U.S. lawmakers extend social media investigation to Meta’s Threads
Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, center, and ranking member Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., conduct the House Judiciary Committee hearing on the “Report of Special Counsel John Durham,” in Rayburn Building on Wednesday, June 21, 2023.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, has asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to hand over documents about content moderation on Threads in response to an earlier subpoena related to the panel’s ongoing investigation of tech platforms’ policies and contact with the Biden administration.
The letter, obtained exclusively by CNBC, is an early indication of the added spotlight Meta’s newest product could bring to the company in Washington. Threads competes directly with Twitter, which owner Elon Musk wants to shape with his self-declared free speech absolutism in mind, despite at times suspending users including journalists.
While Meta executives have made clear they don’t want news and politics to dominate the conversation on Threads, it’s a large part of what users have historically come to Twitter to discuss. The more that becomes the case on Threads, the more it could land in political crosshairs.
“Indeed, Threads raises serious, specific concerns because it has been marketed as rival of Elon
Musk’s Twitter, which has faced political persecution from the Biden Administration following
Musk’s commitment to free speech,” Jordan wrote. He pointed to a Wall Street Journal article that found the Federal Trade Commission had asked Twitter to hand over internal communications about Musk and identify journalists who were allowed to access the company’s records, as part of a probe into whether Twitter could still adequately protect consumer information.
“In contrast, there are reports that Threads will enforce ‘Instagram’s community guidelines,’ which resulted in lawful speech being moderated following pressure by the government,” Jordan wrote. He pointed to a recent lawsuit against the Biden administration filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana that alleged the federal government had suppressed speech through its efforts to get social media platforms to address what it viewed as harmful posts related to the Covid-19 pandemic or elections, for example.
On July 4, a federal judge in Louisiana granted in part a preliminary injunction in that suit that barred several Biden administration officials from meeting with social media companies to encourage them to remove or delete posts. It also prevented those officials from even flagging certain kinds of social media posts to the companies to encourage their removal or suppression.
In the wake of the ruling, the State Department canceled a regular meeting with Facebook about the 2024 election and hacking threats, a person at the company told The Washington Post. On Friday, an appeals court agreed to put a temporary pause on the preliminary injunction, meaning government flagging of social media posts could resume until the court further considers the case.
Jordan wrote that the committee’s Feb. 15 subpoena, which was sent to Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft, “is continuing in nature,” meaning it also applies to Threads despite its more recent launch. He said the new letter serves as a formal notice to preserve relevant existing and future documents about Threads and asked Meta to provide documents related to Threads’ content moderation and discussions with the Biden administration by the end of the month.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read the letter House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan sent Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg here:
Google chief executive Sundar Pichai speaks during the tech titan’s annual I/O developers conference on May 14, 2024, in Mountain View, California.
Glenn Chapman | Afp | Getty Images
Google will start using artificial intelligence to determine whether users are age appropriate for its products, the company said Wednesday.
Google announced the new technique for determining users’ ages as part of a blog focused on “New digital protections for kids, teens and parents.” The automation will be used across Google products, including YouTube, a spokesperson confirmed. Google has billions of users across its properties and users designated as under the age of 18 have restrictions to some Google services.
“This year we’ll begin testing a machine learning-based age estimation model in the U.S.,” wrote Jenn Fitzpatrick, SVP of Google’s “Core” Technology team, in the blog post. The Core unit is responsible for building the technical foundation behind the company’s flagship products and for protecting users’ online safety.
“This model helps us estimate whether a user is over or under 18 so that we can apply protections to help provide more age-appropriate experiences,” Fitzpatrick wrote.
The latest AI move also comes as lawmakers pressure online platforms to create more provisions around child safety. The company said it will bring its AI-based age estimations to more countries over time. Meta rolled out similar features that uses AI to determine that someone may be lying about their age in September.
Google, and others within the tech industry, have been ramping their reliance on AI for various tasks and products. Using AI for age-related content represents the latest AI front for Google.
The new initiative by Google’s “Core” team comes despite the company reorganization that unit last year, laying off hundreds of employees and moving some roles to India and Mexico, CNBC reported at the time.
WATCH: Google kills diversity hiring targets, reviewing other DEI programs
Adam Foroughi, CEO of AppLovin.
CNBC
AppLovin shares soared almost 30% in extended trading on Wednesday after the company reported earnings and revenue that sailed past analysts’ estimates and issued better-than-expected guidance.
Here’s how the company performed compared with analysts’ expectations, according to LSEG:
- Earnings per share: $1.73 vs. $1.24 expected
- Revenue: $1.37 billion vs. $1.26 billion expected
Net income in the quarter more than tripled to $599.2 million, or $1.73 per share, from $172.3 million, or 51 cents per share, a year earlier, the company said in a statement.
Revenue jumped 43% from $953.3 million a year earlier.
AppLovin was the best-performing U.S. tech stock last year, soaring more than 700%, driven by the company’s artificial intelligence-powered advertising system. In 2023, AppLovin released the updated 2.0 version of its ad search engine called AXON, which helps put more targeted ads on the gaming apps the company owns and is also used by studios that license the technology.
AppLovin’s business has been split between advertising and apps, which is primarily made up of game studios that the company has acquired over the years. With the historic growth in its advertising unit, the apps business has become much less important, and now the company says it is selling it off.
“Today we’re announcing we’ve signed an exclusive term sheet to sell all of our apps business,” CEO Adam Foroughi said on the earnings call.
Later in the call, the company said it has signed a term sheet for the sale for a “total estimated consideration” of $900 million. That includes $500 million in cash, “with the remainder representing a minority equity stake in the combined private company.”
Advertising revenue climbed 73% in the quarter to almost $1 billion. The ad business was previously categorized as Software Platform. The company said it made the change because advertising accounts for “substantially all of the revenue in this segment.”
AppLovin said it expects first-quarter revenue of between $1.36 billion and 1.39 billion, exceeding the $1.32 billion average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. More than $1 billion of that will come from its advertising segment, as the company said it is “still in the early stages” of bolstering its AI models.
“The roadmap ahead is filled with opportunities for iteration,” the company said in its shareholder letter. “As we execute, we believe we can continue to drive value creation for our shareholders.”
WATCH: AppLovin shares jump
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 22, 2025.
Gerry Miller | CNBC
Cisco shares climbed about 6% in extended trading on Wednesday after the networking hardware maker reported fiscal second-quarter results and guidance that topped Wall Street’s expectations.
Here’s how the company did against LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: 94 cents adjusted vs. 91 cents expected
- Revenue: $13.99 billion vs. $13.87 billion expected
Revenue increased 9% in the quarter, which ended on Jan. 25, from $12.79 billion a year earlier, according to a statement. The growth follows four quarters of revenue declines. The company said it had orders for artificial intelligence infrastructure that exceeded $350 million in the quarter.
Cisco now sees adjusted earnings of $3.68 to $3.74 for the 2025 fiscal year, with $56 billion to $56.5 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG had been looking for $3.66 in adjusted earnings per share and $55.99 billion in revenue. In November, the forecast was $3.60 to $3.66 in earnings per share and $55.3 billion to $56.3 billion in revenue.
Net income in the latest period slid almost 8% to $2.43 billion, or 61 cents per share, from $2.63 billion, or 65 cents per share, a year ago.
Revenue from the networking division totaled $6.85 billion, down 3% but more than the $6.67 billion consensus among analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.
The security unit contributed $2.11 billion. That is a 117% increase from a year earlier, thanks to the addition of Splunk. Analysts expected $2.01 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Splunk, which Cisco bought in March 2024 for $27 billion, was accretive to adjusted earnings per share sooner than planned, Scott Herren, Cisco’s finance chief, was quoted as saying in the statement. Cisco’s total revenue would have been down 1% year over year if not for Splunk’s contribution, according to the statement.
Many technology companies have been trying to predict the effects from President Donald Trump’s newly established Department of Government Efficiency. But three-quarters of Cisco’s U.S. federal business comes from the Defense Department, while most of the headcount cutting thus far has occurred in other agencies, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said on a conference call with analysts.
“Everything seems to be progressing as we expected,” he said.
Customers do not appear to be pulling up orders before tariffs go into effect, Herren said on the conference call.
As of Thursday’s close, Cisco shares were up 5% so far in 2025, while the S&P 500 index had gained about 3%.
WATCH: Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins on impact of tariffs, AI innovation and future of DEI
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports10 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway