The Brief – Wednesday 28 January – Meta to trial premium subscriptions, Google pays up and TikTok US crashes

🔜 Meta is set to trial premium subscriptions for Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp users in the coming months. The new offerings would give access to features including expanded AI capabilities but access to the platform’s core services would remain free to use. (BBC)

📱Google has agreed to pay $68m to settle claims its voice assistant illegally spied on users to serve them advertisements. Google did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement of the case. (TechCrunch)

⁉️ More than a dozen UK politicians and former policymakers have called on the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to launch a full review of Netflix’s $83bn bid for Warner Bros Discovery. The group has raised concerns that the deal will “cement an already dominant player” in the TV streaming market. (Reuters)

🔍 Starting on Sunday, TikTok’s US service crashed due to what has been described as a “cascading systems failure.” The problem reportedly started due to a power outage at an unnamed partner’s data center. Its For You page algorithm became suddenly unreliable, while features like comments are failing to load or loading slowly, and publishing new videos seems nearly impossible for many people. (The Verge)

🌏 Amsterdam has banned polluting advertising by local law. Ads for fossil fuels, flights, petrol and diesel vehicles, gas heating contracts and meat products can no longer be displayed in public spaces or on the city’s public transport network from 1 May. Violations of the law can be punished by a fine to the advertiser. (Adfree Cities)

❗BBC is shutting down BBC Trending, its investigative journalism team focused on social media. The Corporation is closing four jobs as part of the cost-cutting decision, which comes despite rising mis-and disinformation online. (Deadline)

💰After the Republican-led US Congress voted to slash $500m in funding for public media last year, a mass influx of donations has kept public stations afloat across the country. In total, donations grew by $300m from the year before, with new donors growing 84%. (New York Times)

🤖Pinterest has said it will cut up to 15% of its staff, equivalent to 700 jobs, as part of a wide restructuring effort aimed at pivoting resources to AI-focused products. (The Wall Street Journal)