Techmeme
January 30, 2021, 2:05 PM

Top News

Under the Hood:
Robinhood explains why it placed restrictions on certain securities over the past week, says its clearinghouse-mandated deposit for equities increased tenfold  —  With the extraordinary market activity this week, and the temporary restrictions we put in place on certain securities …
Tom Hals / Reuters:
Legal experts say Robinhood is not legally bound to carry out every trade and is protected from lawsuits by its user agreement  —  (Reuters) - Robinhood Markets Inc's user agreement is likely to protect the brokerage app from a barrage of lawsuits filed by customers after it blocked …
John Herrman / New York Times:
Reddit's uncommon qualities as a community platform, inspiring nihilism and humor, may explain why r/WallStreetBets' growth feels reminiscent of r/The_Donald  —  Reddit communities grow powerful in plain sight.  Why do they keep taking the world by surprise?
Jesse Westbrook / Bloomberg:
SEC says it “will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors” in trading certain securities  —  The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, making its most specific comments about the recent mania in the stock market …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Robinhood has placed trade restrictions on more than 50 stocks as of Friday and limited the purchase of some stocks, like GameStop, to a single share  —  The company is giving us numbers for what ‘limited buys’ really means  —  Robinhood only wants users to have a limited number of shares …
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
New York Times:
Paresh Dave / Reuters:
Wall Street Journal:
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Google pulls federated chat app Element from the Play Store citing abusive content, despite it only being a client for Matrix servers  —  Element is a popular client for the federated chat protocol Matrix, and we highlighted it in our roundup of the best open-source alternatives to Google Hangouts last year …
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
Canalys: smartphone shipments in China fell 4% YoY to 84M in Q4 2020 and shipments for 2020 fell 11% YoY to 330M, as iPhone's share jumped from 15% to 18% YoY  —  The impact of United States government sanctions on Huawei is continuing to hurt the company and dampen overall smartphone shipments in China …
Wall Street Journal:
Experts say Apple's App Tracking Transparency feature will damage Facebook's core business; the feature will limit Facebook's data collection from 85K+ iOS apps  —  New feature on iPhones will limit Facebook's ability to collect data from apps and prove that ads work
Adam Satariano / New York Times:
Graphika: Huawei officials retweeted messages from fake accounts on Twitter to spread a pro-5G influence campaign in Belgium; Huawei is investigating the claim  —  A covert online push to sway telecommunications policy in favor of the Chinese company may presage a new twist in social manipulation.
Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:
Verizon Media says it is planning personalized features for Yahoo Mail, and around 500K users watched NFL streams in the Yahoo Mail app in tests in Q4 2020  —  - Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan tells Insider the unit is preparing a “mega” product launch in the coming weeks.
Prachir Singh / Counterpoint Research:
Research: smartphone shipments in India fell 4% YoY to ~150M in 2020 and H2 2020 saw 100M+ shipments; among the top 5 brands, realme grew the most at 22% YoY  —  - The Indian smartphone market registered a modest 4% decline in the pandemic-hit year.  — The market crossed 100 million units …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Reimagine your photos with a prompt  —  Our new native image generation and editing is state-of-the-art, and ranked #1 in the world.  Try it for free in the Gemini app.
Zoho:
Why the AI era demands better internships  —  Tech is reinventing the workforce.  But is it really AI, or the people behind it?  Think of it like a hamster who got tired of running in its wheel, so it automated the wheel.
Sevalla:
Sevalla - PaaS from the future  —  Deploy your app before your coffee gets cold.  It's that simple.  Application, database, object storage and free static site hosting.  Start with $50 free credit!
Bitrix24:
Bitrix24 powers the next generation of high-performing businesses  —  Chat, projects, CRM, and automation — all in one place.  Replace dozens of tools so your team moves faster, collaborates smarter, and grows effortlessly.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box 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:
Inside The AI Bubble: Debt, Depreciation, and Losses — With Gil Luria
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:
Data Centers in Space + A.I. Policy on the Right + A Gemini History Mystery
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.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
The company at the heart of the AI bubble
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
"Dumbest idea I've heard" to $100M ARR: Inside the rise of Gamma | Grant Lee (CEO)
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.
Great Chat:
Turns out, there's still a line (don't mock the pope)
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.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Kyle Vogt from The Bot Company
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 2:05 PM ET, January 30, 2021.

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

Chloe Sorvino / Forbes:
Theodore Schleifer / Vox:
Nick Statt / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Reuters:
Mike Isaac / New York Times: