Techmeme
February 24, 2021, 3:35 PM

Top News

Nick Clegg / About Facebook:
Facebook defends its stance in Australia, says it invested $600M since 2018 to support the news industry and plans at least $1B more over the next three years  —  Last week, in a move that will have felt abrupt and dramatic to many, Facebook announced it was stopping the sharing of news on its service in Australia.
Georgia Hitch / ABC:
Joshua Benton / Nieman Lab:
Scott Chipolina / Decrypt:
Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy buys 19,452 Bitcoin, worth $1.0261B, and now holds ~90K Bitcoin, worth ~$4.5B at current prices  —  Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy has purchased 19,452 Bitcoin, worth $1.026 billion, at an average price of $52,765.
Taylor Lyles / The Verge:
HP says it is acquiring gaming peripheral company HyperX for $425M, giving the company a major foothold in the gaming accessory market  —  The acquisition means HP owns the HyperX brand  —  HP has announced that it is acquiring gaming peripheral company HyperX for $425 million.
ProPublica:
Emails show how Facebook responds to requests by authoritarian governments to censor content, as happened in Turkey during its military offensive against Kurds  —  Amid a 2018 Turkish military campaign, Facebook ultimately sided with Turkey's demand to block the page of a mostly Kurdish militia.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTube to roll out a “supervised” account option in beta in the coming months in more than 80 countries, aimed at kids that are too old for YouTube Kids  —  YouTube is launching a PG version of the internet's biggest video service.  —  A new “supervised” YouTube account option …
Nikkei Asia:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
California's 2018 net neutrality law, SB 822, can go into effect after a California judge declined to grant the telecom industry a preliminary injunction  —  It survived challenges from Trump's DOJ, and now one from telecom industry too  —  Net neutrality died a horrible death in 2017 …
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Source: Dispo, a retro photo sharing app co-founded by YouTube star David Dobrik, raises $20M Series A led by Spark Capital at a $200M valuation  —  Dispo, a retro photo-sharing app co-founded by YouTube star David Dobrik, recently raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital …
New York Times:
Myanmar's draconian draft cybersecurity law follows a yearslong effort to build out Myanmar's surveillance capabilities, following cues from China  —  As the military seized power again, the generals moved quickly to take the country offline, criminalize online dissent and block social media.
Jeff Cox / CNBC:
US Federal Reserve's systems that let banks send money back and forth went down for several hours, impacting its automated clearinghouse system and more  —  Fed operational error brings down payment system  —  The Federal Reserve's system that allows financial institutions to send money …
Chris Welch / The Verge:
LG says that it will license its webOS software to other TV brands, such as RCA, Ayonz, and Konka; LG's redesigned webOS 5.0 version will not be included  —  The modern webOS is no longer exclusive to LG's TV lineup  —  LG tonight announced that the company's webOS smart TV platform will soon be found on TVs from other brands.
Jane Wakefield / BBC:
Portland ends partnership with Sidewalk Labs to track mobility; Sidewalk spin-off Replica says it was unwilling to share granular data requested by the city  —  A smart city project started by Google's sister firm Sidewalk Labs to track mobility patterns in the US city of Portland has been shelved.
More: Insider
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Facebook says it is testing more tools to combat child exploitation on its platform, including a measure warning users of “non-malicious sharing” of viral memes  —  Facebook says it is testing more tools to help the social network prevent people from sharing content that  —  exploits children.
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Hubilo, which helps businesses host virtual and hybrid events with real-time analytics, raises $23.5M Series A led by Lightspeed Venture Partners  —  Hubilo, a platform that helps businesses of all sizes host virtual and hybrid events and gain access to real-time data and analytics …

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:
The crossroads of AI and SaaS  —  Enabling businesses of all sizes to build products in-house and disqualifying SaaS tools that are not AI-powered.  In a span of just two years, AI has made a name for itself as the key driver for innovation.
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:
Fri. 12/20 - Gemini Flash Thinking
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 3:35 PM ET, February 24, 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

Earlier Picks

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Selena Deckelmann / The Mozilla Blog:
Stephen Warwick / iMore:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Tim Copeland / Decrypt: