Meta backtracks on politics

Tuesday, January 7, 2025 Posted by bloggerdaddy

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Hello, and welcome to TechCrunch PM! Today we're diving into Meta's moderation policy update; the U.K.'s plans to criminalize some deepfake content; and, of course, more exciting announcements from CES 2025. Let's get started!

TechCrunch Top 3

Image Credits: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

👀 Meta ramps politics back up: The social giant announced that its moderation policies would include having political content once again phased into users' feeds. Meta previously limited the amount of political content on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Read more

🚪 Rooms with a view: Google has invested $1 million into the design app Rooms, a company that allows people to build interactive 3D rooms. The startup previously raised $10 million from a16z and Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger. Read more

🎲 CES 2025 is still on a roll: We cover the new announcements, new products, and the latest happenings with Nvidia and X. We're on the ground in Vegas to help you stay up-to-date on everything from the show. Read more

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Afternoon must-reads

Image Credits: Wildpixel / Getty Images

👏 Tougher stance: The United Kingdom is moving ahead with plans to make sexually explicit deepfake content a criminal offense. The U.K. already made sharing of such images a crime. Read more

💰 Greenhouse green: Fermata announced a $10 million raise from Raw Ventures. The company uses computer vision and AI to monitor diseases in greenhouse crops. Read more

💵 Money, money, money: Speaking of fundraises, Alta Resource Technologies locked in a $5.1 million seed round led by DCVC and Voyager Ventures. The company says it has discovered a new way to extract rare earth elements, doing so in a much more sustainable way than how it's done now. Read more

🤑 And even more money: Serve Robotics, a company that creates robots that do restaurant deliveries, has raised $80 million. The company expects the cash to help it extend its runway and expand its fleet on the streets. Read more

⚡️ Power play: Nuclear startup Deep Fission signed a deal with Endeavour, a data center developer, to build 2 gigawatts' worth of subterranean nuclear power. Endeavour also invested in the startup, though the company declined to say how much. Read more

Around the web

📈 That's "billion" with a B: Anthropic is close to raising a $2 billion round, valuing the company at $60 billion. The news comes only two months after the company raised $4 billion from Amazon. Read more

🇮🇹 Benvenuto, Starlink! Though the EU is looking to build its own competitor to Starlink, one EU country might be going in a different direction. Italy is in talks to strike a $1.6 billion deal with SpaceX to bring Starlink to the nation. Bloomberg has more

Before you go

Image Credits: Meticulous

☕️ Calling all coffee lovers: Meticulous says it created the first robotic lever espresso machine, unveiled at CES this year. The prototype raised $5 million from a Kickstarter campaign, and its first product batch is expected to ship out in two months. Read more