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Tag: iab-technology industry

  • First on CNN: Senators press Google, Meta and Twitter on whether their layoffs could imperil 2024 election | CNN Business

    First on CNN: Senators press Google, Meta and Twitter on whether their layoffs could imperil 2024 election | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Three US senators are pressing Facebook-parent Meta, Google-parent Alphabet and Twitter about whether their layoffs may have hindered the companies’ ability to fight the spread of misinformation ahead of the 2024 elections.

    In a letter to the companies dated Tuesday, the lawmakers warned that reported staff cuts to content moderation and other teams could make it harder for the companies to fulfill their commitments to election integrity.

    “This is particularly troubling given the emerging use of artificial intelligence to mislead voters,” wrote Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Vermont Democratic Sen. Peter Welch and Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, according to a copy of the letter reviewed by CNN.

    Since purchasing Twitter in October, Elon Musk has slashed headcount by more than 80%, in some cases eliminating entire teams.

    Alphabet announced plans to cut roughly 12,000 workers across product areas and regions earlier this year. And Meta has previously said it would eliminate about 21,000 jobs over two rounds of layoffs, hitting across teams devoted to policy, user experience and well-being, among others.

    “We remain focused on advancing our industry-leading integrity efforts and continue to invest in teams and technologies to protect our community – including our efforts to prepare for elections around the world,” Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Meta, said in a statement to CNN about the letter.

    Alphabet and Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The pullback at those companies has coincided with a broader industry retrenchment in the face of economic headwinds. Peers such as Microsoft and Amazon have also trimmed their workforces, while others have announced hiring freezes.

    But the social media companies are coming under greater scrutiny now in part due to their role facilitating the US electoral process.

    Tuesday’s letter asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino how each company is preparing for the 2024 elections and for mis- and disinformation surrounding the campaigns.

    To illustrate their concerns, the lawmakers pointed to recent changes at Alphabet-owned YouTube to allow the sharing of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, along with what they described as content moderation “challenges” at Twitter since the layoffs.

    The letter, which seeks responses by July 10, also asked whether the companies may hire more content moderation employees or contractors ahead of the election, and how the platforms may be specifically preparing for the rise of AI-generated deepfakes in politics.

    Already, candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appear to have used fake, AI-generated images to attack their opponents, raising questions about the risks that artificial intelligence could pose for democracy.

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  • Meta takes aim at Twitter with new Threads app | CNN Business

    Meta takes aim at Twitter with new Threads app | CNN Business

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    London
    CNN
     — 

    The rivalry between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk has just kicked up a notch.

    Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has teased a new app that is set to take on Twitter by offering a rival space for real-time conversations online.

    The app is called Threads and it is expected to go live Thursday, according to a listing in the App Store. The app appears to have many similarities to Twitter — the App Store description emphasizes conversations, as well as the potential to build a following and connect with like-minded people.

    “Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” it reads.

    “Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things — or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world.”

    The move by Meta comes amid a fresh bout of turmoil at Twitter, which experienced an outage over the weekend, followed by an announcement that the site had imposed temporary limits on how many tweets its users are able to read while using the app.

    Musk, the platform’s billionaire owner, said these restrictions had been applied “to address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation.”

    Commenting on the launch of Threads Monday, Musk tweeted: “Thank goodness they’re so sanely run,” parroting reported comments by Meta executives that appeared to take a jab at Musk’s erratic behavior.

    Since taking Twitter private in October, Musk has turned the social media platform on its head, alienating advertisers and some of its highest-profile users.

    He is now looking for ways to return the platform to growth. Twitter announced Monday that users would soon need to pay for TweetDeck, a tool that allows people to organize and easily monitor the accounts they follow.

    Twitter is also attempting to encroach on Meta’s domain.

    In May, Twitter added encrypted messaging and said calls would follow, developments that could allow the platform to compete with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, also owned by Meta.

    Musk and Zuckerberg’s rivalry could soon extend beyond business and into the ring. Last month, the two men discussed the possibility of a cage fight, with the Las Vegas arena that hosts the Ultimate Fighting Championship seemingly the favorite location for the match.

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  • Threads now has ‘tens of millions’ of daily users. But its honeymoon phase may be over | CNN Business

    Threads now has ‘tens of millions’ of daily users. But its honeymoon phase may be over | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Two weeks after Meta launched its Twitter competitor Threads and received an unprecedented amount of user signups, the frenzy around the app appears to have come back to Earth.

    After surpassing 100 million user sign-ups in less than a week, user engagement on Threads has slowed. Threads daily active users fell from 49 million on July 7, two days after its launch, to 23.6 million users last Friday, according to a report published this week by web traffic analysis firm Similarweb. The app’s average usage time also fell from 21 minutes to 6 minutes over the same timeframe.

    The slowdown hints at the challenges ahead for Meta as it looks to not only draw users away from Twitter but build a service that reaches a far larger audience. Threads is already facing some of the common issues that often plague social media platforms, including user retention, spam and some early regulatory scrutiny around its approach to content moderation. It’s also not clear yet how much Meta’s investments in building Threads will actually amount to financial returns for the company.

    “I’m very optimistic about how the Threads community is coming together,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on the platform Monday. “Early growth was off the charts, but more importantly 10s of millions of people now come back daily … The focus for the rest of the year is improving the basics and retention.”

    Meta executives acknowledged in the early days after Threads’ launch that getting users to sign up for a buzzy new app is much easier than convincing them to continue engaging there long-term. That’s likely even more true for Threads, which launched as a relatively bare-bones app in an effort to capitalize on a moment of weakness at Twitter and also tapped into Instagram’s network to ease the sign-in process.

    Threads on Tuesday rolled out its first batch of updates to the iOS version of the app, including a translation button, a tab on users’ activity feed dedicated to showing who’s followed them and the option to subscribe and receive notifications from accounts a user doesn’t follow.

    Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who is overseeing the Threads launch, has also hinted at plans to add features such as a desktop version of the app, a feed of only accounts a user follows and an edit button. “We’re clearly way out over our skis on this,” Mosseri said in a Threads post the week of the app’s launch.

    In the meantime, Threads is grappling with a common social media issue — spam. Users have complained of replies to posts filling up with spammy links and offering “giveaways” in exchange for new followers. And on Monday, Mosseri said in a Threads post that the platform was “going to have to get tighter on things like rate limits” because “spam attacks have picked up.”

    This “is going to mean more unintentionally limiting active people (false positives),” Mosseri warned. “If you get caught up [in] those protections let us know.”

    Meta declined to clarify whether Mosseri’s post refers to limits on users’ ability to post or read content, or to provide any additional details. But the comment did prompt some snark from Twitter owner Elon Musk, after backlash to Twitter’s own rate limits — restrictions on how many tweets users can read — helped propel Threads’ early growth.

    Meta shares have jumped more than 6% since the Threads launch, but some analysts who follow the company are skeptical that Threads will quickly contribute to the company’s bottom line, if at all.

    Threads could be a way for Meta to eke additional engagement time out of its massive existing user base. The app could also ultimately supplement Meta’s core advertising business, which could use a boost after facing challenges from a broad decline in the online ad market and changes to Apple’s app privacy practices.

    Meta executives have said they will likely incorporate advertising into the platform, once its user base has reached critical mass. But even if Threads continues to add users, “advertisers could be hesitant and possibly wait before allocating ad dollars to Threads because of their uncertainty about long-run user retention and engagement,” Morningstar senior equity analyst Ali Mogharabi said in a recent investor note.

    Like Twitter, Threads could also struggle to attract advertisers because the nature of a real-time news and public conversations app means the content is sometimes negative or controversial. Even before Musk took over Twitter and alienated advertisers, the platform represented a tiny piece of the ad sales market compared to Meta’s properties.

    Threads, however, likely has a leg up on Twitter because Meta is known as a company that provides clear value for advertisers, said Scott Kessler, global tech sector lead at research firm Third Bridge. If anything, he said, the risk may be that some advertisers may think twice about spending on yet another Meta platform versus diversifying their ad strategy.

    For now, analysts will be awaiting Meta executives’ commentary about Threads during its quarterly earnings call next week, including to see if they offer any hints about whether ads may be rolled out on the app ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season.

    “They launched this in July,” Kessler said. “That should give them enough time to build out sufficient tools for holiday shopping season advertising.”

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  • Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic announce industry group to promote safe AI development | CNN Business

    Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic announce industry group to promote safe AI development | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Some of the world’s top artificial intelligence companies are launching a new industry body to work together — and with policymakers and researchers — on ways to regulate the development of bleeding-edge AI.

