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April 1, 2022, 11:50 AM

Top News

Ethan Gach / Kotaku:

A dozen current and former employees at Undead Labs, the Xbox studio behind State of Decay 3, describe sexism, mismanagement, and a toxic workplace culture — Staff say Undead Labs' transition to Xbox studio was hampered by toxic workplace conditions and lack of direction

More: Jeff Strain, TheGamer, purexbox.com, Game Developer, Polygon, GamesIndustry.biz, Game Rant, Windows Central, Wccftech, and The Verge

Tweets: @logmey92, @ethangach, @ethangach, @ethangach, @klobrille, @ethangach, @antonhand, and @klobrille

Joe Tidy / BBC:

UK police charge a 16-year-old with five counts and a 17-year-old with six counts related to the Lapsus$ gang; the teenagers remain in custody — Two teenagers from the UK have been charged by police over hacking for a notorious cyber-crime gang. — A 16 and 17-year-old will appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court on Friday.

More: City of London Police, CSO, Reuters, TechCrunch, The Register, Engadget, Bloomberg, and Slashdot

Tweets: @joetidy, @citypolice, @campuscodi, and @joetidy

Rebekah Valentine / IGN:

After announcing in January that the in-person E3 2022 was canceled, ESA informs its partners that there will be no digital event equivalent this year either — Though a possible digital event was floated behind the scenes, that too is now off the table. — After previously canceling …

More: Thurrott, VentureBeat, The Verge, Variety, TechCircle, purexbox.com, Laptop Mag, TrueAchievements, PC Gamer, Pocketnow, BGR India, Pocket-lint, Digital Trends, GamingBolt, NintendObs Daily, Pocket Gamer.biz, Destructoid, Gamereactor UK, Slashdot, SlashGear, PC Games Insider, TechSpot, Appuals.com, GameRevolution, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Wccftech, GameSpot, Gameranx, Game Developer, Input, Ars Technica, TechRadar, Engadget, Dexerto, MobileSyrup, Windows Central, Dot Esports, Game Rant, Kotaku, Neowin, GameSpot, Video Games Chronicle, GamesIndustry.biz, Hollywood Reporter, Nintendo World Report Updates, Blue's News, Highlights, and Twinfinite

Tweets: @willjpowers, @jaypeters, @toadsanime, @lamarrwilson, @mrgehab, @doctor_cupcakes, @expanddong15, @nintendofangirl, @antdude92, @russpitts, @dmc_ryan, @jmdornbush, @duckvalentine, @fatalityfalcon, @iansherr, and @tomwarren

Alex Heath / The Verge:

Meta confirms a now-fixed Facebook bug led to a “massive ranking failure” that increased views of harmful content up to 30% over the past six months — A group of Facebook engineers identified a “massive ranking failure” that exposed as much as half of all News Feed views to potential …

Bailey Lipschultz / Bloomberg:

DWAC, Trump's Truth Social SPAC, has lost 31% of its value since the app launched; Apptopia says downloads are down 95% from its peak and the app has ~513K DAUs — Shares of the blank-check firm bringing Donald Trump's media venture public are sinking with daily downloads …

More: The Wrap, The Independent, Daily Mail, Forbes, and Mashable

Tweets: @juddlegum, @fpwellman, @mikesington, and @btlipschultz

Mitchell Clark / The Verge:

Samsung partners with NFT auction service Nifty Gateway to let users “browse, display, and interact with NFTs” on select premium 2022 TVs — It's partnering with Nifty Gateway for its NFT platform — Samsung is making good on its promise from CES 2022 to bring NFTs to its TVs …

More: PR Newswire, TechCircle, Micky, Cryptopolitan, and Cryptonews

Tweets: @karlbode, @barnacules, and @dialacina

Stefanno Sulaiman / Reuters:

An Indonesian tax official says the country will charge VAT on crypto asset transactions and tax capital gains on crypto investments at 0.1% starting on May 1 — Indonesia plans to charge value-added tax (VAT) on crypto asset transactions and an income tax on capital gains from such investments …

More: CoinDesk

Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:

Researchers: an allegedly Russia-tied wiper malware, AcidRain, which shares similarities with the malware VPNFilter, was behind the attack on Viasat in February — AcidRain is the seventh wiper associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine — Viasat—the high-speed-satellite-broadband …

More: SentinelOne, The Record, Cybersecurity Dive, Telecoms Tech News, TechCrunch, CyberScoop, The Hacker News, Reversemode, cybernews.com, The Register, SiliconANGLE, PCMag, BleepingComputer, and SC Media

Tweets: @780thc, @sentinelone, and @dangoodin001

Emily Birnbaum / Politico:

Apple opposes bills targeting gay and transgender people in Iowa, Texas, Florida, and other states through lobbying, filing court briefs, and recruiting allies — Apple is quietly mobilizing its vast resources to lobby against anti-LGBTQ legislation proliferating across the country …

Tweets: @marceelias, @robininny, and @knowwhatisreal

Anna P. Kambhampaty / New York Times:

A look at @depthsofwikipedia, a viral social media account created by 22-year-old Annie Rauwerda that shares bizarre, amusing, and surprising Wikipedia snippets — On @depthsofwikipedia, Annie Rauwerda is compiling some of the crowdsourced site's most bizarre pages.

Tweets: @yaso, @nytimes, @macmccanntx, @raju, @pomeranian99, @joshuatopolsky, @markyarm, and @anna_p_k

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:50 AM ET, April 1, 2022.

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.

From Mediagazer

David Friend / Vanity Fair:

How 9/11 spawned the digital media era, as the attacks altered an already image-saturated media ecosystem

Joe Sonka / Louisville Public Media:

McClatchy enacts deep, nationwide layoffs, including at the Lexington Herald-Leader, Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Charlotte Observer, and Idaho Statesman

New York Times:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a bill that prohibits social media platforms from offering addictive features to users under 16, the first such law in the US

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More News

Washington Post:

A look at the growing skepticism within Silicon Valley of Russian money, once welcomed with open arms, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Tweets: @josephmenn, @josephmenn, @ericgarland, @lukeobrien, @xeni, and @silvermanjacob

Bloomberg:

Interview with DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter, his first since taking office, on the agency's goals, clamping down on mergers, and more

Tweets: @paulaedwyer, @tina_davis, and @benbrodydc

Henry Ren / Bloomberg:

Three European food delivery stocks, Delivery Hero, Just Eat, and Deliveroo, lost a combined $23.7B, more than half their market value, in the first quarter

Tweets: @ivanlevingston and @business

Kiran Stacey / Financial Times:

A look at the eclectic group of pro-crypto lawmakers in Washington, from libertarians to tech utopians, who were galvanized by the recent infrastructure bill

Tweets: @jimmie_lenz

Tiare Tuuhia / Rest of World:

How homegrown courier services in French Polynesia are building their own online shopping service to fill the gaps left by e-commerce giants in remote islands

More: Transistori. Tweets: @mvzelenks, @sajithpai, @longreads, @khushbuoshea, @nikmilanovic, @restofworld, @vickiturk, @bizboyle, @sarah_drumm, @restofworld, @mvzelenks, @vickiturk, and @joshsternberg

Suzanne Smalley / CyberScoop:

Sources: Biden administration considers changing a Trump-era policy which let DoD and Cyber Command authorize cyber operations without White House approval

Alastair Marsh / Bloomberg:

Q&A with Michael Chobanian, founder of Ukraine's biggest crypto exchange KUNA, on Kyiv's crypto scene before the war, crypto donations and their utility, more

More: Bitcoinist.com. Tweets: @repagonzalez, @itskac, and @alastairjmarsh

Michael H. Keller / New York Times:

To avoid erroneously flagging CSAM, Meta's training docs tell content moderators to “err on the side of an adult” when judging people's age in photos or videos

More: The Verge and Engadget

Tweets: @yashar, @davidgclohessy, and @orinkerr

Earlier Picks

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:

New York-based Black Crow AI, which delivers predictive analytics to e-commerce retailers, raises a $25M Series A led by Imaginary Ventures

More: FinSMEs and PR Newswire. Tweets: @primaryvc

Wall Street Journal:

Sources: The White House is split over Kaspersky sanctions, which could spur Russian cyberattacks and make enforcement hard due to the company's large clientele

More: Metacurity, Reuters, and CRN

Tweets: @dnvolz, @janlemnitzer, @peterzeihan, @joel_schectman, @bing_chris, @howelloneill, @wylienewmark, @ericgeller, and @gossithedog