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December 4, 2020, 10:25 AM
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| Casey Newton / Platformer: |
Timnit Gebru says she was fired as co-lead of Ethical AI at Google due to an email to colleagues; leaked email details her struggles as a Black leader at Google — “Stop writing your documents because it doesn't make a difference”: Timnit Gebru's final message to her peers
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New York Times, Medium, Wired, BBC, Washington Post, NPR, Ars Technica, The Verge, Financial Times, OneZero , Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, VentureBeat, The Overspill, Silicon Republic, Bloomberg, Fast Company, Protocol, TechCrunch, and MIT Technology Review
Tweets: @timnitgebru, @caseynewton, @drewharwell, @math_rachel, @zittrain, @juliacarriew, @bobbyallyn, @kharijohnson, @timnitgebru, @ram_ssk, @ibjiyongi, @lizjosullivan, @drewharwell, @timnitgebru, @itsafronomics, @nitashatiku, @sifill_ldf, @juliacarriew, @mmitchell_ai, @_alialkhatib, @drewharwell, @juliasilge, @shanselman, @erikashimizu, @kateconger, @nitashatiku, @uche_blackstock, @ssmith_calabor, @josheidelson, @hughlangley, @azeem, @juliaxgulia, @histoftech, @histoftech, @zenalbatross, @histoftech, @ericajoy, @harrymccracken, @igorbrigadir, @joewestby, @ekp, @blackamazon, @bcmerchant, @blackamazon, @lizzieohreally, @libshipwreck, @latoyapeterson, @ibjiyongi, @recursecenter, @tri_becca90, @lizthegrey, @lizthegrey, @saraashleyo, @richardjnieva, @mhbergen, @daveyalba, and @willoremus
| Wall Street Journal: |
DOJ sues Facebook, accusing it of improperly reserving jobs for H-1B workers by not sufficiently advertising open positions and overlooking US residents — Justice Department lawsuit says social-media company didn't sufficiently advertise open positions, overlooked U.S. residents
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U.S. Department of Justice, New York Times, Salon, Protocol, Crunchbase News, Ars Technica, Financial Times, SiliconANGLE, The Hill, ANI News, RT, Anadolu Ajansı …, CBS News, France 24, courthousenews.com, UPI, Townhall, CNBC, Newser, Voice of America, ABC News, The Daily Caller, NPR, BBC, Variety, and Reuters
| Tom Simonite / Wired: |
Chinese scientists claim quantum supremacy with a system that calculated in mins what a supercomputer would take 2B years, using tech different than Google — Google trumpeted its quantum computer that outperformed a conventional supercomputer. A Chinese group says it's done the same, with different technology.
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Science, Scott Aaronson, Bloomberg, and Slashdot
Tweets: @sarah_ellyn, @albaclierta, @fulvioflamini, @quantumhazzard, and @wired
| New York Times: |
EU law inhibiting the monitoring of email, messaging, and other services that takes effect Dec. 20 would also restrict scanning for child sexual abuse imagery — Regulators argue that while abuse imagery on the internet is abhorrent, unchecked scanning for it by tech companies could violate privacy rights.
Tweets: @gabrieldance, @missingkids, @missingkids, @benedictevans, @satariano, @rasmus_kleis, @jeffjarvis, and @orinkerr
| Washington Post: |
Parler's lax moderation policies have helped it become a magnet for porn and escort services, which might complicate its hopes of expanding into advertising — Hashtags like #keepamericasexy proliferate alongside conspiracy theories and conservative politics
More:
OneZero and Forbes
Tweets: @drewharwell, @ncweaver, @dlberes, @hinduja, @tweetinjules, @digiphile, @martinsfp, @susiebright, @marklevinshow, @senatorshoshana, @chimeracoder, @mmasnick, @davetroy, @drewharwell, @mikestuchbery_, @jason_kint, @tomcoates, @b_fung, @travis_view, @richardhanania, @luciengreaves, and @mattsheffield
| M.G. Siegler / 500ish: |
Despite Microsoft's present-day sales power, a wave of product-focused enterprise companies inspired by Slack and its peers will ultimately disrupt the giant — A quick rebuttal on the Slackforce Slacklash — Look, it's late. And everyone is happy enough so there's no pressing need to weigh in here.
More:
Michael Tsai. Tweets: @davidsacks, @harrymccracken, @dannosaur7, @caseynewton, @davidsacks, and @davidsacks
| Campbell Kwan / ZDNet: |
White House issues another executive order aiming to guide federal development of AI, focusing on nine principles to build public trust in the technology — This time, the order is focused on promoting the use of trustworthy artificial intelligence by the government.
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The White House, TechCrunch, HPCwire, GeekWire, iTnews, and FedScoop
| Issie Lapowsky / Protocol: |
Interview with the mayors of London, Toronto, and Lisbon about their cities adopting new tech like facial recognition, managing public expectations, more — For the mayor of any modern city, an increasingly large part of the job entails managing the public backlash to new technology being deployed in those cities.
Tweets: @issielapowsky, @issielapowsky, and @issielapowsky
| Wall Street Journal: |
Sources: the DOJ is in talks with Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou that would allow her to return to China in exchange for admitting wrongdoing in ongoing case — Justice Department is discussing an arrangement that would allow her to return to China in exchange for admitting wrongdoing
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Forbes, TheStreet, CNBC, Nikkei Asia, Bloomberg, and South China Morning Post
Tweets: @gordongchang, @shen_shiwei, @emilyrauhala, @adrianmorrow, and @gordongchang
| Reuters: |
The DOD has added China's largest chipmaker SMIC to its blacklist of alleged Chinese military companies — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Thursday added China's top chipmaker SMIC and oil giant CNOOC to a blacklist of alleged Chinese military companies …
More:
Nikkei Asia, KrASIA, Android Central, TechNode, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, Bloomberg, and CNBC
Tweets: @bethanyallenebr, @fakewelt, and @clairejchu
| Alex Heath / The Information: |
Facebook is reorganizing its unit focused on its role in global elections, moving staff into a larger organization called Central Integrity, led by Guy Rosen — Facebook is breaking up its unit focused on the social network's role in elections globally, dispersing the team of roughly 300 through …
Tweets: @jamesrbuk and @hhariri
| Jay Peters / The Verge: |
Twitter says it is turning off threaded replies because they made conversations hard to read, and shuts down its prototype twttr app — It's also shutting down its experimental app, twttr — Twitter has been experimenting with threaded replies for some time as a way to potentially make replies easier to read and follow.
More:
iPhone in Canada Blog, MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com, CNET, BGR India, Gizmodo, Ubergizmo, Social Media Today, 9to5Mac, and MakeUseOf
| Julia Alexander / The Verge: |
Warner Bros. says it will release every single movie in 2021 simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max in the US and stream them for one month — For a period of one month in the United States — WarnerMedia is pushing even more aggressively into streaming by releasing every single movie in 2021 simultaneously on HBO Max.
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Variety, Vox, Pressroom, WarnerMedia, Bloomberg, ZDNet, Gizmodo, The Streamable, Looper, Deadline, AFTVnews, KnowTechie, and PYMNTS.com
Tweets: @getfandom, @joshuatopolsky, @pkafka, @davidlsims, @variety, @winter, @zsharf, @davemcclure, @jasonkilar, @neilcybart, @loudmouthjulia, @gregnibler, @mattbelloni, @oliverdarcy, @ldignan, @keithcalder, @kottke, @samesmail, @malwarejake, @reneritchie, @chrisfralic, @sahilriz, @scottmaustin, @franmirabella, @chrismessina, @shahmiruk, @okay_wasabi, @matt_nbc4, @raminsetoodeh, @mg, @margari_aziza, @markpeikert, @pkedrosky, @loudmouthjulia, @domgarrett, @jake_k, @richardrushfield, @petersterne, @carlquintanilla, @aaroncouch, @sdkstl, @politothomas, @clarisselou, and @tomwarren
| Pranav Dixit / BuzzFeed News: |
Twitter starts applying its Synthetic and Manipulated Media policy in India, as it labels a video tweeted by BJP's head of social media as “manipulated media” — Critics have been asking American tech companies to apply the same standards to the rest of the world as they do to the US.
Tweets: @pranavdixit and @pranavdixit
| David McLaughlin / Bloomberg: |
Sources: Facebook's VR business practices have attracted the attention of the DOJ, which is talking to developers about their interactions with Facebook — - Justice Department asks app developers about Oculus actions — “Copy, acquire, kill” accusations echo House report critiques
Tweets: @cixliv, @billfishkin, @andgokevin, @vertis, @amoration, @kavyapearlman, and @hoofnagle
| Kayla Gogarty / Media Matters for America: |
Daily interactions with right-leaning pages on Facebook fell only 6% in the 20 days post-election vs. 20 days before despite reports of an adjusted algorithm — After the election, the platform had reportedly decided to elevate established news outlets and reduce visibility of right and left-leaning pages.| Brian Barrett / Wired: |
IBM researchers say a sophisticated global phishing campaign is targeting the companies involved in the “cold chain” needed to distribute COVID-19 vaccines — As vaccines await US approval, a sophisticated global phishing campaign has tried to harvest credentials from companies involved in their distribution.| Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch: |
Apple's Screen Recognition, a computer vision system in iOS14 trained on images of apps in use, labels the UI elements on screen for users who are blind — Apple has always gone out of its way to build features for users with disabilities, and VoiceOver on iOS is an invaluable tool for anyone … | Amy Thomson / Bloomberg: |
DoorDash raises its IPO price range to $90 to $95 from $75 to $85 per share, aiming to raise up to $3.1B — - Company raises share price range to $90 to $95 apiece — Startup is part of a wave of tech IPOs planned this month — DoorDash Inc. said it's seeking to raise … Sponsor Posts
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Shopify:
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Zoho:
Connecting, collaborating, and growing: Zoho Mail 2025 wrap-up — Your inbox has been home to a lot this year—quick updates, long threads, approvals, reminders, and the occasional late-night draft you weren't sure about.
Connecting, collaborating, and growing: Zoho Mail 2025 wrap-up — Your inbox has been home to a lot this year—quick updates, long threads, approvals, reminders, and the occasional late-night draft you weren't sure about.
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.
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
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.
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Grit:
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Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
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Lenny's Podcast:
The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
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Hard Fork:
Why Roomba Died + Tech Predictions for 2026 + A Hard Forkin' Xmas Song
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
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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.
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