Techmeme
August 23, 2019, 8:45 AM

Top News

Jennifer Elias / CNBC:
Google says it has shut down 210 YouTube channels after it found they had been tied to misinformation about Hong Kong protesters  —  KEY POINTS  — In a blog post Thursday, Google said it axed more than 200 YouTube channels due to misinformation around Hong Kong protests.
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: News Corp is developing a news-aggregation service called Knewz, to address publisher concerns about Google and Facebook  —  Knewz.com will surface articles from hundreds of news sources, using software and human curation  —  News Corp is developing a news-aggregation service meant …
James Loke Hale / Tubefilter:
Report: Facebook has pushed Instagram into doubling the number of ads since last year; Instagram is testing two back-to-back ads in Stories  —  Instagram is about to get even more ads.  —  Beginning this week, the platform is running a test with what it told AdWeek is a “small percentage” of users.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
VMWare to acquire cybersecurity company Carbon Black for $2.1B and Pivotal for $2.7B  —  KEY POINTS  — VMware is acquiring Carbon Black, a cybersecurity company that went public in 2018, the companies announce as part of VMware's quarterly earnings report.
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google Photos can now search for text that appears in user images with its optical character recognition filter  —  Google Lens has a powerful optical character recognition (OCR) filter that can pull text from any image.  Available in Google Photos, the backup service this month is adding the ability to search for text in images.
Financial Times:
Sources: at least three of Facebook's Libra backers are discussing how to distance themselves from the project amid increasing regulatory scrutiny  —  Intensifying regulatory scrutiny of Facebook's Libra digital currency has spooked some of the project's early backers, with at least three privately discussing …
CNBC:
Overstock CEO Partick Byrne has resigned from the e-commerce company after his comments about being involved in a “Deep State” investigation of 2016 election  —  - Overstock CEO Partick Byrne has resigned from the e-commerce company after making controversial comments about his role in the “Deep State.”
Johana Bhuiyan / Los Angeles Times:
Amazon says it will no longer use tips or supplemental earnings to cover promised wages of Flex drivers, who deliver for Prime Now, Fresh, and Whole Foods  —  Amazon delivery drivers were surprised to learn earlier this year that the e-commerce giant would at times dip into their tips to cover their promised wages.
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
HP says its CEO Dion Weisler will step down and Enrique Lores, president of HP's imaging, printing, and solutions business, will become new CEO from November 1  —  KEY POINTS  — HP CEO Dion Weisler will step down from the company “due to a family health matter,” HP announced Thursday.
Alison Frankel / Reuters:
Oracle board committee recommends court to proceed with the shareholder lawsuit against Larry Ellison and Safra Catz over the $9.3B NetSuite acquisition in 2016  —  (Reuters) - Shareholder derivative suits exist because corporate directors can't always be trusted to put aside their own interests …
ProPublica:
Interviews with 36+ DOD and tech officials shed light on tech giants' fight for $10B Pentagon JEDI cloud contract using backdoor lobbying and an advisory board  —  Tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt have gotten unprecedented access to the Pentagon.  And one whistleblower who raised flags has paid the price.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google's Chrome team proposes new privacy and anti-fingerprinting open standard to make it harder for marketers and advertisers to track users across the web  —  Google today announced a new long-term initiative that, if fully realized, will make it harder for online marketers and advertisers to track you across the web.
Washington Post:
Palantir's revenue from US government contracts under Trump surpassed its total under Obama's second term, as sources describe staff debates about work with ICE  —  After Google dropped a defense contract over employee pressure, Palantir's leaders doubled down on controversial work with the U.S. government

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