Techmeme
March 24, 2021, 9:00 PM

Top News

Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Facebook says it has disrupted a network of China-based hackers using its platform to target the Uyghur community abroad and draw them to malicious websites  —  Facebook on Wednesday announced new actions to disrupt a network of China-based hackers leveraging the platform to compromise targets in the Uyghur community.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Analysis of Intel's Foundry Services event: a transparent and clarifying keynote outlining a bold plan to overcome Intel's problems by using its strengths  —  Three notes about today's update:  — First, the Intel keynote I'm going to write about, along with the analyst Q&A session that followed …
Juli Clover / MacRumors:
During an event announcing Intel Foundry Services, CEO Pat Gelsinger said it would pursue Apple as a client; Apple currently relies on TSMC as its sole supplier  —  Apple in November started releasing Macs with Apple-designed M1 chips, and the Apple silicon technology will eventually replace …
Dr. Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
Axios:
Ahead of House hearing, Mark Zuckerberg calls for Section 230 reform that makes protections conditional on platforms' ability to identify and remove content  —  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will tell lawmakers his plan for “thoughtful reform” of a key tech liability shield rests …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
David Pierce / Protocol:
Slack debuts Connect, letting users DM any Slack user regardless of organization, and has updated its opt-in invite flow after feedback that it could be abused  —  Forget email.  The final frontier for Slack, as it tries to reimagine the way millions of people communicate at work, is the text message.
Johana Bhuiyan / Los Angeles Times:
How Google handles user data requests from DHS, ICE, and other agencies, often giving users little time to obtain a court order quashing the request  —  You're scrolling through your Gmail inbox and see an email with a strange subject line: A string of numbers followed by “Notification from Google.”
Casey Newton / The Verge:
Interviews with 14 current and former Medium employees portray a dysfunctional company; Medium started 2021 with 700K paid subs, on track for $35M+ in revenue  —  I.  —  Last week, a partnerships manager at Medium working with the White House found that there was a strange problem with the platform …
Edward Ongweso Jr / VICE:
The Markup:
Analysis of vaccine appointment sites for every US state, Puerto Rico, and DC shows some have issues maintaining users' privacy, loading on mobile devices, more  —  The results, measuring accessibility and privacy protections, were not always great  —  Christine Meyer, a Pennsylvania doctor …
Arielle Pardes / Wired:
Interviews with low-wage contract workers at Silicon Valley campuses show the existential threat to livelihoods from longterm COVID-19 closures  —  As tech campuses became ghost towns, the people who kept them running—cooks, custodians, drivers—faced an existential threat to their livelihoods.
Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic:
A look at Remember the Internet, a series of pocket-sized books dedicated to immortalizing subcultures and combating the ephemerality of being online  —  How do we memorialize life online when it's constantly disappearing?  —  For many of us, for better or for worse, the internet is home.
Craig Chapple / Sensor Tower Blog:
Freemium mobile game Genshin Impact becomes the fastest title to reach $1B in player spending on the App Store and Google Play worldwide, in just under 6 months  —  The mobile version of Genshin Impact from miHoYo has surpassed $1 billion in player spending in less than six months following …
Kurt Schlosser / GeekWire:
Seattle-based social gaming startup Rec Room raises $100M led by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures at a $1.25B valuation, bringing its total raised to $149M  —  Seattle-based Rec Room has raised $100 million in new funding.  The game development startup is now valued at $1.25 billion …
Edward Ongweso Jr / VICE:
The SEC confirms it is investigating SoftBank, according to the SEC's response to a FOIA request; SoftBank was alleged to be a “Nasdaq whale” last year  —  A response to a Freedom of Information request about Softbank's trading activity has revealed that the Uber and Wework investor is under investigation.
Taylor Lyles / The Verge:
Disney+ will cost $1 more per month starting March 26, increasing to $7.99/month or $80/year, marking the first price hike for the service  —  The price is going up to $7.99 a month for subscribers in the US starting on March 26th  —  You have just two days left to lock in Disney Plus at its current price.
Washington Post:
Analysis of content moderation at the entire stack of internet infrastructure companies, from platforms to CDNs to ISPs, and how they see their responsibilities  —  Moderating content isn't just something Facebook and Twitter do.  There's a ‘stack’ of companies that run the Internet — and they are under pressure to act.
Kellen Browning / New York Times:
Dozens of Coinbase users share stories of basic customer service support failures, most related to account takeovers or suddenly being barred from accounts  —  As Coinbase prepares to be the first major cryptocurrency company to go public, it is struggling with basic customer service, users said.
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Sydney-based Baraja, which makes a Spectrum-Scan LIDAR with no moving parts, raises $31M Series B led by Blackbird Ventures, after $32M Series A two years ago  —  Lidar companies across the planet are going SPAC, but Baraja isn't in a hurry to go public.  The Australian lidar maker has raised …
Paul Vigna / Wall Street Journal:
Blockchain.com, which provides cryptocurrency services to retail and institutional clients, raises $300M at a $5.2B valuation  —  The investment round gave the company a $5.2 billion valuation  —  Blockchain.com, a London-based firm that provides a variety of cryptocurrency services to retail …
Sam Shead / CNBC:
Elon Musk says people can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin in the US and later this year outside the US  —  - The automaker last month revealed that it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin.  — People outside the U.S. will be able to buy a Tesla with bitcoin “later this year.”

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