Techmeme
January 31, 2021, 5:25 PM

Top News

Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
How one disgruntled person destroyed the online reputations of 145+ people, aided by “complaint sites” in the US and platforms like Google that rarely intervene  —  Outrageous lies destroyed Guy Babcock's online reputation.  When he went hunting for their source, what he discovered was worse than he could have imagined.
Cat Ferguson / MIT Technology Review:
VAMS, a CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M to manage rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, has been abandoned by states due to bugs and problems  —  The CDC ordered software that was meant to manage the vaccine rollout.  Instead, it has been plagued by problems and abandoned by most states.
Dave Lee / Financial Times:
More than 2,000 police and fire departments in the US have now partnered with Amazon's Ring, with 1,189 new departments added over the past year  —  Controversial surveillance network has doubled in size in the country in the past year  —  More than 2,000 police and fire departments in the US …
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
Google has reinstated federated chat app Element on the Play Store after briefly pulling it over abusive content, which is now removed, on Element's servers  —  Element is a popular client for the federated chat protocol Matrix, and we highlighted it in our roundup of the best open-source alternatives …
Evelyn Douek / Lawfare:
Analysis of the first Oversight Board rulings, which in the long term may influence Facebook moderation rules more than the upcoming decision on Trump ban  —  After seemingly endless announcements heralding the arrival of the Facebook Oversight Board (FOB) over the past 18 months, the board has …
Kellen Browning / New York Times:
League of Legends teams in the US recruited 40+ superstar players from Asia since 2016, with an average salary of $460K for a player in a team's starting five  —  League of Legends teams in the U.S. lag behind their competitors in Asia, so they recruit the world's best players by offering huge salaries.
Under the Hood:
John Herrman / New York Times:
Christine Hall / Crunchbase News:
Analysis: investors have pumped $7.3B into ~730 US-based fitness apps and services over the past five years, with $2.4B coming just in 2020 across 187 deals  —  Sometimes the best way to know something works is by trying it out yourself.  —  Health and fitness-related goals are commonly …
Zeyi Yang / Protocol:
A look at Bilibili, the “YouTube for China”, as it balances competition and cooperation with Alibaba and Tencent, both of which invested in the video platform  —  “Should Bilibili keep expanding and become a larger player, their relationship with Tencent will surely deteriorate.”

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
SignalFire:
SignalFire raises another $1 billion to back applied AI startups  —  We build AI too.  It tracks 650M tech employees so we can help companies with recruiting and GTM across enterprise, infra, healthcare, security, and consumer.
Zoho:
Achieving UK's Cyber Essentials with Zoho's Security Solutions  —  As cybercrime continues to surge, businesses find themselves increasingly vulnerable to attacks that can disrupt operations and tarnish their reputations, particularly in the UK.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
FTC As Today's Main Character
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Invest Like the Best:
Matt Huang - Investing At The Frontier
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Diggnation:
Tiki Bar TV, Appendixes, and Rideable Robot Horses
Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht give you their unique, sometimes awkward, and always hilarious take on the edges of the internet.
Subscribe to Diggnation.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Verizon's consumer chief: Net neutrality 'went literally nowhere'
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Grit:
No Reset Button: Reinventing Amplitude in a Post-AI World (Spenser Skates)
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
Acquired:
Epic Systems (MyChart)
Learn the playbooks that built the world's greatest companies - and how you can apply them as a founder, operator, or investor.
Subscribe to Acquired.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:25 PM ET, January 31, 2021.

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

Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Lara O'Reilly / Business Insider:
Wall Street Journal:
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch: