Techmeme: Sources: Amazon held advanced talks about opening HQ2 in Crystal City, Northern Virginia and some officials discussed how to make announcement after midterms (Washington Post)

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November 3, 2018, 12:50 PM

Top News

Washington Post:

Sources: Amazon held advanced talks about opening HQ2 in Crystal City, Northern Virginia and some officials discussed how to make announcement after midterms — Amazon.com has held advanced discussions about the possibility of opening its highly sought-after second headquarters in Crystal City …

More: CNBC, The Hill, TechCrunch, Telegraph, GeekWire, Business Insider, Axios, BostonGlobe.com, and Mashable

Tweets: @ryanavent and @yfreemark

Google Walkout For Real Change:

Google walkout organizers say 20,000+ participated and that Sundar Pichai will meet with his leadership team on Monday to review a plan to address their demands — For Immediate Release: — Google employees and contractors participate in global “walkout for real change”

More: The Hill, naked capitalism, Fortune, CNET, Engadget, The Verge, Techdirt, Bloomberg, Vox, The Verge, and Search Engine Roundtable

Tweets: @mikeisaac, @mer__edith, @mhbergen, @nitashatiku, @rortybomb, @superwuster, @daveleebbc, @emilyrpeck, @googlewalkout, @googlewalkout, @eringriffith, and @commune_mag

Tony Romm / Washington Post:

How Facebook and Twitter fight online voter suppression for the midterms with algorithm changes and partnerships with organizations that report disinformation — Facebook and Twitter aren't just trying to drive people to the polls — they're racing to fight back bad actors who seek to deter their users from voting.

More: Reuters, CNN, Vox, Bloomberg, Wired, Axios, and Adweek

Tweets: @wired and @tonyromm. Thanks:@tonyromm

Christopher Bing / Reuters:

Twitter has removed some bot accounts, sources say more than 10,000, that posed as Democrats and posted tweets discouraging people from voting in the midterms — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Twitter deleted more than 10,000 automated accounts posting messages that discouraged people from voting …

More: CNET, MSPoweruser, Slate, Mashable, The Hill, and Cyberscoop

Tweets: @cnetnews, @peteskomoroch, @nickpacilio, and @bcappelbaum

Sam Biddle / The Intercept:

After The Intercept's inquiry, Facebook deletes “white genocide conspiracy theory” as a pre-defined ad targeting category with an estimated 168K users — Apparently fueled by anti-Semitism and the bogus narrative that outside forces are scheming to exterminate the white race …

More: BBC, Boing Boing, Gizmodo, CBS Pittsburgh, CNET, and reddit

Tweets: @samfbiddle, @samfbiddle, @damiancollins, @samfbiddle, @chetfaliszek, @kevinroose, @shannoncoulter, @zeerakahmed, @yoda, @anandwrites, @mollyjongfast, @slpng_giants, @robbie_wallis1, and @jason_kint

See also Mediagazer

Gizmodo:

A history of the ongoing quest to build a viable 2-in-1 tablet-laptop hybrid and why they are so hard to design — In a recent barrage of new products, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Lenovo, and HP have all shown off computers that are trying to tackle one of the industry's most vexing problems …

Tom Simonite / Wired:

A look at how deepfakes, with recent software advances that easily create AI-generated fake audio and video, could be misused to undermine elections — PLENTY OF PEOPLE are following the final days of the midterm election campaigns. Yale law researcher Rebecca Crootof has a special interest—a small wager.

Tweets: @nxthompson and @wired

Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:

How US-based Truepic and UK-based Serelay discern true images from fakes by using proprietary algorithms to automatically verify photos the moment they're made

Ryan Dezember / Wall Street Journal:

Profile of Thasos, which leases trillions of anonymized GPS coordinates from ~1,000 smartphone apps and sells insights from the data to Wall Street traders — The phone in your pocket is dishing info on where you spend your time and, likely, money — When Tesla Inc. TSLA .62% Chief Executive Elon Musk …

More: CityLab, The Mac Observer, and reddit

Tweets: @woodruffbets, @svenlatham, @charlesforelle, @wsj, @woodruffbets, @charles_norton1, @evgenymorozov, @avorobieff, @charlesforelle, and @mims

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:

Sensor Tower: ByteDance's short video app TikTok's monthly US App Store installs in October were higher than those of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube — Beijing-based ByteDance's 2017 acquisition of tween and teen-focused social app Musical.ly is paying off.

More: iPhone Hacks, Business Insider, and Social Media Today. Tweets: @mattnavarra

Zachary Fryer-Biggs / Center for Public Integrity:

Current and former senior US officials say the Pentagon has outlined an offensive cyberattack against Russia if it electronically interferes with the midterms — U.S. military hackers have been given the go-ahead to gain access to Russian cyber systems as part of potential retaliation for any meddling in America's elections

More: Newser. Tweets: @natashabertrand, @thedailybeast, and @baekdal

Jonah Engel Bromwich / New York Times:

Blockchain-powered network Civil's token sale failed because people buy into blockchain to make money and don't necessarily want to use it to “fix” journalism — Hype around the technology has led to incomprehensible applications of it. — Civil Media Company was introduced earlier …

More: Medium. Tweets: @vivian, @mantzarlis, and @linda_bernardi

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From Mediagazer

Rebecca Rubin / Variety:

A Minecraft Movie collects $157M at the US box office in its opening weekend, the biggest domestic debut of 2025 and best in history for a video game adaptation

Michael Savage / The Guardian:

Six Russian BBC journalists labeled “foreign agents” by Putin's regime speak on how it has impacted their lives, effectively banishing them from their homeland

Jeremy Barr / Washington Post:

Several prominent conservatives in media notably came out against Trump's tariffs, with the most strident criticism coming from WSJ's editorial board

More News

Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:

Freedom House moves the US down a spot in its global internet freedom rankings citing net neutrality repeal, surveillance law renewal, disinformation, and more

More: The Verge, The Verge, MIT Technology Review, and Slate. Tweets: @alexisohanian

Taylor Soper / GeekWire:

TraceMe, NFL star Russell Wilson's celebrity app, has laid off staff, closed LA office, pivoted to a sports prediction game; TraceMe to shutter in coming weeks

Thanks:@toddbishop

Ashlee Vance / Bloomberg:

View, a startup that makes smart windows with internet-connected frames that can regulate the tinting of the glass, raises $1.1B from SoftBank's Vision Fund

Tweets: @business and @markmilian

Greg Bensinger / Wall Street Journal:

Uber details new safety measures for its autonomous vehicle program in report, says it's applying to resume testing of vehicles in autonomous mode in Pittsburgh

More: Uber Advanced Technologies …

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Toronto-based Setter, whose platform lets homeowners chat with home maintenance experts and get a quote, raises $10M Series A co-led by Sequoia and NFX

More: BetaKit and PR Newswire

Ron Miller / TechCrunch:

Serverless search and analytics startup Rockset comes out of stealth, says it has raised $3M in seed funding and $18.5M Series A led by Sequoia and Greylock

More: Business Insider

Earlier Picks

Kara Swisher / Recode:

In a wide-ranging interview, Elon Musk discusses his tweeting habits, Tesla's past year, its Navigate on Autopilot feature, full autonomous driving, and more

More: TechCrunch, SiliconANGLE, Business Insider, The Verge, CNBC, CBS San Francisco, GeekWire, iPhone in Canada Blog, USA Today, The Daily Caller, Cult of Mac, Electrek, Vox, Telegraph, and TheStreet

Tweets: @jack, @thesheetztweetz, @hein_the_sayer, @sarthakgh, @jeff_foust, @binarybits, @negarmortazavi, @ezraklein, and @ryanfelton

Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:

Profile of cryptocurrency millionaire Jeffrey Berns who says he has spent $300M to build an experimental community based on blockchain in Nevada

More: Bitcoinist.com, CryptoGlobe, PR Newswire, Bitsonline, and socalTECH.com

Tweets: @nathanielpopper, @nzben, @lsukernik, @levie, @0xabad1dea, @excellion, @el_hdh, @maguirekevin, and @anondran

Yahoo News:

Sources: in 2011, Iranians used Google search to identify a string of websites the CIA used to communicate with its agents, compromising the CIA's wider network

More: The Register, Telegraph, Ars Technica, Axios, and reddit

Tweets: @weinbergersa, @dhh, @malwarejake, @trevortimm, @hatr, @yashalevine, @zackwhittaker, and @jennamc_laugh

Andrei Zakharov / BBC:

Hackers publish private messages from 81K Facebook accounts and claim to have details from up to 120M accounts for sale; FB blames 3rd-party browser extensions

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

HPE's Spaceborne Computer, the first commercial off-the-shelf computer launched into orbit to run a teraflop in zero gravity, now available for scientific use

More: Wired, Mashable, Engadget, Digital Trends, ExtremeTech, and insideHPC. Tweets: @wired