Techmeme
April 17, 2021, 3:15 PM

Top News

Julie Zhu / Reuters:
Sources: Ant Group is exploring options for founder Jack Ma to divest his stake and give up control to appease Chinese regulators  —  Ant Group is exploring options for founder Jack Ma to divest his stake in the financial technology giant and give up control, as meetings with Chinese regulators signaled …
More: Insider
Ira Boudway / Bloomberg:
How Aurora, now the owner of Uber's ATG, is moving to bring its self-driving tech to market via deals with Volvo in trucking, Uber and Toyota in taxis, more  —  On Feb. 11, about a month after closing on the acquisition of Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, or ATG, the self-driving-car startup Aurora held an all-hands meeting.
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
Big tech whistleblowers describe the severe emotional toll that standing up to gigantic companies takes and how it sets them on the path to advocacy  —  Last summer, just before she published a viral Twitter thread about the discrimination she said she faced at Pinterest …
Rest of World:
Internet blackouts following a military coup have shut down swathes of the online economy in Myanmar, where internet penetration had surged to around 43%  —  Amid internet blackouts, economic isolation, and massive strikes, a decade of development is unwinding.
James Vincent / The Verge:
As the EU considers new regulations for AI, 60+ NGOs ask the EC to ban automatic gender recognition systems, which rely on outmoded understandings of gender  —  Dangers posed by facial recognition like mass surveillance and mistaken identity have been widely discussed in recent years.
Naaman Zhou / The Guardian:
Australian Federal Court rules Google misled Android users into thinking it would not collect their location data when they turned location history off  —  Google collected data on some Android and Pixel phones even when customers ticked ‘No’ or ‘Do not collect’
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that started out as a joke in 2013, now has a market cap of $40B+ after growing nearly 400%+ in the past seven days  —  - Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency based on the “Doge” meme, which rose to popularity in late 2013.  It started out as a joke.
Shen Lu / Protocol:
How Weibo helps Chinese authorities quash the feminist movement by deleting activist accounts, while also profiting from their nationalist harassers  —  Prominent feminist activist Xiao Meili had never expected to find herself in the center of a nationalist storm.
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Interview with Initialized Capital's Garry Tan on the firm's seed investment in Coinbase, Ohanian's departure, building a presence on social media, and more  —  Covering venture capital, software and startups  —  In March 2012, Garry Tan received an email from the founder of a new startup called Bitbank, Brian Armstrong.
Kristin Robinson / Variety:
As Spotify turns 15, a look at the ways in which it changed how people listen to music, like breaking down boundaries between genres through “mood playlists”  —  Ask any executive what the music business was like in the '00s and their face may take on an expression more commonly associated …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Sources detail Amazon's tactics during the Alabama union campaign, including “captive audience meetings”, as workers explain why the union was unconvincing  —  - Last week, workers at one of Amazon's Alabama warehouses overwhelmingly voted against joining the Retail …
Jem Aswad / Variety:
Looking at payment per stream metrics for music streaming services can be misleading when considering artist pay, as many factors determine streaming royalties  —  Early Friday, Apple Music sent a carefully worded letter to artists, music labels and publishers that briefly explained …
Anne Steele / Wall Street Journal:

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More News

Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
The Information:

Earlier Picks

Cristiano Lima / Politico:
Spencer Soper / Bloomberg:
Associated Press:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge: