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Feb 21, 2025
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TGIF! The Federal Trade Commission launches a public inquiry into whether technology platforms censor users. Elon Musk's X pushes advertisers to spend more on the platform. Alibaba plans to launch a new reasoning model and pledges aggressive spending on cloud and AI infrastructure.
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The Federal Trade Commission has launched a public inquiry into whether technology platforms “censor” users by denying access to services based on “the content of their speech or affiliations,” the agency announced Thursday. It’s the latest sign of how the Trump administration is pressuring tech companies, particularly social media firms, to pull back on content moderation. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement that the probe will “help the FTC better understand how these firms may have violated the law by silencing and
intimidating Americans for speaking their minds.” The agency is seeking comment from the public about how tech platforms enforce their policies, asking people to detail their experiences of being “denied or degraded” access to services based on what they have said or who they have affiliated with. In the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration, several major tech companies, including Meta Platforms, have adjusted their policies to make them more favorable to Republicans. The latest inquiry appears to have a broad-ranging focus. Ferguson said in a tweet that a “victim of tech censorship” could include someone who was subject to “banning, demonetization, shadow banning, etc”.
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A lawyer representing Elon Musk’s X suggested to lawyers for ad-holding company Interpublic Group in December that the ad conglomerate’s clients should start spending more on the social media platform, or face potential repercussions, the Wall Street Journal reported. X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino has also met with executives from Interpublic and made similar comments, the report said, with the agency’s executives interpreting the comments as threats to block or slow down regulatory approval for Interpublic’s planned
merger with Omnicom Media Group, another large ad holding company. The developments come as X has been increasing the number of advertisers it is suing over allegedly colluding to boycott the social media platform after Musk bought it in late 2022. X sued the World Federation of Advertisers last year and earlier this month amended the suit to add several advertisers including Nestle, Abbott Laboratories and Colgate-Palmolive for allegedly conspiring to “collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue from Twitter.” The Journal’s story on Thursday quoted one ad executive saying X’s legal move have made some advertisers feel they also could be sued if they don’t start spending money on X.
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Alibaba Group said it will soon release a new artificial intelligence “deep reasoning model,” in what could be the Chinese tech giant’s answer to the recent success of DeepSeek. Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said during a conference call with analysts Thursday that the new reasoning model is built on the company’s flagship AI foundation model, Qwen2.5-Max. Alibaba’s upcoming launch comes after DeepSeek last month upended the global AI industry with its R1 reasoning model, which offered performance comparable to OpenAI’s similar model even though DeepSeek said it had been developed at a much lower cost. Wu said Alibaba, an e-commerce giant that also operates China’s biggest cloud computing service, will invest “aggressively” in cloud and AI infrastructure. Such investment for the next three years will be larger
than what the company has spent over the past decade, he said. Wu’s comments came shortly after Alibaba reported better-than-expected earnings for the quarter through December. Revenue from its cloud computing division rose 13%, and Alibaba said increasing adoption of AI-related products among cloud customers contributed to the solid revenue growth. Alibaba’s U.S.-listed stock jumped Thursday morning in New York on the upbeat results.
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A coalition of powerful bank lobbying groups wrote a letter Thursday urging federal banking regulators to rescind or substantially revise policies that the group said hindered banks’ ability to offer crypto-related services. The letter, addressed to crypto and AI czar David Sacks, said banks shouldn’t have to obtain additional written signoff from regulators to offer crypto custody, tokenized deposits or to process payments for a crypto firm. Trade groups including the American Bankers Association, The Clearing House Association and others took part in
the letter. During the Biden administration, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency warned banks about doing business with crypto firms, citing safety and soundness concerns and money-laundering risks. Since President Donald Trump took office, the FDIC has signaled it would overhaul its crypto guidance, whereas the Fed’s outgoing banking supervisor Michael Barr defended the agency’s regulatory approach on crypto in a speech Thursday.
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TikTok told employees Thursday that it is planning to make cuts to its global trust and safety team, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The internal announcement comes a week after CEO Shou Zi Chew hinted at the possibility of cuts during an all-hands meeting for parent company ByteDance. It is unclear how many employees will lose their jobs. The layoffs will affect staff working on trust and safety outside the U.S. A spokesperson for TikTok declined to comment. Addressing
employees last week, Chew said TikTok needed to review its teams and “remove unnecessary layers,” adding that in the past, teams at the company had become bloated and inefficient. He also said the company was working closely with a “key figure” in the Trump administration to try to work out a solution to keep the app operating in the U.S.
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YouTube is testing a cheaper version of its paid, ad-free YouTube Premium service, the company confirmed. It’s unclear what the price of this cheaper tier will be, while YouTube Premium is priced at $13.99 per month. The news was first reported by Bloomberg. In a statement, a YouTube spokesperson said the company has been testing a new YouTube Premium tier with “most videos ad-free in several of our markets. We’re hoping to expand this offering to even more users in the future.” This version will
have some limitations when compared to YouTube Premium: specifically, music videos will feature ads. Two years ago, YouTube nixed a previous cheaper version of YouTube Premium in some European markets.
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Activist investor Ryan Cohen has built up a $1 billion stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Cohen’s investment was built up over the past two years, a period when Alibaba stock has been in the doldrums, although it has recently perked up. Cohen, who founded pet food delivery firm Chewy.com, has become an activist investor in recent years and gained a large following among retail investors. Cohen bought a stake in struggling videogame retailer Gamestop and then forced through leadership changes and became chairman
of the board in 2021. He became | | | |
