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October 12, 2020, 7:35 PM
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Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
Facebook says its new policy that bans the denial or distortion of the Holocaust does not apply to other genocides, such as the Armenian or Rwandan genocides  —  Facebook Inc. will ban posts that deny the Holocaust in a reversal of a long-held and controversial policy.
Associated Press:
Facebook will now ban posts that deny or distort the Holocaust; Zuckerberg says his “thinking has evolved” as data shows an increase in anti-Semitic violence  —  Facebook is banning posts that deny or distort the Holocaust and will start directing people to authoritative sources …
Andrew Marantz / New Yorker:
Facebook's ineffective content moderation efforts, unevenly enforced and handled by low-paid moderators, show it can't and doesn't have the will to fix itself
Davey Alba / New York Times:
Study: Facebook likes, comments, and shares from outlets that routinely publish misinformation roughly tripled from Q3 2016 to Q3 2020 to 1.8B interactions
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Microsoft, Symantec, ESET, and other tech companies orchestrated an attempt to take down the TrickBot malware botnet, which had infected 1M+ computers  —  FS-ISAC, ESET, Lumen's Black Lotus Labs, NTT, Symantec, and the Microsoft Defender team participated in the takedown.
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Despite a broad effort to disrupt TrickBot, including legal action by Microsoft, some command and control servers of the botnet still appear to be online  —  Microsoft Corp. has executed a coordinated legal sneak attack in a bid to disrupt the malware-as-a-service botnet Trickbot …
Josh Dzieza / The Verge:
Foxconn, which touted its partnership with Wisconsin to build an LCD plant there, is denied WI tax subsidies after it failed to meet hiring benchmarks in 2019  —  Foxconn isn't building what it promised and failed to hire enough people  —  Through the many twists and turns …
Theodore Schleifer / Vox:
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are pushing for a reform to CA tax law that would use property taxes to fund education, spending almost $11M on the effort  —  Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg are making the biggest electoral bet of their careers to date.  Courtesy of The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Twilio confirms it is buying customer data infrastructure company Segment for $3.2B in an all-stock deal, expected to close in Q4 2020  —  Twilio today announced its biggest acquisition to date, spearheading a strong move into customer data management alongside its existing API-based tools …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Google's Nest unveils a thermostat with a simpler design, ditching the rotating dial, available to pre-order today for $130, a $40 discount on Nest Thermostat E  —  The new Nest Thermostat ditches the signature rotating dial  —  Google's Nest smart home division has a new smart thermostat available to order starting today.
Dan Primack / Axios:
SoftBank says it's planning to launch a SPAC in upcoming weeks; source: its purpose is not to acquire an existing SoftBank portfolio company  —  SoftBank is planning to launch a blank check acquisition company in the upcoming weeks, according to comments made today at the Milken Virtual Conference …
More: Bloomberg and Crunchbase News.  Tweets: @levynews

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From Mediagazer

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Arkansas PBS severs ties with the PBS network, the first state public TV system to do so since Congress cut CPB funds, citing the annual $2M+ membership cost

Financial Times:
OpenAI hopes the Disney deal boosts Sora, which has high costs and limited traction; Sensor Tower: users average 13 minutes per day on Sora vs. 90 on TikTok

Sam Roberts / New York Times:
Arthur L. Carter, who started a Connecticut newspaper in 1981, bought and sold The Nation, and founded the New York Observer in 1987, has died at 93

More News

Axios:
CrowdTangle: unlike Facebook, liberal messaging flourishes on Instagram, with recent posts on climate change getting 20.3M interactions vs. 6.9M on Facebook
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Sources: EU is making a “hit list” of up to 20 large internet companies, likely to include Facebook and Apple, subject to tougher rules to curb market power
Will Oremus / OneZero:
A look at possible antitrust action against Big Tech following the release of reports from both Democrats and Republicans last week

Earlier Picks

South China Morning Post:
Shenzhen is giving local residents 10M yuan (~$1.47M) worth of China's new sovereign digital currency through a lottery, to test and promote the digital yuan
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Five Eyes governments as well as India and Japan make a new call for backdoors into products that are end-to-end encrypted
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