UPDATE: A BuzzFeed representative, after this story was published, told TheWrap the company’s forthcoming app will be called BF Island.
BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti on Tuesday said Big Tech companies like Meta and TikTok, as well as the emergence of artificial intelligence, “destroyed the internet.”
At the same time, Peretti, in an open letter, said his company will be launching a new social media platform to “spread joy and enable playful creative expression.” Ironically, the new platform — which does not have a launch date or a name yet — will “use AI to give users agency,” Peretti said, after he lamented earlier in his letter that AI had undermined the ability for internet users to make decisions for themselves.