Techmeme
August 20, 2020, 10:35 AM

Top News

Julia Carrie Wong / The Guardian:
Facebook removes over 980 Groups, 520 Pages, and 160 ads for “US-based militia organizations” and those that identify as Antifa  —  Facebook has taken down or restricted more than 10,000 groups, pages and Instagram accounts associated with QAnon, in the latest effort …
Sheera Frenkel / New York Times:
Facebook says it has further cracked down on QAnon, removing 790 Groups and restricting another 1,950 Groups, 440 Pages, and over 10,000 Instagram accounts  —  The social network also said it was restricting another 1,950 groups, 440 pages on Facebook and more than 10,000 accounts on Instagram related to the conspiracy group.
Kate Cox / Ars Technica:
Police in NYC and Miami have reportedly used facial recognition software to arrest people who allegedly committed crimes during Black Lives Matter protests  —  Cops' use of the tech among the list of things protesters are demonstrating against.  —  Law enforcement in several cities …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, and more Google services were hit by widespread disruption globally for a few hours Thursday  —  A number of Google services including Gmail, Drive, Docs, Meet, Groups, Chat, Keep and Voice are experiencing service disruptions, the company is reporting on its G Suite Status Dashboard.
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Airbnb said it submitted its draft S-1 for an IPO to the SEC on Wednesday  —  - Airbnb has submitted a draft registration to the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.  — The company did not disclose its financial information nor did it specify how many shares would be offered.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
A look at contact-tracing app Aura, which was a required download for students at a Michigan college and has faced criticism for its privacy and security issues  —  And students have no way to opt out  —  Schools and universities across the United States are split on whether to open for the fall semester …
Ed Sealover / Denver Business Journal:
Palantir lists Denver as its headquarters on its website, after Alex Karp said in a May interview that Palantir was considering moving out of Silicon Valley  —  Palantir Technologies Inc., a $20 billion data-analysis software firm that sells its products to governments to help them track everything …
Nick Statt / The Verge:
DoorDash launches grocery delivery, starting with select chains in California and parts of the Midwest  —  Starting with select stores in California and parts of the Midwest  —  DoorDash is ramping up its on-demand delivery efforts with the launch of grocery delivery …
More: TechCrunch and Reuters
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Jeff Kauflin / Forbes:
How Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt built the fee-free stock trading app Robinhood, which disrupted rivals by relying on selling customers' orders  —  It's just after midnight on Friday, July 31, and the Todd Capital Options Community, a $20-per-month subscription Slack channel favored …
Committee to Protect Journalists:
Ankhi Das, a top Facebook exec in India, filed a criminal complaint against journalist Awesh Tiwari for sharing a WSJ article critical of Das on Facebook  —  New Delhi, August 19, 2020 - Facebook regional director Ankhi Das should withdraw her criminal complaint against journalist Awesh Tiwari …
Reuters:

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Introducing Zoho AgentInbox: Email infrastructure built for AI agents  —  Most AI agents doing real work eventually need to send or receive email.  The default move is to hand them access to someone's existing inbox …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Channels with Peter Kafka:
Meta's New $1300 Glasses and the Fight to Control AI
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.
Great Chat:
Doomers at Dreamforce
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan: Why We're Betting On AI And Not Afraid Of It
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.
Sources:
Marc Benioff on the AI boom, SaaSpocalypse, and future of Slack
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Invest Like the Best:
Gabe Stengel - Building Investing Superintelligence
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Grit:
Inside the AI Startup Making Customer Support 65% Cheaper
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:35 AM ET, August 20, 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.

More News

Earlier Picks

David Shayer / TidBITS:
Pew Research Center:
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat:
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Adi Robertson / The Verge: