Techmeme
June 21, 2022, 2:45 PM

Top News

Andrew Rummer / The Block:
BlockFi CEO Zac Prince says the crypto lender “signed a term sheet with FTX to secure a $250M revolving credit facility”  —  - BlockFi secures $250 million revolving credit facility from crypto exchange FTX.  — The crypto lender says the deal ‘bolsters our balance sheet and platform strength.’
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
As part of its new Responsible AI Standard rules, Microsoft plans to remove Azure's facial analysis tools, which can guess gender, age, and emotional state  —  The technology giant will stop offering automated tools that predict a person's gender, age and emotional state and will restrict the use of its facial recognition tool.
Financial Times:
South Korean prosecutors ban “dozens” of current and former Terraform Labs employees from leaving the country amid a probe into UST's and LUNA's collapse  —  South Korean prosecutors take action as they investigate embattled company behind the $40bn luna wipeout
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden raised a $130M Series B led by Electric Capital and Greylock at a $1.6B valuation, after a $27M Series A in March 2022  —  - Magic Eden has scored a $1.6 billion valuation in its latest funding round.  — The Solana-based NFT marketplace plans to launch on more blockchains.
Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk:
ProShares, which debuted the first bitcoin futures ETF in October 2021, launches the first ETF to short bitcoin in the US, on the NYSE under the BITI ticker  —  The exchange-traded fund will allow investors to hedge their bitcoin exposure, which may prove particularly pertinent given the sharp downturn in crypto markets of late.
Financial Times:
SpaceX's Starlink aid to Ukraine triggers scrutiny in China, as Chinese firms rush to deploy satellite constellations into low-earth orbit to compete  —  ‘Silicon Valley Iron Man’ is under pressure over satellites as Chinese rivals close in on Tesla  —  In the days after Vladimir Putin …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Amazon names Doug Herrington, a 17-year company vet, as the new CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, weeks after Dave Clark announced he was retiring from the role  —  Amazon vet Doug Herrington will become CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores  —  Amazon has named a new CEO of its retail arm just weeks …
Richard MacManus / The New Stack:
The Khronos Group forms the Metaverse Standards Forum with Nvidia, Meta, Epic Games, Unity, Microsoft, W3C, and others, seeking to improve interoperability  —  Interoperability — or lack thereof — is a key issue in the nascent metaverse industry.  The Khronos Group aims to solve …
New York Times:
An investigation into Chinese government bidding documents details its expanding surveillance apparatus, including ~500M cameras and extensive phone trackers  —  Times reporters spent over a year combing through government bidding documents that reveal the country's technological road map …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
The CEO and COO of Pornhub's parent company MindGeek resign, shortly after a report that looked at sexually explicit nonconsensual videos hosted on the site  —  MindGeek, the internet company best known for operating Pornhub, said that CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo have resigned.
More: New Yorker
Michelle Celarier / New York Magazine:
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Meta settles its housing discrimination lawsuit with the DOJ, agreeing to alter its ad targeting methods and pay a $115K fine  —  HUD had accused Meta of engaging in housing discrimination by letting advertisers restrict who could see housing ads on Facebook based on characteristics like race, religion and national origin.

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Earlier Picks

Joe Rossignol / MacRumors:
Nico Grant / New York Times:
ProPublica:
Vishal Chawla / The Block:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Financial Times: