Techmeme
April 12, 2022, 12:25 AM

Top News

The Verge:
Meta rolls out a test for a handful of creators to sell virtual items and effects in Horizon Worlds, with Meta taking a 25% cut after a platform fee in Horizon  —  Horizon Worlds will take a 25 percent cut of any sale after app store fees  —  Meta is testing new features to let creators …
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Netflix is rolling out a Double Thumbs Up ratings option, which will appear next to the thumbs up and down buttons, to let it refine content recommendations  —  For nearly five years, Netflix has had simple thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons to express viewing preferences and help its algorithms provide better recommendations.
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
Marc Andreessen has tweeted ~350 times in the past two weeks, often referring to “the current thing” meme, joined by Elon Musk and others  —  Three of America's top technologists are talking and tweeting with unusual fervor.  But first...  - Beijing is targeting tech companies' algorithms
Omar Abdel-Baqui / Wall Street Journal:
Elon Musk appears to have deleted some tweets critical of Twitter and its leadership; Musk liked a tweet saying he was “told to play nice and not speak freely”  —  Elon Musk appears to have deleted some tweets taking aim at Twitter Inc. amid his decision not to join the social-media company's board of directors.
Axios:
Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Over 14,000 Etsy sellers start a week-long strike over an increase in transaction fees from 5% to 6.5%, grievances with Etsy's Offsite Ads program, and more  —  If you're in the market for funky trinkets and unique, handmade clothing, you might want to put off your shopping until next week.
Reuters:
Epic Games, which makes Fortnite, raises $2B from Sony and KIRKBI, the holding company behind LEGO, at a $31.5B post-money valuation  —  Epic Games said on Monday it had raised $2 billion from Sony Group Corp (6758.T) and the family owned holding company behind the Lego Group, giving the “Fortnite” maker a valuation of $31.5 billion.
New York Times:
In the absence of federal crypto regulations in the US, lobbyists and executives are helping to draft and pass favorable bills at state level  —  In the absence of federal regulations, crypto lobbyists and executives are going state by state to get favorable rules enacted.  Many lawmakers have been willing partners.
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Source: Apple will face an additional EU antitrust charge in the coming weeks, in an investigation into music streaming triggered by a complaint from Spotify  —  Apple (AAPL.O) faces an additional EU antitrust charge in the coming weeks in an investigation triggered by a complaint from Spotify …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
French social app BeReal, which encourages users to post one selfie per day, has exploded in popularity with Gen Z users; Apptopia says MAUs are up 315% in 2022  —  Downloads of BeReal, Gen Z's hot new social media app, have skyrocketed in recent months, giving the world's mobile-first generation …
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
Sources: Meituan plans to lay off ~10%-20% of staff from its core business units after announcing that it added a net 17K jobs from July 2021 to mid-March 2022  —  Up to 20 per cent of Meituan's staff in core business units, including food and grocery deliveries have been affected The lay-offs come …

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Earlier Picks

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Reuters: