META PLATFORMS

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• TikTok artists and advertisers to stay with app

  TikTok's partners stay committed despite ban concerns. ByteDance must divest within a year. Platform competes with Meta Platforms for user engagement. While the music industry relies on TikTok for promotions, advertisers explore alternative strategies amid uncertainty. TikTok has rivaled larger companies such as Meta Platforms for user attention and ad budgets, and its cultural power is reflected in its ability to catapult emerging artists into viral hits, changing how young people discover music.

  

• Google rival Tuta complains to EU tech regulators about de-ranking

  The European Commission last month launched investigations into Alphabet unit Google, Apple and Meta Platforms over potential breaches of the new Digital Markets Act (DMA), with Google's case partly focused on whether search results discriminate against third-party services.

  

• Russia convicts Meta spokesperson in absentia

  The authorities also outlawed Meta as an extremist organisation and blocked Facebook and Instagram in Russia. Both platforms - as well as X, formerly known as Twitter, which has also been blocked - were popular with Russians before the invasion and the subsequent crackdown on independent media and other forms of critical speech. However, they are now only accessible via VPN.

  

• Apple removes WhatsApp, Threads from China app store on government order

  Apple removed Meta's WhatsApp and Threads in China following a government order, citing national security concerns. Despite disagreement, Apple complied with the law. The apps are still accessible on other platforms.

  

• Telegram platform to hit 1 billion users within year, founder Pavel Durov says

  "We'll probably cross 1 billion monthly active users within a year now," Durov, who fully owns Telegram, told Tucker, according to the video interview posted on Tucker's account on the X social media platform.

  

• Meta board reviews handling AI-created celebrity porn

  Advances in AI technology have made fabricated images, audio clips and videos virtually indistinguishable from real human-created content, resulting in a spate of sexual fakes proliferating online, mostly depicting women and girls. In an especially high-profile case earlier this year, Elon Musk-owned social media platform X briefly blocked users from searching for all images of U.S. pop star Taylor Swift after struggling to control the spread of fake explicit images of her.

  

• JioCinema woos small advertisers for IPL

  "Google and Meta have built massive digital advertising businesses thanks to SMBs. JioCinema is wooing these advertisers with live sports as a hook," an advertising expert said, adding that building long-tail advertisers will help reduce dependence on large advertisers. According to a Ficci-EY report, digital advertising surged 15% to ?57,600 crore, including ?20,000 crore in ad spend by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in 2023.

  

• Yahoo acquires Instagram co-founders' AI news platform Artifact

  Yahoo, which also owns news brands TechCrunch, Engadget and Yahoo Finance, said Artifact's AI-powered recommendation engine and other features will help scale its news operations and deliver personalized content to audience.

  

• Reliance's Tamil Nadu campus may host Meta’s first India data centre

  Meta will now be able to operate four to five nodes across multiple locations across the country allowing for faster data processing in what is its largest market. Currently, data from Indian users of Meta products is serviced at its data centre in Singapore. With a local data centre, in addition to content, local advertisements will also enhance user experience and cut transmission costs from global data hubs, people in the know said.

  

• Meta cannot delay US FTC from reopening privacy probe, court says

  The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in its order found that Meta had not shown its challenge was likely to be successful. The court said Meta has "not met its heavy burden of showing entitlement to an injunction pending appeal."

  

• New AI benchmark tests speed of responses to user queries

  One of the new benchmarks added the capability to measure the speediness of a question-and-answer scenario for large language models. Called Llama 2, it includes 70 billion parameters and was developed by Meta Platforms.