Techmeme
August 1, 2021, 7:55 PM

Top News

Reuters:
Square says it's buying Australia-based buy now, pay later service Afterpay for $29B in an all-stock deal, paying a 30% premium on Afterpay's last closing  —  U.S. fintech company Square Inc (SQ.N) said on Monday it had agreed to purchase Australian buy now/pay later giant Afterpay Ltd …
Stitch / The Verge:
Some K-pop stars are bypassing Twitter and Facebook to create platforms for fans, like Universe, which features AI-generated voice calls with the idols  —  Fandom has changed a lot since I was a kid.  As a tween, I had no hope of getting in touch with celebrities I adored like Britney Spears and Whitney Houston.
Kyle Chayka / New Yorker:
Profile of Bored Ape Yacht Club, an NFT collection that sold for $2M+ in April, spawned a collector community, and has since seen ~$100M in trading activity  —  N.F.T. clubs are all the rage among cryptocurrency enthusiasts.  Are they a get-rich-quick scheme or the future of culture?
John Herrman / New York Times:
After a decade of online identities coming under increasingly centralized control, online anonymity is starting to look like a threatened privilege than a right  —  Reconsidering pseudonymity and what it means to “be yourself” online.  —  In early July, when England's soccer team lost …
Molly Wood / The Atlantic:
Microsoft is avoiding antitrust scrutiny by rebranding itself as nice and boring, even as it reverts to some of the behaviors that led to prosecution the '90s  —  How has Microsoft escaped the scrutiny of reinvigorated antitrust regulators?  —  About the author: Molly Wood is the host …
Maya Wolfe-Robinson / The Guardian:
Report: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok failed to act on 84% of posts spreading anti-Semitism reported via their own complaint systems  —  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and TikTok failing to act on most reported anti-Jewish posts, says study
Tatum Hunter / Washington Post:
Many viewers are experiencing the Olympics primarily through TikTok, with some of the most-watched videos coming not from NBC but from athletes themselves  —  The Olympics through the lens of TikTok look widely different than TV  —  When NBC's “Today Show” told viewers that gymnast Simone Biles …

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Jackie Davalos / Bloomberg:
Associated Press: