Techmeme
October 4, 2021, 12:55 PM

Top News

Scott Pelley / CBS News:
In a 60 Minutes interview, WSJ's Facebook Files whistleblower says Facebook is misleading the public on progress against hate speech, misinformation, and more  —  Frances Haugen says in her time with Facebook she saw, “conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook.”
Jeff Horwitz / Wall Street Journal:
Ex-Facebook PM Frances Haugen comes forward as the key source behind WSJ's Facebook Files, saying she became alarmed by how profits came before public safety  —  The former Facebook employee says her goal is to help prompt change at the social-media giant  —  The former Facebook Inc. employee …
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
As WSJ's Facebook Files suggest, Facebook seems to be in a slow, steady decline, evidenced by frenetic pivots, executive paranoia, and talent attrition  —  A trove of leaked documents, published by The Wall Street Journal, hints at a company whose best days are behind it.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp are suffering an outage  —  It's not just you: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are all currently down for users around the world.  We're seeing error messages on all three services across iOS applications as well as on the web.
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Apple starts letting users report scammy apps from their App Store listings through its Report a Problem button  —  The ‘Report a Problem’ button is back  —  One month ago, we laid out a list of eight obvious things Apple could do to prove it puts App Store users ahead of profits.
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
Amazon says Prime members can send gifts with a phone number or email address, no physical address required, rolling out to mobile users in the continental US  —  There's currently no way to opt out of the new feature  —  Amazon is launching a new gifting feature today that will allow subscribers …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
YouTube says YouTube Music users in Canada can access background streaming for free starting November 3, the first time non-Premium users can access the feature  —  YouTube Music is lifting one of its most annoying limitations — but only in Canada.  Today, YouTube announced that beginning November 3rd …
Will Knight / Wired:
Clearview CEO says it has collected over 10B images from across the web and is building ways for police to find people, including deblurring and mask removal  —  In an interview with WIRED, CEO Hoan Ton-That said the company has scraped 10 billion photos from the web—and developed new ways to aid police surveillance.
James Vincent / The Verge:
How Siri, launched a decade ago today, fell behind Google Assistant, Alexa, and others, likely due to management dysfunction, Apple's walled garden, and more  —  Ten years ago today, Apple's digital assistant Siri was revealed with the promise that the iPhone maker had finally figured it all out.
Sami Fathi / MacRumors:
Apple says Watch Series 7 preorders start on October 8, shipping October 15, after announcing the device at the iPhone 13 event  —  Some Users Having External Display Connection Issues With macOS Big Sur 11.1 and 11.2  —  Some macOS Big Sur users who are running the 11.1 and recently released 11.2 update …

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Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: