Techmeme
January 16, 2021, 4:30 PM

Top News

New York Times:
How a group of Dorsey's lieutenants overcame his reluctance to ban Trump's account when it became clear Trump was using his Twitter presence to incite violence  —  Jack Dorsey, the chief executive, had reservations about locking the president's account.  But the calls for violence that his tweets provoked were too overwhelming.
Nellie Bowles / New York Times:
Interviews with more than two dozen tech execs and workers who have left San Francisco for other parts of the US over the last year amid a rise in remote work  —  As a tech era draws to an end, more workers and companies are packing up.  What comes next?  —  SAN FRANCISCO — The Bay Area struck a hard bargain with its tech workers.
Nick Statt / The Verge:
WhatsApp to delay new privacy policy by three months following widespread confusion over whether the policy would mandate data sharing with Facebook  —  The new update will now go out on May 15th  —  WhatsApp on Friday announced a three-month delay of a new privacy policy originally slated …
Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
BuzzFeed News:
Facebook says it is temporarily banning ads for gun accessories and military gear through next week's inauguration “out of an abundance of caution”  —  Following complaints from Senators and employees, Facebook on Saturday said it was temporarily halting ads for gun accessories …
Alex Pasternack / Fast Company:
A look at the raging debate inside Wikipedia, where neutrality is prized above all, on what to call the attack on the Capitol  —  On the afternoon of January 6, as a giant crowd began to swarm the U.S. Capitol, Jason Moore, a 36-year-old digital strategist, was at home in Portland, Oregon, switching between CNN and MSNBC.
Tom Roston / OneZero :
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Parler is not down due to a single company but because the market chose not to do business with it because it's toxic, which is the nature of a free market  —  I've delayed writing deeper thoughts on the total deplatforming of Parler, in part because there was so much else happening …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
More than 20 current and former CD Projekt staff say development of Cyberpunk 2077 was marred by unchecked ambition, poor planning, and technical shortcomings  —  CD Projekt SA Chief Executive Officer Marcin Iwiński made a public mea culpa this week about the disastrous rollout of the video game Cyberpunk 2077 in December.
Eva Mathews / Reuters:
Tencent Music acquires China-based Lazy Audio, a platform for audiobooks, podcasts, and radio shows, for $417M  —  (Reuters) - China's Tencent Music Entertainment Group said on Friday it acquired audiobook platform Lazy Audio, owned by Shenzhen Lanren Online Technology Co, for 2.7 billion yuan ($417 million).

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
We can build it.  Can we judge it?  —  As agentic AI shortens the path from idea to shipped code, journey evaluation becomes a critical design skill.
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:
Zoho Backstage 4.0: Introducing the most powerful event experience platform from Zoho, ever  —  Every year, we observe Event Organizers Day on October 23 to celebrate the hard work and creativity event planners bring to every event.
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

Machine Gods:
Fired OpenAI Safety Researchers Speak Out + We Look Inside Pandora's Box
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.
Subscribe to Machine Gods.
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.
Subscribe to The Upstarts Podcast.
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.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
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.
Subscribe to Sources.
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.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:30 PM ET, January 16, 2021.

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

Wall Street Journal:
Tom Warren / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
The Information:
Lauren Feiner / CNBC: