Techmeme
July 14, 2021, 11:04 AM

Top News

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
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
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.
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
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 …
Telegraph:
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 …
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 …
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 …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India has indefinitely banned Mastercard from issuing new debit, credit, or prepaid cards over noncompliance with local data storage rules  —  Reserve Bank of India has indefinitely barred Mastercard from issuing new debit, credit, or prepaid cards to customers in the South Asian market over noncompliance with local data storage rules.
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 …
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.
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
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Chicago-based investing app M1 Finance raises $150M Series E led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 at a $1.45B valuation, following $75M Series D in March 2021  —  Just over four months after announcing a $75 million Series D, M1 Finance today is announcing a new $150 million Series E round of funding led by SoftBank's Vision Fund 2.
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.
Albert Fox Cahn / Wired:
How Twitter's rules make verification difficult for activists, with stricter requirements than for journalists, potentially reducing their credibility  —  A new program makes getting a blue checkmark too easy for ‘journalists’—and far too difficult for activists.  —  I NEVER CALLED myself a journalist until Twitter made me.
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 …
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Discord buys Sentropy, which emerged from stealth last summer with AI-powered moderation software to fight online abuse and $13M in funding  —  The online chat platform Discord is buying Sentropy, a company that makes AI-powered software to detect and remove online harassment and hate.

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Earlier Picks

Cara Lombardo / Wall Street Journal: