Techmeme
December 3, 2020, 8:50 PM

Top News

Casey Newton / Platformer:
Timnit Gebru says she was fired as co-lead of Ethical AI at Google due to an email to colleagues; leaked email details her struggles as a Black leader at Google  —  “Stop writing your documents because it doesn't make a difference”: Timnit Gebru's final message to her peers
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
Warner Bros. says it will release every single movie in 2021 simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max in the US and stream them for one month  —  For a period of one month in the United States  —  WarnerMedia is pushing even more aggressively into streaming by releasing every single movie in 2021 simultaneously on HBO Max.
Brian Barrett / Wired:
IBM researchers say a sophisticated global phishing campaign is targeting the companies involved in the “cold chain” needed to distribute COVID-19 vaccines  —  As vaccines await US approval, a sophisticated global phishing campaign has tried to harvest credentials from companies involved in their distribution.
Wall Street Journal:
DOJ sues Facebook, accusing it of improperly reserving jobs for H-1B workers by not sufficiently advertising open positions and overlooking US residents  —  Justice Department lawsuit says social-media company didn't sufficiently advertise open positions, overlooked U.S. residents
Peter Rudegeair / Wall Street Journal:
Stripe launches Treasury to let its customers offer checking accounts and other business-banking services; Shopify will offer the services from early next year  —  Shopify, a Stripe customer, will begin offering the service to its merchants early next year  —  Stripe Inc. is teaming …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Google will let users with ARCore-compatible Android phones submit Street View imagery, starting in Toronto, NYC, Austin, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Costa Rica  —  No special equipment required  —  Google Maps is getting a new update that lets you create Street View photos using just a phone.
Washington Post:
Parler's lax moderation policies have helped it become a magnet for porn and escort services, which might complicate its hopes of expanding into advertising  —  Hashtags like #keepamericasexy proliferate alongside conspiracy theories and conservative politics
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Twitter says it is turning off threaded replies because they made conversations hard to read, and shuts down its prototype twttr app  —  It's also shutting down its experimental app, twttr  —  Twitter has been experimenting with threaded replies for some time as a way to potentially make replies easier to read and follow.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Alex Heath / The Information:
Facebook is reorganizing its unit focused on its role in global elections, moving staff into a larger organization called Central Integrity, led by Guy Rosen  —  Facebook is breaking up its unit focused on the social network's role in elections globally, dispersing the team of roughly 300 through …
Washington Post:
Leaked docs: Facebook to start policing anti-Black hate speech more aggressively than anti-White comments, reversing years of “race-blind” practices  —  The company is overhauling its algorithms that detect hate speech and deprioritizing hateful comments against Whites, men and Americans.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple opens enrollment for its App Store Small Business Program with a reduced commission of 15%; deadline is Dec. 18 to qualify for a reduced rate on Jan. 1  —  Apple has officially opened enrollment for the new App Store Small Business Program.  This program allows developers to qualify …
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
In a letter to Sen. Wyden, ODNI says FBI used Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect website visitor logs without a warrant, but not keywords from searches  —  A disclosure sheds new light on a high-profile national security law as lawmakers prepare to revive a debate over it in the Biden administration.
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube will warn users before they post comments that “may be offensive to others” and adds better content filter systems for creators  —  An attempt to weed out offensive comments  —  YouTube is trying to combat offensive comments that appear under videos by following …
Anna Irrera / Reuters:
S&P Dow Jones Indices says it will launch cryptocurrency indices in 2021, using data from crypto company Lukka on more than 550 of the top traded coins  —  LONDON (Reuters) - S&P Dow Jones Indices, a division of financial data provider S&P Global Inc, said on Thursday …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Facebook says it will start removing false claims about coronavirus vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts  —  - Facebook's policy has been to remove false claims about Covid-19 that it says could lead to “imminent physical harm.”  — Now, Facebook said it will …
David McLaughlin / Bloomberg:
Sources: Facebook's VR business practices have attracted the attention of the DOJ, which is talking to developers about their interactions with Facebook  —  - Justice Department asks app developers about Oculus actions  — “Copy, acquire, kill” accusations echo House report critiques
Campbell Kwan / ZDNet:
White House issues another executive order aiming to guide federal development of AI, focusing on nine principles to build public trust in the technology  —  This time, the order is focused on promoting the use of trustworthy artificial intelligence by the government.
More: TechCrunch and FedScoop

Sponsor Posts

ElevenLabs:
ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs  —  You know us for voice.  Now meet ElevenAgents — featuring Expressive Mode, our most human-sounding AI voice technology in 70+ languages with ultra-low latency.  Hear it for yourself.
Intel:
5G's most deployed platform  —  Powering live networks with built-in Inference across Core and RAN.  That's the power of Intel Inside®
Zoho:
Introducing intelligent document processing with Zoho RPA  —  Documents are a major bottleneck at many organizations.  Invoices, contracts, forms, ID cards, receipts: They all arrive in different shapes and sizes …
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Big Technology Podcast:
OpenAI buys TBPN, SpaceX's $2 Trillion IPO?, Iran Disables Amazon Infrastructure
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Hard Fork:
The Future of Addictive Design + Going Deep at DeepMind + HatGPT
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Great Chat:
Go touch some grass (but don't tweet about it)
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Lenny's Podcast:
An AI state of the union: We've passed the inflection point, dark factories are coming, and automation timelines | Simon Willison
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Access:
The future of AI might be on your finger
A show about the tech industry's inside conversation, hosted by tech reporter Alex Heath and founder whisperer Ellis Hamburger.
Subscribe to Access.
Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith:
Ryan Roslansky: Turning AI Anxiety into Skills for the Future of Work
Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith speaks with leaders in government, business, and culture to explore the most critical challenges at the intersection of technology and society.
Subscribe to Tools and Weapons with Brad Smith.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:50 PM ET, December 3, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Earlier Picks

Nick Statt / The Verge:
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk: