Plus: The House Ways and Means Committee advances bipartisan crypto bill. And ByteDance’s revenue grows but AI spending pressures profits. Julie Chang hosts.
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[00:00:01] Here's your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Wednesday, September 16th. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. The European Commission will propose a Kids Act this week to regulate youth access to social media, addressing mental health concerns like self-harm and sleep loss. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen revealed details of the plan during a speech at the European Parliament.
[00:00:25] Children are pulled ever deeper into feeds designed to keep them scrolling. What we are witnessing is a great capture of our children. A capture of their attention, their focus, their minds. Under the plans, children younger than 13 wouldn't have access to social media, while those between 13 and 15 would get limited access under parental supervision.
[00:00:52] And online platforms would be obliged to ensure they are safe for young people older than that. The proposal comes as several EU member nations develop individual regulations. The House Ways and Means Committee approved bipartisan legislation in a 38-5 vote today to resolve tax rules for digital assets.
[00:01:13] The bill would create tax exemptions for small fees, ease the use of cryptocurrency and stablecoins for consumer transactions, classify mining and staking rewards as ordinary income rather than capital gains, and more. The path for the bill remains uncertain, however, and could be considered in the post-election session.
[00:01:35] Finally, ByteDance's AI spending pressured profit in the first half of the year, but the TikTok parents' revenue accelerated as the U.S. regulatory overhang cleared. According to people familiar with the matter, first-half revenue grew over 30% to $120 billion, driven by international advertising, live streaming, and TikTok e-commerce, while net profit eased to $20 billion.
[00:02:00] A syndicate of global banks have agreed to lend ByteDance over $29 billion earlier this month to fund general corporate purposes and AI research. And that's it for your TNB Tech Minutes. We'll have another quick tech update in the morning.