The Brief – Tuesday 19 May: BBC’s new DG, inaction on SLAPPs and more

📺 In his first memo to staff, the BBC’s new director general Matt Brittin warned that “tough choices are unavoidable as we make savings”. The broadcaster reportedly intends to make £500m in savings amid “significant” financial pressures, including by cutting 2,000 jobs. (BBC)

⚖️ Snap, Google’s YouTube, and ByteDance’s TikTok have settled a US lawsuit that alleged addictive design of their social media platforms has disrupted learning in schools and pushed public schools to increase spending to combat the youth mental health crisis. Unless they also settle, Meta will thus be the only tech company represented at trial, slated to begin 12 June. (Bloomberg)

💼 A group of top libel lawyers successfully lobbied for the Government not to take action to curtail SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation), which went unmentioned in this year’s King’s Speech. The group argued the issue of abusive litigation used by the wealthy to supress criticism in the press was being exagerrated. (Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

🔍 Ofcom has proposed an amendment to its Illegal Content Codes to recommend that tech platforms use automated detection technology (hash matching) to find and reduce the spread of illegal deepfake nudes. (Ofcom)

💳 OpenAI has launched a new set of personal finance tools for Pro subscribers in the US. Users can now connect their bank accounts to the chatbot and ask it questions relating to future financial planning. (TechCrunch)

🤖 The Economist is testing ways of structuring content that it expects to be read solely by AI agents, as news consumers increasingly read AI summaries of news. Agent-readable versions of content that sit outside the magazine’s paywall, such as marketing copy and B2B sales material, are being tailored for AI search engines. (Digiday)

🎮 Microsoft’s Xbox has rebranded to XBOX after CEO Asha Sharma ran a poll on X asking fans for their input on the brand styling. (The Verge)

📱 A new study of Australia’s under-16 social media ban has found that 61% of under-16s that had previously been using now-banned platforms have reported little or no change in their social media use. However, 51% reported getting less news as a direct result of the ban. (The Conversation)

✏️ Brandtech Group generative AI marketing platform Pencil has launched the GWI Insights Agent, a new agentic marketing operating system, developed in partnership with GWI, that offers audience profiling, trend analysis, media targeting and competitive benchmarking insights during creative development. (Brandtech Group)