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On the eve of Wednesday’s Big Tech hearing (both Big Tech and a big hearing — five CEOs are testifying as we speak), Microsoft stepped up to back a controversial bill that aims to protect children from the dangers of social media. In the early hours of the hearing, X CEO Linda Yaccarino als

The collapse of Amazon’s proposed deal to buy iRobot highlights just how critical the IPO market is this year. With governments tightening the screws on Big Tech companies trying to buy smaller firms, a key exit avenue could be closed to startups in the near term. The Exchange explores start

Ahead of a major congressional hearing about children’s online safety, Meta has announced a collaboration with the Center for Open Science, a nonprofit dedicated to transparency in academic research. As part of this pilot program, Meta says it will share “privacy-preserving social media

Hey, folks, and welcome to Week in Review (WiR), technewss’s regular newsletter covering notable happenings in tech over the past few days. On the agenda for this edition is Disney’s innovative VR treadmill, OpenAI fixing its “lazy” AI and MIT’s high-capacity, fast-ch

The internet can be bad. But mmm.page might just be good. The platform is hard to explain, but it describes itself as “Tumblr x Animal Crossing x Mii Plaza,” which is somehow more accurate than my idea of “MySpace meets Linktree, except not really.” The anonymous founder, XH

The panel on stage at the Knight Foundation’s Informed event is Elon Musk’s nightmare blunt rotation: Techdirt editor Mike Masnick, Twitter’s former safety lead Yoel Roth, and Bluesky CEO Jay Graber, who have come together to discuss content moderation in the fediverse. It’s

Twitch is introducing a new tier to its premium revenue share program — currently known as the “Partner Plus Program” — that would grant a 60/40 revenue split and has lower qualification requirements than the existing tier, expanding access to smaller creators. The program, launchin

BeReal, a rising social media app that emphasizes authenticity, is making its first outreach to brands and celebrities. Starting February 6, brands and celebrities will be able to sign up as “RealBrands” or “RealPeople,” and fans can watch them share behind the scenes moment

X, formerly Twitter, today announced support for passkeys, a new and more secure login method than traditional passwords, which will become an option for U.S. users on iOS devices. The technology has been adopted by a number of apps as of late, including PayPal, TikTok, WhatsApp, and others. Today

TikTok is the latest tech company to mount another round of layoffs in an increasingly bleak January. According to NPR, which broke the news, TikTok cut about 60 jobs, mostly in sales and advertising. TikTok did not respond to our request for comment before publication. Despite cont

Meta has provided new details of how it plans to respond to incoming competition rules in the European Union that aim to tackle abusive behaviors by Big Tech by enforcing fairer dealing on a handful of the world’s most powerful platforms. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) applies to just six (mos

When Selkie, the fashion brand viral on Instagram and TikTok for its frothy, extravagant dresses, announces new collections, reception is generally positive. Known for its size inclusivity — its sizing ranges from XXS to 6X — and for being owned and founded by an independent artist who's ou

A Barcelona-based company that works as a subcontractor for Meta, providing content moderation services for Facebook and Instagram, has been found by a court in Spain to be responsible for psychological damage suffered by a worker. The ruling, handed down Thursday, per local press reports, is the f

Three councils in the United Kingdom have taken some of their public-facing systems offline due to an ongoing cybersecurity issue. Canterbury City Council, Dover District Council, and Thanet District Council, three local authorities based in the county of Kent, said jointly on Friday that they “a