Techmeme
February 21, 2021, 3:45 PM

Top News

BuzzFeed News:
Sources: Zuckerberg's personal intervention to reduce the severity of Alex Jones' ban in 2019 slowed down Facebook's efforts to deal with dangerous content  —  In April 2019, Facebook was preparing to ban one of the internet's most notorious spreaders of misinformation and hate, Infowars founder Alex Jones.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers discover macOS malware dubbed “Silver Sparrow” on at least 30K Macs, which includes a native M1 version and leverages the Installer JavaScript API  —  With no payload, analysts are struggling to learn what this mature malware does.  —  A previously undetected piece …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
WhatsApp says users who haven't accepted its new privacy policy by May 15 can receive calls and notifications “for a short time”, but not read or send messages  —  WhatsApp said earlier this week that it will allow users to review its planned privacy update at “their own pace” …
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:
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
For many services, moderating content has become an existential crisis; some services are even establishing rules that pre-empt the need for costly moderation  —  Content moderation rules used to be a question of taste.  Now, they can determine a service's prospects for survival.
Reuters:
Facebook deletes the main page of the Myanmar military for “repeated violations of Community Standards prohibiting incitement of violence and coordinating harm”  —  (Reuters) - Facebook on Sunday deleted the main page of the Myanmar military under it standards prohibiting …
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:
Titan, which offers online investment management services to both accredited and unaccredited investors, raises $12.5M Series A led by General Catalyst  —  Titan, a startup that is building a retail investment management platform aimed at millennials, has closed on $12.5 million in a Series …
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 …
Sheldon Chanel / The Guardian:
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 …
Reuters:
Brazil-based Descomplica, which offers online undergraduate courses and test prep for university and civil service entrance exams, raises ~$83M led by SoftBank  —  A group of investors led by Softbank Group has invested 450 million reais ($83 million) in Brazilian test-prep startup Descomplica …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
How EQ plays a defining role in workplace communication  —  What if everyone you worked with had a psychic ability to understand how you're feeling and respond accordingly?  Wouldn't that be great?
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

Spotlight On:
Supabase's Paul Copplestone on the difference between "playing startup" and strategy
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
Invest Like the Best:
Royce Yudkoff & Rick Ruback - Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition
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:
Quitting Booze, Quitting Alexa, and AI Tries to Replace Us All
Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht give you their unique, sometimes awkward, and always hilarious take on the edges of the internet.
Subscribe to Diggnation.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Saudi Arabia Enters The AI Race
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Grit:
How Matt Murphy Made Marvell Essential to AI and Cloud
Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.
Subscribe to Grit.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:45 PM ET, February 21, 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

Erika Hayasaki / New York Times:
Eric Benjamin Seufert / Mobile Dev Memo:
Corey Dickinson / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World:
Shen Lu / Protocol:
Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal: