Techmeme
April 22, 2022, 9:55 AM

Top News

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
In a speech on disinformation, Obama said social media firms' design choices contribute to polarization, and called for more transparency and Section 230 reform  —  - Former President Barack Obama criticized social media companies for contributing to polarization through design choices on their platforms.
Cecilia Kang / New York Times:
As the EU prepares its third landmark tech law in the last few years, the US has enacted just two narrow federal tech laws in the past 25 years  —  Federal privacy bills, security legislation and antitrust laws to address the power of the tech giants have all failed to advance in Congress …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Stripe will let companies pay users in cryptocurrency via USDC, starting with Twitter, which will pay some Ticketed Spaces and Super Follows creators in crypto  —  - Online payments firm Stripe says it will start offering merchants the ability to pay their users in cryptocurrency through the stablecoin USDC.
Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
Sources: after churning out 500+ original programs last year, Netflix is looking to add fewer new titles and focus more on quality, while reining in spending  —  Streaming service spent lavishly on productions to win subscribers, but now growth has slowed  —  For Netflix Inc., NFLX -3.47% ▼ the era of carefree spending is over.
Reuters:
Investigation details Binance's efforts to build ties with the Russian government, including handing over data on opposition leader Alexei Navalny in April 2021  —  In April 2021, Russia's financial intelligence unit met in Moscow with the regional head of Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange.
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Andreessen Horowitz launches a16z Crypto Research, a lab focused on Web3 breakthroughs that can contribute to deployable code, led by academic Tim Roughgarden  —  Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is diving deeper into the crypto market with the launch of a new academic lab dedicated …
Damien Wilde / 9to5Google:
Google plans to effectively block third-party call recording apps from the Play Store on May 11 after placing further restrictions to its Accessibility API  —  A new Google Play Store policy coming into force is set to block third-party call recording apps from the online storefront from May 11.
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Sources: SoftBank expects to retain a controlling stake in Arm and sell a smaller portion of shares than originally expected in Arm's planned IPO  —  SoftBank Group Corp. expects to retain a controlling stake in Arm Ltd. after the planned initial public offering of the chip business …
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Snap reports Q1 revenue of $1.06B, up 38% YoY, vs. $1.07B est., global DAUs up 18% YoY to 332M vs. 330M est., and net loss up 25% YoY to $360M  —  - Snap missed Wall Street expectations for profit and sales when it reported first-quarter results on Thursday after the bell.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Twitter tests suggesting third-party apps in its Twitter Toolbox, including Block Party, Bodyguard, and Moderate, when select users block or mute in its web app  —  Company will third-party apps directly on Twitter itself  —  Twitter has a novel idea as to how to win back developer trust …
New York Times:
Warner Bros. Discovery will shut down CNN+ on April 30, after its March 29 debut; sources: CNN+ had ~150K subscribers and was on pace to hit first-year goals  —  The new corporate owners of CNN are moving to end the new streaming service after a splashy debut.  —  In the end, CNN+ lasted less than a month.
Nina Zdinjak / Benzinga:
Treez, a cloud commerce platform that powers retail and supply chain operations for the cannabis market, raises a $51M Series C at a $260M+ valuation  —  Seed-to-sale and cannabis retail software platform Treez completed a $51 million Series C funding at a valuation in excess of $260 million.

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Earlier Picks

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
Ryan Weeks / The Block: