Author: TechBrunch

Frustration about poverty in rural China. News report on corrupt Communists. Crying for help about corrupt cops who shake up entrepreneurs. These are just a few of the 133,000 examples fed into a sophisticated, large-scale language model designed to automatically flag content considered sensitive by the Chinese government. The leaked database seen by TechCrunch reveals that China has developed an AI system that surpasses the already formidable censorship machines. The system appears to be primarily intended to censor Chinese citizens online, but can be used for other purposes, such as improving the already extensive censorship of Chinese AI models. The…

Bradley Tusk, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners, told TechCrunch in an episode of today's episode that he knows the VC is dead. And that has been for the past four years. “Maybe there are VCs who have never heard of liquidity over the past few years, but they haven't returned $1 in capital to LPS in four years,” Tusk says. The VC has spent a rough few years thanks to crashing the startup valuation from the 2021 highs, and hampering IPO and M&A transactions. Many investors were holding their breath as President Donald Trump rejuvenated the VC…

Venture capital has “dead effectively for the past four years,” according to Bradley Tusk, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners. A self-proclaimed “fixer,” Tusk recently decided not to raise a fourth fund. Instead, he decided to go back to his roots and start a company with a service company aimed at helping early-stage startups navigate technology policy and regulations. Today, fair, Rebecca Veran sits with Tusk and explores his pivot from traditional VC to fair service. Listen to the entire episode and hear the following: Limitations and lack of fluidity in current VC models. How Trump's tariffs and…

The horribly realistic surge in deepfakes is one of the more harmful by-products of the rise of AI, and victims of these deepfake-based frauds already cost millions of dollars. The startup, which has built a set of tools aimed at governments and businesses, has helped to detect and stop deepfakes and spoofing in audio, video and still images, led by impressive customers and investors on Wednesday. Co-founded by Hany Farid, one of the pioneers of Deepfake Media's detection, GetReal has raised $17.5 million in stake and funds for use in R&D, employment and business development. In addition to the funding,…

Sez Us, a social app founded by Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, is trying to build a platform without anger bait. Rage-Bait refers to posts intended to stop controversy. This could be a deliberately controversial political take, or a fully manufactured scenario designed to farm farming (for example, the satirical creator has earned 1.5 million views on Tiktok, who claims to file for divorce after her husband booed Taylor Swift). Most existing social networking apps incentivize Rage-Bait such as Instagram, X, Tiktok, YouTube, and more. These platforms have programs for creators. These programs pay based on the number of views you…

YouTube changes the way YouTube shorts views are counted, allowing creators to have a deeper understanding of how short form content works. The Shorts view counts how many times a creator's Short Start is played or replayed. In the past, views were counted after being considered short in a certain number of seconds. This change results in a higher progression in view counts. YouTube says it's making a change because it heard the creator wants to understand how often their shorts are actually seen. The idea is to help creators better showcase the full reach, inform content strategies and make…

Since Waze's Google Assistant was integrated with iOS in 2020, iPhone users have faced an ongoing problem that the company has struggled to solve “a year or more.” On Wednesday, the navigation app officially discontinued its functionality. Many users reported on Reddit that when they clicked the microphone button and spoke, they didn't respond, even though their assistant seemed to detect their voice. Alternatively, the company plans to introduce “Extended Voice Interaction Solutions” in the near future, as mentioned in a recent announcement on the official forum. Waze has been testing the AI-powered “conversation report” feature since October 2024, allowing…

Wednesday's Audio Startup Krisp said it will launch a new feature that uses AI to change user accents during calls. The company initially deployed support to change the Indian English accent to US English. According to the startup, the accent conversion process simply saves the speaker's voice and switches phonemes to match the American accent. This feature has been clearly tested in an enterprise environment, with a beta version appearing on the Krisp desktop app. Users can flip through features at any time on a call or before a call. The company's co-founder, Arto Minasyan, said the idea for the…

The clock is ticking – there's no more than a week left until all stage ticket prices rise! Save over $300 on founders and investors' passes until 11:59pm on March 31st. Founder, accelerate your path. Investors will strengthen their growth. On July 15th, we will be joining 1,200 founders and VCs at MA's SOWA Power Plant, TC All Stage, TechCrunch's ultimate founder summit designed for seed-to-IPO scaling. This is where growth grows. Get the best prices and take your startup to the next level. Why do you participate in TC at all stages? From early traction to explosive growth, TC…

Google said it fixed a vulnerability in the Chrome browser for Windows that a malicious hacker used to infiltrate the victim's computer. In a brief note on Tuesday, Google said it had fixed a vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-2783. This was discovered earlier this month by researchers at security company Kaspersky. Google said it is aware of reports that bug exploitation is “existing in the wild.” The bug is called zero day because the vendor (in this case Google) was not given time to fix the bug before it was exploited. According to Kaspersky, the bug was exploited as part of…