Techmeme
January 31, 2021, 1:05 AM

Top News

Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
How one disgruntled person destroyed the online reputations of 145+ people, aided by “complaint sites” in the US and platforms like Google that rarely intervene  —  Outrageous lies destroyed Guy Babcock's online reputation.  When he went hunting for their source, what he discovered was worse than he could have imagined.
Under the Hood:
Robinhood explains why it placed restrictions on certain securities over the past week, says its clearinghouse-mandated deposit for equities increased tenfold  —  With the extraordinary market activity this week, and the temporary restrictions we put in place on certain securities …
Jesse Westbrook / Bloomberg:
SEC says it “will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors” in trading certain securities  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, making its most specific comments about the recent mania in the stock market …
New York Times:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
John Herrman / New York Times:
Wall Street Journal:
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Google has reinstated federated chat app Element on the Play Store after briefly pulling it over abusive content, which is now removed, on Element's servers  —  Element is a popular client for the federated chat protocol Matrix, and we highlighted it in our roundup of the best open-source alternatives …
Cat Ferguson / MIT Technology Review:
VAMS, a CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M to manage rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, has been abandoned by states due to bugs and problems  —  The CDC ordered software that was meant to manage the vaccine rollout.  Instead, it has been plagued by problems and abandoned by most states.
Wall Street Journal:
Experts say Apple's App Tracking Transparency feature will damage Facebook's core business; the feature will limit Facebook's data collection from 85K+ iOS apps  —  New feature on iPhones will limit Facebook's ability to collect data from apps and prove that ads work
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Canalys: smartphone shipments in China fell 4% YoY to 84M in Q4 2020 and shipments for 2020 fell 11% YoY to 330M, as iPhone's share jumped from 15% to 18% YoY  —  The impact of United States government sanctions on Huawei is continuing to hurt the company and dampen overall smartphone shipments in China …
Bloomberg:
Current and former staff say much of Amazon's struggles in gaming rest with the leadership of its gaming division, which reportedly has a budget of $500M/year  —  Mike Frazzini had never made a video game when he helped start Amazon Game Studios.  Eight years later, he has released two duds …
Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg:
ELSA, an app that helps non-native English speakers improve pronunciation and speaking skills, raises $15M Series B, says its revenue increased by ~300% in 2020  —  - Founder draws on her experience for English-language app  — ELSA's backers led by Vietnam Investments Group, SIG

Sponsor Posts

Command Line:
GitHub Universe 2026: Highlights from the developer's developer conference  —  Copilot Fusion was the belle of the ball, but the hero at the heart of the two-day event was the developer community.
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:
Introducing the new Zoho Analytics: Agentic analytics for every business  —  We're excited to announce the launch of the new Zoho Analytics!  This release marks a major shift for the product …
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 Accidental YC Founder Solving AI's GPU Crisis | SF Compute's Evan Conrad
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.
Cheeky Pint:
Why Sam Altman is against a single superintelligence
Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.
Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.
Great Chat:
The case for AI optimism
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:
Tobi Lütke on the AI agent revolution and future of Shopify
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
This AI Expert Argues We're Underestimating AI's Productivity Impact — With Ethan Mollick
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.
Machine Gods:
Inside Anthropic's IPO + How AI agents spy on your messages
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.
 

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More News

Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:
Prachir Singh / Counterpoint Research:

Earlier Picks

Chloe Sorvino / Forbes:
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
Reuters: