Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we’re thinking of the anxious generation that’s had the misfortune to grow up alongside social media, as the EU investigates Meta’s alleged lack of child protection concerns. X is also under the microscope in Europe, by the way. Plus, we’ve got Netflix’s foray into ads (sigh), cybersecurity news, a new way to bank online, and sodium-ion powered batteries. Let’s dive in! — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

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1. EU probes FB and IG over child safety concerns: Look who’s in the European Commission’s naughty list again. The Commission is investigating Facebook and Instagram, suspecting parent company Meta is failing to properly assess and mitigate risks to children, like heightened levels of anxiety and depression associated with using the apps. Read More

2. AWS gets new steward into genAI era: CEO Adam Selipsky is stepping down from his role at cloud leader Amazon Web Services, to be replaced by Matt Garman. This is a critical juncture in the $100 billion business’ life. Under Selipsky, the company’s growth had slowed dramatically, which is not a great look considering how generative AI is disrupting this relatively mature industry. Read More

3. Bring on the ads: Netflix is launching its own ad tech platform, going against online ad industry heavyweights like Google, Amazon and Comcast. This also means Netflix will likely call off its deal with Microsoft to develop its ad tech, as the streaming company takes full control of its advertising future. Get ready for more targeted and personalized ads, probably based on your extensive watch history: ‘Because you like Strong Female Leads, you might also like the Dyson hairdryer.’ Read More

Morning Must Reads

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Once more into the BreachForums: The FBI has seized, for the second time, cybercrime forum BreachForums, a marketplace for hackers and cybercriminals to advertise, sell and trade stolen data. Authorities had seized a previous version of the site last year after arresting its administrator, but it popped back up under a new domain. Read More

Temu accused of breaching EU regulations: Ultra low-cost Chinese e-commerce platform Temu has been accused of a raft of breaches related to the EU’s Digital Services Act. Temu only entered the EU a year ago, and has quickly accumulated 75 million monthly users. Complaints allege that the company fails to meet requirements like trader traceability, rules against manipulative design, and transparency around product recommendation algorithms. Read More

Consolidation in cybersecurity: LogRhythm, the security info and event management (SIEM) company backed by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, is merging with rival cybersecurity company Exabeam. This is the latest instance of cybersecurity consolidation, with Palo Alto Networks buying the assets of IBM’s SIEM business QRadar; Cisco acquiring SIEM giant Splunk; and Akamai purchasing API security company Noname. Read More

Batteries, but for fossil fuel cars: Battery startup Bedrock Materials is developing a sodium-ion battery that promises to be much cheaper than lithium-ion batteries. But rather than chasing EV batteries like everyone else, Bedrock wants to first disrupt the batteries found in ICE vehicles, which are still very much in high production today. Read More

Aeropay is coming for Visa and Mastercard: Pay-by-bank startup Aeropay has found a way to innovate the payment network by going around the traditional card payment system. Aeropay created its own bank aggregator to connect bank accounts so that businesses can offer regulatory-compliant, cashless and contactless digital payments to customers, both online and in-store. Read More

Save the birds: Oslo-based Spoor is using AI to help wind farms stop ripping through bird populations. While it’s incredibly thoughtful of the startup, it’s a practical approach, too, since governments require wind farms to monitor and track their impact on birds. As someone who recently moved Stateside from New Zealand, where birds mean EVERYTHING, I see a decent future for Spoor’s tech. Read More

EU monitoring disinformation on X: The EU is closely monitoring disinformation campaigns on Elon Musk’s X following the shooting of Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico. Musk had responded to, and thus amplified, a post on X by right-wing political influencer, Ian Miles Cheong. The post linked Fico’s shooting to the PM rejecting the WHO’s pandemic prevention plan. Grok is also on the EU’s watch list. Read More

Around the Web

Stability AI is looking for a buyout: The Information reports that Stability AI has had talks with at least one potential buyer in recent weeks as it deals with dwindling cash reserves. AI is an expensive business, talent and compute cost money, and monetization isn’t a given right now. Is this what consolidation in AI is going to look like? Read More

Meme stocks are sliding: GameStop and AMC have continued to slide as the meme stock hype of 2021 dizzles out, reports Reuters. GameStop shares fell 14% to $34 in premarket trading Thursday after jumping to $64.83 this week, costing short sellers $1 billion in losses. AMC fell 12% after an 88% gain at the end of last week. Is this the end of the meme stock? Well, there’s always Tesla. Read More

Foreign adversaries and the U.S. election: Here we go again. Top security officials are warning the Senate that foreign adversaries will once again seek to influence the upcoming presidential election. Only this time, they’ll have genAI on their side, reports AP. Consider this another reminder to tell your boomer parents and GenZ kids not to believe everything they see on Facebook and TikTok, respectively. Read More

Before You Go

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Gemini’s image generation is still on hold: Remember when Google’s AI-powered chatbot Gemini was generating weird, historically inaccurate images in an attempt to combat racial bias? Like, showing images of a group of racially diverse soldiers when asked to depict “a Roman legion.” Google paused image generation back in February as it tried to sort out how to avoid reinforcing negative stereotypes borne from biased datasets. And it still hasn’t rebooted it. Read More