    The new organization, known as the Frontier Model Forum, was announced Wednesday by Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic. The companies said the forum’s mission would be to develop best practices for AI safety, promote research into AI risks, and to publicly share information with governments and civil society.

    Wednesday’s announcement reflects how AI developers are coalescing around voluntary guardrails for the technology ahead of an expected push this fall by US and European Union lawmakers to craft binding legislation for the industry.

    News of the forum comes after the four AI firms, along with several others including Amazon and Meta, pledged to the Biden administration to subject their AI systems to third-party testing before releasing them to the public and to clearly label AI-generated content.

    The industry-led forum, which is open to other companies designing the most advanced AI models, plans to make its technical evaluations and benchmarks available through a publicly accessible library, the companies said in a joint statement.

    “Companies creating AI technology have a responsibility to ensure that it is safe, secure, and remains under human control,” said Microsoft president Brad Smith. “This initiative is a vital step to bring the tech sector together in advancing AI responsibly and tackling the challenges so that it benefits all of humanity.”

    The announcement comes a day after AI experts such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio warned lawmakers of potentially serious, even “catastrophic” societal risks stemming from unrestrained AI development.

    “In particular, I am concerned that AI systems could be misused on a grand scale in the domains of cybersecurity, nuclear technology, chemistry, and especially biology,” Amodei said in his written testimony.

    Within two to three years, Amodei said, AI could become powerful enough to help malicious actors build functional biological weapons, where today those actors may lack the specialized knowledge needed to complete the process.

    The best way to prevent major harms, Bengio told a Senate panel, is to restrict access to AI systems; develop standard and effective testing regimes to ensure those systems reflect shared societal values; limit how much of the world any single AI system can truly understand; and constrain the impact that AI systems can have on the real world.

    The European Union is moving toward legislation that could be finalized as early as this year that would ban the use of AI for predictive policing and limit its use in lower-risk scenarios.

    US lawmakers are much further behind. While a number of AI-related bills have already been introduced in Congress, much of the driving force for a comprehensive AI bill rests with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has prioritized getting members up to speed on the basics of the industry through a series of briefings this summer.

    Starting in September, Schumer has said, the Senate will hold a series of nine additional panels for members to learn about how AI could affect jobs, national security and intellectual property.

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  • Warren Buffett gives reason for surprise sale of stake in Taiwan’s TSMC | CNN Business

    Warren Buffett gives reason for surprise sale of stake in Taiwan’s TSMC | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Warren Buffett says geopolitical tensions were “a consideration” in the decision to sell most of Berkshire Hathaway’s shares in global chip giant TSMC, which is based in Taiwan.

    The 92-year-old “Oracle of Omaha” shed light on the investment call in a Tuesday interview with Japanese news agency Nikkei. He was quoted as sayiing that TSMC was a well-managed company but that Berkshire had “better places” to deploy its capital.

    In February, Berkshire Hathaway

    (BRKA)     revealed that it had sold 86% of its shares in TSMC, which were purchased for $4.1 billion just months before.

    The quick sale was considered unusual because the billionaire is known for making longer term bets. The size of the purchase suggested that the initial purchase was most likely made personally by Buffett himself, rather than one of his portfolio managers, Reuters reported.

    TSMC is considered a national treasure in Taiwan and supplies semiconductors to tech giants including Apple

    (AAPL)     and Qualcomm

    (QCOM)    . It mass produces the most advanced semiconductors in the world, components that are vital to the smooth running of everything from smartphones to washing machines.

    The company is perceived as being so valuable to the global economy, as well as to China — which claims Taiwan as its own territory despite having never controlled it — that it is sometimes even referred to as forming part of a “silicon shield” against a potential military invasion by Beijing.

    TSMC’s presence is seen as providing a strong incentive to the West to defend Taiwan against any attempt by China to take it by force.

    This week, tensions soared across the Taiwan Strait after China simulated “joint precision strikes” on the island during a series of military exercises.

    Beijing launched the drills on Saturday, a day after Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen returned from a 10-day visit to Central America and the United States where she met US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

    Chinese officials described the drills as “a serious warning against the Taiwan separatist forces’ collusion with external forces, and a necessary move to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

    Beijing conducted similar large-scale military exercises around Taiwan last August, after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island.

    Taiwan and China have been governed separately since the end of a civil war more than seven decades ago, in which the defeated Nationalists fled to Taipei.

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  • Apple commits to investing across India as Tim Cook opens second store | CNN Business

    Apple commits to investing across India as Tim Cook opens second store | CNN Business

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    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, pledging to invest further in the fast-growing economy as his company ramps up retail and manufacturing activities.

    The visit underscores how the world’s most valuable company is continuing to pivot to India, eyeing its potential as both a consumer market and production hub. India is set to surpass China as the world’s most populous nation by the middle of this year, according to data released by the United Nations.

    “From education and developers to manufacturing and the environment, we’re committed to growing and investing across the country,” Cook wrote on Twitter following the meeting.

    Modi said on Twitter that the two had exchanged views on a range of topics, including “the tech-powered transformations taking place in India.”

    Apple

    (AAPL)    ’s CEO is in India this week to open its first physical stores in the country, marking a milestone for the iPhone maker in the world’s second largest smartphone market after China.

    Cook presided over the company’s second store opening in the capital of New Delhi on Thursday, after launching Apple’s first outlet in Mumbai earlier this week, greeting customers and taking selfies with employees.

    Cook also met other officials including IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who tweeted afterward that the pair had “discussed deepening Apple’s engagement in India across manufacturing, electronics exports, [the] app economy, skilling, sustainability and job creation especially for women.”

    Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s deputy minister for information technology, said he was optimistic about how much Apple could expand its footprint in the country.

    “I am very confident that this Apple-India partnership has a lot of headroom for investments, growth, exports and jobs — doubling and tripling over coming years,” he told Reuters.

    Apple declined to comment, while India’s IT ministry did not immediately respond to a request for details.

    Apple’s expansion in India coincides with its 25th year of operating in the country.

    The California-based giant is the world’s second biggest smartphone maker behind Samsung

    (SSNLF)    , but its 6% share of the Indian market remains small.

    Apple, which is considered too expensive by many consumers in the country, is dwarfed by India’s top five mobile vendors, led by Samsung and Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Vivo.

    The US firm’s share is expected to grow, however, as it continues to build out its retail presence in the country and more customers turn to high-end smartphones.

    Apple has also been ramping up its manufacturing in India, where it first began making iPhones in 2017.

    In recent months, it has expanded production there after suffering supply chain snags in mainland China, which accounts for the bulk of its smartphone manufacturing.

    Two of Apple’s top suppliers, Foxconn and Wistron, were the fastest-growing manufacturers in India during the last quarter of 2022, according to Counterpoint Research.

    Last month, Foxconn CEO Young Liu also spent a week in the country and met with Modi.

    In a statement this week, Apple said it was working with suppliers to “produce a growing number of components.”

    The company’s “work with Indian suppliers of all sizes supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country,” it added.

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  • FTC says Meta should be barred from monetizing data from younger users | CNN Business

    FTC says Meta should be barred from monetizing data from younger users | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday accused Facebook-parent Meta of violating its landmark $5 billion privacy settlement and called for toughening up restrictions on the company, after alleging Meta has improperly shared user data with third parties and failed to protect children as it has promised.

    The proposal to update the binding 2020 settlement with Meta marks a new front in the FTC’s long-running battle with the social media company, which has included multiple lawsuits aimed at breaking up the tech giant or preventing it from growing larger.

    The FTC said Meta should be banned from monetizing data it collects from younger users. It added that the company should be barred from releasing any new features or products until a third-party auditor determines the company’s privacy policies do enough to protect users. It also called for new limitations on how Meta can use facial recognition technology.

    If approved, the sweeping proposal could threaten the future of Meta’s business, including its expansion into virtual reality.

    In a statement on Wednesday, Meta spokesman Andy Stone called the FTC proposal “a political stunt” and vowed to contest the effort.

    “Despite three years of continual engagement with the FTC around our agreement, they provided no opportunity to discuss this new, totally unprecedented theory,” Stone said. “FTC Chair Lina Khan’s insistence on using any measure – however baseless – to antagonize American business has reached a new low.”

    The FTC proposal comes as policymakers at all levels of government have increasingly blamed social media for furthering a mental health crisis among young people, prompting calls for strict regulations on how tech platforms can use the personal information of users under 18, target them with automated recommendations or seek to boost their engagement in other ways. Many of those proposals have taken the form of broad-based legislation, but the FTC proposal would represent a novel approach by amending a past consent order in connection with a single company that influences more than a billion users.

