Shares of social media company Reddit soared nearly 50 percent on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday in a buoyant market debut that raised hopes about the IPO market. Following the lead of companies like Airbnb and Rivian, Reddit set aside about eight percent of the IPO shares for moderators and top users, known as "Redditors." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also a major investor after he led a fundraising round about a decade ago.
Amazon fights refund fraud gangs exposed by CNBC. Social media encourages fraudulent practices, leading to massive losses. Lawsuit filed against Noah Page and others. Retailers suffer due to loopholes exploited by fraudsters.
Bobby Kotick, former head of Activision Blizzard, may buy TikTok amid its potential US ban. A bill to sell TikTok is introduced, backed by President Biden. Kotick discussed acquisition with OpenAI head. Activision Blizzard faced a lawsuit. Concerns about data privacy and ties to China persist. TikTok urges American users to support it.
TikTok divestment bill would give government stronger legal position, US DOJ says. The Justice Department gave a classified briefing to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday before the panel voted 50-0 on a bill to give ByteDance six months to divest short video app TikTok or face a US ban. The briefing included the one-page unclassified document seen by Reuters, which also said TikTok poses "key national security concerns" because it "collects tremendous amounts of sensitive data" and added Chinese ownership puts "TikTok's American users at risk."
In new disclosure, LinkedIn says premium subscriptions bring in $1.7 billion. LinkedIn on Thursday for the first time disclosed sales for its premium subscription business, saying the unit hit $1.7 billion in revenue in 2023 as the company sees an uptick in adoption of new artificial intelligence tools. LinkedIn, the social network aimed at business professionals, has not broken out its full financial performance since it was acquired by Microsoft in 2016.
Hunch, an AI-driven social discovery app, is expanding globally, starting with the US market. It offers polls on various topics, a chat feature called Goss, and aims to provide a platform for youth to express themselves freely and build authentic connections. Hunch features include the ability to create polls on any topic and facilitating connections with individuals who share similar polling interests. These polls cover a broad spectrum of topics, like pop culture, gaming, finance, Bollywood, dating, relationships, anime, and much more. In addition, there’s the option of Goss—an ephemeral chat feature where conversations disappear within 24 hours.
New York City has filed a lawsuit against parent companies of TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, alleging intentional manipulation and addiction, worsening the youth mental health crisis. Mayor Eric Adams stated social media platforms endanger children's mental health. Over 38% of high school students in NYC reported feeling sad or hopeless.
Dance moves and deepfakes make the campaign trail come alive as Indonesia presidential candidates duke it out on TikTok. To court young voters, all three candidates in the Feb. 14 race to lead Indonesia have gravitated toward TikTok, which has 125 million users in the country, second only to the United States. But experts say the platform is also flooded with problematic content that attempts to manipulate young voters, who make up over half of about 205 million registered voters in the country.
The Snapchat parent expects pre-tax charges in the range of $55 million to $75 million, primarily consisting of severance and related costs, and other charges, of which $45 million to $55 million are expected to be future cash expenditures. Snap joins several other tech and media firms such as Amazon and Alphabet that announced layoffs in January. Overall, almost 32,000 workers have been let go of in 122 tech companies since the start of the year, according to tracking website Layoffs.fyi
More than 50 per cent of influencers do not make adequate disclosures when they are pushing out advertiser funded content. As Gen Z investors increasingly turn to finfluencers for guidance on investment decisions, the CFA Institute calls for more action by regulators and industry. A lack of financial literacy and perceived cost of advice drive people to finfluencer content stated the CFA Institute research which examines the growing impact of financial influencers on the Gen Z investor experience
Italy will expand regulation of social media influencers by placing their activities under the same authority that oversees television and other audio-visual media. An audio-visual media law adopted in December 2021 calls for fines of up to 600,000 euros ($660,000) for violating data protection laws, especially for minors. Chiara Ferragni, who has almost 30 million followers on Instagram, is under investigation after promoting a brand of pandoro cake in November 2022, suggesting that part of the sales would be donated for child cancer treatments at the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin.
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