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EU Probes Meta's Compliance with Child Safety Regulations
Tech brief: 8 | AI: 3 | VC & Startups: 3 | Consumer Tech: 3 | eCommerce: 3 | Social: 4 | Fintech: 3
Kristoffer Lindström
May 17, 2024
TECH BRIEF
The European Commission has initiated a probe into Meta's compliance with regulations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), focusing on child safety measures, age verification adequacy, and privacy settings for minors. This follows another DSA-related investigation into Meta's handling of disinformation. The commission also plans to look into Meta's discontinuation of the CrowdTangle tool and its transparency practices. Penalties for violations can reach up to 6% of global annual revenue or result in a ban from the EU single market.
Microsoft plans to integrate AMD's MI300X AI processors into Azure cloud services, positioning them as a rival to Nvidia's high-demand GPUs. Announced in the run-up to the Build developer conference, Microsoft's move also boosts AMD's AI market aspirations. Azure customers will benefit from both AMD's chips and Microsoft's proprietary Maia chips, promising better performance. The tech giant will also introduce a feature for developers to manage Azure resources using natural language inputs.
Replit Inc., a cloud developer tools startup at the helm of generative AI coding announced layoffs of approximately 20% of its staff, roughly 30 employees. The company aims for long-term success by infusing AI in its coding tools, but the CEO dismissed speculations of replacing workers with AI. The layoffs follow a trend within tech companies, including competitor GitHub that cut off 10% of its staff last year.
Figma, the cloud-based design tool firm, has introduced a tender offer for investors, including employees, to sell their shares, valuing the company at $12.5 billion. This represents a 25% increase from 2021 but falls below Adobe's $20 billion acquisition proposal in 2022, which was later cancelled. The tender is expected to be worth between $600 million and $900 million, backed by over 25 existing and new investors.
Snowflake Inc. is reportedly in negotiations to acquire Reka AI, a cloud-based language models startup, for over $1 billion. This move is aimed at expanding Snowflake's generative AI capabilities. However, the deal hasn't been finalized. Snowflake has previously invested in Reka, intending to accelerate its business, which involves developing tools to organize and analyze data in the cloud.
Reddit's shares surged 12% following its partnership announcement with OpenAI for integrating the platform's content into chatbot ChatGPT. This alliance marks Reddit's move to diversify revenue streams through AI model training with its user-generated content. The deal also appoints OpenAI as a Reddit advertising ally. Earlier, Reddit secured a $60 million per year agreement with Google.
Baidu's Q1 revenue grew by 1% YoY to $4.4B, surpassing an estimated $4.35B, showing the slowest growth in over a year. The net income fell by 6% YoY to $755M, beating the $554M projection. As China's economic condition strains Baidu's core ad business, the company is betting on generative AI for future growth.
Real estate mogul and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt is reportedly leading a consortium to buy TikTok's U.S operations amidst the pressure for the firm to separate from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance Ltd. Striving to make the Internet less addictive and more private through his initiative "Project Libe” McCourt plans to transform TikTok upon acquisition. It's unknown how this situation will pan out, considering TikTok's widespread U.S. use.
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