Mark Zuckerberg accused of ‘blood on his hands’, Taylor Swift pulled from TikTok
Mark Zuckerberg was one of several social media bosses accused of having “blood on [their] hands” at a hearing where companies were criticised for not doing enough to protect children from being exploited on their platforms. Mr Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, faced a sea of people who held pictures of their dead children all affected by online harms. Also at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing were the chiefs of X, Linda Yaccarino, Snap Inc’s Evan Spiegel, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew and Discord’s Jason Citron. Sky News
TikTok has removed music by stars including Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Olivia Rodrigo from videos after a row with their record label, Universal Music Group (UMG). A licensing agreement between TikTok and the label expired on Wednesday, and a new deal could not be reached. UMG said TikTok wanted to pay a “fraction” of the rate other social media sites do for access to its songs. TikTok accused UMG of presenting a “false narrative and rhetoric”. All videos which have UMG music on them will be muted and new videos will not be able to be made with those tracks. BBC
For almost a whole day last week, deepfake pornographic images of Taylor Swift rapidly spread through X. The social media platform, formerly Twitter, was so slow to react that one image racked up 47m views before it was taken down. It was largely Swift’s fans who mobilised and mass-reported the images, and there was a sense of public anger, with even the White House calling it “alarming”. For women who have been victims of the creation and sharing of nonconsensual deepfake pornography, the events of the past week will have been a horrible reminder of their own abuse. The Guardian
A Delaware state court judge has thrown out the 2018 pay package that helped to make Tesla CEO Elon Musk one of the richest people in the world. Delaware Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who oversaw the bench trial that concluded in November 2022, ruled Tuesday that Musk and the Tesla board “bore the burden of proving that the compensation plan was fair, and they failed to meet their burden.” The 303 million split-adjusted stock options that Musk had received as part of the package are worth $51 billion today. CNN
Mike Lynch, the British technology tycoon accused of a multibillion fraud over the sale of his software business, has sued the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as he prepares to face criminal trial in the US. Mr Lynch has launched a data protection claim against the SFO in the High Court, according to a legal filing on Wednesday. He has hired lawyers from boutique litigation firm Pallas Partners to pursue the claim. Telegraph
Sony mapped out what 2024 will look like for PlayStation gamers during its first State of Play event of the year. As promised, 15 games were shown, from 10pm on January 31, and another teased. If you’re gagging for more info on the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, we have bad news. It will get its own reveal show later on February 6. However, here are all 16 of the games, new and already known, at State of Play. We’ll dig into some of the highlights later. Standard
