Techmeme
July 22, 2021, 1:45 AM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Twitter is testing a way to downvote replies on iOS to understand the types of replies users find relevant to a conversation; downvotes won't be public  —  Last year, Twitter's chief product officer Kayvon Beykpour confirmed that the social network was “exploring” the idea of adding a dislike button to the app.
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Clubhouse is no longer invite-only as it exits beta and says the 10M people on its waitlist will be added to the app over time  —  The app goes wide  —  Clubhouse is going wide.  Co-founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth announced today that the app is no longer invite-only.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
The FTC formally pledges to fight unlawful right-to-repair restrictions, says it will use its power to lower repair costs and support independent repair shops  —  It comes days after the White House endorsed similar rules  —  The Federal Trade Commission formally pledged to take on unlawful …
Shoshana Wodinsky / Gizmodo:
Grindr has a track record of saying that data shared with brokers is encrypted and unidentifiable, despite the use of such data to out a Catholic priest, others  —  The latest scandal to rock the Catholic Church was both incredibly unnerving and entirely preventable.  Why isn't anyone doing anything about it?
Washington Post:
Jon Fingas / Engadget:
Spanish police have arrested UK citizen Joseph O'Connor at the US' request over his alleged involvement in last year's hack of high-profile Twitter accounts  —  Authorities are still cracking down on participants in the July 2020  —  Twitter celebrity hacks.  Spanish National Police have
Bloomberg Law:
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has sued Activision Blizzard for sexual harassment of and discrimination against its female staff  —  Video game giant Activision Blizzard Inc., maker of games including World of Warcraft and Diablo, fosters a “frat boy” …
Kashmir Hill / New York Times:
Facial-recognition company Clearview AI raises $30M Series B amid legal and ethical concerns, with new investors requesting they not be publicly identified  —  Clearview AI is currently the target of multiple class-action lawsuits and a joint investigation by Britain and Australia.
CNN:
Facebook hides the tag #VaccinesKill from searches, displaying a message that says it is “keeping our community safe”, two years after Instagram hid the tag  —  (CNN)Last week, even as it came under fire from the White House over its role in spreading anti-vaccine misinformation …
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler: stock tokens and stablecoins backed by securities “are implicated by the securities laws and must work within our securities regime”  —  Stock tokens and stablecoins backed by securities might be treated as securities under U.S. law, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said.
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
Epic Games acquires Sketchfab, which operates a repository with 4M+ 3D assets, for an undisclosed sum; Sketchfab reduces its store commission from 30% to 12%  —  New York-based startup Sketchfab has been acquired by Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and Unreal Engine.
Cameron Faulkner / The Verge:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
YouTube says it will test a new feature that will allow viewers to shop for products directly from livestream videos, starting with a few creators and brands  —  YouTube will begin pilot testing a new feature that will allow viewers to shop for products directly from livestream videos.
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Argo AI says it plans launch up to 1,000 autonomous vehicles on Lyft's network in some US cities over the next five years, starting with Miami later this year  —  Autonomous vehicle technology startup Argo AI and its backer and customer Ford plan to launch up to 1,000 self-driving vehicles …
Katie Deighton / Wall Street Journal:
Tumblr starts testing Post+, which allows users to charge their followers a monthly fee in exchange for access to exclusive content, with Tumblr taking a 5% cut  —  Social platform is the latest to let users earn money from posting  —  Microblogging stalwart Tumblr on Wednesday began …
Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:
GudangAda, a Jakarta-based B2B marketplace for fast-moving consumer goods, stationery, and more, raises $100M+ Series B led by Asia Partners and Falcon Edge  —  GudangAda, a Jakarta-based marketplace that brings wholesalers closer to retail stores and other buyers, announced it has closed a Series B of more than $100 million.
More: Tech in AsiaTweets: @techcrunch
Marc Vartabedian / Wall Street Journal:
Virtually Human Studio, the startup behind Zed Run, which lets users breed and race virtual horses bought and sold as NFTs, raises $20M Series A led by TCG  —  Zed Run's parent company nets $20 million as media startups, NFTs surge  —  Virtually Human Studio, the startup behind digital …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Google Maps expands its crowdedness predictions to 10K+ transit agencies in 100 countries, and will show how crowded individual carriages are in NYC and Sydney  —  Expanding to ‘over 10,000 transit agencies in 100 countries’  —  Google is expanding the number of cities where Maps offers information about public transport crowding.
Issie Lapowsky / Protocol:
Report: only one in twelve households eligible for the FCC's emergency broadband benefit are enrolled in the $3.2B program  —  Nearly 4 million households have enrolled in the Federal Communications Commission's emergency broadband benefit program since it launched in May. But as researchers …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
The Biden administration's promise to “review” Section 230 in response to anti-vax posts on Facebook will fail since being wrong online is protected speech  —  ‘Reviewing’ Section 230 isn't the answer to anti-vax posts  —  Last week, the White House declared war …

Sponsor Posts

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.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 6: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(BNS) How To Know When To Kill Your Startup
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 1:45 AM ET, July 22, 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

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC:
BBC:
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: