Techmeme
February 11, 2021, 10:55 AM

Top News

Financial Times:
Sources: Microsoft made an offer to acquire Pinterest in recent months; talks are not active right now  —  Microsoft approached Pinterest in recent months about a potential deal to acquire the $51bn social media company popular with hobbyists posting home decor, food and wedding collages, people briefed on the matter said.
Sami Fathi / MacRumors:
Starting with iOS 14.5, Apple will proxy the Safe Browsing service in Safari through its own servers instead of Google's to protect user data  —  Starting with iOS and iPadOS 14.5, Apple will proxy Google's “Safe Browsing” service used in Safari through its own servers instead of relying …
Daniel Goldblatt / The Wrap:
Facebook says Instagram has removed Robert F Kennedy Jr's account for making false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines  —  Move comes as the company is expanding efforts to crack down on conspiracy theory content  —  Instagram removed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s account on Wednesday …
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Europol, working with US, UK, and others, says 10 people have been arrested for allegedly stealing $100M in cryptocurrency from celebrities via SIM-swap attacks  —  Eight men were arrested in England and Scotland as part of an investigation into a series of SIM swapping attacks targeting US celebrities.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Labelbox, which develops data annotation and labeling software, raises $40M Series C led by B Capital Group, bringing its total raised to $79M  —  Labelbox, a startup developing a data annotation and labeling platform, today announced that it's raised $40 million, bringing its total raised to $79 million.
Amy Lewin / Sifted:
Dublin-based food ordering service Flipdish raises €40M round from Tiger Global Management  —  Pre-Covid, says McCarthy, lots of restaurants relied on platforms like Deliveroo for a small portion of orders, but when everything moved online, “they realised they weren't making a whole load …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Sources: Facebook is building an audio chat product, currently in the earliest stages of development, that is similar to Clubhouse  —  The social network, which has a history of cloning its competitors, has started working on an audio chat product.  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook is building …
Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:
Sweden-based digital bank Northmill raises $30M led by M2 Asset Management  —  Northmill Bank, the Sweden-based challenger that has around 200,000 customers across three European countries, has raised around $30 million in new funding.  —  Leading the round is M2 Asset Management …
Justine Calma / The Verge:
Tesla's $1.5B bitcoin purchase conflicts with its environmental goals, as mining the cryptocurrency consumes massive amounts of energy by design  —  Tesla's banking on a cryptocurrency that's inherently inefficient  —  Tesla just gave bitcoin a big boost that's likely to result …
Elena Schneider / Politico:
Political campaigns are shifting marketing dollars after ad bans by Facebook and Google, with email lists, influencers, and other ad platforms on the rise  —  Renting, swapping and selling campaign email lists to new candidates and causes is a booming political business, but it comes with risks.
The Information:
Internal data shows only 11.3M US households regularly watch NBCU's Peacock; sources: NBCU has pitched ViacomCBS about bundling their streaming services  —  As Netflix and Disney cement their leads over an array of rivals in the video-streaming market, top executives at Comcast and its NBCUniversal arm are in a quandary.
Katie Roof / Bloomberg:
Modern Health, whose app helps employers provide digital mental health care to employees, raises $74M at a valuation of $1.17B, bringing total raised to $172M  —  Modern Health, a San Francisco-based mental health platform, says it has raised $74 million in a funding round that pushes its valuation to $1.17 billion.
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Twitter says it has suspended 500+ accounts in India for violating rules but has not taken any action on accounts of journalists, activists, and politicians  —  Twitter said on Wednesday it has taken actions on more than 500 accounts and reduced visibility of some hashtags in India …
The Information:
Sources: Stir Money, whose software helps video and audio producers, writers, and performers manage their income, raises Series A led by a16z at $100M valuation  —  Andreessen Horowitz recently won a competitive deal to lead the Series A financing of Stir Money, a startup whose software helps video …
Bobby Allyn / NPR:
Interview with Rob Monster, CEO of Epik, on serving sites like Gab, why his company severed ties with 8chan and The Daily Stormer, Parler shutdown, and more  —  Toggle more options  —  When websites flooded with hate speech or harmful disinformation become too radioactive for the Internet …
Tweets: @bobbyallyn, @wexler, @kuow, @fark, and @npr

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