Techmeme
February 18, 2021, 1:00 PM

Top News

ABC:
Australian authorities in public health, weather, and other areas say Facebook has removed posts from their feeds following Facebook's news ban  —  Facebook has restricted access to news in Australia, and so far the tech giant seems to have taken a pretty broad definition of news.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Banning Australian news makes sense for Facebook and may prompt people to visit news sites directly; Google's payoffs, though, will invite global shakedowns  —  But Google gives in.  What's next?  —  Yesterday, I wrote that Australia's News Media Bargaining Code threatened to splinter the internet.
Benedict Evans:
Australia's proposal for media compensation, which covers raw link sharing, is presented as a competition case when it's actually a tech tax and media subsidy  —  Newspaper revenue really started to collapse well over a decade ago, and we've been discussing what to do about it for almost as long.
William Easton / About Facebook:
More: Washington Post, TechCrunch, New York Times, The Guardian, 9News, New York Times, Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, Ars Technica, Vox, Fast Company, Facebook, Insider, CNN, Marketing Land, BBC, ABC, The Guardian, Fortune, The Verge, Techdirt, Nikkei Asia, NBC News, XDA Developers, Financial Times, The Guardian, ABC, Wall Street Journal, Politico, Sydney Morning Herald, Sky News, OneZero , Hollywood Reporter, Light Reading, news.com.au, Australian Financial Review, NPR, KnowTechie, Sydney Morning Herald, CNBC, AppleInsider, Telecoms.com, Axios, Search Engine Roundtable, diginomica, Forbes, iMore, Wccftech, MediaNama, Variety, Herald Sun, The Next Web, and Digiday
Usman Pirzada / Wccftech:
Nvidia announces dedicated crypto mining GPUs and says RTX 3060 GPU will detect the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm and limit the hash rate by 50%  —  NVIDIA has finally conceded to the overwhelming mining demand facing the GPU market right now and launched a lineup …
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Court filing says a Facebook manager warned that the company reported revenues it “should have never made” by overstating how many users advertisers could reach  —  Lawsuit cites product executive's qualms over figures provided to advertisers  —  A Facebook employee warned …
Noam Bardin:
Former Waze CEO reflects on his time at Google and the impact of the acquisition on autonomy, the brand, hiring and firing, distribution, compensation, and more  —  It's been two weeks since I left Google and I keep getting asked “why did I leave now”?  I think the better question is “why did I stay for so long”?
YouTube:
Livestream of House Financial Services Committee hearing on GameStop stock with CEOs of Robinhood, Citadel, and Reddit, and YouTube streamer “Roaring Kitty”  —  Executives from Robinhood, Reddit, Citadel and Melvin Capital, are headed to Washington for Thursday's highly anticipated GameStop hearing at the U.S. Congress.
Allana Akhtar / Insider:
Ahead of Congressional hearing on GameStop, Vlad Tenev denies Robinhood colluded with hedge funds, asks for revision of SEC rule so trades settle in real-time  —  - Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev released his testimony ahead of Thursday's Congressional hearing.  — The House asked Tenev …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Google will restructure its Responsible AI teams to centralize them under a single Black executive, Marian Croak, in wake of Timnit Gebru's departure  —  - Company seeks to stabilize department amid internal rancor  — Responsible AI teams to be centralized under single executive
Ben Geman / Axios:
Facebook says it will expand its program to fight climate lies to other regions, will debunk climate change myths, adds labels to climate change posts in the UK  —  Facebook is expanding the geographic reach of its recently launched online portal to counter misinformation about climate change …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Job listings show Apple is looking to hire engineers to start work on 6G  —  - Company wants to rely less on others for new technology  — Job listings posted for positions in San Diego, Silicon Valley  —  Apple Inc. launched its first iPhones with 5G wireless speeds a few months ago.
Bloomberg:
Webull, the Chinese-owned brokerage that runs one of the fastest-growing retail trading platforms in the US, raises $150M, sources say at a $1B+ valuation  —  Webull, the Chinese-owned brokerage that runs one of the fastest-growing retail trading platforms in the U.S., raised $150 million …
Mara Hvistendahl / The Intercept:
Docs: Oracle has been marketing its data analytics tools to Chinese police, touting its ability to mine DNA, vehicle records, and facial recognition databases  —  Police in China's Liaoning province were sitting on mounds of data collected through invasive means: financial records …
Sankalp Phartiyal / Reuters:
Sources: Apple is lobbying to participate in a new scheme to boost India's computer exports, as part of plans to bring iPad manufacturing to the country  —  NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Apple Inc is angling to participate in a new scheme to boost India's exports of computer products …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google launches over 50 new features for its education products, including Classroom, Meet, and Workspace, with a focus on meeting educators' and admins' needs  —  Google today introduced a suite of updates for its online education tools whose adoption and further development have been accelerated …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Recent deals like the iHeart Media's purchase of Triton Digital suggest that ad tech, not exclusive content, will be the key to long-term success in podcasting  —  iHeart Media acquires Triton Digital for $230 million  —  iHeartMedia, the company behind podcasts like Stuff You Should Know and hundreds …
João Carrasqueira / Neowin:
Facebook adds multi-user support and app sharing to Oculus Quest  —  Facebook is making Oculus Quest headsets easier to share with others with a couple of new features being rolled out starting today.  Support for multiple user accounts as well as app sharing are coming to the more recent Quest 2 first …
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Reprise, which helps enterprise sales and marketing teams create custom software demos for customers, raises $17M Series A led by Bain Capital  —  Reprise, a software demo platform for enterprise sales and marketing teams, today announced that it has raised $17 million in series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures.
More: FinSMEs and Reprise

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