Techmeme
January 25, 2021, 7:05 PM

Top News

NBC News:
Twitter debuts Birdwatch, in testing since last year, which lets select users flag and add notes about tweets they think are misleading or false  —  Twitter unveiled a feature Monday meant to bolster its efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation by tapping users in a fashion similar …
Apple:
Cecilia D'Anastasio / Wired:
A look at r/WallStreetBets, a 2M-member subreddit that helped push GameStop's stock to record highs and is now facing allegations of harassment  —  The denizens of the WallStreetBets subreddit helped push the flailing stock to dizzying heights—while a short seller alleged an accompanying harassment campaign.
Zoe Schiffer / The Verge:
Google workers across the world announce Alpha Global, an international alliance of 13 unions representing workers in 10 countries  —  Alpha Global includes workers from 10 countries, including the United States and Germany  —  Google workers across the world are coming together to form a global union alliance.
Steve Dent / Engadget:
Google pledges $150M in grants to promote COVID-19 vaccine distribution and converts some of its facilities into vaccination sites  —  Google will convert some of its facilities into COVID-19 vaccination sites starting in New York City, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area and Kirkland, Washington.
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple launches Time to Walk for Apple Watch and Fitness+, offering 25- to 40-minute episodes of original audio from influential people, available today  —  Apple has officially unveiled its new Time to Walk feature for Apple Watch and Apple Fitness+ subscribers.
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
Facebook says it will give researchers targeting data on 1.3M social issue, electoral, and political ads from August 3 through November 3, 2020  —  Facebook announced the news in a blog post Monday, following years of requests from academics.  Until now, Facebook has only publicly shared data …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
W3C, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and others launch Open Web Docs, a new project for Web API documentation that will support MDN Docs following Mozilla's layoffs  —  Founding members include the W3C, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Samsung Coil, and Igalia  —  A coalition of tech companies announced today …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Google details its work on a privacy-conscious cookie substitute, called Federated Learning of Cohorts, claims ~95% effectiveness compared to cookie-based ads  —  Google on Monday said new test results show promising signs that the technology it's hoping will replace cookie-based ad targeting is working.
Dan Primack / Axios:
Source: Clubhouse raised around $100M from a16z at a $1B post-money valuation  —  Clubhouse, a San Francisco-based audio social network, raised around $100 million led by existing investor Andreessen Horowitz at a $1 billion post-money valuation, Axios has learned.
Clubhouse:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Content recommendation company Taboola says it has agreed to go public via a SPAC, valuing the company at $2.6B and raising $545M  —  Taboola, the content recommendation company known best for the chum box ads at the bottom of publishers' websites, has agreed to merge with special purpose …

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Reuters:
Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:
Wall Street Journal: