Techmeme
October 26, 2021, 3:05 PM

Top News

Washington Post:
Facebook documents show its News Feed algorithm treated emoji reactions as 5x more valuable than Likes starting in 2017, amplifying controversial content  —  Five years ago, Facebook gave its users five new ways to react to a post in their news feed beyond the iconic “like” thumbs-up: “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad” and “angry.”
Alex Kantrowitz / Big Technology:
Docs: Facebook tested turning off News Feed ranking for 0.05% of users in Feb. 2018 and found engagement dropped, Groups content rose, and ad views increased  —  New leaked Facebook documents show what happened when Facebook tried to remove feed ranking.  It didn't go well.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Adobe announces Photoshop and Illustrator web apps to improve collaboration, make quick edits, and more  —  Adobe has announced that it's taken “a major step forward for collaboration” by bringing its Photoshop and Illustrator apps to the web.  The idea is not to do let you do complex work from a web page …
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Adobe announces Content Credentials for Photoshop, letting NFT sellers link their Adobe ID to authenticate the artwork using IPFS, coming soon in preview  —  Adobe is looking to fight NFT art theft with Content Credentials  —  Adobe is launching a system built into Photoshop that can …
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Frances Haugen's documents have been useful to the press and groups opposing Facebook, but reporting should now expand to explore Haugen and her backers' goals  —  At the end of 2019, the group of Facebook employees charged with preventing harms on the network gathered to discuss the year ahead.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Zuckerberg says he's redirected Facebook teams to serve young adults over older users, and that significant changes to Instagram will lean into video and Reels  —  Expect changes to Instagram to highlight Reels  —  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he's redirected teams within his company to …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
A look at the Integrity Institute, a think tank formed by two former Facebook employees that wants to bring together tech integrity workers studying tech misuse  —  Shortly before he left Facebook in October 2019, Jeff Allen published his last report as a data scientist for the company's integrity team …
Dan Primack / Axios:
Sequoia Capital is forming the Sequoia Fund, which will hold all its US and European investments, including stakes in public companies  —  Sequoia Capital, one of the world's oldest and most successful venture capital firms, is forming a single fund to hold all of its U.S. and European investments …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Biden names Jessica Rosenworcel to officially lead the FCC, nominates Gigi Sohn as third Democratic commissioner, but it's unclear if Senate will confirm soon  —  And progressive Gigi Sohn as a third Democratic commissioner  —  President Joe Biden named acting Federal Communications …
Emily Graffeo / Bloomberg:
Study: the top 10K individual bitcoin investors control about one-third of the cryptocurrency in circulation and ~50 miners control 50% of the mining capacity  —  - Research shines light on Bitcoin's elusive ownership structure  — Top 10,000 investors control over one-third of supply
Loren Grush / The Verge:
Verizon partners with Amazon to use its Kuiper satellite network for expanded global 4G and 5G coverage in rural and remote locations  —  They still have to launch the satellites first  —  Amazon's ambitious satellite venture, called Kuiper, is teaming up with Verizon to further expand 4G/LTE …
Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan / Financial Times:
Stripe partners with Klarna to let retailers in the US, UK, and Europe more easily offer a buy now, pay later option  —  Tie-up will allow retailers easily to add option for customers to pay in instalments at checkouts  —  Online payments processor Stripe has entered a strategic partnership with …
Financial Times:
Sources: Amazon signs a contract with GCHQ, MI5, and MI6 to host top-secret material in the UK; the deal is worth an estimated £500M-£1B over a decade  —  Cloud contract for GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 with US tech group aims to speed analysis but likely to ignite sovereignty fears
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
macOS 12 Monterey review: automation on Mac is revitalized with Shortcuts, Low Power Mode is nice, and it's packed with tons of small tweaks like AirPlay to Mac  —  An iterative update to Big Sur that has a little something for everyone.  —  Big Sur was a landmark release of macOS, in ways both technical and symbolic.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition review: better display, monthslong battery, and USB-C, but poor support for non-Amazon books and no physical buttons  —  The most popular Kindle gets its biggest update in nearly a decade  —  It's been nearly three years since Amazon has updated its best …
Saqib Shah / Modern Retail:
After 2019's breakup over customer data, Mailchimp and Shopify strike a new deal, and Mailchimp acquires ShopSync to integrate with Shopify  —  Mailchimp is launching an integration for Shopify more than two years after a public bust-up between the two companies.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
In Senate hearing, TikTok dodges questions about its plans for biometric data collected from US users, after changing its terms of use to allow the practice  —  In its first-ever Congressional hearing, TikTok successfully dodged questions about what it plans to do with the biometric data …
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