Techmeme: Sources: Trump is considering the establishment of a commission that would examine allegations of anticonservative bias and censorship on social media (Wall Street Journal)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News

May 23, 2020, 8:15 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Trump is considering the establishment of a commission that would examine allegations of anticonservative bias and censorship on social media — Move is likely to draw pushback from tech companies; ACLU raises free-speech concerns — WASHINGTON—President Trump is considering establishing …

More: CNET, Gizmodo, The Verge, Reclaim The Net, The Hill, and Seeking Alpha

Tweets: @brianstelter, @jeffjarvis, @brettredacted, @jason_kint, @juddlegum, @melissaryan, @brianmfloyd, and @donie

Seth Colaner / VentureBeat:

An overview of how governments around the world are using smartphone data, apps, drones, facial recognition, and AI to track COVID-19 and surveil citizens — Now that the world is in the thick of the coronavirus pandemic, governments are quickly deploying their own cocktails of tracking methods.

More: OneZero , VentureBeat, and Lifehacker

Tweets: @brendakleong, @obrien, and @mrodofficial

Kai-Fu Lee / Wired:

AI has played a useful but fragmented role in the global fight against COVID-19, from predicting outbreaks to aiding diagnosis and drug discovery efforts — Disease diagnosis, drug discovery, robot delivery—artificial intelligence is already powering change in the pandemic's wake.

More: Engadget. Tweets: @kaifulee, @nxthompson, and @wired

Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:

Facebook's removal of coronavirus misinfo will make its hands-off approach to removing anti-vaccine advocacy harder to defend when we get a coronavirus vaccine — The social media platform is siding with scientists to stop the spread of harmful misinformation about the pandemic.

Tweets: @noupside, @mat, @scottlucas, and @buzzfeednews

Camilla Tominey / Telegraph:

Boris Johnson instructed officials to draw up plans to reduce Huawei's involvement in UK's 5G networks to zero by 2023, a reversal of a softer policy approach — The Prime Minister has instructed officials to draw up plans that would see China's involvement in the UK's 5G network reduced to zero

More: TechCrunch, The Guardian, Financial Times, The Verge, Seeking Alpha, Light Reading, Engadget, Pocketnow, Politico, and CNET

Tweets: @alibunkallsky, @jerometaylor, @benwood, @rlheinrichs, @thorstenbenner, @nilegardiner, @tom_fowdy, @tedcruz, @damiangreen, @andrewbgreene, @brexitalex, @tomtugendhat, and @owenpaterson

Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google:

An internal build of Google Messages 6.2 shows end-to-end encryption could be coming soon to RCS messages — Today, the folks at APKMirror got ahold of an internal “dogfood” build of Google Messages version 6.2. Here, “dogfood” is used in the sense of the phrase “eat your own dog food,” …

More: Releases, XDA Developers, The Verge, Ausdroid, PhoneArena, and Pocketnow

Tweets: @backlon, @prostasiainc, @evansims, and @andy_watt

Arjun Kharpal / CNBC:

Report: Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are among American tech companies providing web services to blacklisted Chinese surveillance firms like Dahua, Hikvision — - Amazon, Microsoft and Google are among a number of American firms that are providing various web services to blacklisted Chinese surveillance firms, a new report claims.

Tweets: @inteloperator

Alfred Ng / CNET:

Mozilla, Twitter, and a coalition that includes Facebook, Apple, and Google, call on Congress to protect search and browser data from warrantless access — A recent amendment to require the FBI to get a warrant to view browsing data failed by one vote. — A group of technology companies …

More: Gizmodo, Gizmodo, NBC News, The Mozilla Blog, Mozilla, Neowin, MSPoweruser, and AppleInsider

Tweets: @schestowitz, @david_ingram, @david_ingram, @mordecaidesign, @abdavidson, @techdaddy, @notaaroncraig, @evan_greer, @dellcam, @plucille54, @plucille54, @mozilla, @abdavidson, @cnet, and @stshank

Eileen Yu / ZDNet:

Singapore mall operator CapitaLand to launch e-commerce and food delivery services on June 1 offering products and services of retailers from its 18 malls — Slated to launch June 1, the e-commerce and food delivery platforms aim to boost sales for retailers in malls operated by Singapore's real estate group CapitaLand.

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

Researchers discuss ShinyHunters, a hacking group that is hawking what it claims is ~200M stolen records on the dark web since May 1 from at least 13 companies — In the first two weeks of May, they've hit the dark web, hawking 200 million stolen records from over a dozen companies.

More: Threatpost. Tweets: @lilyhnewman and @teachemtechy

George Avalos / Mercury News:

Facebook revises proposal for Willow Village, its 50+ acre development project in Menlo Park, to reduce square footage by 29%, from 1.75M to 1.25M square feet — Willow Village near Facebook's Menlo Park HQ undergoes sweeping changes for office space — MENLO PARK — Facebook …

More: TheStreet, OneZero , Palo Alto Daily Post, almanacnews.com, OneZero , and Silicon Valley Business …

Tweets: @rolandlisf, @chrismessina, @caseynewton, @coryweinberg, @b_fung, @uiri00, @sarahnemerson, @svbizjournal, @sarahnemerson, @jenn_elias, and @sarahnemerson

Julia Alexander / The Verge:

Moves by Joe Rogan and others don't mean YouTube will get cut out of the podcast game, because creator success still relies upon discoverability on the platform — What does podcasting on YouTube look like without Rogan? — Joe Rogan is largely moving on from YouTube …

More: The Startup and The Verge

Tweets: @ashleyrcarman, @ogrover, @loudmouthjulia, @benyt, @vicious696, @brianroemmele, @mattstasoff, @willrinehart, @dp16, @donthatebehated, and @lthomasnews

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:

Enhancements to Zoho Writer's automation flow designer: New PDF operations, password protection, and more — Once we rolled out the automation flow designer in Zoho Writer's merge templates …

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.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:

2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Channels with Peter Kafka:

Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control

Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.

Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.

BG2 Pod:

AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean

Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.

Subscribe to BG2 Pod.

Great Chat:

The stories we told ourselves in 2025

A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.

Subscribe to Great Chat.

Grit:

How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

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.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:15 PM ET, May 23, 2020.

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.

From Mediagazer

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Source: Bari Weiss is planning to create a masthead for CBS News as part of a broader overhaul of standards and procedures

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Comcast extends Mike Cavanagh's contract through January 1, 2029, and grants a ~$35M performance-based stock package; he's set to become co-CEO in January 2026

Todd Spangler / Variety:

Trump says Stephen Colbert is a “pathetic trainwreck” and “CBS should, ‘put him to sleep,’ NOW”; earlier CBS aired the Kennedy Center Honors, hosted by Trump

Upcoming Tech Events

Jan 4

Samsung "The First Look" media event

Game Developers Conference

More News

Annie Musgrove / Tech.eu:

London-based Blink, an app that helps companies and orgs connect with their frontline workers, raises £8.2M Series A led by Partech as it launches publicly

More: Smart Cities World, Business Matters, Mirror.co.uk, Bdaily Business News, Med-Tech Innovation, Partech, and EU-Startups. Tweets: @joinblink

Tony Wan / EdSurge:

PresenceLearning, which helps school districts provide speech and mental health therapy to students online, raises $27M Series D, bringing total raised to $70M+

More: PresenceLearning. Tweets: @edsurge and @edsurge

Jael Goldfine / PAPER:

Facebook has had a recent influx of millennial and Gen Z users, some of whom say certain Facebook groups offer unemployment support, job search help, and more

Tweets: @kantrowitz and @jaelgoldfine

Shira Ovide / New York Times:

Upgrades of 911 emergency response systems enable paramedics to do video call assessments to prioritize resources and pinpoint callers' locations more precisely

More: Digiday. Tweets: @shiraovide

Mark Sullivan / Fast Company:

Telehealth will be more proactive, hyper-personalized, and data-driven thanks to connected devices, remote healthcare kits, mobile apps, and AI-based monitoring

Tweets: @svb_financial

Earlier Picks

Charlie Osborne / ZDNet:

Report: 60% of insider cybersecurity threats involve employees leaving their jobs, with 44% forwarding content to personal emails, 16% misusing cloud privileges

Reuters:

US Commerce Dept. adds 7 Chinese tech companies to economic blacklist for complicity in human rights violations, including Softbank-backed CloudMinds

More: Gizmodo. Tweets: @hkanji

Tom McKay / Gizmodo:

A US Copyright Office report states that the DMCA's safe harbor provision is “askew” and recommends making it easier for rightsholders to issue takedown notices

More: The Illusion of More, Techdirt, Bloomberg Law, Axios, Motion Picture Association, and Music Ally

Reuters:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise unveils plans targeting gross savings of at least $1B by 2022, including layoffs and temporary pay cuts of 25% for top executives

More: Fortune, Bloomberg, and Silicon Valley Business …

Olivia Carville / Bloomberg:

IBM announces job cuts, will offer subsidized medical coverage to all affected US employees through June 2021; sources say layoffs will be in the thousands

More: The Register, Associated Press, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, Fox Business, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Axios, ZDNet, TechSpot, CNBC, cloudpro.co.uk, Beyond Search, The Register, and SiliconANGLE

Tweets: @venki_hriscloud, @itsweezie, @mitchwagner, @carlquintanilla, and @wsj