Techmeme
April 2, 2019, 12:30 PM

Top News

Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News:
Facebook says it removed over 800 Indian and Pakistani Pages, accounts, and Groups for spreading misinformation and propaganda, ahead of India's election  —  NEW DELHI — Facebook and Instagram removed more than 800 political pages, accounts, and groups in India and Pakistan for spreading misinformation …
Abhimanyu Ghoshal / The Next Web:
WhatsApp debuts a fact-checking tip line in India to combat fake news, will work with startup Proto to help review text, photos, links, and video sent by users  —  WhatsApp has launched its next weapon in the fight against misinformation on its platform in India: a tip line to which you can send forwards …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
a16z raises new $2B fund and says the firm's 150 employees are being registered as financial advisors, so they can go deeper on riskier bets, like buying crypto  —  Emerging from the financial crisis in 2009, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz laid out their campaign to take on Silicon Valley.
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
Sources: YouTube execs ignored internal warnings, concerns about the spread of toxic videos, and proposals to change recommendations, in favor of engagement  —  A year ago, Susan Wojcicki was on stage to defend YouTube.  Her company, hammered for months for fueling falsehoods online …
Matthew Boyle / Bloomberg:
Walmart will let customers order groceries by voice through Google Assistant beginning this month, expanding the service to other platforms in the coming months  —  - Prior purchase data will help identify preferred brands, size  — Retailer to expand service to more platforms in coming months
Adrian Zmudzinski / Cointelegraph:
Report: data provided by TokenData shows about $118M has been raised via ICOs in Q1 2019, compared to $6.9B raised during the same period in 2018  —  About $118 million has been raised via initial coin offerings (ICOs) in Q1 of 2019, over 58 times less than $6.9 billion …
Manish Singh / VentureBeat:
Readdle brings popular free email app Spark to Android with features aimed at power users and promises no ads or tracking  —  Twelve years after its inception, Readdle is finally venturing beyond Apple's ecosystem with the launch today of its Spark email app for Android.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft unveils new mid-range 13-inch Surface Book 2 with Intel quad-core i5 processor, 256GB storage, and 8GB RAM for $1,499  —  Microsoft is quietly refreshing its Surface Book 2 base model today.  The software giant is introducing Intel's latest 8th Gen quad-core i5 processor …
Mark Di Stefano / BuzzFeed:
YouTube is removing UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson's videos from search results and prohibiting him from live streaming, stopping short of an outright ban  —  The video platform is removing the far-right activist's videos from search results and stopping him live-streaming.
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Valve confirms its Index VR headset with integrated headphones and new controllers will ship on June 15, plans full reveal for May 1  —  You won't have to wait until May to learn more about Valve's Index VR headset.  Valve briefly posted (and promptly removed) unfinished pages for the Index …
Colin Lecher / The Verge:
1,300+ Googlers sign a petition demanding Google remove Kay Coles James, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, from its external AI advisory board  —  ‘They think that some of our colleagues either do not or should not exist’  —  When Google announced an external advisory board …

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