Techmeme
September 13, 2021, 1:55 PM

Top News

Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Internal Facebook documents detail XCheck, a program that shields VIP users from normal content enforcement policies, which included over 5.8M users in 2020  —  A program known as XCheck has given millions of celebrities, politicians and other high-profile users special treatment, a privilege many abuse
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Litecoin spiked ~20% after several news outlets, including Reuters and CNBC, reported that Walmart would begin accepting it based on a fake press release  —  An apparently fake press release said the retailer would begin accepting the cryptocurrency  —  The Litecoin cryptocurrency saw …
Financial Times:
Sources: Beijing wants to break up Ant Group's Alipay, which has over 1B users, and create a separate app for the company's highly profitable loans business  —  Chinese fintech will turn over user data to new joint venture partly owned by state  —  Beijing wants to break up Alipay …
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
What to expect from Apple's September 14 event: narrower iPhone 13 notch, LTPO displays on Pro models, redesigned Watch Series 7, no M1X MacBook Pros, and more  —  This is the free version of Power On.  If you like it, consider subscribing to Bloomberg.com — you'll receive …
Mike Wuerthele / AppleInsider:
Margaret Harding McGill / Axios:
Sources: Biden will nominate Georgetown law professor Alvaro Bedoya, who focuses on privacy issues, to be a commissioner at the FTC  —  President Biden will nominate Georgetown University law professor Alvaro Bedoya to be a Democratic commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, people familiar with the matter told Axios.
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
M.G. Siegler / 500ish:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Mozilla says it has bypassed Microsoft's cumbersome method for switching browsers in Windows 11, letting users set Firefox as default with one click  —  It's easier to switch to Firefox as default now  —  Mozilla has quietly made it easier to switch to Firefox on Windows recently.
Eva Mathews / Reuters:
Coinbase says it plans to raise around $1.5B through a debt offering, to invest in product development and M&A, after saying it will raise $1.25B in May  —  Coinbase Global Inc (COIN.O) is planning to raise about $1.5 billion through a debt offering to invest in product development …
Financial Times:
Analysis: Irish DPC has failed to apply EU's privacy laws to US Big Tech companies, with 98% of 164 significant complaints about privacy abuses still unresolved  —  Irish regulator has not resolved 98% of 164 significant data protection complaints  —  Ireland is failing to apply …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Weeks after forcing Groovy Bot offline, Google is doing the same to Rythm, a bot with 560M+ users that lets Discord users play music from YouTube videos  —  The Rythm Discord music bot is disappearing on September 15th  —  Just weeks after forcing the Groovy Discord music bot offline …
Shane Goldmacher / New York Times:
FEC documents show that it has dismissed accusations by Republicans that Twitter violated election laws by blocking a NY Post article about Hunter Biden  —  The Federal Election Commission has dismissed Republican accusations that Twitter violated election laws in October by blocking people …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cape:
Most carriers track everything.  Cape doesn't.  —  Unlimited talk, text & data, 24-hr metadata deletion, network ID rotation, SIM-attack defense, and more.  Switch today and get 29% off for life.
Zoho:
The hidden tax of making employees search, switch, and repeat  —  Employees lose more time to digital friction than organizations often realize.  Searching for information, switching between tools …
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

Lenny's Podcast:
AI's third era: the rise of persistent AI coworkers | Tara Seshan (OpenAI's product lead)
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:
Software's Epic Comeback, Meta's AI Layoffs Blunder, South Korea Stock Market Chaos
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:
Meta Shifts the Blame + Do Data Center Bans Work? + The Final HatGPT
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.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
The Weird, Big Business of Microdramas
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Training Data:
Parallel's Parag Agrawal: Building a New Web for AI Agents
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Connecting the Unconnected: Doreen Bogdan-Martin
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 1:55 PM ET, September 13, 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

Sebastian Herrera / Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

Rachel Louise Ensign / Wall Street Journal:
Mark Suster / Both Sides of the Table: