Techmeme
October 17, 2018, 7:30 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Twitter has published data sets of millions of tweets, images, videos, and thousands of accounts linked to Russia and Iran meddling for analysis by researchers  —  - Data includes images and videos from thousands of accounts  — Tech firms remain under fire from lawmakers in EU, U.S.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Andy Rubin's Essential confirms layoffs; sources say it's almost a third of its workforce, primarily from the startup's hardware and sales divisions  —  Essential Products Inc., the startup founded by Android creator Andy Rubin, has cut almost a third of its employees.  —  “This has been a difficult decision to make.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
How a loophole in Facebook's political ad review system, letting verified buyers put anything in the “paid for by” field, has been weaponized in a Virginia race  —  A competitive race in Virginia's 10th Congressional District has an alarming new element: anonymous attack ads on Facebook.
Suzanne Vranica / Wall Street Journal:
Advertisers allege in suit that Facebook didn't disclose key video metric error for over a year and that scale of miscalculation was far worse than understood  —  Facebook knew of problems with how it measured viewership of video ads for more than a year before it revealed them in 2016, according to a complaint filed by advertisers.
Kate Fazzini / CNBC:
Apple rolls out an updated privacy website, first trialed in the EU in May, that lets customers search the information Apple has on them  —  - Apple's new privacy website launch fulfills a company promise of making it easier and faster for customers to find what personal information is kept by Apple.
Wall Street Journal:
Profile of Kris Goldsmith, an Army veteran who catalogues questionable Facebook Pages, some with millions of followers and links to Russia and Iran  —  Kris Goldsmith has become the cybersleuth for the Vietnam Veterans of America, hunting fake Facebook pages that sow discord and often have roots overseas
Medium:
Anonymous Amazon employee says 450+ employees signed letter to Bezos and other execs asking them to stop selling Rekognition to police and kick Palantir off AWS  —  When a company puts new technologies into the world, it has a responsibility to think about the consequences.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Helm launches a privacy-focused personal server, costing $499 with a $99/year subscription, that lets users host emails, calendars, and contacts  —  Here's the thing: for all the talk about her email server, Hillary Clinton did not get hacked.  “I'll go on record with that,” says Giri Sreenivas, the founder of Helm.
Nicholas Thompson / Wired:
Interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on free speech, filter bubbles, the chronological feed, and more  —  ON MONDAY, AT Wired's 25th anniversary summit, I spoke with Jack Dorsey about some of the biggest questions he confronts running Twitter and Square.  How has his position on free speech evolved?
More: Wired, The Verge, and Telegraph
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Sidestepping App Stores, Facebook Lite and Groups get Instant Games, which launch in browsers  —  HTML5 almost ruined Facebook when baking in the mobile web standard to speed up development slowed down the performance of the social network's main iOS and Android apps.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
In EU, Google to start charging OEMs for Play Store and Google apps, offer separate licenses for Search and Chrome, let OEMs make devices with forked Android  —  Android will still be “free and open source”  —  Google is changing the way it licenses its suite of Android apps in Europe …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Zoho:
Email fatigue is real: Here's how smart email tools help you regain control  —  Picture this: It's Monday morning.  You walk into the office feeling energized and ready to take on the week.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Saam Motamedi from Greylock Partners
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Invest Like the Best:
Henry Ellenbogen - Man Versus Machine
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
How Evan Spiegel Is Building the Future of Computing
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
Lenny's Podcast:
Why humans are AI's biggest bottleneck (and what's coming in 2026) | Alexander Embiricos (OpenAI Codex Product Lead)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 7:30 PM ET, October 17, 2018.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google: