Content moderation and its enforcement on Threads and Instagram is broken, admitted Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri. This follows multiple posts on Meta’s social media apps that were randomly marked for allegedly questionable or objectionable content.

Threads moderation enforcement is broken, accepts Mosseri

Multiple social media users have been vocal about overly cautious content moderation techniques on Threads and Instagram. It appears they weren’t wrong in assuming that moderation enforcement is broken on these platforms.

The head of Instagram Adam Mosseri has acknowledged that Meta’s moderation techniques and the company’s enforcement policies have been acting weird. This strange behavior has been happening for a few days. While several users have raised doubts, the incidents were rather isolated.

According to The Verge, Meta deleted a staff’s account claiming moderation teams suspected it belonged to an underage user. The social media giant also reportedly locked another account owing to a joke.

Over the last two days, such incidents have grown rapidly, causing “Threads Moderation Failures” to trend. It is interesting to note that Mosseri is directly replying to some complaints. In one of the posts he said he’s “looking into it.”

Why has Meta suddenly started locking or deleting accounts?

Mosseri has admitted that Meta is having problems with processes involving moderation. He even publicly posted the acknowledgment on Threads.

The Instagram and Threads boss has stated there’s a “tool” that broke. He added the tool did not show human reviewers “sufficient context” before they made posts and accounts disappear.

In other words, Meta has admitted that it still depends heavily on human moderation teams. According to Mosseri, humans decide on what to delete and who to ban, and Artificial Intelligence is merely flagging posts for possible enforcement actions.

Following Mosseri’s admission, moderation on Threads and Instagram appears to have improved. Meta has quietly reinstated locked and banned accounts, and several posts that were deleted have reappeared. What is concerning is Meta continues to post a very brief note about deleted content or locked accounts, which does not offer a proper explanation for the actions.

The National Labor Relations Board has accused Apple of infringing on its employees’ rights to advocate for better working conditions. In a complaint spotted by Reuters, the agency alleges Apple illegally fired an employee who had used Slack to advocate for workplace changes at the company. Separately, the NLRB accuses Apple of forcing another worker to delete a social media post.

The case stems from a 2021 complaint filed by #AppleToo co-organizer Janneke Parrish. In October of that year, Apple fired Parrish for allegedly sharing confidential information, a claim she denies. Per the complaint, Parrish used Slack and public social media posts to advocate for permanent remote work.

She also shared open letters critical of the tech giant, distributed a pay equity survey, and recounted instances of sexual and racial discrimination at Apple. According to the labor board, Apple’s policies bars employees from creating Slack channels without first obtaining permission from a manager. Instead, workers must direct their workplace concerns to either management or a “People Support” group the company maintains. An example of the type of concerns some employees used Slack to voice can be seen in a 2021 tweet from former Apple employee Ashley Gjøvik.

“We look forward to holding Apple accountable at trial for implementing facially unlawful rules and terminating employees for engaging in the core protected activity of calling out gender discrimination and other civil rights violations that permeated the workplace,” Parrish’s lawyer, Laurie Burgess, told Reuters.

Apple did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request.

Provided Apple does not settle with the agency, an initial hearing is scheduled for February with an administrative judge. The NLRB is looking to force the company to change its policy and reimburse Parrish for the financial hardships she suffered due to her firing. Last week, the NLRB accused Apple of forcing employees to sign illegal and overly broad confidentially, non-disclosure and non-compete agreements.

Madden NFL 25 was the top-selling game in August, but it was not a particularly fruitful month for video game hardware, according to industry-tracking firm Circana. This is the second time in a row that a football title from Electronic Arts has topped the month’s bestseller charts — in July, it was EA Sports College Football 25. However, the numbers were not so good for other parts of the industry — namely, August’s hardware sales.

Despite an uptick in numbers for July — which were likely driven by the aforementioned College Football title — hardware sales in August are back down by a whopping 36% year-over-year. Mat Piscatella, Circana’s executive producer for games reports, said in a statement, “All current generation console hardware platforms declined by at least 34% when compared to a year ago, with Switch showing the sharpest year-on-year fall (-41%).”

Piscatella added that spending on accessories is down. “Growth in the Remote Play Device segment (PlayStation Portal), was offset by a 10% year-on-year decline in Gamepad spending.” Overall spending for the year so far is up 1% YoY, but hardware sales in general continue their decline by 28% year-over-year. It remains to be seen if the PlayStation 5 Pro will juice up the aging console cycle.

Circana August 2024: Top 20 best-selling games in the U.S.

The fact that Madden has topped the charts for its release month is no surprise, as it’s the 25th consecutive year it’s done so. It’s also worth noting that the EA Sports MVP Bundle, which was the second-best-selling title of July, is a bundle that includes both EA Sports College Football 25 and Madden NFL 25. The latter also topped the platform-specific best-selling list for PlayStation and Xbox platforms, and was the 9th most-played game on PlayStation in August.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson said during the company’s recent Investor Day presentation that it aims to increase its audience to over 1 billion people worldwide by 2029, and EA Sports president Cam Webber said at the same event that Madden and the company’s other sports franchises offer a diverse group of experience for a growing audience of sports fans: “Hundreds of millions have joined our player network and our FC ecosystem already, and we’re meeting them with different experiences on different platforms, across geographies, across different business models, with Madden, NFL and college football.”

Several games made a resurgence to the best-seller list from further down — notably Elder Scrolls Online, which jumped up from 34th place to 12th. This is likely due to Square Enix offering a free-play event for the game in August to celebrate QuakeCon. Forza Horizon 5, which jumped from 29th place to 18th, had a major update in August; while Gran Turismo 7 also received a large patch in late July.

Where are the rest of August’s releases?

Surprisingly, Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws takes third place on August’s charts, despite the company itself admitting it sold far below expectations. The game itself appears to have been the catalyst for Ubisoft’s revision of its financial targets for the fiscal year, and the delay of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. That said, it sold better than most of August’s other releases (or at least those whose publishers supplied information to Circana).

The other two games on the list are Ouka Studios’ Visions of Mana and Gundam Breaker 4. The major release that didn’t make the list is Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong, which Piscatella confirmed on Bluesky is because Circana doesn’t have digital sales data for the title. He also added that the game rated #12 for monthly active users on PS5 in August, and #15 on Steam for the same time period.

Circana August 2024: 20 best-selling games of 2024 so far

Once again, the new Madden game proves to be the most potent August launch, as it is the only one that’s made it on the year’s bestsellers-so-far. It’s perhaps a testament to the brand’s staying power that it’s only two places above its predecessor, Madden NFL 24. The rest of the list remains relatively unchanged since July.

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here.

It was once again the private market that generated the most funding-related news in the startup world this week, both for companies and for funds. But it would be a mistake to forget the public sector; startups gathered with lawmakers, while others obtained and lost licenses.

Most interesting startup stories from the week

This week offered reminders that for better or for worse, startups have to interact with regulators to retain licenses and stay out of trouble.

Bumpy road: Fisker‘s bankruptcy process isn’t going smoothly. The failed EV manufacturer is under investigation by the SEC, and earlier this week, American Lease, the company buying its remaining fleet, said it might not complete the purchase. 

Snapped: LoanSnap lost its license to operate in Connecticut, four months after TechCrunch’s exclusive reporting about how the AI-powered mortgage startup was facing multiple lawsuits.

Licensed to bill: French unicorn Alan expanded into Canada, where there hadn’t been any new health insurance company since 1957. The startup plans to hire 50 people in the country.

Most interesting fundraises this week

Some of the rounds we learned about this week were quite big, but perhaps not overly so considering the problems these startups are tackling and the competitors they face.

Striking gold: KoBold Metals, a minerals discovery startup, raised $491 million of a targeted $527 million round, according to an SEC filing. The company uses AI to surface data that can help locate cobalt, copper, lithium, and nickel.

Well supplied: Auger, a company developing AI-powered supply chain tools, raised a giant $100 million seed round. Such a big raise could be because of its high-profile CEO, Dave Clark, formerly of Amazon and Flexport. But Auger also has to compete with well-funded rivals. 

ProteinGPT: Basecamp Research, a London-based startup unrelated to Basecamp the product management platform, raised a $60 million Series B round of funding to build a “GPT for biology.” The company claims that its foundational model, BaseFold, outperforms DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2 at predicting large, complex proteins.

AMD vs. Nvidia: Cloud infrastructure startup TensorWave wants to offer an alternative to Nvidia hardware for AI compute and secured a $43 million round with participation from AMD Ventures. It is based in Las Vegas, where energy costs are lower than in many major U.S. cities. 

Lifeline: Qantev, a Paris-based startup that sells enterprise software helping health and life insurers use AI to process claims, raised a €30 million Series B round of funding led by Blossom Capital.

Most interesting VC and fund news this week

Climate incubation: Montreal-based venture studio Diagram expanded into climate tech with the launch of its fourth studio fund, Diagram Climate Tech, which was oversubscribed and closed at $58 million.

Follow-on: General Catalyst is working on raising a “continuation” fund worth up to $1 billion, sources told TechCrunch.

Balance: NFX laid off four employees in September — one product leader and three engineers. The VC firm is looking to “rebalance” its resources toward its investing team, general partner Pete Flint told TechCrunch. 

Last but not least

Shield AI co-founder Brandon Tseng talked to TechCrunch about defense tech and the war in Ukraine, one week after he and other startup execs gathered with members of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee in a rare public hearing in Silicon Valley. A former Navy SEAL, Tseng is firmly opposed to fully autonomous weapons.