Techmeme
August 20, 2020, 2:50 PM

Top News

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Lyft says it will suspend its service in California on August 20 after being ordered to classify drivers as employees  —  ‘This is not something we wanted to do’  —  Lyft will suspend its ride-hailing operations in California at 11:59PM PT on August 20th, the company confirmed in a blog post.
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:
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 …
DL Cade / PetaPixel:
Latest update to Lightroom for iOS inadvertently wiped users' photos and presets not synced to the cloud; Adobe says there is no way to get them back  —  This morning, multiple readers wrote in to alert us to a major Adobe gaff.  It seems the latest update to the Lightroom app for iPhone …
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.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Google's Pixel Buds get a new transcribe mode to translate long speeches, Attention Alerts to alert users of important events happening around them, and more  —  There's also a bass boost mode  —  Google is adding a number of new features to its Pixel Buds today.
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 …
Burt Helm / Fast Company:
Investigation sheds light on Roblox's battle against “condo games”, digital sex parties where kids act like adults and adults may be posing as kids  —  Roblox is waging a technological shadow war against condo games: digital sex parties where kids act like adults.
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 …
James Vincent / The Verge:
Reddit says it has banned nearly 7,000 subreddits since June, resulting in an 18% drop in users posting hateful content  —  Reddit's new stance on hate speech shows early progress  —  In June this year, Reddit began a huge campaign to remove hateful content from its site …
More: Axios and EngadgetTweets: @summerson
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

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