The EU's DMA is coming for Apple, and X bots are on the loose

In a press release this morning, the European Commission named Apple as the first of tech’s so-called “gatekeepers” to be charged for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act. Apple is one of six tech giants named by the European Commission as “gatekeepers” last year, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft. While we continue to keep our eyes on the EU’s attempts to ensure a competitive marketplace, that’s not all we got into on the Equity podcast this morning. Rebecca Bellan led the show this morning and reported that X still has a Verified bot problem, but this time they came for TechCrunch writers (herself included). The experience had us wondering if X’s competitors will step up, and create platforms with more safety…and fewer bots. Rebecca also had an IPO update for our listeners this morning as Shein finally filed for its public debut in London, and we closed out our startup coverage with a look at Sir Jack A Lot’s startup for retail traders. The startup, which recently raised a $4.5 million seed round, had us hyped on the retail trading space and its continued growth. Finally, Haje closed out today’s show with a teardown for Feel Therapeutics. The startup recently raised a $3.5M seed deck to revolutionize mental health care with a science-forward approach that integrates wearable devices, mobile apps, and clinician dashboards. Hit play to hear how they did it! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices