, WBAL Baltimore News, @worklesshard.bsky.social, Just The News, @willricci, @stemcdermott.bsky.social, @dmeyer.eu and @alfunk.bsky.social, more at Techmeme »
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Meta will lift restrictions on “topics that are part of mainstream discourse”, like immigration and gender, and focus on “illegal and high-severity violations” — Meta, the parent of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, today announced a major overhaul …
New York Times:
Meta will move trust and safety and content moderation teams from California to Texas, to remove concerns “that biased employees are overly censoring content” — The social networking giant will stop using third-party fact checkers and instead rely on users to add notes to posts.
Discussion:
NBC News, Press Gazette, Deadline, Mediaite, El País, Rolling Stone, Business Insider, The Daily Sceptic, @meganiorio.bsky.social, @samstein, @juddlegum.bsky.social, Le Monde, CNBC, Sophie Nadeau on LinkedIn, WHDH-TV, Financial Times, @zuck@threads.net, @sfmcguire79, @stokel, @jeffreyatucker, @bethanyshondark, @micsolana, @esaagar and WPXI-TV, more at Techmeme »
Michael Flaherty / Axios:
Getty Images Holdings and Shutterstock agree to merge in a deal that creates a $3.7B company; Getty CEO Craig Peters will remain CEO of the combined business — - Shutterstock shareholders get one of the following: $28.84 per share in cash; 13.67 shares of Getty for each Shutterstock share they own; or a mix of cash and stock.
Discussion:
Getty Images Press Site, The Wrap, Press Gazette, TechCrunch, New York Post, Associated Press, City A.M., Entrepreneur, The Hollywood Reporter, News18, Yahoo Finance, Media Play News, MarketWatch, Reuters, Barron's Online, Bloomberg, @writingbymatt, @bwjones.bsky.social, @shutterstock, @matthew_sigel, @bwjones.bsky.social and @gettyimages, more at Techmeme »
Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
The Washington Post is laying off roughly 4% of its workforce, affecting fewer than 100 people across its business divisions; its newsroom is not affected — The layoffs will affect employees across The Post's business operations, not its newsroom. — The Washington Post …
Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Sources: Apple plans to expand Apple News in more countries and considered building locally focused news coverage in the UK; Apple News has 125M monthly users — Tech group now a force in driving revenues for publishers in US, UK, Canada and Australia — Apple is stepping up plans to expand …
Discussion:
BGR, 9to5Mac and MacRumors, more at Techmeme »
Alex Weprin / The Hollywood Reporter:
WBD raises the price of Discovery+ by $1, with its ad-supported plan now costing $5.99 per month, and its ad-free plan costing $9.99 per month — The ad-supported tier will now cost $5.99 per month, with the ad-free tier rising to $9.99.
Discussion:
The Streamable, TVNewsCheck, The Wrap, IndieWire, Engadget, Deadline, NewscastStudio, The Verge and Media Play News
Jill Goldsmith / Deadline:
Paramount Global and Comcast renew distribution agreements to deliver Paramount's portfolio, including Paramount+ with Showtime, across Xfinity platforms — Paramount Global and Comcast have renewed a set of comprehensive distribution agreements to continue delivering Par's portfolio of broadcast …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Inworld AI, Streamlabs, and Nvidia unveil an AI assistant for streamers that can act as a cohost and provide technical support for streams in real time — Inworld AI, Streamlabs, and Nvidia are partnering on a new AI assistant for streamers that can provide technical support for streams in real time and even act as a quippy cohost.
Discussion:
NVIDIA Studio on Instagram, Wccftech, Streamlabs, VentureBeat and Streamlabs on YouTube, more at Techmeme »
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Reddit unveils Reddit Pro Trends, which allows companies to see what users are discussing about “virtually anything” on Reddit, and a new ad format for AMAs — At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Reddit unveiled new trends tools aimed at businesses and a new ad format for its Ask Me Anything (AMA) Q&A sessions.
Discussion:
Reddit Upvoted
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Avataar debuts Velocity, an AI tool that generates product videos based on a product link, and says HP, Victoria's Secret, Lowe's, and others are using the tool — Generative AI models have reached a baseline capability of producing at least a passable video from a single image or short sentence.
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Google unveils a Gemini-powered News Brief feature on Google TV that summarizes news stories from the internet and YouTube video headlines from trusted channels — Long gone are the days of simply watching the news. — Google unveiled the latest version of its TV operating system at CES 2025 on Monday.
Discussion:
MediaPost, NewscastStudio, @zeffmax, Yahoo News, 9to5Google, @seanokane.bsky.social and Digital Trends
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Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Google previews changes coming to Google TV, including adding Gemini, more natural voice commands, and deeper YouTube integration, rolling out later in 2025
Discussion:
The Streamable, Streaming Better, @theaustinlyons, @markgurman, Engadget, Neowin, iPhone in Canada Blog and The Verge
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