Advertisers have long told themselves that brand safety is something they control. But with Meta rolling back its content moderation rules — narrowing the gap between brands and whether chaos goes viral — it’s clear that control was always a myth.

Platforms make the rules, rewrite them at will, and expect advertisers to fall in line. Most do. Because in digital advertising, the game isn’t about eliminating risk. It’s about learning to live with it.

Meta’s changes technically don’t touch paid ads. But organic content still dictates the broader tone of the platform — and what users engage with inevitably influences the ad ecosystem. Brand safety tools can only do so much when the overall environment becomes more volatile. And yet, what choice do marketers really have? Pulling spend rarely moves the needle, and staying put means accepting that brand safety is less about control — and more about calculated risk.

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The theme of optimism in marketing continues: Marketers said they’re coming off a successful year in 2024, they expect to have bigger budgets to spend in 2025, and now they see advertisers spending more this year.

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Publishers taking charge of programmatic has always been a mirage — enticing but elusive. In 2025, though, that mirage feels a little closer, a little more real.

While full control may still be a long shot, a growing number of publishers are starting to take a firmer grip on the programmatic reins — if they’re willing to confront a hard truth: Sometimes, the problem isn’t the system but themselves.

For too long, publishers assumed they were powerless to fix programmatic’s deep flaws. Instead, they leaned on ad tech vendors to mend a broken system.

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LinkedIn’s ongoing efforts to woo video creators paid off in the past few months, according to new figures shared by the company.

Short-form video is the fastest-growing content category on LinkedIn. As of this week, total video viewership on the platform has increased by 36 percent year-over-year for the period between Oct. 30, 2024, and Jan. 29, 2025, according to statistics shared by a LinkedIn representative, who said that video creation is growing at twice the rate of other post formats on the platform. (LinkedIn owner Microsoft runs its fiscal calendar between July 1 and June 30 and considers the period between Oct. 30, 2024, and Jan. 29, 2025 to be its fiscal second quarter of 2025.)

LinkedIn’s publisher program, which includes over 500 publishers and journalists, is also intended to amplify video content on the platform. Through the program, LinkedIn provides audience demographic data to news publishers, shares monthly newsletters with information about new tools, and operates workshops to educate members about the platform’s features. Weekly video creation from program members has grown by 67 percent year-over-year, per the company rep.

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The pendulum is starting to swing back to brand and a rethink of the traditional CMO-based marketing model. 

Marketing organizations within major brands are recognizing the damage they can do to their brands if they focus too much on performance marketing and too little on brand marketing. Marketers, agency execs and consultants said there’s a noticeable shift when talking to brand marketers — not only CMOs but those with the various titles that have started to replace the CMO title — where it’s clear that care for brand as well as performance is more apparent. 

That overall shift may be part of the thinking for some companies as they reorganize their marketing departments. Last week, for example, Kimberly Clark announced a new addition to its roster of marketing professionals: Luis Sanches joined as the company’s first global chief creative and design officer working under the company’s chief growth officer, Patricia Corsi. The company has moved away from the traditional CMO model with Corsi replacing its previous CMO Alison Lewis last spring. 

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Evolution has largely deprived us of our ability to swivel our ears, but those vestigial muscles still activate when we listen intently, according to new research.

Plus, carmaker Stellantis bets on a turnaround in Trump’s America and the rising infrastructure star at Blackstone

Despite the potential for safer roads, polls suggest public trust in automated vehicles is falling

Dr Disrespect — aka Herschel “Guy” Beahm — was one of Twitch’s top streamers until he was suddenly banned in June 2020. Now, we know what happened. As confirmed in a lengthy statement from Beahm himself, he sent private messages on Twitch to a minor that he says “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate”:

Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes. Were there real intentions behind these messages, the answer is absolutely not. These were casual, mutual conversations that sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate, but nothing more. Nothing illegal happened, no pictures were shared, no crimes were committed, I never even met the individual. 

The statement followed former Twitch employees explaining in social media posts and speaking to The Verge about why Twitch suddenly broke things off with Beahm, which was based on the messages he sent using its now-removed Whispers feature.

Midnight Society, the game studio Beahm co-founded after the ban, has terminated its relationship with the streamer, and accessories company Turtle Beach has also ended its partnership with Beahm.

Here’s the latest news on Dr Disrespect and the reasons for his Twitch ban.

• Dr Disrespect remonetized by YouTube as Midnight Studios closes.
• Dr Disrespect veers right into Rumble
• YouTube is stopping Dr Disrespect’s channel from making money
• YouTube didn’t give Dr Disrespect a contract because of rumblings about his Twitch ban.
• NBA 2K24 will remove Dr Disrespect from the game,
• Dr Disrespect finally shares why he was banned from Twitch
• Game studio co-founded by Dr Disrespect ‘immediately’ terminating relationship with the streamer
• Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees
• Dr Disrespect says his mysterious Twitch ban is causing him anxiety
• Dr Disrespect officially returns to streaming
• Weeks later, Dr Disrespect still won’t say what happened with Twitch
• Dr Disrespect breaks silence, but Twitch still refuses to say what’s going on
• Dr Disrespect is gone and Twitch won’t say why
• Twitch reckons with sexual assault as it begins permanently suspending streamers

World’s biggest maker of memory semiconductors expects demand recovery from second quarter

The BBC's technology editor Zoe Kleinman is given an AI-made book that claims it was written by her.

The Chinese AI app has raced to the top of the download charts - does it perform as well as its US rivals?

Google today widely rolled out version 9.7.047.702121536.18 of Pixel Camera, but it’s just a smaller patch update.

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Is Barbiecore still a thing? Casio is betting it is.

Ford's no stranger to the NASCAR life. Ford driver Joey Logano was the 2024 Cup Series Champion in one of the company's Mustang-bodied machines. He's currently leading the 2025 series, too. However, the Blue Oval and its Ford Performance division are going into uncharted territory with its new prototype, an all-electric Mach-E built atop elements of NASCAR's current Next Gen chassis.

The machine uses three motors to make a total of 1,341 hp (1,000 kW). Yes, three motors, one for each rear wheel plus the odd one out up front, giving the thing all-wheel drive. That's a seeming necessity, given the car has two times the power that any NASCAR racer is allowed to deploy on the non-restrictor plate races.

But that extra driven axle isn't just for acceleration. "If you're rear-wheel drive only, you're only getting rear regen," Mark Rushbrook said. He's the global director of Ford Performance. Since braking forces are higher at the front axle, an extra motor there means more regen to recharge the battery.

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Compared to Android, only some of Google’s iOS apps use the latest version of Material Design. Gmail for iPhone and iPad was finally updated with a Material 3 redesign today.

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Compared to Android, only some of Google’s iOS apps use the latest version of Material Design. Gmail for iPhone and iPad was finally updated with a Material 3 redesign today.

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Google announced Thursday that the Gemini app is getting its Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model. The upgraded model “delivers fast responses and stronger performance across a number of key benchmarks, providing everyday help with tasks like brainstorming, learning or writing,” the company said in a post.

The change is rolling out to Gemini’s web and mobile apps and will be available to all users. Google also says that you’ll still be able to use Gemini 1.5 Flash and 1.5 Pro for “the next few weeks.”

The company first introduced Gemini 2.0 in December and promised that it was “working quickly” to get it in its products. At the time, it launched an experimental version of Gemini Flash 2.0 to Gemini users.

On Thursday, Google also said that Gemini’s image generation capabilities now use the newest version of the company’s Imagen 3 AI text-to-image generator. According to Google, the model “delivers richer details and textures” and “follows your instructions with greater accuracy.”

While fourth-quarter revenue and operating profit fell quarter on quarter, annual revenue reached the second-highest on record, Samsung said.

China is "the most competitive market in the world," Cook told analysts on Thursday.