Techmeme
December 4, 2020, 2:20 PM

Top News

Nicholas Kristof / New York Times:
How Montreal-based Pornhub profits from child and revenge porn, rape, spy cam and other criminal, non-consensual sex videos  —  Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?  —  Pornhub prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty …
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.
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
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.
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.
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 …
Forbes:
Friends and colleagues of Tony Hsieh say he was privately coping with issues of mental health and addiction, made worse by COVID lockdowns, over the past year  —  When the business icon died in a fire last week, questions abounded.  The answers seem rooted in a Covid-period spiral, where he turned to drugs and shunned old friends.
Caroline O'Donovan / BuzzFeed News:
NLRB has issued a complaint against Amazon in November over firing of warehouse employee who discussed pay and other workplace issues with her coworkers  —  This spring, six different Amazon employees claimed they were wrongfully terminated by the company in retaliation for their involvement in organizing to improve working conditions.
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 …
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.

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
Copilot to autopilot: Why no single safeguard is enough  —  Microsoft designed a layered model that lets an AI agent resolve network incidents on its own within defined boundaries.
Will Reed:
The best sales leaders aren't job hunting.  Here's how to reach them without months of cold outreach.  —  Our team came from Box, Square, and Brex, so we already know the GTM leaders worth meeting.
Zoho:
Diwali 2026: Your festive planning checklist with Zoho Notebook  —  The Diwali countdown is on!  From lighting up every corner of the house to going a little overboard with the festive shopping …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

The Upstarts Podcast:
The Parking Startup That Swallowed A 100-Year-Old Giant | Metropolis CEO Alex Israel
Veteran tech reporter Alex Konrad sits down with breakout entrepreneurs taking on the status quo to shake up their fields in AI, design, nuclear energy, space, and more.
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Great Chat:
AI's Spooky Season
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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Sources:
Sundar Pichai on Gemini 4 and the AI compute crunch
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
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Machine Gods:
Bots Behaving Badly + Is AI Regulation On The Right Track + Kevin's Sloppelganger
The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.
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Channels with Peter Kafka:
Netflix in Turmoil + Derek Thompson on AI & The Antisocial Century
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.
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Big Technology Podcast:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai: AI's Infinite Possibilities, Compute Scarcity Dilemmas, Future AI Products
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.
 

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More News

Wall Street Journal:
David McLaughlin / Bloomberg:
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:

Earlier Picks

Washington Post:
Wall Street Journal:
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal:
Brian Barrett / Wired:
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: