Techmeme
February 21, 2021, 3:45 AM

Top News

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 …
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:
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 …
Sheldon Chanel / The Guardian:
Facebook's Australia ban is acute for people in places like Fiji, who rely on phone plans with cheap Facebook access as going to news websites costs more data  —  Media experts fear that communities reliant on the site for information will suffer significant impact
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 …
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.
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” …
More: Pocketnow
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.
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.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
How remote support can make your Christmas stress-free  —  As Christmas approaches, the air fills with the anticipation of joy, family gatherings, and gift-giving.  While the season brings immense happiness …
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Mon. 12/23 - The Revenge Of Google Glass?
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 3:45 AM 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

Corey Dickinson / Bloomberg:
Financial Times:
Nilesh Christopher / Rest of World:
Dave Gershgorn / OneZero :

Earlier Picks

Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal:
Rich Stanton / PC Gamer: