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Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India is promoting RuPay, its homegrown card network, to challenge Visa and Mastercard, leveraging UPI, which now handles 13B+ real-time transactions monthly  —  As digital payments morph into strategic assets, India is offering a template for other nations seeking to reduce dependence on Western payment networks.

Nikkei Asia:
TSMC reports December revenue up 57.8% YoY to $8.4B, pushing the 2024 revenue to ~$88.02B, up 34% YoY, driven by AI chips demand from Nvidia and Broadcom  —  TAIPEI — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s revenue surged 33.9% in 2024 from the previous year, driven by the boom in demand …

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X says it is rolling out labels for parody or satire accounts to differentiate them from others and boost transparency; accounts have to apply for the labels  —  X said today that it will now label parody or satire profiles to differentiate them from other accounts.

Automattic:
Automattic plans to cut its WordPress contributions to 45 hours per week “due to the lawsuits from WP Engine”, focusing mostly on security and critical updates  —  Automattic has always been deeply committed to the success of WordPress, dedicating significant resources and talent to its development for almost two decades.

Joseph Cox / Wired:
A hack of location data firm Gravy reveals Candy Crush, Tinder, and thousands of other apps are being used to steal user location data; apps may not even know  —  A hack of location data company Gravy Analytics has revealed which apps are—knowingly or not—being used to collect your information behind the scenes.

Casey Newton / Platformer:
Meta's new policies for contractors and staff moderating Facebook and Instagram allow dehumanizing speech, like “a trans person isn't a he or she, it's an it”  —  “A trans person isn't a he or she, it's an it,” reads a new guideline telling moderators what is now allowed on Facebook and Instagram

Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
The Linux Foundation launches an initiative to fund developing Chromium projects in a “neutral space”, with support from Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Opera  —  But it's really a “neutral space” for funding and support, corralling together some big names with a stake in the future of Chrome's open source roots, Chromium.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Court docs: Mark Zuckerberg approved the Meta team that trains AI Llama models to use data from LibGen, a “links aggregator” to pirated, copyrighted material  —  Counsel for plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit filed against Meta allege that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the green light …

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
Internal data: Spotify had ~55M US subscribers as of Q3 2024, of which only ~607,000 had switched to the cheaper “basic” plan that doesn't include audiobooks  —  Until now, no specifics have been shared publicly about the company's new ‘basic’ plan  —  Hello, and welcome back to Soundbite.

Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Sources: many of Meta's employees are furious about its moderation changes allowing “allegations of mental illness” when based on “gender or sexual orientation”  —  Meta's decision to specifically allow users to call LGBTQ+ people “mentally ill” has sparked widespread backlash at the company.