“Around $50 million — furnished by the Sawiris family office — was spent by the time Moniify launched, and those working on the business plan forecast another $50 million in annual running costs after that, one person with direct knowledge told Semafor. Runaway expenses mounted: two years of strategizing and extensive hiring before Moniify published its first story, expensive studio rentals that went unused, a new office in a creative district in Abu Dhabi, and a staffing plan that called for a 100-plus person newsroom.”

“Almost all (98%) of our interviewees said they thought it was important for news organizations to have AI policies, but they also wanted simplicity and clarity about what these policies might mean in practice. Think: a few bullet points clearly and transparently outlining the organization’s approach rather than lengthy paragraphs or complicated ‘if-then’ logic trees.”

“The video app on Wednesday said it is launching its own version of the feature — first made famous by X and later copied by Meta — that is dubbed ‘Footnotes.'”

“But the most fitting synchronicity of all might be that the day that 4chan died — which is also the same day the Titanic sank fwiw — was the same day it was revealed by The Verge that OpenAI is building a social network. A literal changing of eras right before our very eyes. The demise of the text-based, anonymous website that overran the rest of the internet happening the same week we discover the company that continues to promise a new internet may be actually trying to build one. A new internet not just full of autoplaying videos and verified user names, but one where a machine would sort through the human chaos we upload every second of the day. Chaos that, thanks to 4chan, we have to begrudgingly accept is somehow innate to what people will just do when they are safely anonymous behind a computer.”

“’And it’s amazing that others [who have been] in this room underwrote electing a man who, in the last week, single-handedly destroyed all of American science,’ Rogen said, clearly making Norton uncomfortable. The comment underlined the irony of Silicon Valley’s increasingly cozy relationship with the Trump administration, which has cut federal science funding and defied scientific consensus. ‘It’s amazing how much good science you can destroy with $320 million and RFK Jr, very fast,’ Rogen continued.”

“By leveraging large language models (LLMs) and using signals such as business impersonation and illegitimate payment details, the search giant said it could suspend a ‘vast majority’ of ad accounts before they ever served an ad.”

“When he was wondering about how to bring some early magic back to Facebook in 2022, Zuckerberg suggested the idea of wiping users’ friends lists to experience the joy of starting from scratch. He even considered beating the government to the punch by spinning off Instagram — the very app he’s now fighting so hard to keep.”

“According to a White House official, the pool will consist of one print journalist to serve as print pooler; one additional print journalist, occupying the seat formerly provided to wire services; a television network crew; a secondary television network or streaming service; one radio journalist; one ‘new media/independent journalist’; and four photographers. The pool covers the president at close proximity on behalf of the larger press corps, providing text reporting, photography and video to outlets not afforded access.”

“Should a retailer commit to holiday television commercials for toys manufactured by newly vulnerable trading partners? How do social media companies account for the potential disappearance of Chinese companies that have spent billions of dollars promoting their wares? How does an automaker pitch vehicles that may cost consumers thousands of dollars more than they did a year ago?”

“In shutting the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, the department’s controversial acting undersecretary, Darren Beattie, is delivering a major win to conservative critics who have alleged that it censors conservative voices. Created at the end of 2024, it was reorganized from the Global Engagement Center, a larger office with a similar mission that had long been criticized by conservatives who claimed that, despite its international mission, it was censoring American conservatives.”