Techmeme
February 18, 2021, 11:55 AM

Top News

William Easton / About Facebook:
Ahead of proposed media law, Facebook bans Australians from sharing or viewing news and all users from sharing and viewing news on Australian news Pages  —  In response to Australia's proposed new Media Bargaining law, Facebook will restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing …
More: Washington Post, Benedict Evans, 9News, Sydney Morning Herald, Vox, The Guardian, Facebook, Associated Press, Reuters, Insider, Marketing Land, TechCrunch, The Verge, CNN, ABC, The Guardian, The Guardian, XDA Developers, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Financial Times, Financial Times, Sydney Morning Herald, news.com.au, Politico, ABC, AppleInsider, Hollywood Reporter, BBC, Axios, diginomica, Sky News, OneZero , KnowTechie, Wccftech, NPR, Australian Financial Review, Sydney Morning Herald, CNBC, Variety, BGR India, Telecoms.com, Search Engine Roundtable, Digiday, The Next Web, Forbes, iMore, Herald Sun, TIME, Ubergizmo, New York Post, Firstpost Tech, Reuters, and CNBC
ABC:
Australian authorities in public health, weather, and other areas say Facebook has removed posts from their feeds following Facebook's news ban  —  Facebook has restricted access to news in Australia, and so far the tech giant seems to have taken a pretty broad definition of news.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Banning Australian news makes sense for Facebook and may prompt people to visit news sites directly; Google's payoffs, though, will invite global shakedowns  —  But Google gives in.  What's next?  —  Yesterday, I wrote that Australia's News Media Bargaining Code threatened to splinter the internet.
News Corp:
Usman Pirzada / Wccftech:
NVIDIA announces dedicated crypto mining GPUs and says RTX 3060 GPU will detect the Ethereum cryptocurrency mining algorithm and limit the hash rate by 50%  —  NVIDIA has finally conceded to the overwhelming mining demand facing the GPU market right now and launched a lineup …
Hannah Murphy / Financial Times:
Court filing says a Facebook manager warned that the company reported revenues it “should have never made” by overstating how many users advertisers could reach  —  Lawsuit cites product executive's qualms over figures provided to advertisers  —  A Facebook employee warned …
Noam Bardin:
Former Waze CEO reflects on his time at Google and the impact of the acquisition on autonomy, the brand, hiring and firing, distribution, compensation, and more  —  It's been two weeks since I left Google and I keep getting asked “why did I leave now”?  I think the better question is “why did I stay for so long”?
Bloomberg:
Sources: Google will restructure its Responsible AI teams to centralize them under a single Black executive, Marian Croak, in wake of Timnit Gebru's departure  —  - Company seeks to stabilize department amid internal rancor  — Responsible AI teams to be centralized under single executive
Allana Akhtar / Insider:
Ahead of Congressional hearing on GameStop, Vlad Tenev denies Robinhood colluded with hedge funds, asks for revision of SEC rule so trades settle in real-time  —  - Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev released his testimony ahead of Thursday's Congressional hearing.  — The House asked Tenev …
More: Bloomberg
Ben Geman / Axios:
Facebook says it will expand its program to fight climate lies to other regions, will debunk climate change myths, adds labels to climate change posts in the UK  —  Facebook is expanding the geographic reach of its recently launched online portal to counter misinformation about climate change …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google launches over 50 new features for its education products, including Classroom, Meet, and Workspace, with a focus on meeting educators' and admins' needs  —  Google today introduced a suite of updates for its online education tools whose adoption and further development have been accelerated …
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Recent deals like the iHeart Media's purchase of Triton Digital suggest that ad tech, not exclusive content, will be the key to long-term success in podcasting  —  iHeart Media acquires Triton Digital for $230 million  —  iHeartMedia, the company behind podcasts like Stuff You Should Know and hundreds …
Sankalp Phartiyal / Reuters:
Sources: Apple is lobbying to participate in a new scheme to boost India's computer exports, as part of plans to bring iPad manufacturing to the country  —  NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Apple Inc is angling to participate in a new scheme to boost India's exports of computer products …
Karl Bode / VICE:
FCC launches the Broadband Data Task Force to collect data and develop more precise maps of US broadband availability, which currently rely on ISP-provided data  —  You can't fix a problem you don't understand.  And for decades the US has refused to accurately measure the full scope of US broadband market failure.
Monica Chin / The Verge:
Razer Book 13 review: the 16:10 touch display is great for multitasking and integrated graphics performance is very good but feels clunkier than competition  —  Business on the lid, party in the keyboard  —  For years, Razer has made some of the best gaming laptops on the market.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Replit, a browser-based IDE for cross-platform collaborative coding, raises $20M Series A led by A.Capital Ventures  —  Replit, a browser-based integrated development environment (IDE) built for cross-platform collaborative coding, has raised $20 million in a series A round of funding led by A.Capital Ventures.

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