Spotify confidentially filed IPO documents with the SEC at the end of the year, Axios reports, citing sources. “Spotify is pursuing a direct listing instead of a traditional float, causing both Silicon Valley and Wall Street to pay very close attention,” it writes. “If successful, it could change how some tech companies go public.”

Music video platform Vevo made roughly $650 million in revenue in 2017, which was up about 30% year-over-year, the Financial Times reports. “According to Vevo, advertisers have shifted to its platform after pulling millions of dollars from YouTube when they found that their campaigns appeared alongside extremist or offensive content,” FT writes. “The company’s collection of slickly produced music videos attract 25bn views a month.”

Pro Publica finds that Facebook has not been consistently policing hate speech, and the tech titan is admitting as much. ProPublica said it analyzed more than 900 posts, which were submitted by Facebook users as part of a crowd-sourced investigation. “Based on this small fraction of Facebook posts, its content reviewers often make different calls on items with similar content, and don’t always abide by the company’s complex guidelines,” it writes.

In Germany, social networks could soon face fines of more than $60 million for failing to remove “obviously illegal” content, hate speech, and fake news. “The law gives the networks 24 hours to act after they have been told about law-breaking material,” BBC News reports. “Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be the law's main focus,” it notes.

Star venture capitalist Fred Wilson puts 2017’s top tech trends into three buckets: the rise of cryptocurrency, the decline of white male dominance, and a general backlash against top companies and their leadership. Regarding the latter bucket, he writes: “Tech is the new Wall Street, full of ultra-rich, out-of-touch people who have too much power and not enough empathy.”