Techmeme
September 23, 2020, 10:10 AM

Top News

New York Times:
Facebook removes accounts, groups, and Pages tied to China that posted about US politics; the network was followed by fewer than 3,000 US accounts  —  The social media campaign was small but targeted all sides of the debate.  Officials said Beijing had not decided whether to wade more directly in the American presidential race.
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch:
Sarah Jeong / OneZero:
Q&A with Casey Newton on leaving The Verge to start a newsletter on Substack called Platformer, after many years as The Verge's Silicon Valley editor  —  Sarah Jeong talks to Newton about the details of his deal, subscription journalism, and the magic of email
Ian Sherr / CNET:
Interview with Satya Nadella and Phil Spencer on buying more game companies, investing in Xbox Game Pass, and Microsoft's rejected TikTok bid  —  In an interview, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Xbox head Phil Spencer discuss further acquisitions, how to keep making hits and what happened with TikTok.
Eugene Wei / Remains of the Day:
How TikTok's UI, focused on just one auto-playing video at a time, generates clean user-driven data thanks to its “algorithm-friendly design”  —  In my previous post on TikTok I discussed why its For You Page algorithm is the connective tissue that makes TikTok work.
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Samsung is launching its ad-supported streaming service Samsung TV Plus, available on Samsung TVs since 2016, on some of its latest mobile phones  —  Samsung is doubling down on free, ad-supported streaming: After turning Samsung TV Plus into a massive success story on smart TVs …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Kuo: Apple's next 12.9-inch iPad Pro, coming at the end of 2020, will have Mini-LED displays  —  Following his report earlier this week indicating that Apple will be accelerating adoption of mini-LED displays in its iPad and Mac notebook lineups thanks to better than expected development …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Julia Alexander / The Verge:
YouTube says it will use AI-powered moderation to automatically age-restrict certain content  —  AI moderation measures will be used to automatically age-restrict certain content  —  YouTube is rolling out more artificial intelligence-powered technology to catch more videos …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Overview of the state of bundles in 2020 across Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft  —  Manage your Stratechery subscription.  —  If the famous Jim Barksdale quote is to be believed — the one about there only being two ways to make money in business, bundling and unbundling …
David French / Reuters:
Robinhood raises $460M from a16z, Sequoia, DST Global, and others as a extension to its $200M Series G, at a $11.7B valuation  —  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Robinhood Markets Inc, the financial technology startup credited with helping popularize trading among millennials, has increased …
Peter Slattery / OneZero :
How Spotify's UX decisions have encouraged the growth of adjective-laden generic artist names, enabling a kind of SEO spam for music  —  The platform is filled with search-optimized spammers, and there's no end in sight  —  Welcome to The Cheater's Guide to Spotify, a series about the schemes …
Financial Times:
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter reach a deal with big advertisers for common standards on harmful content and to let external auditing of the system from H2 2021  —  External audits and common standards satisfy companies who were boycotting social media  —  Facebook, YouTube and Twitter …
Abram Brown / Forbes:
Manticore, a Roblox-like startup that enables users to quickly build multi-player desktop games, raises $15M led by Epic, bringing its total raised to $60M  —  Manticore, a new gaming startup with software that enables users to quickly build high-resolution multi-player desktop games …
Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:
Warsaw-based Uncapped, which offers revenue-based finance to European startups, raises $26M led by Mouro Capital  —  Uncapped, the London-headquartered and Warsaw-based startup that offers “revenue-based” finance to European businesses so that founders don't have to give up equity stipulated …
Danny Palmer / ZDNet:
Authorities from the US, UK, Germany, Europol, and others arrest 179 during Operation DisrupTor, targeting the sale of illicit goods on the dark web  —  ‘Operation Disruptor’ involved agencies from nine countries and the seizure of over $6.5m in cash and cryptocurrencies as criminals warned law enforcement will track them down.

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Earlier Picks

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Wall Street Journal:
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