Techmeme
July 22, 2021, 8:20 AM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter is testing a way to downvote replies on iOS to understand the types of replies users find relevant to a conversation; downvotes won't be public  —  Last year, Twitter's chief product officer Kayvon Beykpour confirmed that the social network was “exploring” the idea of adding a dislike button to the app.
Bloomberg Law:
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has sued Activision Blizzard for sexual harassment of and discrimination against its female staff  —  Video game giant Activision Blizzard Inc., maker of games including World of Warcraft and Diablo, fosters a “frat boy” …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
The FTC formally pledges to fight unlawful right-to-repair restrictions, says it will use its power to lower repair costs and support independent repair shops  —  It comes days after the White House endorsed similar rules  —  The Federal Trade Commission formally pledged to take on unlawful …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Clubhouse is no longer invite-only as it exits beta and says the 10M people on its waitlist will be added to the app over time  —  The app goes wide  —  Clubhouse is going wide.  Co-founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth announced today that the app is no longer invite-only.
Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
Grindr has a track record of saying that data shared with brokers is encrypted and unidentifiable, despite the use of such data to out a Catholic priest, others  —  The latest scandal to rock the Catholic Church was both incredibly unnerving and entirely preventable.  Why isn't anyone doing anything about it?
Washington Post:
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
The Biden administration's promise to “review” Section 230 in response to anti-vax posts on Facebook will fail since being wrong online is protected speech  —  ‘Reviewing’ Section 230 isn't the answer to anti-vax posts  —  Last week, the White House declared war …
Abner Li / 9to5Google:
Google rolls out Backup by Google One, a unified Android cloud backup that syncs app data, messages, photos, and more; Backup replaces the Play Services tool  —  Google today started rolling out “Backup by Google One” as an update over the existing Android backup service that now means end users …
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Facial-recognition company Clearview AI raises $30M Series B amid legal and ethical concerns, with new investors requesting they not be publicly identified  —  Clearview AI is currently the target of multiple class-action lawsuits and a joint investigation by Britain and Australia.
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Edwin Chan / Bloomberg:
Sources: China sees Didi's decision to go public despite regulator pushback as a challenge to its authority and is considering unprecedented penalties  —  - Regulators weigh several penalties, from fine to delisting  — Ride-hailing startup raised $4.4 billion in U.S. listing
More: Reuters
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Spanish police have arrested UK citizen Joseph O'Connor at the US' request over his alleged involvement in last year's hack of high-profile Twitter accounts  —  Authorities are still cracking down on participants in the July 2020  —  Twitter celebrity hacks.  Spanish National Police have
CNN:
Facebook hides the tag #VaccinesKill from searches, displaying a message that says it is “keeping our community safe”, two years after Instagram hid the tag  —  (CNN)Last week, even as it came under fire from the White House over its role in spreading anti-vaccine misinformation …
Aditya Kalra / Reuters:
India's antitrust regulator accuses Amazon of concealing facts when it sought approval for a 2019 investment in a Future Group unit, according to a June letter  —  India's antitrust regulator has accused Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) of concealing facts and making false submissions when it sought approval …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler: stock tokens and stablecoins backed by securities “are implicated by the securities laws and must work within our securities regime”  —  Stock tokens and stablecoins backed by securities might be treated as securities under U.S. law, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said.
Reuters:
Filing: Teads, which provides automated buying and selling of online ad space, plans to raise up to $808.5M in its US IPO, at a valuation of about $5B  —  Advertising technology company Teads BV, owned by French telecom company Altice, said on Wednesday it aims to raise up to $808.5 million through …
Washington Post:
Profile of the NSO Group, which has been hailed as an Israeli version of a Silicon Valley success story, as its founders defend their spyware operations  —  HERZLIYA, Israel — It was a proposition that would change everything.  —  Two 20-something Israeli entrepreneurs who had been running …
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Tailor Brands, a SaaS platform to automate branding and marketing for SMBs, raises $50M Series C led by GoDaddy, bringing its total raised to $70M  —  Tailor Brands, a startup that automates parts of the branding and marketing process for small businesses, announced Thursday it has raised $50 million in Series C funding.
More: CTech
Bloomberg:
Paycor, which makes HR management software for SMBs, closed up 13% in its trading debut, giving the company a market value of $4.46B  —  - VTEX, CS Disco, Kaltura also rise in software trading debuts  — More than $6.7 billion sought in 29 U.S. listings this week
More: Reuters and PYMNTS.com

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Build AI that works  —  Tribe builds tech for top AI companies.  Get in touch to learn how our bench of 500+ engineers and researchers can accelerate your roadmap.
Kulkan Security:
Hire Kulkan as your penetration testing partner  —  Kulkan prioritizes deep-dive manual security reviews, dissecting your software and infrastructure to find issues that once remediated can truly reduce security risk.
Zoho:
Unified business analytics - An essential step to business success  —  With today's exponential data growth, unified business analytics is a commonly pursued business objective.  This allows businesses to bring …
Mastodon:
Donate to Mastodon  —  Mastodon gGmbH, the non-profit behind the open-source software powering the social web, relies entirely on support from users like you.  Donate directly with a credit card or through Patreon.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Magatte Wade, Unlocking Prosperity in Africa (#53)
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Wed. 04/17 - Copilots Or The Biggest Model Wins? The Competing AI Visions.
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:20 AM ET, July 22, 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

Katie Jennings / Forbes:

Earlier Picks

Marc Vartabedian / Wall Street Journal:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: