Techmeme
August 2, 2020, 3:35 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: before Trump's comments, Microsoft and Bytedance hoped to have broad strokes of TikTok deal by Monday and are now seeking clarity from the White House  —  Talks aren't believed to be dead, but the companies are trying to get clarity on White House's stance
Josh Constine / Constine's Moving Product newsletter:
Escalating threats to ban TikTok are pushing creators and users to apps like Triller, which has now topped the US App Store multiple times, Byte, Reels, others  —  Constine's Newsletter #10: Triller vs Dubsmash vs Byte vs Reels, plus unintended consequences of threatening a TikTok ban
Echo Wang / Reuters:
Sources: ByteDance has agreed to divest US operations of TikTok under a proposed new deal with the White House that would see Microsoft take over TikTok in US  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - China's ByteDance has agreed to divest the U.S. operations of TikTok completely in a bid to save a deal with the White House …
CNBC:
More: NBC News, Vox, The Verge, CCN.com, Bloomberg, Pocketnow, MacRumors, Social Media Today, The Verge, NBC News, The Hill, The Daily Dot, Slate, Gizmodo, CNN, Digital Trends, AppleInsider, TechCrunch, Techdirt, Reuters, 9to5Google, Variety, BBC, TechRadar, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Fossbytes, BuzzFeed News, Pocket-lint, Associated Press, CNET, Axios, Fortune, Business Insider, news.com.au, CBS News, Gizmodo, Bloomberg, Engadget, Ubergizmo, Wired, Newser, TechSpot, and PYMNTS.com
Elaine Low / Variety:
Profile of Netflix's Bela Bajaria, who is leading the company's content growth outside of the US as its VP of local language originals  —  She relished the development process and reading the latest drafts of scripts, which she calls the most formative part of her early Hollywood education.
Sam Chambers / The Sunday Times:
Sources: Apple told some landlords of UK stores it wants rent reduction of up to 50% and a rent-free period, offering to extend leases by a few years in return  —  Apple is pushing for huge rent reductions across its UK stores despite its sales soaring to new heights during the lockdown.
Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
TechHub, a co-working space that was once the heart of London's start-up scene, filed for administration  —  Workspace was the busy centre of the UK's ‘Silicon Roundabout’  —  TechHub, which for a decade was home to hundreds of start-ups at the heart of London's “Silicon Roundabout” tech scene, has filed for administration.
New York Times:
Ad analytics platform Pathmatics: Facebook's top 100 advertisers spent $221.4M from July 1 through July 29, down 12% YoY from the $251.4M they spent in 2019  —  Major advertisers on Facebook reduced their spending by millions of dollars in July, but not enough to significantly damage the platform's revenue.
Renee DiResta / Wired:
AI-generated “textfakes”, masked as regular chatter on Twitter and Facebook, can be potentially far more subtle and sinister than deepfake videos or audiofakes  —  Synthetic video and audio seemed pretty bad.  Synthetic writing—ubiquitous and undetectable—will be far worse.

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