Two key topics this week!

Big changes to the US H1B visa could be hurting US tech companies and providing recruitment opportunities for European businesses. 

AND

European regulations on political ads are causing Meta to just take its ball and go home. What could this mean for elections and public policy?

ASLM has announced a big investment in MistralAI. Who are these companies and what does this investment mean?

Also, LinkedIn might be raising prices, but, strangely, it's very hard to figure out if this is even true. 

We're seeing more reports of people having mental health crises after using AI chatbots. What's the news, what's the science, and what are different companies doing about it?

Everyone knows Spotify, and their cultural impact is massive, but how big are they and what does their future look like?

This week we've got a newsbag looking into ads on WhatsApp, early research from MIT on how using ChatGPT seems to make you dumb, a new fast fashion ban, and new anti-deepfake laws in Denmark. 

Under the US CLOUD Act the American government has the right to force access to cloud servers and other data that is stored in other regions, including the EU. This, combined with geopolitical turmoil is causing business and governments to look for "sovereign" cloud services. What is it, how does it work, who are the main players, and why does it matter?

An unexpected consequence of AI search tools turning into the preferred answer engine is that AI companies are favoring high quality journalistic sources over influencers. This is resetting the PR dynamic and forcing companies to deal with pesky journalists rather than placating podcast bros. 

Google has been found to have not one, but two illegal monopolies in the US, and Meta is facing it's own antitrust lawsuit. What's happening and what does it mean both globally and here in Europe?

Rather than do a deep dive into one topic, this week we're doing a "newsbag" and quickly reviewing several bits of news from the past couple of weeks. 

We're looking at the latest wave of social media challengers and debating if they actually stand a chance against incumbents like Meta and TikTok

Sources used for this episode:
- https://www.wired.com/story/this-platform-wants-to-return-civil-discourse-to-social-media-by-scoring-users/
- https://www.theverge.com/24063290/fediverse-explained-activitypub-social-media-open-protocol
- https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/31/custom-feed-builder-graze-is-building-a-business-on-bluesky-and-investors-are-paying-attention/
- https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-statistics/
- https://www.theverge.com/news/637668/facebook-friends-only-feed-algorithm
- https://www.newsweek.com/bluesky-anti-toxicity-features-twitter-x-rival-1946192
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/esatdedezade/2025/01/25/open-source-and-ethical-tiktok-whatsapp-and-instagram-alternatives-could-transform-social-media/
- https://www.mixbloom.com/resources/average-time-spent-on-social-media-2022
- https://backlinko.com/reddit-users
- https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/technology/reddit-ipo-public-content-moderation.html
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/onlyfans-reveals-record-breaking-revenue-175230410.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAB8C1AhVRqO6lA4jpYImMyqCoo7eDMbq7vCJRjmakXc5cNI5fQV5HCs2cRtDZGcZPmoSMWzhrjSFgCme47b2aT8SPWy82kf9Co3gcs865LDCvtaMcr1nImL26j5wAimTfdbDFB22f_C9IaBz-4DnGu7-jv5z2s-jQXpjQEIOb7Tz