Techmeme
February 20, 2021, 10:20 AM

Top News

Ina Fried / Axios:
Margaret Mitchell, co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team, says she has been fired; Google says an employee conduct review confirmed multiple policy violations  —  Margaret Mitchell, the co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team, says that the company has fired her following an investigation into her use of corporate email.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Report: Google's AI Chief Jeff Dean apologizes in an email after Timnit Gebru's exit, saying his team should have managed the situation “with more sensitivity”  —  Google told employees Friday it has wrapped up its investigation into the ouster of prominent AI researcher Timnit Gebru.
Ian Carlos Campbell / The Verge:
App Annie: Australian Broadcasting Corporation's news app was briefly the most downloaded app on the AU App Store after Facebook's news ban and is now second  —  Readers may be going directly to the source  —  The Australian Broadcast Company's ABC News app shot to the top of Apple's App Store charts …
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Jason Scott / Bloomberg:
Shen Lu / Protocol:
An ex-ByteDance employee recounts the inner workings of the company's complex content moderation system and the role of China's internet censorship policies  —  This is the story of Li An, a pseudonymous former employee at ByteDance, as told to Protocol's Shen Lu.
Rich Stanton / PC Gamer:
Court filings: Apple is asking Valve to provide extensive sales data for about 600 games on Steam, as part of Epic lawsuit; Valve has rejected the demand  —  These lawyers are getting steamed up.  —  A new court filing has revealed that, as part of the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic Games …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Sources: Coinbase was valued at $100B+ in private share sale ahead of direct listing; docs reveal $141M net income on $691M revenue for first 9 months of 2020  —  Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was valued at just over $100 billion in a recent private market share sale ahead of its upcoming public listing …
Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World:
Interview with founder of Koo, a microblogging service for regional language speakers in India that recently passed 3M users, fueled in large part by Modi's BJP  —  Aprameya Radhakrishna made Koo for local-language speakers.  Overnight, Hindu nationalists drove its success.  —  • BANGALORE, INDIA
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero :
AI researchers doubt the efficacy and ethics of emotion recognition tech, as studies show facial expressions match a person's emotions only 20%-30% of the time  —  People's facial expressions line up with their emotions less than half the time  —  OneZero's General Intelligence is a roundup …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Try Gemini 3 Pro  —  Google's newest and most intelligent AI model that helps you bring any idea to life
Shopify:
Shopify's new AI commerce stack  —  Their VP of Product digs into just-launched products to help entrepreneurs and developers build with the latest AI and tech.
Zoho:
Connecting, collaborating, and growing: Zoho Mail 2025 wrap-up  —  Your inbox has been home to a lot this year—quick updates, long threads, approvals, reminders, and the occasional late-night draft you weren't sure about.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Grit:
How Brands Stay Visible When AI Decides | Profound CEO James Cadwallader
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Lenny's Podcast:
The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI's Potential, Google's Speedy Model, Copilot Hits Turbulence
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.
Hard Fork:
Why Roomba Died + Tech Predictions for 2026 + A Hard Forkin' Xmas Song
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Access:
Betting on reality with Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ted Sarandos: Netflix and how tech changed storytelling
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 10:20 AM ET, February 20, 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

Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal:
Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

Bloomberg:
Wolfie Zhao / The Block:
Bloomberg:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Ryan Browne / CNBC: