New MENA influencer platform to link creators, brands

New MENA influencer platform to link creators, brands
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Updated 31 January 2024
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New MENA influencer platform to link creators, brands

New MENA influencer platform to link creators, brands
  • Takefluence targeting up to 3m users within 2 years
  • Brands can discover influencers to host ad campaigns using ‘dynamic ecosystem’ 

LONDON: German tech firm Mitgo Group on Wednesday launched Takefluence, a platform that connects brand owners and content creators in the Middle East and North Africa.

Mitgo is aiming for the platform to host 1 to 3 million users within two years.

Takefluence CEO Archie Rudyuk said that the unique blend of creators and brands in MENA creates an exciting opportunity for the platform.

“We already witnessed a surge of interest in Takefluence from creators and local brands. They sign up for an annual partnership, launch their ambassador programs with us, and start getting first results,” Rudyuk said.

The platform aims to create a “dynamic ecosystem” where content creators can connect with brands and earn from ad campaigns that promote shopping discounts.

Takefluence will offer content creators a streamlined process including the distribution of promotional codes, engagement in brand campaigns and access to fast withdrawal methods.

Mitgo said the platform has has already formed partnerships with more than 150 brands, including Noon, Namshi, YallaHub, Truegamers, Lifemost, ToysBrand, Geardoor and GetOutfit.

The company will offer its services to offline and online brands, malls, event planners, online marketplaces, sellers and emerging artists.

The launch follows Dubai’s allocation of $41 million to support content creators and influencers. The MENA influencer marketing sector is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion.

Industry reports forecast a steady uptick in influencer ad spending, with an annual growth rate of 10 percent expected from 2023 to 2027.

Takefluence aims to capitalize on the growth by focusing on the micro and nano influencer market, which can produce greater engagement than mega influencer campaigns, according to research.


Meta agrees to pay $25 million to settle lawsuit from Trump after Jan. 6 suspension

Meta agrees to pay $25 million to settle lawsuit from Trump after Jan. 6 suspension
Updated 30 January 2025
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Meta agrees to pay $25 million to settle lawsuit from Trump after Jan. 6 suspension

Meta agrees to pay $25 million to settle lawsuit from Trump after Jan. 6 suspension

WASHINGTON: Meta has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump against the company after it suspended his accounts following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to three people familiar with the matter.
It’s the latest instance of a large corporation settling litigation with the president, who has threatened retribution on his critics and rivals, and comes as Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, have joined other large technology companies in trying to ingratiate themselves with the new Trump administration.
The people familiar with the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity Wednesday to discuss the agreement. Two people said that terms of the agreement include $22 million going to the nonprofit that will become Trump’s future presidential library and the balance going to legal fees and other litigants.
Zuckerberg visited Trump in November at his private Florida club as part of a series of technology, business and government officials to make a pilgrimage to Palm Beach to try to mend fences with the incoming president. At the dinner, Trump brought up the litigation and suggested they try to resolve it, kickstarting two months of negotiations between the parties, the people said.
Meta also made a $1 million donation to Trump’s inaugural committee and Zuckerberg was among several billionaires granted prime seating during Trump’s swearing-in last week in the Capitol Rotunda, along with Google’s Sundar Pichai, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who now owns the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, Meta also announced that it was dropping fact-checking on its platform — a longtime priority of Trump and his allies.
Trump filed the suit months after leaving office, calling the action by the social media companies “illegal, shameful censorship of the American people.”
Twitter, Facebook and Google are all private companies, and users must agree to their terms of service to use their products. Under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, social media platforms are allowed to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services’ own standards, so long as they are acting in “good faith.” The law also generally exempts Internet companies from liability for the material that users post.
But Trump and some other politicians have long argued that X, formerly known as Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, have abused that protection and should lose their immunity — or at least have it curtailed.
The Meta settlement comes after ABC News agreed last month to pay $15 million toward Trump’s presidential library to settle a defamation lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air assertion that the president-elect had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
The network also agreed to pay $1 million in legal fees to the law firm of Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito.
The settlement agreement describes ABC’s presidential library payment as a “charitable contribution,” with the money earmarked for a non-profit organization that is being established in connection with the yet-to-be-built library.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the settlement.


OpenAI says Chinese firms try to copy US AI tech

OpenAI says Chinese firms try to copy US AI tech
Updated 30 January 2025
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OpenAI says Chinese firms try to copy US AI tech

OpenAI says Chinese firms try to copy US AI tech
  • OpenAI’s statement came after Chinese startup DeepSeek sparked panic on Wall Street this week with its powerful new chatbot developed at a fraction of the cost of its US competitors
  • It said rivals were using a process known as distillation in which developers creating smaller models learn from larger ones by copying their behavior and decision-making patterns

WASHINGTON: ChatGPT creator OpenAI on Wednesday said that Chinese companies are actively attempting to replicate its advanced AI models, prompting increased security measures and closer cooperation with US authorities.
OpenAI’s statement came after Chinese startup DeepSeek sparked panic on Wall Street this week with its powerful new chatbot developed at a fraction of the cost of its US competitors.
DeepSeek’s performance has sparked a wave of accusations that it has reverse engineered the capabilities of leading US technology, such as the AI powering ChatGPT.
OpenAI said rivals were using a process known as distillation in which developers creating smaller models learn from larger ones by copying their behavior and decision-making patterns, similar to a student learning from a teacher.
“We know (China) based companies — and others — are constantly trying to distill the models of leading US AI companies,” an OpenAI spokesperson told AFP, highlighting tensions over AI intellectual property protection between the United States and China.
We “believe as we go forward that it is critically important that we are working closely with the US government to best protect the most capable models from efforts by adversaries and competitors to take US technology.”
David Sacks, the new Trump administration’s AI czar, told Fox News there was “substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAI’s models.”
OpenAI said the process was against its terms of service and it would work at detecting and preventing further attempts.
The company led by Sam Altman is itself facing multiple accusations of intellectual property violations, primarily related to the use of copyrighted materials in training its generative AI models.
“Distillation will violate most terms of service, yet it’s ironic — or even hypocritical — that big tech is calling it out,” said Lutz Finger, senior visiting lecturer at Cornell University.
Copyrighted material “helped train ChatGPT, which now helps DeepSeek. Knowledge is free and hard to protect,” Finger added.


German government says criticism of Musk does not mean exit from X

German government says criticism of Musk does not mean exit from X
Updated 30 January 2025
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German government says criticism of Musk does not mean exit from X

German government says criticism of Musk does not mean exit from X
  • “It has no repercussions,” said the spokesperson

BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s sharp criticism of Elon Musk’s backing of right-wing parties in the European Union does not influence how the German government uses his social media platform X, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
“It has no repercussions. Our statement still holds that we are looking at and weighing up what is happening there case by case,” said the spokesperson in a press conference, adding there was no pre-defined “red line.”
Scholz on Tuesday described Musk’s backing of right-wing parties in the EU as “really disgusting,” saying it was hindering democracy in the bloc.


Harvey Weinstein due in court as judge weighs scope of his #MeToo retrial and when it will start

Harvey Weinstein due in court as judge weighs scope of his #MeToo retrial and when it will start
Updated 30 January 2025
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Harvey Weinstein due in court as judge weighs scope of his #MeToo retrial and when it will start

Harvey Weinstein due in court as judge weighs scope of his #MeToo retrial and when it will start
  • Judge Curtis Farber is expected to decide Wednesday when the disgraced movie mogul’s #MeToo retrial will start
  • He will also decide whether it will include an allegation involving a woman who wasn’t in the original case

NEW YORK: Harvey Weinstein is due back in court Wednesday as a judge is set to decide when the disgraced movie mogul’s #MeToo retrial will start and whether it will include an allegation involving a woman who wasn’t in the original case.
Weinstein, 72, wants the extra charge thrown out, arguing through lawyers that Manhattan prosecutors only brought it to bolster their case with a third accuser after New York’s highest court overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women.
Judge Curtis Farber is expected to rule on that and other matters, including the trial date — a task that’s been complicated by an increasingly crowded court calendar.
Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, is representing conservative strategist Steve Bannon in a border wall fraud trial that’s set to start March 4 before a different Manhattan judge. Meanwhile, Farber has a murder trial in March.
Before Bannon’s trial date was set last week, Aidala had suggested that Weinstein’s trial go first in “the interest of humanity,” citing the ex-studio boss’ declining health.
Weinstein is being treated for numerous medical conditions, including chronic myeloid leukemia and diabetes.
“They know that Mr. Weinstein is dying of cancer and is an innocent man right now in the state of New York,” Aidala argued in court last week. He pleaded to prosecutors: “Can I try this dying man’s case first?”
Weinstein is being retried on charges that he forcibly performed oral sex on a movie and TV production assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actor in 2013. The additional charge, filed last September, alleges he forced oral sex on a different woman at a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said in court papers that the woman, who has not been identified publicly, came forward to prosecutors just days before the start of Weinstein’s first trial but was not part of that case.
Prosecutors said they did not pursue the women’s allegations after Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison, but they revisited them and secured a new indictment after the state’s Court of Appeals threw out his conviction last April.
Farber ruled in October to combine the new indictment and existing charges into one trial.
Weinstein’s lawyers contend that prosecutors prejudiced him by waiting nearly five years to bring the additional charge, suggesting they had elected not to include the allegation in his first trial so they could use it later if his conviction were reversed.
Prosecutors called that thinking “absurd,” countering that Weinstein’s lawyers would have also been outraged if he had been charged based on the third woman’s allegation either during his first trial or immediately after his conviction.
Weinstein “would likely have characterized that timing as a vindictive and gratuitous pile-on,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing last month.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said the previously uncharged allegation “required a sensitive investigation” and serious contemplation before seeking an indictment, in part because there are no eyewitnesses to the alleged assault and no scientific or other physical evidence.
Weinstein co-founded the film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company and was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, having produced films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “The Crying Game.”
In 2017, he became the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement, which erupted when women began going public with accounts of his behavior.
He has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
In vacating Weinstein’s conviction, the Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge, James M. Burke, unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women that were not part of the case. Burke is no longer on the bench.
Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. His 16-year prison sentence in that case still stands, but his lawyers appealed in June, arguing he did not get a fair trial.
Weinstein has remained in custody in New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, with occasional trips to a hospital for medical treatment, while awaiting the retrial.
The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named.


Sarkozy’s son signs up for French far-right magazine

Son of former French president Louis Sarkozy arrives to attend the French L1 football match in Paris. (AFP file photo)
Son of former French president Louis Sarkozy arrives to attend the French L1 football match in Paris. (AFP file photo)
Updated 30 January 2025
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Sarkozy’s son signs up for French far-right magazine

Son of former French president Louis Sarkozy arrives to attend the French L1 football match in Paris. (AFP file photo)
  • Louis Sarkozy, born to Sarkozy’s second wife Cecilia Attias, spent most of his childhood in the United States but has appeared on French television recently as a commentator on American politics
  • Valeurs Actuelles, which is hoping to shed its association with the far-right, backed virulently anti-Islam politician Eric Zemmour in France’s 2022 presidential election and regularly focuses on immigration and crime

PARIS: The third son of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been unveiled as a surprise columnist for far-right news magazine Valeurs Actuelles, reinforcing speculation about his possible political ambitions.
The first contribution from Louis Sarkozy, 27, is set to appear in a relaunched edition of the magazine on Wednesday and will be devoted to “the values of the right.”
“He’s ebullient, cultured, creative: it’s the perfect combination for a column at the end of the magazine,” director Tugdual Denis told AFP.
Valeurs Actuelles, which is hoping to shed its association with the far-right, backed virulently anti-Islam politician Eric Zemmour in France’s 2022 presidential election and regularly focuses on immigration and crime.
Louis Sarkozy, born to Sarkozy’s second wife Cecilia Attias, spent most of his childhood in the United States but has appeared on French television recently as a commentator on American politics.
He raised eyebrows with a speech last month at a meeting in Paris of the youth wing of his father’s Republicans party — and was invited to Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president in Washington last week.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who is now married to former supermodel Carla Bruni, remains mired in legal problems since his single 2007-2012 term in office.
Already convicted in two cases, he is currently on trial over allegations he and his entourage conspired with late Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi to receive millions of euros in illegal campaign financing.
Sarkozy’s eldest son Pierre has become a DJ and hip hop producer, while his second son Jean briefly entered politics before becoming embroiled in a favoritism scandal.
Asked about Louis’s growing presence in the media, Sarkozy told the CNews channel last month that he was “proud of him and his courage.”