Techmeme
December 20, 2022, 6:45 PM

Top News

Joshua Oliver / Financial Times:
FTX plans to recoup political donations by Sam Bankman-Fried and his associates, estimated at $70M+ in the 2021-2022 election cycle, to help repay creditors  —  Crypto group's new management says if funds are not returned voluntarily it will pursue recipients in court
Tracy Wang / CoinDesk:
A look at Modulo Capital, a mysterious multi-strategy hedge fund founded in 2022 that received $400M from Alameda and is based in the same Bahamas resort as FTX  —  Founded in early 2022, Modulo operated out of the same luxury Bahamian condominium community where Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX employees lived.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Washington Post:
Brian Fung / CNN:
SEC deposition: in 2017, Zuckerberg considered saying Facebook was investigating “organizations like Cambridge Analytica”, before advisers suggested against it  —  Mark Zuckerberg considered disclosing in 2017 that Facebook (FB) was investigating “organizations like Cambridge Analytica” …
Lee Fang / The Intercept:
Internal documents show that, going back to 2017, Twitter worked with the Pentagon to whitelist CENTCOM accounts used in online foreign influence campaigns  —  Twitter executives have claimed for years that the company makes concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed covert propaganda campaigns on its platform.
Alex Stamos / @alex@cybervillains.com:
Elon Musk is amplifying false claims the FBI “paid Twitter millions” to “censor info from the public”; law enforcement reimburses companies for data requests  —  This claim is false.  Law enforcement has the ability to get stored communications from companies like Twitter under 18 USC 2703(d).
Bloomberg:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI open sources Point-E, a machine learning system that generates and displays a 3D object from a text prompt in one to two minutes on an Nvidia V100 GPU  —  The next breakthrough to take the AI world by storm might be 3D model generators.  This week, OpenAI open-sourced Point-E …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
TikTok begins telling users why a video was in their For You feed, such as content watched, likes, shares, comments, searches, followed accounts, or region  —  TikTok is launching a new feature that allows users to see why a particular video was recommended to them in their For You feed, the company announced on Tuesday.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Twitter pilots Blue for Business with select accounts, helping companies identify brands and key employees via badges, but doesn't share other perks and pricing  —  Twitter launched “Blue for Business” last week alongside relaunching Twitter Blue.  At that time, the social network had assigned a gold checkmark to businesses.
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon agrees to settle two EU antitrust cases related to third-party sellers on its platform, won't pay a fine, and will make commitments for up to seven years  —  Amazon.com Inc. has agreed to settle two European Union antitrust cases related to allegations about its treatment …
James Reddick / The Record:
US prosecutors say two men conspired with Russian hackers to tamper with JFK airport's taxi queuing software, allegedly letting drivers cut the line for a fee  —  Two Queens men have been arrested and are facing up to 10 years in prison on charges that they conspired with Russian hackers …
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
The DEA finds a Mexico-based methamphetamine and cocaine gang working in the US, Mexico, Europe, and Australia used Binance to launder $15M to $40M in proceeds  —  A methamphetamine and cocaine gang operating across the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Australia used the world's biggest cryptocurrency …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Insider Intelligence: Google will capture 28.8% of US digital ad revenue in 2022 and Meta will grab 19.6%, for a combined 48.4%, down from a 54.7% peak in 2017  —  Google and Meta, known together in the ad industry as the “duopoly,” are expected to bring in less than half of all U.S. digital advertising …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko says the social network reached 2.5M MAUs in November 2022, up from around 300,000 MAUs in October, as Twitter users flee the service  —  Mastodon, a decentralized social media platform that many are turning to as a Twitter alternative, saw its userbase skyrocket …
Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia:
Sources: in a first, Apple plans to move some MacBook production to Vietnam in 2023, asking Foxconn to begin as early as May, to further diversify from China  —  iPhone maker aims to have ‘out of China’ production alternatives for key products  —  TAIPEI — Apple plans to move …
Jeff Kauflin / Forbes:
A profile of London-based crypto trading firm Wintermute in the aftermath of UST and FTX's implosion and a $160M hack, as revenue dramatically declined in 2022  —  By deftly navigating crypto's frontier markets and winning big on the collapse of Terra's stable coin, Wintermute has grown …
Marta Belcher / CoinDesk:
Senator Warren's Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act would be a disaster for privacy and civil liberties by effectively surveilling all blockchain users  —  The proposal would turn blockchains into permissioned ledgers surveilled by centralized gatekeepers.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Over 100 BTC claimed to be inaccessible was moved out of cold wallets tied to QuadrigaCX, the exchange that went bankrupt in 2019 after its CEO allegedly died  —  More than 100 BTC tied to QuadrigaCX moved out of cold storage wallets over the weekend.  Quadriga's bankruptcy trustee …
Viola Zhou / Rest of World:
Sources: Foxconn workers in Zhengzhou say they got COVID-19 in December 2022 and some were asked to keep working; one supervisor advised workers against testing  —  Sick workers say they're being asked to stay on the assembly line as Foxconn ramps up iPhone 14 Pro production.
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
BetterHelp, Cerebral, and other digital mental health companies are providing low quality care thanks to unprofessional therapists, a pressure to grow, and more  —  Heavy advertising and other strategies from Silicon Valley's playbook boost providers' growth but not the quality of care

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