Techmeme
August 24, 2019, 12:50 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Investigation finds 4,152 items on Amazon that were declared unsafe by federal agencies, are deceptively labeled, or are banned by regulators  —  Just like tech companies that have struggled to tackle misinformation on their platforms, Amazon has proven unable or unwilling to effectively police third-party sellers on its site
Marlize van Romburgh / Silicon Valley Business Journal:
Trump's tweets “ordering” US companies to start looking for an alternative to China rattle tech stocks, with Apple closing down 4.6%, Amazon 3.1%, and AMD 7.4%  —  Shares of Apple and Silicon Valley's semiconductor companies were pummeled on Friday as President Trump responded …
Craig Silverman / BuzzFeed News:
Academics are still waiting to receive key data originally promised in 2018 from Facebook, which has declined to provide some of the data citing privacy fears  —  In 2018, Facebook announced a partnership to provide data to academics to “help people better understand the broader impact …
Matt Kim / IGN:
Riot Games has settled for an undisclosed sum a class action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation for speaking out  —  The suit alleged targeted discrimination against women who worked at Riot.  —  Riot Games has settled the class action lawsuit …
Louise Matsakis / Wired:
In a leaked letter from members of Twitter's Trust and Safety Council, formed in 2016 to provide outside advice on policy, some say they're being ignored  —  AT THE BEGINNING of 2016, Twitter announced some good news: the formation of the Trust and Safety Council, comprised of more than 40 outside groups …
Ayanti Bera / Reuters:
Seven top US publishers sue Audible, aiming to block the planned rollout of Captions, a new feature that shows text on screen as a book is narrated  —  (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) Audible was sued by some of the top U.S. publishers for copyright infringement on Friday …
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 …
Tony Wan / EdSurge:
Educational robotic toymaker Sphero acquires littleBits, a maker of electronics building kits and instructional resources for kids  —  When Sphero laid off 45 employees in early 2018, the Boulder, Co.-based company explained the difficult decision as an effort to return its focus …
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.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Strategy Analytics: US users upgrade smartphones after 33 months, 7% plan to spend over $1K on their next purchase, biggest barrier to 5G phones will be price  —  Several reports in the past have linked the increasing prices of smartphones to lengthening iPhone upgrade cycles.
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Sources: Uber's $1 Safe Rides Fee, introduced in 2014, was devised primarily to add $1 of pure margin to each trip; court documents: the fee brought in ~$500M  —  The once-swaggering company is losing more money and growing more slowly than ever.  What happened?
Emma Grey Ellis / Wired:
Seattle Police Department has maintained an anti-swatting registry since last October, allowing people who fear being swatted give the police advance warning  —  SWAT TEAMS, IN full military protective gear and armed with assault rifles, are being deployed against innocent, unsuspecting citizens all over the United States.

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Earlier Picks

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Wall Street Journal:
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Washington Post:
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