Techmeme
December 16, 2020, 7:50 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Facebook attacks Apple in full-page newspaper ads, claiming upcoming iOS 14 changes that limit data gathering and targeted ads are bad for small businesses  —  - Ads criticize Apple's plan to require opt-in for ad tracking  — Facebook placed ads in the NYT, WSJ and Washington Post
Wall Street Journal:
Facebook says it will assist Epic Games in its legal battle against Apple, including providing supporting documents  —  Social-networking company also dials up criticism of Apple's plan to allow iPhone users to restrict access to personal data  —  Facebook Inc. said it would assist …
Axios:
Texas AG says the state and nine others have filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming Google illegally hurt competition in the ad tech market  —  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday that he's leading a multi-state lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Substack launches Substack Reader, an RSS reader for tracking newsletter subscriptions and other feeds, in beta  —  Substack Reader is now available in beta  —  If you're worried about all your newsletter subscriptions getting lost in your inbox, Substack may have a solution.
Jacob Cohen Donnelly / A Media Operator:
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Twitter says it will start removing tweets that spread harmful COVID-19 vaccine misinformation starting next week and will label conspiracies starting in 2021  —  It may apply labels early in 2021  —  Twitter announced Wednesday that it will remove tweets making false or misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccinations.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Google says its new Chromecast with Google TV will get an Apple TV app in early 2021, giving users access to TV+ originals and iTunes purchases  —  Coming in early 2021 to the Chromecast with Google TV  —  Google's latest Chromecast with Google TV is filling in one of its biggest missing apps …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Alex Stamos / Washington Post:
Washington Post:
Nick Statt / The Verge:
Google's Stadia arrives on iOS and iPadOS in beta for mobile web, letting users access their game library on Apple devices  —  Playing Cyberpunk 2077 on an iPad is pretty great  —  Google Stadia has finally made its way to iOS over a year after launch.  The company's mobile web beta …
Adrienne LaFrance / The Atlantic:
A pessimistic look at Facebook and its enormous, uncontrollable impact on the US and world, giving Zuckerberg incredible power with little oversight  —  The Doomsday Machine was never supposed to exist.  It was meant to be a thought experiment that went like this: Imagine a device built …
Jack Morse / Mashable:
Twitter says it will stop prompting users to Quote Tweet, restoring the standard RT functionality, and says QT use increased but overall sharing dropped by 20%  —  Well, it was worth a shot.  —  Twitter announced Wednesday that it will cease prompting users to quote tweet in lieu of the standard retweet.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Roku and WarnerMedia have reached an agreement to distribute HBO Max on the Roku platform, starting Thursday  —  Roku and WarnerMedia have reached an agreement for the distribution of the HBO Max on the Roku platform — nearly seven months after the streaming service launched.
The Guardian:
Invoices show Israeli surveillance firm Rayzone leased access to SS7 traffic from a Channel Islands mobile operator to spy on cell communications and locations  —  The Israeli private intelligence company Rayzone Group appears to have had access to the global telecommunications network via …
CoinDesk:
Bitcoin crosses $20K to reach an all-time high after doubling in the past three months  —  After testing investor patience for three weeks, bitcoin has finally crossed above $20,000 to reach fresh all-time highs.  —  The number one cryptocurrency by market value jumped …
danah boyd / LinkedIn:
The Biden administration needs a VP of Engineering to debug problems that prevent government agencies from successfully building and deploying technical systems  —  If you look at the roster of the Biden-Harris transition team, it's quickly apparent that the incoming administration is tech-forward.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Apple AirPods Max review: high-luxury design, terrific sound quality, and very effective noise cancellation, but they are heavy and the case is an abomination  —  Apple's over-ear headphones have tremendous build quality and sound, but there's no denying they're expensive
FinSMEs:
BigID, which helps monitor and protect enterprise customers' data, raises $70M Series D led by Salesforce Ventures and Tiger Global at a valuation of $1B+  —  BigID, a NYC-based leader in data discovery and intelligence for privacy, protection and perspective, raised $70Mm in series D financing …
Megan Rose Dickey / TechCrunch:
Pinterest says it will adopt recommendations from a special committee created to address racial and gender discrimination, including unconscious bias training  —  Pinterest has committed to adopting the recommendations from its special committee of the Board of Directors, the company wrote in a blog post today.
Joe Tidy / BBC:
Dutch prosecutors find researcher Victor Gevers did successfully log into Donald Trump's Twitter account; the White House and Twitter denied the incident  —  Dutch prosecutors have found a hacker did successfully log in to Donald Trump's Twitter account by guessing his password - “MAGA2020!”

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Caitlin McCabe / Wall Street Journal:
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed News: