Techmeme
September 20, 2020, 11:40 PM

Top News

Jonathan Shieber / TechCrunch:
US delays TikTok ban by a week, as company says Oracle and Walmart may take 20% stake in TikTok Global's pre-IPO round, host US user data and computer systems  —  Well... that was pointless.  —  After debasing the idea of free commerce in the U.S in the name of a misplaced security concern …
Reuters:
ByteDance says that it is not aware of the news that TikTok is setting up a $5B education fund in the US as part of a deal to continue operating in the US  —  NINGBO, China (Reuters) - TikTok owner Bytedance said in a social media post on Sunday that it was the first time it had heard …
Bloomberg:
Trump says he wants the $5B pledged from the companies making the new US-based TikTok venture put toward teaching US children “the real history of our country”  —  President Donald Trump said Saturday he wants $5 billion from companies creating a new U.S.-based TikTok venture …
Bloomberg:
Trump says he has approved Oracle's bid for the US operations of TikTok “in concept”  —  - TikTok app store ban put on hold for a week after Trump nod  — New TikTok Global to donate $5 billion to education foundation  —  Donald Trump gave his blessing to Oracle Corp.'s bid …
More: New York Times, TikTok, Wall Street Journal, Walmart Inc., TechCrunch, The Information, CNN, CNBC, Variety, CNET, New York Times, Financial Times, U.S. Department …, Fortune, iPhone Hacks, PYMNTS.com, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Associated Press, Gizmodo, TechSpot, MacRumors, 9to5Mac, PR Newswire, AppleInsider, Reuters, New.blicio.us, Dailystar.co.uk, Protocol, ZDNet, Social Media Today, dot.LA, PCWorld, Digital Trends, CNET, Ars Technica, AppleInsider, KRON4, Variety, WPEC, The Wrap, FOX Carolina, Daily Mail, TechCrunch, USA Today, The Verge, Newsweek, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, MSPoweruser, and Seeking Alpha
Bloomberg:
Rachel Kraus / Mashable:
Twitter says it will investigate after users find its preview of a photo, with a Black person and a white person, more frequently displayed the white person  —  The first look a Twitter user gets at a tweet might be an unintentionally racially biased one.  —  Twitter said Sunday …
Amanda Macias / CNBC:
US judge in California issues a preliminary injunction halting Commerce Department's order banning downloads of WeChat from Sunday  —  - A U.S. judge in California halted the Trump administration's ban on downloads of the Chinese-owned app WeChat early Sunday.
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
How “Huang's Law”, gains in AI chip performance even faster than Moore's Law, moves data processing from the cloud to the edge and may explain Nvidia's Arm deal  —  The rule that the same dollar buys twice the computing power every 18 months is no longer true, but a new law …
Clive Thompson / Wired:
YouTube taught its recommendation system how to recognize and demote conspiratorial videos, but organic link-sharing and bot promotion are thwarting its efforts  —  From flat-earthers to QAnon to Covid quackery, the video giant is awash in misinformation.  Can AI keep the lunatic fringe from going viral?
Ina Fried / Axios:
After losing out to Apple and Google on smartphones, Facebook's big bets on VR and AR can be seen as attempting to control the next big hardware platforms  —  Facebook's foray into virtual and augmented reality, which it doubled down on this week, is a bet on where the future of online social interaction is heading.
More: BGRTweets: @mattnavarra
Shannon McGregor / Wired:
Facebook and Twitter fail to differentiate “coordinated behavior” from standard political campaign practices, leading to unclear and inconsistent moderation  —  No one knows, not even the policy writers or enforcers.  And the ambiguity is exacerbating threats to our electoral process.

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Jon Fingas / Engadget: