Odaily News: Renowned American investigative blogger Kevin Bass posted on X platform exposing the conspiracy behind Anthropic's "AI Doom Theory." After reviewing Anthropic's financial relationships, he found that the company may have formed a "regulatory capture machine" driven by funding relationships, and called for a congressional investigation.Anthropic shares held by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz were placed into the Good Ventures Foundation, which is a major funder of AI safety organizations such as METR and is also the institution behind organizations promoting "AI Doom Theory." It is worth noting that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei previously proposed having third-party institutions assess AI model risks, and listed METR as one of the relevant institutions.Based on this, Kevin Bass questioned whether such third-party institutions can truly independently assess Anthropic and AI risks. He even suggested that the greater the influence of "AI Doom Theory," the more regulators and the public will demand that more independent third-party assessment institutions evaluate Anthropic. These assessment institutions receive more funding, but may never produce findings that Claude's latest models are fatally dangerous, creating a potential closed loop of interests among Anthropic's valuation growth, AI risk narratives, regulatory demands, and assessment institutions obtaining funding.

Odaily News: Manus announced that it will resume operations as an independent company in the future. Some users are required to complete data backup before 7:59 AM Beijing Time (Singapore Time) on August 23, 2026, and initiate data recovery after 8:00 AM on August 25 to ensure normal service usage.Manus stated that affected users will be notified of the specific arrangements via email and in-app notifications. If users registered through Apple ID or Facebook accounts, they need to pay attention to in-app notifications. Users can perform backups multiple times before the backup deadline; even if new data is added after backup, they can re-run the backup process. Starting from 8:00 AM on August 25, affected users can import data through the recovery portal and continue their previous usage status. Manus stated that affected users will not be charged during the migration period and will receive a welcome-back reward.For unaffected users, Manus stated that no action is required and they can continue to use the service normally. The system will confirm their status through in-app notifications. Manus stated that this adjustment is an important step for the company's next phase of development, and a series of new features will be launched in the future to further expand the capabilities of general-purpose AI Agents. The company also committed to supporting users through the transition with help center guides and round-the-clock customer service.

Odaily News A court in New Mexico, USA, has ruled that Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, must pay $567 million to address the impact its platforms have had on teenagers. Judge Bryan Biedscheid stated that $420 million of this amount will go toward treatment services for teens, with the remaining funds allocated over the next five years for awareness campaigns, prevention, screening services, and other related expenses. (CNBC)

Odaily reported that, according to the Wall Street Journal, the European Union stated that Meta has failed to adequately protect users from harmful, addictive designs on Instagram and Facebook. The EU is therefore escalating its investigation, and the company could face significant fines. The European Commission released preliminary findings on Friday, concluding that Meta violated the EU's landmark Digital Services Act. The law requires the world's largest online platforms to assess and mitigate risks. If the findings are confirmed, each of Meta's platforms could face fines of up to 6% of its global annual revenue.

Odaily Odaily reporter: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has urged his subordinates to explore partnerships with prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi. Meanwhile, Meta is developing a similar prediction market application called Arena.Executives said that Arena is currently in internal testing and may not be released in the future. The application will rely on points similar to those in video games, rather than accepting real money bets. Meta aims to attract at least 100 million monthly active users for the application and plans to eventually integrate some of Arena's features into Facebook and Messenger. (Reuters)

Odaily Planet Daily News: Zuckerberg has instructed Meta to develop a prediction market application. The app will be independent of Facebook and Instagram. (New York Times)

Odaily Planet Daily News: With potential IPOs of tech companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic on the horizon, California is expected to see a wave of IPO-related tax revenue growth, but the actual scale and predictability remain highly uncertain. It is reported that a SpaceX IPO could become one of the most significant tax windfalls in California's history. However, due to its special employee equity incentive structure (RSU single-trigger vesting mechanism) and long-term prepaid tax arrangements, a portion of the tax revenue has already been realized before the IPO, weakening the traditional model of “concentrated IPO tax boom.”California’s Department of Finance and the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) noted that compared to Facebook’s 2012 IPO, which generated approximately $1.3 billion in taxes, current mega-IPOs theoretically have higher tax potential. However, due to complex employee stock ownership structures, early share sales, and increased use of tax avoidance tools, actual revenue may be more dispersed and harder to predict. Overall, while California stands to benefit from a “super IPO cycle,” the tax structure is shifting from a “concentrated one-time windfall” to a “long-term distributed realization,” making fiscal gains more volatile and uncertain. (CNBC)

Odaily Planet Daily News: Andrew Left, founder of the short-selling firm Citron Research, has his sentencing hearing scheduled for August 31, 2026, with a theoretical maximum sentence of up to 265 years. The final sentence will still be determined by the court based on the specific circumstances of the case.Prosecutors allege that Left frequently used short-term options expiring within 0 to 5 trading days to bet on stock price volatility in the immediate aftermath of a report or tweet. He would set limit orders in advance, with exit prices often far from the targets publicly stated by Citron. The stocks involved include Nvidia, Tesla, Facebook, General Electric, Luckin Coffee, etc. (Lawstreetmedia)

Odaily reported that trader Chuanmu posted on platform X, stating that when Facebook went public, its total market cap accounted for 0.086% of the U.S. stock market. Today, when SPCX got listed, this figure stands at 0.11%, making the two quite close.

Odaily Seer 先知频道监测显示， 受硅谷巨头新一轮 AI 重组裁员潮影响，Polymarket 上“2026 年科技行业（信息部门）裁员人数是否会超过 2025 年”预测事件的建仓概率已升至 84%。相关背景方面，科技巨头因 AI 全面自动化和架构重组引发的裁员风暴再度升级。据彭博社和《联合早报》今日最新报道，Facebook 母公司 Meta Platforms 已正式启动涉及全球约 10% 员工（约 8,000 人）的大规模裁员，主要集中在工程与产品团队。由于时差原因，位于亚洲枢纽的新加坡员工首当其冲，在今日凌晨 4 点便收到了解雇邮件通知，全球其余地区员工已被要求居家办公等待通知。此前，Meta 已将约 7,000 名员工调配至全新的人工智能项目团队，并取消了 6,000 个原定招聘的空缺职位。这种“裁撤传统岗位、向 AI 全面倾斜”的举措，与近期思科（Cisco）宣布裁员 4,000 人、以及微软、亚马逊等巨头的裁员动作步调高度一致。根据该事件在 Polymarket 上的官方结算规则：该市场结算完全以美联储经济数据库（FRED）公布的月度数据为准，具体参考不经季节性调整的职位空缺和劳动力流动调查中的“信息部门裁员与解雇人数”（指标代码：JTU5100LDL）。2025 年该部门录得的全年裁员总数为 44.7 万人。若 2026 年 FRED 最终公布的总数大于 2025 年，该市场将结算为“Up”；若少于去年则结算为“Down”；若完全持平则按 50-50 结算。若在美东时间 2027 年 6 月 30 日前相关数据仍未全部公布，则以届时已发布的数据计算总数，且所有后期的数据修正将不予考虑。数据的精度将严格保留至整数（以千人为单位）。目前，仅 2026 年前五个月全球科技业裁员人数就已大幅超前，市场普遍预期由 AI 技术催生的行业结构性失业在年内恐将继续加剧。Odaily Seer 先知频道持续关注预测市场，在定价之前，看见变化。