Techmeme
November 16, 2020, 8:35 PM

Top News

Abby Vollmer / The GitHub Blog:
GitHub reinstates the youtube-dl project, raises its bar for DMCA takedown requests, and creates $1M legal defense fund to help open source devs fight takedowns  —  Today we reinstated youtube-dl, a popular project on GitHub, after we received additional information about the project …
Jeffrey Goldberg / The Atlantic:
Barack Obama says today's online information ecosystem, which boosts conspiracy theories like QAnon, is “the single biggest threat to our democracy”  —  Barack Obama was describing to me the manner in which the Mongol emperor and war-crimes innovator Genghis Khan would besiege a town.
Financial Times:
Max Schrems' campaign group noyb files complaints with German and Spanish regulators, claiming Apple breaks EU law by letting advertisers track users via IDFA  —  Austrian activist files complaints with German and Spanish data protection authorities  —  Apple is breaking EU law …
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
A large number of mostly late 2013 and mid 2014 MacBook Pro users are reporting that upgrading to macOS Big Sur is bricking their computers  —  A large number of late 2013 and mid 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro owners are reporting that the macOS Big Sur update is bricking their machines.
Jean-Louis Gassée / Monday Note:
Joseph Cox / VICE:
Investigation: US military buys granular movement data of people around the world from a wide array of apps for Muslim dating, prayer, Craigslist, weather, more  —  A Muslim prayer app with over 98 million downloads is one of the apps connected to a wide-ranging supply chain …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple Podcasts now lets anyone create an embeddable web player for shows or individual episodes  —  Apple is making it easier to discover and listen to podcasts via the web.  The company announced today an Apple Podcasts embed web player is now available, allowing anyone — including creators …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Airbnb releases public IPO filing, seeks Nasdaq listing under ticker ABNB, reports $219M in net income on revenues of $1.3B last quarter, down nearly 19% YoY  —  - Airbnb has released its prospectus to debut on public markets.  —  Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Zoom unveils At-Risk Meeting Notifier, a feature that scans the net for posted Zoom meeting links and alerts meeting organizers to potential Zoombombing attacks  —  The new “At-Risk Meeting Notifier” Zoom feature scans the internet and alerts conference organizers when a link to their Zoom meeting has been posted online.
BuzzFeed News:
Sources: Facebook's 3rd-party content mods were never instructed to enforce its “call to arms policy” from 2019, meant to prevent real-world armed intimidation  —  “What we learned after Kenosha is that Facebook's call to arms policy didn't just fail.  It was never designed to function properly in the first place."
Todd Spangler / Variety:
WarnerMedia says HBO Max will be available on Amazon Fire devices from November 17  —  The HBO Max app for Amazon's devices will be available Tuesday, Nov. 17.  The launch will bring WarnerMedia's flagship direct-to-consumer product to Amazon's estimated 40 million-plus active Fire TV users …
Gary Ng / iPhone in Canada Blog:
Apple responds to privacy concerns over checking macOS apps' Developer ID certs over OCSP, ceases logging IP addresses, will launch encrypted protocol in 2021  —  Following privacy concerns from Mac users after Apple's Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) server went down …
BuzzFeed News:
Internal Facebook data shows that labels on Trump's election misinformation posts only decreased shares by ~8%, and failed to slow their spread across the site  —  Internal data shows that labels on President Trump's posts decrease reshares by about 8%.  They still account for some of the most engaging posts on the platform.
Bloomberg:
Sources: DataRobot, which helps companies train and deploy ML models, is in talks to raise ~$300M at a valuation of $2.5B+, bringing its total raised to $700M+  —  - Funding round includes Altimeter, Silver Lake and T. Rowe  — Boston-based company has raised more than $700 million to date

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Zoho:
Zoho Webinar: A look back at 2025  —  As 2025 comes to a close, it's the perfect time to look back at how Zoho Webinar has transformed the way businesses connect, engage, and grow.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'A Naughty Citizen', With Quinn Nelson
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Big Technology Podcast:
2025 In Review, 2026 Predictions — With Reed Albergotti
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Podcast Pioneer PJ Vogt's Second Act: Less Budget, More Control
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.
BG2 Pod:
AI Enterprise - Databricks & Glean
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Great Chat:
The stories we told ourselves in 2025
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.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:35 PM ET, November 16, 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

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Frank McShan / MacRumors: