Tucker Carlson Leaves Fox News; Supreme Court to Hear Social Media Cases | NTD Business

Thanks for joining us, coming up on NTD Business. Major departures at big news outlets today. Popular primetime host Tucker Carlson leaving Fox, while Don Lemon says he got terminated by CNN. Disney starts another round of layoffs as part of its effort to cut costs. How many are being let go this time? BitBath and Beyond files for bankruptcy protection. What contributed to its demise? The US Supreme Court agrees to hear cases in which public officials blocked critics from their social media accounts. They'll set a precedent on First Amendment rights in social media. That and much more coming up on NTD Business. to have you with us. Don Ma here. The market closed mixed today as investors braced for a week of high profile quarterly earnings and closely watched economic data. The Dow added 66 points or 0.2%, S&P rose 4 points, 0.1%, and the Nasdaq dropped 35 points or 0.3%. Major departures in the news industry. Fox News confirmed today that it has parted ways with popular primetime host Tucker Carlson. But the network didn't give a reason why. Here's Fox News' Harris Faulkner announcing the news today. We have some news from within our Fox family. Fox News media and Tucker Carlson have mutually agreed to part ways. Tucker's last show was this past Friday. We want to thank Tucker Carlson for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a long-term contributor. In the meantime, Fox News says it'll air an interim show until a new host is named. Carlson has not made any reference to his departure on Twitter. Tucker Carlson Tonight had been one of the most popular shows in all of cable television. It often generated more than 3 million viewers per single episode. Last week, another popular Fox News host Dan Bongino announced via his podcast that he too is leaving Fox News. Fox Corp's stock closed down about 3% today. And also today, former CNN host Don Lemon announced on Twitter that he was fired by CNN. Here's his full statement on Twitter. He seems to indicate the decision came to him as a surprise, saying, quote, At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It's clear that there are some larger issues at play. In response, CNN hits back in a tweet later, saying, quote, Don Lemon's statement about this morning's events is inaccurate. He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter. And a top NBC executive has been ousted over an inappropriate relationship with a female co-worker. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Schell's departure is effective immediately. Schell acknowledged the relationship and expressed regret in a statement. He says his last day as CEO was April 23rd. Schell joined Comcast in 2004 and was appointed to the top job at NBC Universal in 2019. A number of senior executives in the media industry have been ousted recently amid allegations of office misconduct or inappropriate workplace relationships. CNN chief Jeff Zucker resigned last year over his failure to disclose a relationship with a work colleague. While CBS chief Les Moonves left the company in 2018 after over a dozen women accused him of sexual misconduct. Disney is going through its own series of mass layoffs. They're part of the CEO's attempt to save billions of dollars for the company. Here's NTD Sean Marshall with more. Well, Disney will begin a second wave of layoffs on Monday as it works toward eliminating 7,000 jobs. This according to sources familiar with the matter. Disney's latest job reductions are part of chief executive officer Bob Iger's goal of saving 5.5 billion in annual costs. With the latest round of reductions, Disney officials say the company will have cut a total of 4,000 jobs by Thursday. The cost-cutting measures at Disney come while other media companies are slowing down spending in general as Disney looks for higher profits from its streaming business. In February, Disney Plus dropped 2.4 million subscribers in its first streaming service loss. But Iger proclaimed that a significant transformation was underway. Disney has previously said it doesn't expect layoffs to affect hourly workers at its parks and resorts. A third round of layoffs is anticipated before the start of summer. Sean Marshall, NTD News. Bed Bath and Beyond filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday after the home goods retailer failed to secure funds to stay afloat. David Katz, vice president of a major consumer product manufacturer says Bed Bath and Beyond faced quote the perfect storm. The perfect storm we've seen over the last three or four years. You had COVID and you had supply chain issues, the incredible growth of Amazon and online shopping, changes of immediacy of shopping. I think all of those factors plus a somewhat behind the track e-commerce platform for Bed Bath made this a somewhat foreseeable outcome. The big box store shot to popularity in the 1990s as a go-to shopping destination for wedding registries and those with new and growing families. But it's seen demand drop off in recent years as its merchandising strategy to sell more store branding products fizzled. Last year it switched strategies instead bringing in more national brands that shoppers might recognize. But it wasn't enough. The company reported a loss of nearly 400 million dollars after sales plunged for the quarter that ended last November. It has been trying to cut costs by closing stores since late last year. The company says its 360 Bed Bath and Beyond stores and 120 Buy Buy Baby stores and websites will remain open as it winds down its business. Amid a slowing US economy, there appears to be at least one thing Americans can't live without. That's Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola reported higher than expected sales in the first quarter. Revenue rose 5% to 11 billion dollars for the January-March period. Coke chairman and CEO James Quincy cited higher demand at restaurants and Chinese New Year celebrations. But higher prices also boosted sales. Coke was even able to hike prices multiple times to combat higher commodity and shipping costs. Overall, Coke's soft drink sales rose 3% led by strong demand for Coke Zero Sugar. Water sales rose 5%, but demand for sports drinks fell 1%. Coke said it's still seeing inflation in commodity costs and wages. But the Atlanta company expects both prices and inflation to cool as the year progresses. Coke expects organic revenue growth of 7% to 8% this year compared to 16% in 2022. Shares of Coca-Cola went up in morning trading but closed slightly lower at the end of the day. The US Supreme Court will hear two cases involving public officials who blocked critics from their social media accounts. In one case, two members of a California school board blocked critical comments from parents on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. According to an appeals court, this violated their free speech rights. In another case, a city manager in Michigan blocked a resident from commenting on his Facebook page. The lower court sided with the manager. The Supreme Court previously dismissed a similar case involving former President Trump. But now, we'll consider the issue again. The court will hear the cases in the fall. And joining me is Jake Denton, tech researcher at the Heritage Foundation. Now, the Supreme Court will decide on whether public officials can block commenters who are critical on their social media accounts. Now, it seems like this may be a pretty clear-cut case, but correct me if I'm wrong, but if officials can block critics from commenting, isn't that an infringement on the First Amendment? Absolutely, you're right. If a government official were to block a constituent on their government account, then it's impossible for that constituent to receive critical information. Think back just to the COVID pandemic. One of the primary mechanisms to deliver updates to public health policy and these other kind of important news items were through government accounts. And if you're a constituent who's been blocked, you just can't receive that information. And so, this kind of highlights that civic society hasn't really kind of integrated fully with social media and that our laws are kind of neglecting that space. And so, this is going to potentially give the Supreme Court an opportunity to give us the path forward, some clarity on what these types of relationships between government officials and constituents online might look like. Well, you mentioned that because I think there is a precedent here in a way because we know when Trump did something similar, his case was dismissed, right? So, in that sense, maybe there is a precedent. What do you think? Yeah, you know, the Supreme Court dismissed the Trump case just about two years ago, I believe it was. But now they've chosen to take on these two cases, which one is with two school board members and one is with a kind of city commissioner of sorts, city planner. And so, ultimately, what this is showing potentially is that the Supreme Court needs some way to kind of reign on this decision, rule on this decision, because ultimately, this is going to keep occurring, whether it be at the presidential level or the city council level, anywhere in between, public officials and constituents will continue to clash on these platforms. And unless there are rules of the road, we're pretty much put in a position where abuse will happen, whether it be on the side of the social media company or on the side of the government officials. So, ultimately, constituents need their rights protected online as well as in the real world. You know, I'm just imagining what some of the arguments may be in favor of this case. You know, things like maybe misinformation. I mean, social media platforms have this feature to block certain comments. I mean, if a person is being disruptive or causing annoyance to other people on that platform, shouldn't officials have a right to block them? Well, you know, the burden in many ways falls upon the social media platforms to filter through spam and other sorts of content that could potentially find itself underneath the original post of the public figure. But ultimately, you know, a lot of these instances of, you know, blocks or, you know, muting of other accounts occurs on ordinary folks, just kind of providing criticisms underneath the accounts of the public official. And so in order to protect, you know, just average commentary, you need these sorts of protections. And then when it comes to spam, a lot of that burden will still remain on the social media company. I see. Okay, so I guess we already know how this is going to play out. Which way do you think the justices will lean toward? Well, it seems like, you know, the reason they would take a case on of this nature is to provide clarity to this issue in kind of the affirmative manner, saying that, you know, you absolutely cannot block a constituent from a government account. And so I would expect to see that sort of decision come down. But it's really a roll of the dice here. We haven't seen them kind of comment on many issues of this nature. Obviously, them, you know, dismissing the Trump case of this exact same issue, leaves us kind of in the dark. We don't know the direction this could go. So anything is possible. But it seems as though that the natural answer to this question is to provide protection to the constituent. Now, just very quickly highlight for us, what is the significance here? Yeah, as you know, our world continues to digitize. And as news relies heavily upon social media platforms, it's critical that constituents maintain access to those same platforms. So blocking a constituent, you know, shouldn't be allowed because they deserve access to that critical information. All right. Thank you so much today, Jake. Pleasure talking to you. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. The US hit its debt ceiling in January. And since then, the Treasury Department has been keeping the nation afloat financially. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he has enough support to get his debt legislation through the expected House vote this week. McCarthy's bill includes a $1.5 trillion hike to the debt ceiling with cuts to domestic spending programs. President Biden said he will only agree to a cut free proposal and blasted McCarthy's bill saying it would quote, make it easier for the wealthy to cheat on taxes. McCarthy tweeted that he invites the president to quote, get serious and join Republicans at the table. Moody's analytics says a debt ceiling breach could cost the US millions of jobs and do long term damage to the economy. The Supreme Court today declined to hear computer scientist Stephen Thaler's challenge to the US Patent and Trademark Office. A lower court had ruled that patents can only be issued to human inventors. The decision meant Thaler's artificial intelligence system could not be considered the legal creator of two inventions. The AI in question is called the device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience. It's known as DAPUS for short. The US Patent and Trademark Office rejected Thaler's patent applications for DAPUS's inventions. The agency made the decision on the grounds that DAPUS is not a person. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld that decision last year. The court ruled that US patent law unambiguously requires inventors to be human beings. Artificial intelligence will pose new risks to the Chinese Communist Party, according to experts. Referring to, of course, the recent wave of generative AI, in which you type in a prompt and the AI programs will intelligently generate text, images, or videos based on your prompt. So how will generative AI impact the Chinese Communist Party or CCP? Well, the most immediate problem is that it's going to be hard to control what information the AI will generate for the user. The CCP has created the world's most restrictive censorship regime. So it matters a lot to Beijing what information the AI generates. China was ranked as the world's worst abuser of internet freedom eight years in a row by the organization called Freedom House. The CCP has a censorship system that suppresses information that could potentially undermine the party's legitimacy or reputation. For example, it has censored its persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, as well as the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, and of course, the Chinese regime's alleged genocide against the Uyghur Muslims. Of course, the CCP censors far more than just this. They censor political dissent as well, religion, media, and entertainment. We talked with former US intelligence official Michael Sikora, who believes the CCP will have a tremendously difficult time trying to censor during the age of generative AI. As the system continues to grow, even if you limit the information it has, it's still going to come to the same logical conclusions about communism, about freedom, about all these other things. So if that's what the system does, even if it's regulated in terms of input, how are they going to, you know, punish people who have the system which comes to that conclusion? Generative AI is unpredictable. Not even the people who created it know exactly what's going to come out. People in the industry call it a black box. After you type in a prompt, the machine responds after a quote unquote thinking on its own, no one can see what the thought process actually looks like. But the CCP is aggressively tackling this problem. It's the first country to put out comprehensive regulations on generative AI, currently still in draft form and open to comment. It says the content that AI generates must reflect quote socialist core values, that it must not subvert state power or overturn the socialist system or incite separatism. These are the first rules in the draft. Also, the CCP says the organizations that provide these AI services must submit security assessments to the government, and if anything goes wrong, these organizations will bear responsibility for the content that comes out. If any content is found to be illegal, penalties may be imposed in accordance with the law. But intelligence official Michael Sikora says this won't be easy. Punishing people in terms of what what they put into it, how they use it is going to be more and more difficult as the system continues to evolve and come up conclusions and indications and solutions that doesn't line up with Chinese policies. It's not as though it's in one central location, because as the program gets distributed, as more people use it and interact with it, containing it, controlling it's going to be very, very difficult. But as I said earlier, the rules are still in draft form. They're not final. The CCP says it's still gathering comments from the public and will finalize the rules after that. The date the rules will be implemented has not been announced yet. And moving on, putting the good back in social media. Studies show tech platforms can have negative effects on consumers. But a new company now wants to change that. Data shows about half of America's eighth and tenth graders spend five hours or more on weekend days watching videos on an electronic device. To keep the viewers attention, social media algorithms keep feeding related content that could form addiction loops. The viewers would keep responding by generating dopamine, something that gives people jolts of joy. You think five minutes have passed. You look up, it's been, you know, an hour. Nick Janicki is a tech entrepreneur and director of media relations of Ganjing World. Ganjing World means clean in Chinese. It's a new tech platform with rules such as no violence, no criminal activity, nothing harmful and nothing erotic. Other than those, Janicki says Ganjing is open to conversations all over the opinion spectrum and that one of its goals is to put good back into social media. As a humanity, you know, we have to have technology for good. We have to have AI for good. Everything we do has to be for the benefit and the morality of humanity. So that's kind of the starting point of everything as we're building this out, basically. He adds that positive content can have a helpful impact on consumers, as opposed to much the content that we see online today. You can't have technology in a vacuum. Technology has to overlap with education, in my opinion, or let's just call it things that upgrade your human intellect or your human spirit, something that's uplifting, right? So the whole idea is, okay, I'm a consumer of this content, but is it uplifting to me? Janicki also warns of political bias being created by many tech companies. That's because viewers are fed similar content over and over again, which can cause one to become closed minded. As he puts it, it comes back to the confirmation bias. Once you already have a bias, the algorithms are going to continue to hone in on that bias. So it's not broadening your horizon. According to Janicki, Ganging world offers a safe place on the internet where you're not going to get taken into a negative addiction wormhole. There's an emerging threat to Apple users everywhere, and victims are left permanently locked out of their accounts, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some people are reporting their bank accounts being drained after thieves gain access to their apps. Our next story explains how it works and how you can protect yourself. It's a feature meant to protect you. A method for Apple to be able to verify that you say who you really are. But the Wall Street Journal reports thieves are exploiting recovery keys to lock you out of your account. They can just generate a new recovery key, basically take over all of your information, your data, any of your apps. For it to work, thieves have to know your passcode and have physical access to your phone. A lot of times it's in crowded areas where the thieves are looking for people that are easy marks, easy targets, and they will watch them pull out their phones and watch them enter in their passcodes. In a statement, Apple says it's always investigating additional protections against emerging threats. In the meantime, here's what you can do to protect yourself. Apple's screen time setting allows parents to set up a secondary password to help control how long their children are on the phone. You can use that to add a second layer of protection on your own device. Also, backup your phone to the cloud often. This will help you recover your data if the worst happens. And most importantly, guard your passcode when in public by covering your screen or using Apple's facial recognition. You want to think of it as like your house key, you know, because you're almost letting the people in when the thieves steal your phone. They're getting into your life. The suit John Travolta wore for Saturday Night Fever sold at auction for $260,000. That's at least $60,000 more than Julian's auctions had expected. In the 1977 drama, Travolta's character escaped the realities of his life by dominating the dance floor at the local disco. The movie helped popularize disco music around the world, and the white three-piece suit became iconic. Travolta received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role. Turner Classic Movies worked with the auction house to organize this sale. Another new horror movie tries to bring down the reigning box office champ. Was it able to scare a weekend wind? We have early estimates for the top five films in theaters. You made me believe, man. Air made $5.5 million to stay in fifth place. John Wick Chapter 4 fell to fourth with $5.8 million for a domestic total of $169 million. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant opened in third place on ticket sales of $6.3 million. Evil Dead Rise debuted in second place with a strong $23.5 million. There's still no stopping the Super Mario Brothers movie. The video game-based animated adventure topped the chart for a third straight weekend, earning $58.2 million for a domestic total of $434 million. And that's it from the NTD Business team today and myself, Don Ma. If you have any news tips or feedback for the show, don't hesitate to email us at business at ntd.com. Thanks for watching. See you tomorrow. you