Techmeme
January 17, 2021, 8:00 PM

Top News

Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
GitHub apologizes to the employee it has fired for using the term “Nazis” on Jan. 6 and offers him his job back, says the company's head of HR has resigned  —  The company is offering the employee his job back  —  GitHub is admitting that a Jewish employee was fired in error and is offering him his job back.
Washington Post:
Dating apps like Tinder and Bumble are banning users identified in photos from the Capitol riot, and some users are relaying incriminating evidence to the FBI  —  Bumble, Tinder and others are freezing out rioters with help from law enforcement — and, in some cases, their own photos.
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
Bloomberg:
New York Times:
A look at the incentives, like guaranteed auction win percentages, that Facebook got from Google in the ad partnership that is now a focus of an antitrust suit  —  Facebook was going to compete with Google for some advertising sales but backed away from the plan after the companies cut a preferential deal, according to court documents.
Jason Snell / Six Colors:
Due to Apple's security limitations and additional work required, few developers are bothering to port Chrome extensions to Safari, despite WebExtensions API  —  At WWDC 2020, Apple announced it was going to support Chrome-style browser extensions (the WebExtensions API) in Safari.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
DuckDuckGo surpassed 100M daily search queries for the first time on Jan. 11; since August 2020, the search engine began seeing over 2B search queries per month  —  DuckDuckGo reaches historic milestone in a week when both Signal and Telegram saw a huge influx of new users.
Wall Street Journal:
Surging demand for laptops and 5G chips, alongside a boom in car sales, is fueling chip shortages and pushing prices higher, with older chips affected the most  —  Surging appetite for 5G smartphones, rebounding car sales squeeze semiconductor makers  —  Semiconductor companies are asking …
Washington Post:
Analytics firm Zignal Labs: online misinformation about election fraud dropped 73% in the week after several social media sites suspended Trump and key allies  —  Zignal Labs charts 73 percent decline on Twitter and beyond following historic action against the president
New York Times:
Alex Danco:
A critique of Canada's tech startup ecosystem, whose growth is being held back by the mindset of angel investors, the government's SR&ED tax credits, and more  —  Toronto is not the next great startup scene.  Neither is Waterloo, or Vancouver, or anywhere in Canada.  —  I'm sorry that I have to write this.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Citrix is in advanced talks with Vista Equity Partners to buy Wrike for $2B+, after the PE firm acquired the work-management service for ~$800M in 2018  —  - Deal for work-management platform could be reached this week  — Vista invested in Wrike at an $800 million valuation in 2018
Miriam Berger / Washington Post:
Iran blames legal and illegal crypto mining for massive blackouts in the country, shuts down a large, licensed Chinese-Iranian mining operation  —  Massive blackouts and smog have hit cities across Iran.  It's a toxic mix as the country, already under economic duress and suffocating U.S. sanctions …
Heather Knight / San Francisco Chronicle:
Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson calls out tech leaders for bailing on SF and being rude about it as they leave, says he is staying and working to make the city better  —  There are plenty of ways to leave a party.  —  You can quietly say your thanks and goodbyes and be on your way.  You can stay a while to help clean up.
Nellie Bowles / New York Times:

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