Techmeme
December 3, 2020, 11:10 PM

Top News

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
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.
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.
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
Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal:
Stripe launches Treasury to let its customers offer checking accounts and other business-banking services; Shopify will offer the services from early next year  —  Shopify, a Stripe customer, will begin offering the service to its merchants early next year  —  Stripe Inc. is teaming …
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
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.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Google will let users with ARCore-compatible Android phones submit Street View imagery, starting in Toronto, NYC, Austin, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Costa Rica  —  No special equipment required  —  Google Maps is getting a new update that lets you create Street View photos using just a phone.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple opens enrollment for its App Store Small Business Program with a reduced commission of 15%; deadline is Dec. 18 to qualify for a reduced rate on Jan. 1  —  Apple has officially opened enrollment for the new App Store Small Business Program.  This program allows developers to qualify …
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
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.
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
In a letter to Sen. Wyden, ODNI says FBI used Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect website visitor logs without a warrant, but not keywords from searches  —  A disclosure sheds new light on a high-profile national security law as lawmakers prepare to revive a debate over it in the Biden administration.
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
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube will warn users before they post comments that “may be offensive to others” and adds better content filter systems for creators  —  An attempt to weed out offensive comments  —  YouTube is trying to combat offensive comments that appear under videos by following …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Facebook says it will start removing false claims about coronavirus vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts  —  - Facebook's policy has been to remove false claims about Covid-19 that it says could lead to “imminent physical harm.”  — Now, Facebook said it will …
Washington Post:
Leaked docs: Facebook to start policing anti-Black hate speech more aggressively than anti-White comments, reversing years of “race-blind” practices  —  The company is overhauling its algorithms that detect hate speech and deprioritizing hateful comments against Whites, men and Americans.

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Generate Sample Data the Way You Want It Using AI, for Free  —  Finding good sample data is harder than it should be.If you've ever tried to test a dashboard, build a demo, or train a team on an analytics tool, you know the drill.
IDrive:
IDrive Autonomy: low-cost L2+ driver assistance with AI  —  L2+ driver assistance with a scalable AI stack built for automotive companies and laying the foundation for the autonomous future.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
Cloudflare CEO: We're Ready To Block Millions of Websites From AI — With Matthew Prince
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:
Data Centers, Elon Musk, and the New Politics of Tech, with David Weigel
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.
Access:
Sam Altman on OpenAI's next model and the AI backlash
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Brian Singerman from GPx
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Training Data:
Making Cities Awesome: Peregrine's Nick Noone & Ben Rudolph
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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 11:10 PM ET, December 3, 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

Earlier Picks

Anna Irrera / Reuters:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: