| YouTube said it would finally ban hateful content such as white supremacist videos on Wednesday. But the video platform said it's still allowing "borderline" content — a term that is, as Emily Stewart writes, "vaguely defined." Last week, Carlos Maza, a Vox video producer, posted a series of clips "showing how conservative YouTube host Steven Crowder has harassed him for two years on YouTube without facing consequences, including using racist and homophobic slurs," as Stewart explained. Despite criticism, YouTube said it would not take down Crowder's videos, but would suspend monetization of his account — meaning the company won't pay Crowder ad money. That middle-ground position seems to be angering both defenders of Crowder and Maza alike, and a sign that the company still has a lot to sort out about how it handles hateful speech.
[Emily Stewart / Recode] Peloton is filing for an IPO. The smart exercise bike and treadmill company, which was last valued at $4 billion, announced the filing on Wednesday. It did not disclose terms of its confidential filing. Peloton is well known for its internet-connected indoor exercise bikes. The high-end fitness machines cost around $2,000 each, plus a monthly fee of around $39 for video classes. The company was founded in 2012, and was last valued at about $4 billion. Peloton joins other tech companies such as Slack, Pinterest, Lyft, Uber, and Zoom that have filed for IPOs this year. Meanwhile, Peloton's biggest competitor, SoulCycle, has delayed plans to file for an IPO.
[Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch] Facebook is creating an independent foundation to govern its forthcoming cryptocurrency. According to a report from the Information, the social giant has "courted dozens of financial institutions and other tech companies" to pay $10 million each to join. As Alex Heath and Jon Victor write, the move is "meant to encourage trust in the digital payment system and reassure financial regulators." The report also states that while CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been a big supporter of Facebook's crypto efforts, which the company plans to target in countries with volatile national currencies — although COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO David Wehner have reportedly been skeptical.
[Alex Heath and Jon Victor / the Information] We're now officially glued to our phones more than our TVs. For the first time, US consumers spend more time using on average using their mobile devices than they do watching their TVs. According to a new report from eMarketer, the average US adult will spend 3 hours, 43 minutes a day on mobile devices in 2019, about 10 minutes more than they spend watching TV. While the numbers may not be too surprising to some, it's startling how quickly mobile has overtaken TV. Just five years ago, the average US adult watched nearly 2 hours more TV than they spent on their phones.
[Amy He / eMarketer]
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