Notices by Techmeme (techmeme@techhub.social), page 6

Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko says Meta's moderation changes are "deeply troubling", and Mastodon will take action on Threads accounts violating Mastodon's policies (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/08/mastodon-ceo-calls-metas-moderation-changes-deeply-troubling-warns-users-cross-posting-from-threads/
http://www.techmeme.com/250108/p34#a250108p34

Meta revamping its content moderation systems with Community Notes is good, but Zuckerberg pretending it's about free speech is bad, and the timing is stupid (Mike Masnick/Techdirt)

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/08/the-good-the-bad-and-the-stupid-in-metas-new-content-moderation-policies/
http://www.techmeme.com/250108/p33#a250108p33

EU rejects Zuckerberg's claim that "Europe has an ever increasing number of laws institutionalising censorship", saying it only requires illegal content removal (Philip Blenkinsop/Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/technology/we-do-not-censor-social-media-eu-says-response-meta-2025-01-08/
http://www.techmeme.com/250108/p29#a250108p29

Ten current and former Meta employees share frustrations over Meta's surrender to the right on speech issues; one called the changes "a precursor to genocide" (Casey Newton/Platformer)

https://www.platformer.news/meta-fact-checking-free-speech-surrender/
http://www.techmeme.com/250107/p45#a250107p45

The UK plans to make it a crime to create and share sexually explicit deepfakes; the UK criminalized revenge porn in 2015, but that law doesn't cover deepfakes (Catarina Demony/Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/britain-make-sexually-explicit-deepfakes-crime-2025-01-07/
http://www.techmeme.com/250107/p18#a250107p18

Joel Kaplan says the Trump administration is "a huge supporter of free expression" and "gets us back to the values that Mark founded the company on" (Fox News)

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/meta-ends-fact-checking-program-zuckerberg-vows-restore-free-expression-facebook-instagram
http://www.techmeme.com/250107/p11#a250107p11

Many advertisers on TikTok say they will shift ad dollars if and when a US ban actually takes effect, as the yearslong saga has dulled any real sense of urgency (Wall Street Journal)

https://www.wsj.com/tech/a-tiktok-ban-looms-creators-say-theyll-believe-it-when-they-see-it-6727dd67?st=XkHpko&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
http://www.techmeme.com/250102/p21#a250102p21

Sources: Meta is overhauling its global policy team, replacing President Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, his deputy and the company's most prominent Republican (Semafor)

https://www.semafor.com/article/01/02/2025/meta-will-appoint-joel-kaplan-to-lead-global-policy-team-replacing-nick-clegg
http://www.techmeme.com/250102/p16#a250102p16

Researchers suspect 4.5M "stars" on GitHub repos are fake; in July 2024, Check Point found a network of inauthentic users starring projects containing malware (Bill Toulas/BleepingComputer)

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/over-31-million-fake-stars-on-github-projects-used-to-boost-rankings/
http://www.techmeme.com/241231/p12#a241231p12

Mexico plans to launch an app in January 2025 that will let Mexican migrants warn relatives and alert the nearest consulate if US immigration agents detain them (Russell Contreras/Axios)

https://www.axios.com/2024/12/29/mexico-app-migrants-immigration-us-deportations
http://www.techmeme.com/241229/p5#a241229p5

Tass: the Russian government bans crypto mining in 10 regions from January 1 to March 15, 2031, citing power consumption, after legalizing mining in July 2024 (Sheldon Reback/CoinDesk)

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/12/24/russia-imposes-6-year-ban-on-crypto-mining-in-10-regions-citing-energy-use-tass
http://www.techmeme.com/241224/p11#a241224p11

Tesla's shares are up 73% since Election Day, as several analysts see the Trump administration easing rules for self-driving tech, benefiting Tesla's ambitions (Esha Dey/Bloomberg)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-21/musk-s-trump-trade-makes-tesla-a-winner-with-570-billion-rally
http://www.techmeme.com/241222/p2#a241222p2

Sources: Anysphere, developer of GitHub Copilot rival Cursor, raised a $100M Series B at a $2.6B valuation, up from a $400M valuation in August 2024 (Marina Temkin/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/19/in-just-4-months-ai-coding-assistant-cursor-raised-another-100m-at-a-2-5b-valuation-led-by-thrive-sources-say/
http://www.techmeme.com/241219/p37#a241219p37

In 150+ X posts, Elon Musk led the charge to kill a bipartisan spending deal, in part by sharing misinfo, which may lead to a government shutdown over Christmas (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/us/politics/elon-musk-politics.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ik4.duPB.d-mLpNEjBSwZ&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
http://www.techmeme.com/241219/p28#a241219p28

Google releases Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental, with the ability to "reason over the most complex problems" in fields like programming and physics (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/19/google-releases-its-own-reasoning-ai-model/
http://www.techmeme.com/241219/p27#a241219p27

Interpol says calling online scams "pig butchering", a widely used phrase, is unhelpful as gangs "appear to have" created the phrase to describe victims (Wired)

https://www.wired.com/story/interpol-pig-butchering-scams-rename/
http://www.techmeme.com/241217/p13#a241217p13

After Trump's win, a look at what the crypto industry could do next, including weakening financial rules that might protect consumers from the next crypto crash (Molly White/Bloomberg)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-17/crypto-got-what-it-wanted-in-the-us-election-here-s-what-s-next
http://www.techmeme.com/241217/p10#a241217p10

Source: Trump meets with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at Mar-a-Lago, the same day that the company asks the Supreme Court to block the law that could ban the app (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/trump-meets-tiktok-ceo-video-app-challenges-potential-ban-rcna184450
http://www.techmeme.com/241216/p29#a241216p29

After probing an open-and-shut SEC violation for two years, it's nearly too late for the SEC to do anything over how Musk acquired Twitter before Trump moves in (Matt Levine/Bloomberg)

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-12-16/elon-musk-heard-from-the-sec
http://www.techmeme.com/241216/p24#a241216p24

A profile of Donald Trump's AI and crypto czar David Sacks, who has urged AI companies and other tech startups to boost US competitiveness and national security (George Hammond/Financial Times)

https://t.co/uT6fdBpv1b
http://www.techmeme.com/241215/p13#a241215p13