Techmeme
February 20, 2021, 6:00 PM

Top News

Shen Lu / Protocol:
An ex-ByteDance employee recounts the inner workings of the company's complex content moderation system and the role of China's internet censorship policies  —  This is the story of Li An, a pseudonymous former employee at ByteDance, as told to Protocol's Shen Lu.
Chris Welch / The Verge:
Twitch replaced the audio for Metallica's “For Whom The Bell Tolls” with folk music during the band's BlizzCon livestream, presumably to avoid a DMCA notice  —  The Twitch Gaming stream gave us this beautiful moment  —  Despite its later-than-usual timing and going completely virtual …
Ina Fried / Axios:
Margaret Mitchell, co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team, says she has been fired; Google says an employee conduct review confirmed multiple policy violations  —  Margaret Mitchell, the co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team, says that the company has fired her following an investigation into her use of corporate email.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Report: Google's AI Chief Jeff Dean apologizes in an email after Timnit Gebru's exit, saying his team should have managed the situation “with more sensitivity”  —  Google told employees Friday it has wrapped up its investigation into the ouster of prominent AI researcher Timnit Gebru.
Eric Benjamin Seufert / Mobile Dev Memo:
Apple's app tracking transparency pushes publishers like Zynga to acquire or build their own ad tech, creating first party walled gardens that Apple can't touch  —  , Apple is diminishing the ability for advertising to be personalized by limiting the use of third-party data for that purpose.
Erika Hayasaki / New York Times:
An in-depth look at Amazon's ubiquitous presence in California's Inland Empire, with 16 facilities, as COVID-19 spurs Amazon workers nationwide to organize  —  Covid-19 has cemented the e-commerce giant's hold on the economy — but it has also spurred employees all around the country to organize.
Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World:
Interview with founder of Koo, a microblogging service for regional language speakers in India that recently passed 3M users, fueled in large part by Modi's BJP  —  Aprameya Radhakrishna made Koo for local-language speakers.  Overnight, Hindu nationalists drove its success.  —  • BANGALORE, INDIA
Financial Times:
US video streaming giants are finding it more challenging to cash in on India, amid outcries over edgy content and difficulties in convincing consumers to pay  —  Netflix, Amazon and Disney tackle greater scrutiny from censors as they engage in a fierce pricing war
Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal:
Corey Dickinson / Bloomberg:
As Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Uber, Amazon, and others play larger roles in OpenStreetMap, hobbyists fear private sector will overshadow their work  —  What do Lyft, Facebook, the International Red Cross, the U.N., the government of Nepal and Pokémon Go have in common?
Ian Carlos Campbell / The Verge:
App Annie: Australian Broadcasting Corporation's news app was briefly the most downloaded app on the AU App Store after Facebook's news ban and is now second  —  Readers may be going directly to the source  —  The Australian Broadcast Company's ABC News app shot to the top of Apple's App Store charts …

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