Techmeme
February 19, 2022, 10:05 AM

Top News

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Meta says a global community development head, who spoke about inappropriate communications with a 13 year old in a viral sting video, is no longer an employee  —  Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has confirmed to TechCrunch that Jeren A. Miles, who had been a manager of global community development …
Avi Asher-Schapiro / Thomson Reuters Foundation News:
Internal documents: 400+ Salesforce employees signed an open letter objecting to its NFT plans, including helping other companies create and sell NFTs  —  After Salesforce announced a foray into the NFT market, hundreds of workers revolted, raising environmental and fraud concerns
Ryan Broderick / Garbage Day:
A look at the decline of MySpace, which flailed around for over a year as it was overtaken by Facebook, and parallels with Meta as TikTok surges  —  Read to the end for the anti-NFT anthem  —  I want to open today's email with an apology!!  I wrote about the map-based Wordle game Worldle on Monday and I …
Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Whistleblower Aid, representing Frances Haugen, files two SEC complaints claiming Meta misled investors about its work to fight misinfo on COVID-19 and climate  —  A pair of new whistleblower complaints filed the with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February allege Facebook misled investors …
Wired:
A look at Microsoft's AI system in Argentina's Salta province to predict teenage pregnancies, which faced pushback from activists for being invasive and opaque  —  A government leader in Argentina hailed the AI, which was fed invasive data about girls.  The feminist pushback could inform the future of health tech.
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Sources: Better.com is preparing for layoffs that could affect as much as 40% to 50% of staff, as more senior executives depart including its finance VP  —  Things are getting worse at Better.  —  More executives have resigned from Better.com nearly three months after the online mortgage …
More: Protocol.  Thanks:@thekenyeung
Nicole Wetsman / The Verge:
A look at Lyft and Uber's foray into the est. $3B non-emergency medical transportation business, where everyday drivers take patients to and from appointments  —  Within the first week that Austin Correll was driving for Lyft in the fall of 2021, he was sent to pick up passengers at an address that turned out to be for a hospital.
Tweets: @johnlegere
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Convictional, which offers a one-stop shop for retailers to source, onboard, integrate, and trade with suppliers, raises a $40M Series B led by YC Continuity  —  Retailers have traditionally onboarded their drop-ship, marketplace and wholesale suppliers using electronic data interchange …
More: Forbes and FinSMEs
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Kubecost, whose open source tools help businesses monitor, manage, and optimize Kubernetes spend at scale, raises a $25M Series A led by Coatue Management  —  In the past year, Kubernetes adoption exploded, with over 5.6 million developers using the cloud-native tools — an increase of 67% from the year prior.
Wall Street Journal:
How advertisers are dealing with Meta's ad price increases prompted by Apple's ATT changes, with some shifting their ad budgets to Google, Amazon, and TikTok  —  Privacy features prompt e-commerce businesses to slash ad spending; ‘Apple has changed the game’  —  Facebook was long one of the surest bets in digital advertising.

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Earlier Picks

Berber Jin / The Information:
Jeran Wittenstein / Bloomberg:
Nicole Wetsman / The Verge: