Techmeme
February 9, 2023, 5:30 PM

Top News

Platformer:
Sources: Elon Musk fired a Twitter engineer for suggesting that his engagement numbers are tanking not because of a bug but because his popularity is waning  —  Inside Twitter 2.0, turmoil leaves employees stretched to the max  —  For weeks now, Elon Musk has been preoccupied with worries about how many people are seeing his tweets.
Austin Weinstein / Bloomberg:
Kraken agrees to pay $30M and discontinue its crypto-asset staking products to settle SEC allegations that its staking services broke US securities rules  —  Kraken will pay $30 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it broke US securities rules …
Financial Times:
Inside FTX's final hours, described by employees, chat logs, and Sam Bankman-Fried: panic selling assets, failing to raise money, SBF's silence, and bankruptcy  —  In January, I walked up the front steps of a single-storey, grey-shingled house in a neighbourhood on the fringe of Stanford University.
New York Times:
Rejecting a deal to let Sam Bankman-Fried use encrypted messaging, a judge orders SBF's lawyers to form a plan to tighten his bail to ensure messages are saved  —  A federal judge said he was not satisfied with a plan that lawyers for the disgraced FTX founder struck with prosecutors to limit his use of encrypted messaging apps.
Dietrich Knauth / Reuters:
A judge lets FTX subpoena Sam Bankman-Fried, his parents, brother, former FTX CTO Garry Wang, former FTX COO Constance Wang, and ex-Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison  —  Failed crypto firm FTX received court approval on Wednesday to issue subpoenas to its founder Sam Bankman-Fried and members …
Alexander Martin / The Record:
The US and the UK sanction seven people based in Russia, with likely FSB ties, connected to the Conti and Ryuk ransomware gangs and the Trickbot banking trojan  —  The United Kingdom and United States on Thursday sanctioned seven people connected to what officials have told The Record …
Bloomberg:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Yahoo plans to lay off 20%+ of its workforce and restructure its ad tech unit, impacting 50%+ of the unit, or 1,600+ people; CEO says the cuts are “strategic”  —  Yahoo plans to lay off more than 20% of its total workforce as part of a major restructuring of its ad tech unit, executives told Axios.
Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE:
Microsoft's GitHub cuts 10% of its staff, or an estimated 300+; GitLab cuts 7%, or an estimated 114; report: GitHub will close offices and shift to remote work  —  Microsoft Corp.'s GitHub unit and publicly traded rival GitLab Inc. today both announced layoffs, disclosing plans to let go 10% and 7% of their respective workforces.
Joey Roulette / Reuters:
SpaceX has limited Ukraine's military from using Starlink to control drones; COO Gwynne Shotwell says the internet service was “never meant to be weaponized”  —  SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine's military from using the company's Starlink satellite internet service …
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Tether claims $700M in Q4 profit, in addition to its reserves, and $67.04B in total assets and $66.08B in liabilities; Tether reduced its secured loans by $300M  —  - Tether issued its latest attestation report, saying its assets exceeded its liabilities as of December 2022.
Bloomberg:
Nintendo's upcoming Zelda sequel will cost $70, $10 more than prior new titles, matching Sony and Microsoft and opening the door for more expensive video games  —  Nintendo Co.'s upcoming Zelda sequel will be pricier than the company's other Switch games, clearing the way for more game makers to also lift their prices.
New York Times:
Researchers say ChatGPT can produce clean, convincing text that repeats conspiracy theories and misleading narratives but can sometimes debunk falsehoods too  —  Researchers used ChatGPT to produce clean, convincing text that repeated conspiracy theories and misleading narratives.
Celso Martinho / The Cloudflare Blog:
Cloudflare debuts Wildebeest, an open-source ActivityPub server built on its Supercloud service that makes it easier to self-host a Mastodon-compatible instance  —  Loading...  The Fediverse has been a hot topic of discussion lately, with thousands, if not millions, of new users creating accounts …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
After over a decade of waiting for a quality Harry Potter video game, some fans battle to reconcile enjoying WBD's Hogwarts Legacy with JK Rowling's transphobia  —  Harry Potter fans have been waiting more than a decade for a video game worthy of the blockbuster entertainment franchise's dedicated following.
Jillian Deutsch / Bloomberg:
The EU says Twitter's first voluntary report on how the company was tackling disinformation lacked data and didn't include commitments to empower fact-checkers  —  Twitter Inc. was the only tech platform that didn't send a complete report to the European Union detailing how it was tackling disinformation …

Sponsor Posts

Airtable:
Meet Airtable ProductCentral  —  The unified solution for managing your entire product development process in the AI era.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
Zoho Forms for successful Black Friday sales  —  Black Friday is a retail frenzy that can significantly impact your bottom line.  To make the most of this shopping bonanza, you need a strategy that not only attracts customers …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Tue 11/05 - Apple: Maybe Smartglasses Are The Way To Go
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 5:30 PM ET, February 9, 2023.

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

Earlier Picks

Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
@twitterdev:
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac:
David Friend / Canadian Press: