Techmeme
October 20, 2018, 5:35 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Sources: Saudis groomed a Twitter employee to spy on accounts of dissidents; he was investigated and fired in Dec. 2015 after Western intelligence warnings  —  Each morning, Jamal Khashoggi would check his phone to discover what fresh hell had been unleashed while he was sleeping.
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
SEC filing: Microsoft now includes LinkedIn performance metrics, like the number of active users, in calculating stock awards to four top execs, including CEO  —  - Microsoft paid $27 billion for LinkedIn in 2016 and is now tying its performance to executive pay.
Issie Lapowsky / Wired:
Interview with Brian Amerige, the former Facebook employee whose memo accusing the company of being a political monoculture led to fierce internal debate  —  AT ONE POINT this summer, Brian Amerige seemed destined to become the next James Damore.  —  Like Damore, the Google engineer who wrote …
Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar / Associated Press:
Officials say a government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was hacked earlier this month, compromising sensitive data for ~75,000 people  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — A government computer system that interacts with HealthCare.gov was hacked earlier this month …
BuzzFeed News:
Tim Cook calls for a retraction of Bloomberg's Chinese spy chip story: “There is no truth in their story about Apple. They need to do the right thing”  —  “There is no truth in their story about Apple.  They need to do the right thing."  —  Apple CEO Tim Cook …
Washington Post:
DOJ charges Russian national involved in “Project Lakhta”, an alleged foreign influence operation to interfere in US midterms by pushing misinformation online  —  The Justice Department on Friday charged a Russian woman for her role in a conspiracy to interfere with the 2018 U.S. election …
New York Times:
Social platforms are relying on journalists as unpaid content moderators to address misinformation on their sites, even with all the tools at their disposal  —  Social platforms have a responsibility to address misinformation as a systemic problem, instead of reacting to case after case.
Melia Russell / San Francisco Chronicle:
SF's Proposition C to fight homelessness may tax SF-based payment processors on gross receipts, hurting companies like Square and Stripe  —  Jack Dorsey, the head of Square and Twitter, unleashed a tweetstorm critical of a San Francisco ballot measure aimed at slashing homelessness …
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
UK parliament report: an unknown firm spent an estimated £250K+ in the past 10 months on Facebook ads pushing for a hard Brexit and reaching 10M to 11M people  —  LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May has struggled to build support for her plan for Britain's exit from the European Union.
Amol Rajan / BBC:
Interview with Nick Clegg about his hiring and future at Facebook  —  Nick Clegg said no to Facebook when they first called this summer.  “But in that funny way that happens,” he says, “if you say no to people they suddenly become very interested in you.”  —  In a phone call …
Financial Times:

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Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Jan Strupczewski / Reuters: