Techmeme
December 17, 2021, 5:30 PM

Top News

Luke Plunkett / Kotaku:
GSC Game World decides to “cancel anything NFT-related” in its game Stalker 2 after fans criticize its plans for in-game NFTs in partnership with DMarket  —  It hasn't been a great week for the GSC Game World team  —  STALKER 2 developers GSC Game World announced yesterday that they'd be adding NFTs to the game.
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
TikTok says it is removing “alarmist warnings” about a supposed day of school violence that prompted some US districts to cancel classes on Friday  —  It hasn't found any videos threatening school violence on Friday, the company said  —  TikTok said Friday that it's working to remove …
Reuters:
How Amazon grew its business in China, including partnering with a government propaganda arm for a books section on Amazon US, AWS-related concessions, and more  —  Amazon.com Inc was marketing a collection of President Xi Jinping's speeches and writings on its Chinese website about two years ago …
Washington Post:
The Biden administration is concerned with US investments in Chinese companies developing “dual use” tech that could have civilian and military applications  —  Last year, a fast-rising artificial intelligence company in China won a little-noticed contract from a Chinese military academy …
Zachary Basu / Axios:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Windows 11 preview builds signal the end of the Control Panel by moving some settings, including for networks, devices, and app uninstalls, to the Settings app  —  One more step to simplifying Windows  —  Microsoft is finally signaling the end of the legacy Control Panel in Windows 11.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Meta bans seven surveillance-for-hire groups, including Cytrox, removing over 1,500 Facebook and Instagram accounts and alerting 50K users who were targeted  —  Cytrox is one of seven surveillance companies now banned from Meta's platforms  —  While NSO Group was taking flak for hacking …
The Citizen Lab:
FinSMEs:
Fable, which provides a social reading platform for online book clubs, raises a $20M Series A led by Tiger Global  —  Fable, a Palo Alto, CA-based platform for social reading to improve mental wellness, raised $20m in Series A funding.  —  The round was led by Tiger Global with participation …
Paul R. La Monica / CNN:
The CFPB probes buy now, pay later practices of Affirm, Afterpay, PayPal, Klarna, and Zip, citing concerns over customers' debt accumulation and data harvesting  —  New York (CNN Business)Regulators in Washington may crack down on the industry behind “buy now, pay later,” …

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More News

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times:
Joe Miller / Financial Times:
Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Media:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Josh Sisco / The Information:

Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Henry Mance / Financial Times: