Techmeme
June 21, 2022, 6:25 PM

Top News

Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
As part of its new Responsible AI Standard rules, Microsoft plans to remove Azure's facial analysis tools, which can guess gender, age, and emotional state  —  The technology giant will stop offering automated tools that predict a person's gender, age and emotional state and will restrict the use of its facial recognition tool.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
GitHub launches Copilot AI, which suggests lines of code to developers, out of preview for $10/month or $100/year and says 1.2M+ tried the preview in 12 months  —  Free for students and maintainers of popular open-source projects  —  Microsoft-owned GitHub is launching its Copilot AI tool today …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Meta agrees to alter its ad targeting and pay a $115,054 fine to settle a DOJ discrimination lawsuit for allegedly limiting which Facebook users saw housing ads  —  HUD had accused Meta of engaging in housing discrimination by letting advertisers restrict who could see housing ads on Facebook based …
Andrew Rummer / The Block:
BlockFi CEO Zac Prince says the crypto lender “signed a term sheet with FTX to secure a $250M revolving credit facility”  —  - BlockFi secures $250 million revolving credit facility from crypto exchange FTX.  — The crypto lender says the deal ‘bolsters our balance sheet and platform strength.’
Financial Times:
South Korean prosecutors ban “dozens” of current and former Terraform Labs employees from leaving the country amid a probe into UST's and LUNA's collapse  —  South Korean prosecutors take action as they investigate embattled company behind the $40bn luna wipeout
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden raised a $130M Series B led by Electric Capital and Greylock at a $1.6B valuation, after a $27M Series A in March 2022  —  - Magic Eden has scored a $1.6 billion valuation in its latest funding round.  — The Solana-based NFT marketplace plans to launch on more blockchains.
Peter White / Deadline:
Barack and Michelle Obama's production company Higher Ground signs a first-look deal with Amazon's Audible; Spotify: “we declined to extend our deal”  —  President Barack Obama & Michelle Obama's Higher Ground has found a new podcast home.  —  The company, which is behind audio series …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Amazon names Doug Herrington, a 17-year company veteran, as its new CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, weeks after predecessor Dave Clark announced his resignation  —  Amazon vet Doug Herrington will become CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores  —  Amazon has named a new CEO of its retail arm …
Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk:
ProShares, which debuted the first bitcoin futures ETF in October 2021, launches the first ETF to short bitcoin in the US, on the NYSE under the BITI ticker  —  The exchange-traded fund will allow investors to hedge their bitcoin exposure, which may prove particularly pertinent given the sharp downturn in crypto markets of late.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
The CEO and COO of Pornhub's parent company MindGeek resign, after an investigative report on the site's years of hosting nonconsensual sexually explicit videos  —  MindGeek, the internet company best known for operating Pornhub, said that CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo have resigned.
Richard MacManus / The New Stack:
The Khronos Group forms the Metaverse Standards Forum with Nvidia, Meta, Epic Games, Unity, Microsoft, W3C, and others, seeking to improve interoperability  —  Interoperability — or lack thereof — is a key issue in the nascent metaverse industry.  The Khronos Group aims to solve …
Katie Collins / CNET:
The EU says TikTok agreed to curb undisclosed ads by altering its branded content policy and ad reporting options and to ban promoting “inappropriate products”  —  After complaints that TikTok was breaching EU consumer rules, the company has worked with the European Commission to update its branded-content policy.
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
Meta adds new Instagram and Facebook monetization tools, and will take no revenue cut from paid events, fan subs, badges, and Bulletin until at least 2024  —  Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced today that the company is rolling out more ways for creators to make money on Facebook and Instagram …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Sources: three senior executives of Better.com resign, following other executive departures, mass layoffs, and a lawsuit alleging the company misled investors  —  Three more senior executives of digital mortgage lender Better.com have resigned, multiple sources tell TechCrunch.
Financial Times:
SpaceX's Starlink aid to Ukraine triggers scrutiny in China, as Chinese firms rush to deploy satellite constellations into low-earth orbit to compete  —  ‘Silicon Valley Iron Man’ is under pressure over satellites as Chinese rivals close in on Tesla  —  In the days after Vladimir Putin …
New York Times:
An investigation into Chinese government bidding documents details its expanding surveillance apparatus, including ~500M cameras and extensive phone trackers  —  Times reporters spent over a year combing through government bidding documents that reveal the country's technological road map …

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Michelle Celarier / New York Magazine:
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Financial Times: