Techmeme
February 21, 2021, 3:45 AM

Top News

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers discover macOS malware dubbed “Silver Sparrow” on at least 30K Macs, which includes a native M1 version and leverages the Installer JavaScript API  —  With no payload, analysts are struggling to learn what this mature malware does.  —  A previously undetected piece …
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:
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.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Twitch replaced the audio for Metallica's “For Whom The Bell Tolls” with folk music during the band's BlizzCon livestream, presumably to avoid a DMCA notice  —  The Twitch Gaming stream gave us this beautiful moment  —  Despite its later-than-usual timing and going completely virtual …
Sheldon Chanel / The Guardian:
Facebook's Australia ban is acute for people in places like Fiji, who rely on phone plans with cheap Facebook access as going to news websites costs more data  —  Media experts fear that communities reliant on the site for information will suffer significant impact
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 …
Erika Hayasaki / New York Times:
An in-depth look at Amazon's ubiquitous presence in California's Inland Empire, with 16 facilities, as COVID-19 spurs Amazon workers nationwide to organize  —  Covid-19 has cemented the e-commerce giant's hold on the economy — but it has also spurred employees all around the country to organize.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Whatsapp says users who haven't accepted its new privacy policy by May 15 can receive calls and notifications “for a short time”, but not read or send messages  —  WhatsApp said earlier this week that it will allow users to review its planned privacy update at “their own pace” …
More: Pocketnow
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
For many services, moderating content has become an existential crisis; some services are even establishing rules that pre-empt the need for costly moderation  —  Content moderation rules used to be a question of taste.  Now, they can determine a service's prospects for survival.
Eric Benjamin Seufert / Mobile Dev Memo:
Apple's app tracking transparency pushes publishers like Zynga to acquire or build their own ad tech, creating first party walled gardens that Apple can't touch  —  , Apple is diminishing the ability for advertising to be personalized by limiting the use of third-party data for that purpose.

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More News

Corey Dickinson / Bloomberg:
Financial Times:
Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World:
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero :

Earlier Picks

Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal:
Rich Stanton / PC Gamer: