online content

EU unveils tougher industry Code to combat disinformation

The European Commission has just taken the wraps off a beefed up industry Code of Practice for tackling online disinformation across the EU. Signatories to the Code — who include tech giants lik

Adobe releases open source toolkit to counter visual misinformation

Adobe has a vision for an internet peppered with photos and videos packaged up with extra data about where they came from. The company’s central aim is to mitigate the spread of visual misinformatio

China further limits access to unauthorized foreign games

For years, China has left a loophole open for people to access unauthorized video games, but it’s ready to close it. Many foreign titles lack a Chinese publishing partner like Tencent to help th

Voila raises $6M for its AI-powered storefronts for online creators

Voila, a startup building infrastructure for social commerce, is bringing concepts from China’s e-commerce market to the U.S. The company offers an alternative to the “link in bio” s

TikTok updates its policies with focus on minor and LGBTQ safety, age appropriate content and more

Months after TikTok was hauled into its first-ever major congressional hearing over platform safety, the company is today announcing a series of policy updates and plans for new features and technolog

Refinery Ventures’ second fund aimed at getting startups to Series A

Refinery focuses on “early scale” companies, a term the firm uses to describe companies that secured a seed, but need that “oomph” to get it to Series A.

Inside a European push to outlaw creepy ads

European Union lawmakers are mobilizing support for a ban on tracking-based advertising to be added to a new set of Internet rules for the bloc — which were proposed at the back end of last yea

Google is redesigning Search using AI technologies and new features

Google announced today it will be applying AI advancements, including a new technology called Multitask Unified Model (MUM) to improve Google Search. At the company’s Search On event, the compan

Apple Music is using Shazam to solve the streaming industry’s problem with DJ mixes

Apple Music announced today that it’s created a process to properly identify and compensate all of the individual creators involved in making a DJ mix. Using technology from the audio-recognitio

Tech giants still aren’t coming clean about COVID-19 disinformation, says EU

European Union lawmakers have asked tech giants to continue reporting on efforts to combat the spread of vaccine disinformation on their platforms for a further six months. “The continuation of

UK publishes draft Online Safety Bill

The U.K. government has published its long-trailed (child) “safety-focused” plan to regulate online content and speech. The Online Safety Bill has been in the works for years — durin

Talking tech’s exodus, Twitter’s labels and Medium’s next moves with founder Ev Williams

Earlier today, we had the chance to talk with Twitter and Medium co-founder Ev Williams, along with operator-turned investor James Joaquin, who helps oversee the day-to-day of the mission-focused vent

Microsoft launches a deepfake detector tool ahead of US election

Microsoft has added to the slowly growing pile of technologies aimed at spotting synthetic media (aka deepfakes) with the launch of a tool for analyzing videos and still photos to generate a manipulat

Tencent Music bets on China’s crowded audio content space

Listeners of podcasts, audiobooks and other audio shows are estimated to number 542 million in China this year, according to a third-party survey by marketing firm iiMedia. It’s a healthy jump f

Google and Facebook must pay media for content reuse, says Australia

The Australia government has said it will adopt a mandatory code to require tech giants such as Google and Facebook to pay local media for reusing their content. The requirement for them to share ad r

UK names its pick for social media ‘harms’ watchdog

The UK government has taken the next step in its grand policymaking challenge to tame the worst excesses of social media by regulating a broad range of online harms. As a result, it has named Ofcom, t

Canal+ acquires Nollywood studio ROK from IROKOtv to grow African film

French television company Canal+ has acquired the ROK film studio from VOD company IROKOtv for an undisclosed amount. Founded by Jason Njoku in 2010 — and backed by $45 million  in VC — IROKOtv b

UK Internet attitudes study finds public support for social media regulation

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has published a new joint report and stat-fest on Internet attitudes and usage with the national data protection watchdog, the ICO — a quantitative study to be publis

Singapore passes controversial ‘fake news’ law which critics fear will stifle free speech

Singapore has passed a controversial bill that could equip the government with extensive powers to police online media and free speech. The bill was first drafted last month and, as had been expected,

One-hour terrorist takedowns backed by EU parliament’s civil liberties committee

The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee (Libe) voted yesterday to back proposed legislation for a one-hour takedown rule for online terrorist content which critics argue will force w
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