Techmeme
August 15, 2019, 7:05 PM

Top News

The Keyword:
Google Assistant now lets users create reminders that can be assigned to friends or family, including scheduled time-based or location-based reminders  —  If you're a fellow parent, you probably spend a lot of time coordinating with your partner through on-the-fly conversations, text messages or phone calls.
Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
A close reading of the S-1 of the soap opera that is The We Company, a “tech company” whose mission “is to elevate the world's consciousness”  —  On August 14th, The We Company (the company formerly known as WeWork) filed its mandatory S-1 paperwork to go public, and it's worth reading in full.
Dan Primack / Axios:
Will Oremus / OneZero:
YouTube's guidelines may not discriminate against LGBTQ creators, but their vagueness and ad-friendly conservatism leads to discriminatory enforcement  —  A new lawsuit highlights a basic injustice in YouTube's “ad-friendly” policies  —  ouTube wants to be a platform for self-expression for all kinds of people.
Karl Bode / VICE:
Google says data from its new “Password Checkup” Chrome extension shows that 1.5% of all website logins use credentials that have been compromised  —  New ‘Password Checkup’ Chrome extension found 1.5 percent of all website logins use compromised credentials, a figure that's higher for porn websites.
Eugene Kim / CNBC:
Amazon launches a new donations program, called FBA Donations, for third-party sellers to dispose of unsold products stored in its warehouses in the US and UK  —  KEY POINTS  — Amazon is launching a new donations program, called FBA Donations, for third-party sellers that store …
The Information:
Investors and employees of Toptal, a freelancing platform with ~$200M revenue and originally funded by $1.5M in convertible notes, have ended up with no equity  —  Toptal, a service that connects companies with freelance software engineers, is a Silicon Valley success story.
April Glaser / Slate:
Tech companies can do a lot more to protect the identities of people speaking in recordings used to train AI, like shifting the voice or gender of the speaker  —  It turns out that Siri, Alexa, and whatever it is you call Facebook Messenger have been a little loose-lipped with your conversations.
Shirin Ghaffary / Vox:
Study: leading AI models to detect hate speech are 1.5x more likely to flag tweets by African Americans as offensive or hateful, partly due to social context  —  A new study shows that leading AI models are 1.5 times more likely to flag tweets written by African Americans as “offensive” compared to other tweets.
Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
After a 40% share price drop in 2019, Baidu has been replaced on the top 5 list of China's most valuable internet companies by NetEase  —  - Tencent's closest gaming rival NetEase is now worth more  — Search giant Baidu faces threat from newer tech star ByteDance
Cristina Tardáguila / Poynter:
Facebook is expanding its third-party fact checking program to Instagram, starting with US, and will downplay posts deemed fake on its Explore and Hashtag pages  —  Starting today, Instagram users can report false content and expect certified fact-checkers to analyze its veracity.
Aric Toler / bellingcat:
A deep dive into Amazon FC Ambassadors program finds 53 Ambassador accounts in seven countries, some of which are using fake identities and recycling accounts  —  On August 14, a Twitter thread that included a small army of “Amazon FC Ambassadors” went viral, bringing to light Amazon's year-long social media brand ambassador program.
Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
Walmart says its online sales grew 37% in Q2, boosted by its four-day July sales event that countered Amazon Prime Day  —  Walmart also gave a nod to its “four-day July sales event” that countered Amazon Prime Day for giving its Q2 e-commerce sales a boost.
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Earlier Picks

CNBC:
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