Techmeme
July 14, 2021, 12:18 PM

Top News

Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Facebook employees detail a clash over CrowdTangle, a tool that showed high engagement with right-wing media, which was moved under the Integrity team in April  —  Executives at the social network have clashed over CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned data tool that revealed users' high engagement levels with right-wing media sources.
Brent Kendall / Wall Street Journal:
Facebook says it is seeking the recusal of FTC chair Lina Khan in the agency's deliberations over a new antitrust case, following a similar move by Amazon  —  Social-media giant follows Amazon in citing Lina Khan's tech criticisms, congressional work to question her impartiality
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces Windows 365, letting businesses stream a version of Windows 10 or 11 in a web browser or through its Remote Desktop app, launching August 2  —  Windows 365 is a new service that creates Cloud PCs  —  Microsoft is putting Windows in the cloud.
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple has asked suppliers to build up to 90M next-generation iPhones this year, up 20% YoY; this year's update will be more incremental than iPhone 12  —  - Company targets 90 million shipments of this year's new models  — Iterative iPhone upgrade to boost chips, cameras and displays
Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
As very few iOS users opt into tracking, Facebook's many advertisers are noticing a negative impact on tracking campaigns, targeting new customers, and more  —  People give iOS apps permission to track their behavior just 25% of the time  —  When users get asked on iPhone devices …
Casey Newton / Platformer:
An Ugly Truth attributes many of Facebook's scandals to its capitalist origins, while arguably the biggest scandals extend from it impacting human psychology  —  Three ways of looking at a Facebook scandal  —  I. The CSO and The Wire  —  As the second season of the great 2000s crime drama …
Stephanie Chan / Sensor Tower Blog:
TikTok has passed 3B installs globally across iOS and Android, the first non-Facebook app to do so  —  ByteDance's TikTok had an eventful 2020, setting new records and thriving despite threats of government bans in more than one country.  Although the app was removed from India …
More: MacRumors and 9to5MacTweets: @kantrowitz
Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
Bloomberg:
European Central Bank says it will begin a 24-month “investigation phase” that could lead to the creation of a digital euro by around 2025  —  - Process will take 24 months before decision on adoption taken  — ECB says infrastructure would use far less energy than Bitcoin
Catalin Cimpanu / The Record:
Microsoft says the attacks targeting SolarWinds Serv-U software with a now-patched RCE exploit are the work of Chinese hacking group DEV-0322  —  Microsoft said today that the recent wave of attacks that have targeted SolarWinds file transfer servers are the work of a Chinese hacking group …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Alibaba and Tencent are separately working on plans to open their services to each other, as China's crackdown makes keeping barriers more difficult  —  Mounting regulatory pressure could bring about a major shift in how China's tech giants operate
Reuters:
Twitter says governments made 361 demands to remove content from 199 verified accounts of journalists and news outlets in H2 2020, up 26% from H1  —  Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) saw a surge in demands over the course of last year from governments around the world to take down content posted …
Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple and Goldman Sachs are working on a “buy now, pay later” service to let consumers pay for any Apple Pay purchase in installments, rivaling Affirm  —  - Service to let users pay off any Apple Pay purchase over time  — Fresh partnership with Apple could boost Goldman consumer push
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
Inside the World Wide Web Consortium as members debate the future of online privacy, with browsers' engineers often at odds with companies that rely on tracking  —  James Rosewell could see his company's future was in jeopardy.  —  It was January 2020, and Google had just announced key details …
The Information:
In April, Amazon acquired over a dozen staff from Facebook to boost its own low earth orbit satellite internet efforts; Amazon paid Facebook to seal agreement  —  Amazon has acquired a team of more than a dozen wireless internet experts from Facebook in an effort to boost its multibillion-dollar effort …
Dave Gershgorn / The Verge:
A coalition of 35 organizations demand that top US retailers, including Macy's and Lowe's, stop using facial recognition to identify customers  —  Lowe's, Albertsons, Macy's are already using the tech  —  More than 35 organizations are demanding top US retailers cease using facial recognition …
Queenie Wong / CNET:
Facebook is rolling out the ability for Group administrators to designate “group experts”, partly in an effort to help Facebook combat misinformation  —  The social network has been trying to combat misinformation by elevating authoritative sources.
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Microsoft fixes 13 critical flaws, four of which are under active attack, and updates a fix for the “PrintNightmare” RCE flaw impacting Windows Print Spooler  —  Microsoft today released updates to patch at least 116 security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software.
New York Times:
Two GOP lawmakers are pointing to previously unreleased emails to allege that Amazon unfairly used its influence in competing for Pentagon's JEDI cloud contract  —  Newly released emails show particular praise of Amazon among top Defense Department officials during the Trump administration …

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Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: