Snap Inc blamed a poor economy and increased competition for its ho-hum quarterly earnings, but a rise in the key ad metric could mean good news for Facebook owner Meta Platforms and Alphabet, analysts said on Wednesday.

The US said the revenue was unlawfully maintained by a monopoly that had "corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry."

Newsroom employment has seen a steady decline in the United States, falling from 114,000 to 85,000 journalists between 2008 and 2020.

The UK government on Thursday abandoned plans to privatise the public-service broadcaster Channel 4 after standing accused of waging a political vendetta against the edgy television network.

The first legal pushback against Apple was launched in France, where an association of online advertisers and content publishers filed a complaint with the Competition Authority.

The limits of Elon Musk's self-professed "free speech absolutism" were laid bare, critics said, when he banned rapper Kanye West from Twitter over his latest anti-Semitic outburst on Thursday.

The market for fan tokens, a volatile cocktail of crypto and sport, is heating up in the desert of Qatar.

The billionaire CEO also tweeted that Apple has "threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won't tell us why."

The euro on Wednesday surged back above parity with the dollar, with the US currency sliding against its main rivals on concerns over the world's biggest economy.

Alphabet said it made a profit of $14 billion in the third quarter on ad revenue that grew just 6 percent to $69 billion when compared with the same period of last year.

Shares of Meta Platforms, Google-owner Alphabet and other companies that sell digital ads dropped late on Thursday after Snapchat owner Snap Inc blamed inflation for its slowest revenue growth since going public five years ago.

Britain's competition regulator has ordered Facebook-owner Meta to sell animated-images platform Giphy on Tuesday after a tribunal upheld its view that the acquisition could damage its rivals and remove a potential competitor in advertising.

Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter takeover saga comes with all the drama necessary to be immortalised in case studies for future captains of industry, as the tycoon's on-off pursuit of the social media platform and unique management style make for a union like no other.

Insider Intelligence analyst Ross Benes estimates that advertising revenues from streaming could reach $30 billion in two years in the United States alone.

TikTok will begin requiring accounts belonging to U.S.

Her 70-year reign witnessed sweeping technological changes and groundbreaking innovation in photography.

The European Union is on a mission to rein in US tech giants, which have been accused of tax avoidance, stifling competition, raking in billions from news without paying for it and spreading misinformation.

Alphabet unit Google will face damages claims for up to 25 billion euros ($25.4 billion) over its digital advertising practices in two suits to be filed in British and Dutch courts in the coming weeks by a law firm on behalf of publishers.

Billionaire entrepreneur is seeking documents from advertising technology firms as part of his quest to gain more information on bot and spam accounts on Twitter.

Walmart may launch a platform that will use social media influencers to help the retailer and its 100,000 third-party sellers promote their goods and services online, according to trademark filings.

Over an earnings period that appeared to signal the end of Netflix envy, Walt Disney Co restored hopes that growth in the streaming business will continue.

Across a range of other sectors, platform cooperatives want to revolutionise industries including transport and delivery by providing workers with fair wages and better conditions.

Meta lost about two million monthly users between quarters, and Netflix shed nearly a million paying customers, which was less than expected.

Facebook-parent Meta reported on Wednesday its first quarterly revenue drop.

UK households are cancelling streaming service subscriptions, citing the need to cut comforts to afford increasingly expensive necessities.

Snap last month launched a subscription version of Snapchat as it looks to generate more money from the image-centric, ephemeral messaging app.

Germany opens anti-cartel probe into Google Maps

France's anti-trust watchdog body said on Thursday that it had approved commitments made by Facebook owner Meta Platforms regarding the French online advertising sector.

Meta Platforms won an appeal against Britain blocking its acquisition of Giphy on a single procedural ground, but the country's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) endorsed the regulator's finding that the deal could harm competition.

Alphabet Inc unit Google, Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and other tech companies will have to take measures to counter deepfakes and fake accounts on their platforms or risk hefty fines under an updated European Union code of practice, according to an EU document seen by Reuters.