    As part of the FTC’s call for changes, the agency said Meta had misled the public about its compliance with the historic settlement that resolved allegations surrounding the Cambridge Analytica data fiasco, as well as prior agreements with the agency.

    Meta had allowed personal information to leak to apps that users of the platform were no longer using, the FTC alleged. That data sharing, the FTC claimed, contrasted with Meta’s public statements about how it cuts off a third-party app’s access to Facebook users’ information if the users stop using the third-party app for 90 days.

    The FTC also alleged that multiple coding errors in a messaging app marketed to children, Messenger Kids, allowed users to connect to “unapproved contacts” in group video calls, and that the flaws went unresolved for weeks.

    Those flaws meant parents could not control who their kids were speaking to on the app, in contrast to claims by Meta that they could, according to the FTC.

    In addition to being a breach of Meta’s prior settlements, the alleged violations surrounding Messenger Kids also ran afoul of a federal children’s privacy law known as COPPA, the FTC said, because parents were not provided an opportunity to give Meta their consent before the company collected information on their kids.

    Meta will have 30 days to respond to the proposed findings and changes, the FTC said, before the commission votes to finalize them. The FTC can unilaterally approve updates to the settlement, but Meta would have the opportunity to appeal that move in federal court, according to an agency fact sheet.

    The FTC voted 3-0 to issue the proposed findings and changes, but one commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, questioned whether the agency has the authority to impose such sweeping restrictions on Meta in light of the alleged violations.

    In a statement, Bedoya said he was skeptical whether there was enough of a connection between Meta’s alleged harms and the proposed remedies to legally sustain a complete ban on monetizing the data of young users.

    “I look forward to hearing additional information and arguments and will consider these issues with an open mind,” Bedoya said.

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  • Mr. ChatGPT goes to Washington: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman set to testify before Congress | CNN Business

    Mr. ChatGPT goes to Washington: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman set to testify before Congress | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is set to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday after the viral success of ChatGPT, his company’s chatbot tool, renewed an arms race over artificial intelligence and sparked concerns from some lawmakers about the risks posed by the technology.

    “Artificial intelligence urgently needs rules and safeguards to address its immense promise and pitfalls,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who chairs the Senate panel on privacy and technology. “This hearing begins our Subcommittee’s work in overseeing and illuminating AI’s advanced algorithms and powerful technology.”

    He added: “I look forward to working with my colleagues as we explore sensible standards and principles to help us navigate this uncharted territory.”

    A growing list of tech companies have deployed new AI tools in recent months, with the potential to change how we work, shop and interact with each other. But these same tools have also drawn criticism from some of tech’s biggest names for their potential to disrupt millions of jobs, spread misinformation and perpetuate biases.

    Also testifying Tuesday will be Christina Montgomery, IBM’s vice president and chief privacy and trust officer, as well as Gary Marcus, a former New York University professor and a self-described critic of AI “hype.”

    Montgomery is expected to urge Congress to adopt a “precision regulation” approach for AI based on specific use cases, and to suggest that lawmakers push companies to test how their systems handle bias and other concerns – and disclose those results.

    As the CEO of OpenAI, Altman, perhaps more than any other single figure, has come to serve as a face for a new crop of AI products that can generate images and texts in response to user prompts.

    Earlier this month, Altman was one of several tech CEOs to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and, briefly, President Joe Biden as part of the White House’s efforts to emphasize the importance of ethical and responsible AI development.

    In interviews this year, Altman has presented himself as someone who is mindful of the risks posed by AI and even “a little bit scared” of the technology. He and his company have pledged to move forward responsibly.

    Others want Altman and OpenAI to move more cautiously. Elon Musk, who helped found OpenAI before breaking from the group, joined dozens of tech leaders, professors and researchers in signing a letter calling for artificial intelligence labs like OpenAI to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.”

    Altman has said he agreed with parts of the letter. “I think moving with caution and an increasing rigor for safety issues is really important,” Altman said at an event last month. “The letter I don’t think was the optimal way to address it.”

    – CNN’s Jennifer Korn contributed to this report.

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  • AI chip boom sends Nvidia’s stock surging after whopper of a quarter | CNN Business

    AI chip boom sends Nvidia’s stock surging after whopper of a quarter | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The AI boom is here, and Nvidia is reaping all the benefits.

    Shares of Nvidia

    (NVDA)     exploded 28% higher Thursday after reporting earnings and sales that surged well above Wall Street’s already lofty expectations. That was enough to make investors temporarily forget about America’s dangerous debt ceiling standoff, sending the broader stock market higher — even after credit rating agency Fitch warned late Wednesday that America could soon lose its sterling AAA debt rating.

    Nvidia makes chips that power generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, such as text and images, in response to user prompts. That’s the kind of AI underlying ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, Dall-E and many of the other new AI technologies.

    “The computer industry is going through two simultaneous transitions — accelerated computing and generative AI,” said Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, in a statement. “A trillion dollars of installed global data center infrastructure will transition from general purpose to accelerated computing as companies race to apply generative AI into every product, service and business process.”

    Huang said Nvidia is increasing supply of its entire suite of data center products to meet “surging demand” for them.

    Last quarter, Nvidia’s profit surged 26% to $2 billion, and sales rose 19% to $7.2 billion, each easily surpassing Wall Street analysts’ forecasts. Nvidia’s outlook for the current quarter was also significantly — about 50% — higher than analysts’ predictions.

    Nvidia’s stock is up nearly 110% this year.

    “There is not one better indicator around underlying AI demand going on … than the foundational Nvidia story,” said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush. “We view Nvidia at the core hearts and lungs of the AI revolution.”

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  • US judge temporarily blocks Microsoft acquisition of Activision | CNN Business

    US judge temporarily blocks Microsoft acquisition of Activision | CNN Business

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    A US judge late on Tuesday granted the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) request to temporarily block Microsoft Corp’s acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard and set a hearing next week.

    US District Judge Edward Davila scheduled a two-day evidentiary hearing on the FTC’s request for a preliminary injunction for June 22-23 in San Francisco. Without a court order, Microsoft could have closed on the $69 billion deal as early as Friday.

    The FTC, which enforces antitrust law, asked an administrative judge to block the transaction in early December. An evidential hearing in the administrative proceeding is set to begin Aug. 2.

    Based on the late-June hearing, the federal court will decide whether a preliminary injunction — which would last during the administrative review of the case — is necessary. The FTC sought the temporary block on Monday.

    Davila said the temporary restraining order issued on Tuesday “is necessary to maintain the status quo while the complaint is pending (and) preserve this court’s ability to order effective relief in the event it determines a preliminary injunction is warranted and preserve the FTC’s ability to obtain an effective permanent remedy in the event that it prevails in its pending administrative proceeding.”

    Microsoft

    (MSFT)     and Activision

    (ATVI)     must submit legal arguments opposing a preliminary injunction by June 16; the FTC must reply on June 20.

    Activision, which said Monday the FTC decision to seek a federal court order was “a welcome update and one that accelerates the legal process,” declined to comment Tuesday.

    Microsoft said Tuesday “accelerating the legal process in the U.S will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the gaming market. A temporary restraining order makes sense until we can receive a decision from the court, which is moving swiftly.”

    The FTC declined to comment.

    Davila said the bar on closing will remain in place until at least five days after the court rules on the preliminary injunction request.

    The FTC has argued the transaction would give Microsoft’s video game console Xbox exclusive access to Activision games, leaving Nintendo consoles and Sony Group Corp’s PlayStation out in the cold.

    Microsoft’s bid to acquire the “Call of Duty” video game maker was approved by the EU in May, but British competition authorities blocked the takeover in April.

    Microsoft has said the deal would benefit gamers and gaming companies alike, and has offered to sign a legally binding consent decree with the FTC to provide “Call of Duty” games to rivals including Sony for a decade.

    The case reflects the muscular approach to antitrust enforcement taken by the administration of US President Joe Biden.

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  • Meta is giving parents more visibility into who their teens are messaging on social media | CNN Business

    Meta is giving parents more visibility into who their teens are messaging on social media | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Meta is adding new safeguards and monitoring tools for teens across its social platforms: parental controls on Messenger, suggestions for teens to step away from Facebook after 20 minutes, and nudges urging young night-owl Instagrammers to stop scrolling.

    The features announced Tuesday come as Meta

    (META)     and other social media platforms face heightened pressure from lawmakers over the impact that their platforms have on younger users, who can be just 13 when they sign up for Meta

    (META)    ’s apps.

    Messenger, Meta’s instant-messaging app, is adding parental supervision tools for the first time that are similar to those that exist on Instagram already: Parents and guardians can see how much time their teens spend on the chat tool, view and receive updates on their contacts list, and get notified if their teen reports someone.

    Another new feature is the ability for parents and teens to have discussions directly through notifications if their accounts are synced up.

    “We heard from parents and teens about the value they’re seeing from how a two-way dialogue can foster and encourage discussions,” Diana Williams, who oversees product changes for youth and families at Meta, told CNN in an interview.

    On Facebook, Meta will start to nudge teen users to take time away from the app after 20 minutes.

    Instagram will add introduce a new nudge that suggests teens close Instagram if they’re scrolling Reels videos for too long during nighttime hours. The effort builds on existing Instagram features like Quiet Mode, which temporarily holds notifications and lets people know if you’re trying to focus.

    In addition, Instagram is testing a feature that limits how people interact with non-followers. Users must now send an invite to connect with someone if they’re not a follower, and they cannot call the recipient or send photos, videos or voice messages or make calls until the user accepts their request. The feature aims to cut down on unwanted content from strangers, particularly for women, the company said.

    It’s the latest in a series of new tools and guardrails for teens from Meta, following the release of leaked internal documents that found Instagram can negatively impact the mental health of its young users. Instagram, for example, has since introduced an educational hub for parents with resources, tips and articles from experts on user safety.

    The company said it’s also taking a “stricter approach” to the content it recommends to teens and will actively nudge them toward different topics, such as architecture and travel destinations, if they’ve been dwelling on any type of content for too long.

    Few changes have been made to Facebook and Messenger until now. Facebook does, however, have a Safety Center that provides supervision tools and resources, such as articles and advice from leading experts.

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  • Thousands of authors demand payment from AI companies for use of copyrighted works | CNN Business

    Thousands of authors demand payment from AI companies for use of copyrighted works | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Thousands of published authors are requesting payment from tech companies for the use of their copyrighted works in training artificial intelligence tools, marking the latest intellectual property critique to target AI development.

    The list of more than 8,000 authors includes some of the world’s most celebrated writers, including Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, James Patterson, Jodi Picoult and Philip Pullman, among others.

    In an open letter they signed, posted by the Authors Guild Tuesday, the writers accused AI companies of unfairly profiting from their work.

    “Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the ‘food’ for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill,” the letter said. “You’re spending billions of dollars to develop AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which AI would be banal and extremely limited.”

    Tuesday’s letter was addressed to the CEOs of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Facebook-parent Meta, Google, Stability AI, IBM and Microsoft. Most of the companies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta, Microsoft and Stability AI declined to comment.

    Much of the tech industry is now working to develop AI tools that can generate compelling images and written work in response to user prompts. These tools are built on large language models, which are trained on vast troves of information online. But recently, there has been growing pressure on tech companies over alleged intellectual property violations with this training process.

    This month, comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors filed a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Meta, while a proposed class-action suit accused Google of “stealing everything ever created and shared on the internet by hundreds of millions of Americans,” including copyrighted content. Google has called the lawsuit “baseless,” saying it has been upfront for years that it uses public data to train its algorithms. OpenAI did not previously respond to a request for comment on the suit.

    In addition to demanding compensation “for the past and ongoing use of our works in your generative AI programs,” the thousands of authors who signed the letter this week called on AI companies to seek permission before using the copyrighted material. They also urged the companies to pay writers when their work is featured in the results of generative AI, “whether or not the outputs are infringing under current law.”

    The letter also cites this year’s Supreme Court holding in Warhol v Goldsmith, which found that the late artist Andy Warhol infringed on a photographer’s copyright when he created a series of silk screens based on a photograph of the late singer Prince. The court ruled that Warhol did not sufficiently “transform” the underlying photograph so as to avoid copyright infringement.

    “The high commerciality of your use argues against fair use,” the authors wrote to the AI companies.

    In May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to acknowledge more needs to be done to address concerns from creators about how AI systems use their works.

    “We’re trying to work on new models where if an AI system is using your content, or if it’s using your style, you get paid for that,” he said at an event.

    – CNN’s Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.

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