Techmeme
December 16, 2019, 9:25 PM

Top News

Casey Newton / The Verge:
Some contractors at Google's Austin content moderation facility describe being overworked and suffering severe mental health consequences after just six months  —  These moderators help keep Google and YouTube free of violent extremism — and now some of them have PTSD
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Instagram will preemptively flag potentially offensive captions, in addition to comments, aiming to nudge users to reconsider their words without censoring them  —  Earlier this year, Instagram launched a feature that would flag potentially offensive comments before they're posted.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Instagram expands its fact checking efforts by hiding false content behind warnings, except for politicians, and removing it from Explore and hashtag pages  —  Instagram is giving politicians the same free reign to spread misinformation as its parent company Facebook.
Davey Alba / New York Times:
Campaign staff and researchers say almost no political campaigns, including presidential ones, have teams for spotting and pushing back on disinformation  —  Few politicians have teams to spot false statements about them online, or to fight back before it spreads.
Karl Freund / Forbes:
Intel acquires Israel-based AI chip maker Habana Labs for $2B  —  Senior Analyst, Machine Learning and HPC  —  In a strategic move in its datacenter AI plans, Intel has announced that it will acquire Israeli chip startup Habana Labs for $2B.  Intel had reaffirmed its plans to deliver …
Joe Flint / Wall Street Journal:
Netflix shares detailed overseas subscriber numbers for the first time in a filing, and says 90% of total subscriber growth came from outside the US since 2017  —  Streaming service is disclosing detailed subscriber information by region for operations outside of the U.S. for the first time
Jia Tolentino / New Yorker:
How social media and apps like FaceTune led to a widespread pursuit of a generic “Instagram Face” look, enabled by non-invasive cosmetic medical procedures  —  How social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery created a single, cyborgian look.  —  This past summer …
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Google halts Chrome 79 rollout on Android, which was ~50% complete, after the misconfigured update wiped user data from many apps using Android's native WebView  —  Chrome 79 started rolling out on desktop and mobile platforms a few days ago.  Unfortunately, a bug has cropped up that wipes data …

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Earlier Picks

Tom Simonite / Wired:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg: