Techmeme: Tinder says it will bring its optional ID Verification feature, which has been available in Japan since 2019, to all members globally “in the coming quarters” (Kim Lyons/The Verge)

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August 17, 2021, 10:35 AM

Top News

Joseph Cox / VICE:

T-Mobile confirms hackers gained access to its systems, following reports that sensitive data, including SSNs, for over 100M people was for sale on the dark web — “We have determined that unauthorized access to some T-Mobile data occurred.” — Joseph Cox

Source: T-Mobile. More: Reuters, BleepingComputer, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, ZDNet, Krebs on Security, Computerworld, XDA Developers, CyberScoop, Threatpost, Wired, Light Reading, New York Post, IT PRO, Android Central, IT PRO, MediaNama, Wall Street Journal, SlashGear, PYMNTS.com, IT Management, The Register, KnowTechie, NBC News, TechCrunch, Techdirt, 9to5Mac, Phandroid, Tom's Guide, MacRumors, Bitcoin Magazine, AppleInsider, FierceWireless, TechRadar, The Record, infosecurity-magazine.com, Softpedia News, Silicon Republic, Android Police, Tech.co, BitcoinExchangeGuide, Coinspeaker, The Daily Dot, CNN, Engadget, TmoNews, MUO, The Verge, GeekWire, Protocol, Security Affairs, TechSpot, HotHardware.com News, SecurityWeek, Channel Futures, TheStreet, The Mac Observer, Cointelegraph, BGR, Dark Reading, iMore, Security Boulevard, Cryptonews, HackRead, FrontPageTech.com, Digital Trends, Droid Life, USA Today, BleepingComputer, SlashGear, Graham Cluley, Pocketnow, Input, Light Reading, Ubergizmo, and Techaeris

Tweets: @josephfcox, @knieriemen, @odell, @jason_koebler, @briankrebs, @mshelton, @chronotope, @bdsams, @chrisblec, @deviantollam, @seahawkerholm, @lorenzofb, @josephfcox, @vice, @lorenzofb, and @vice

Bloomberg:

Adam Mosseri says Facebook is “proactively” removing content from its platforms that promotes or represents the Taliban — A Facebook Inc. executive said the company is “proactively” removing content from its platforms that promotes the Taliban as the group seizes power in Afghanistan.

More: CNBC, Washington Post, BBC, Insider, Agence France-Presse, CNET, The Independent, Reason, Reuters, Reuters, PolitiFact, Bloomberg, benzinga.com, Washington Free Beacon, and Neowin

Tweets: @donie, @sam_l_shead, @donie, @sam_l_shead, @donie, @heytammybruce, @rajeshwarie, @gulalai_ismail, @dineshdsouza, @donie, and @amyspitalnick

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / VICE:

As the Taliban uses WhatsApp to coordinate and spread messages, the service's end-to-end encryption makes banning the group difficult — The Taliban are using the Facebook-owned chat app to spread messages to Afghan citizens as they take over the country. — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai

Ax Sharma / BleepingComputer:

Researcher finds a terrorist watchlist of 1.9M people, including “no-fly” records, on an unsecured Elasticsearch cluster; DHS later took the server offline — A secret terrorist watchlist with 1.9 million records, including classified “no-fly” records was exposed on the internet.

More: LinkedIn, PCMag, The Verge, TechRadar, SecurityWeek, Slashdot, fossbytes.com, Security Affairs, The Record, Engadget, and Beyond Search. Tweets: @quinnypig

Kim Lyons / The Verge:

Tinder says it will bring its optional ID Verification feature, which has been available in Japan since 2019, to all members globally “in the coming quarters” — The feature has been active in Japan since 2019 — Tinder said on Monday that it will make its ID Verification feature available …

Source: Tinder Newsroom. More: Silicon Republic, Gizmodo, PCMag, 9to5Mac, KnowTechie, Neowin, Mashable, phonearena.com, TNW, SiliconANGLE, PYMNTS.com, Engadget, Telegraph, and SlashGear

Ryan Browne / CNBC:

Vienna-based crypto trading platform Bitpanda raises $263M led by Valar Ventures at a $4.1B valuation, up from $1.2B five months ago — - Cryptocurrency trading platform Bitpanda raised $263 million in a fresh round of funding valuing the company at $4.1 billion.

Source: Bitpanda Blog. More: TechCrunch, Blockworks, Tech.eu, altfi.com, Finextra, Crunchbase News, Sifted, Cointelegraph, CoinDesk, cryptodaily.co.uk, The Block, CoinJournal, Crypto Briefing, and Tech News

Christian Shepherd / Financial Times:

Shares in Alibaba, Tencent, and JD fall after China's antitrust watchdog announces a ban on unfair competitive practices, including exploiting user data — Shares of country's big tech companies slide as crackdown on sector intensifies — China will ban its internet platforms from a wide array …

More: Reuters, The Economic Times, PYMNTS.com, Barron's Online, Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and Bloomberg. Tweets: @mdudas

South China Morning Post:

Sources: China's probe into Didi has slowed down its business and operations, as engineers rush to fix issues and investigators interview employees for hours

More: The Economic Times. Tweets: @therealjoshye, @therealjoshye, @therealjoshye, and @therealjoshye

Lily Hay Newman / Wired:

Researchers find a bug in the ThroughTek Kalay SDK, which connects over 83M IoT devices with apps, that lets attackers access audio and video streams — A vulnerability in the Kalay platform leaves countless IoT devices susceptible to hackers. — A VULNERABILITY IS lurking in numerous types …

Source: FireEye. More: ZDNet, BleepingComputer, CyberScoop, and SecurityWeek. Tweets: @weldpond

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:

OnlyFans begins promoting OFTV, a free safe-for-work app available on iOS and Android with 800+ videos, as it prepares to raise new funding — The most common question customers ask Tim Stokely, the chief executive officer of OnlyFans, is why he doesn't have an app.

More: The Verge and Tubefilter

Tweets: @lucas_shaw, @jediqueenie, @alanaevansxxx, and @ashleylatke

Michael McSweeney / The Block:

Bluesky, the decentralized social media initiative unveiled by Twitter in 2019, will be led by Jay Graber, a former startup founder and cryptocurrency dev — Bluesky, the decentralized social media initiative unveiled by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey at the end of 2019, has a project lead, according to a Monday announcement.

More: Bloomberg, Techdirt, Coinspeaker, The Verge, Reuters, Social Media Today, Cointelegraph, and CoinDesk

Tweets: @arcalinea, @jack, @arcalinea, @arcalinea, @petermccormack, @glenweyl, @chrisblec, @evan_greer, @avsa, @mikeelgan, @jeffjarvis, @bluesky, @timbray, @lsanger, @nischalshetty, @rabble, @arcalinea, and @mmasnick

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch:

Brex, which offers credit cards tailored to startups, acquires Weav, a developer of a universal API for commerce platforms, for $50M — Fintech Brex first partnered with Weav, a developer of a universal API for commerce platforms, last summer. — In March, Brex launched Instant Payouts …

More: CTech, Crowdfund Insider, Globes Online, and Business Wire

Samantha Hissong / Rolling Stone:

TikTok partners with Audius, a music streaming service built on Ethereum, to let users upload their music as TikTok Sounds — It's the blockchain-powered Audius, rather than Spotify or Apple Music, that will let artists share their sounds into TikTok in one click

More: Decrypt, Crypto Briefing, blockchain.news, Coinspeaker, Bitcoinist.com, benzinga.com, and Cointelegraph

Tweets: @audiusproject and @audiusproject

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From Mediagazer

Murray Stassen / Music Business Worldwide:

WMG launches the WMG Pulse app in beta to let artists and their teams access real-time information about streaming performance and more across various platforms

CNN:

Memo: the Pentagon orders all military academies to identify and remove books from their libraries promoting “divisive concepts” like race and gender ideology

Andrew Marchand / New York Times:

Sources: YouTube is favored to stream the NFL's opening week Friday night game, its first exclusive NFL broadcast, which may be available globally for free

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More News

Reema Al Othman / Bloomberg:

Filing: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund raised its stake in Activision Blizzard by 13% to 37.9M shares, worth $3.6B, in Q2, despite workplace controversy

Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:

Pngme, which offers APIs for financial services to companies in sub-Saharan Africa, raises $15M Series A led by Octopus Ventures

More: FinSMEs and TechCabal

Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:

Monte Carlo, which uses AI to monitor data reliability, raises $60M Series C led by Iconiq Growth, following a $25M Series B in February 2021

More: SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, and California News Times

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:

Salesforce announces deeper integration between its services and Slack, including Sales Cloud and Tableau, following the close of its Slack acquisition

More: TechCrunch, Salesforce News, Salesforce News, and Slack

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch:

Moloco, an ad tech startup that uses machine learning to create mobile campaigns, raises $150M Series C led by Tiger Global at a $1.5B valuation

More: Silicon Valley Business …

Alexandra Bruell / Wall Street Journal:

UK-based ad tech startup InfoSum, which helps organizations match customer data in a privacy-compliant way, raises $65M Series B at a $300M pre-money valuation

Apoorva Mittal / The Economic Times:

Indian startup Zupee, which offers quiz apps to help users learn skills, raises $30M Series B at a $500M valuation, up from $100M in January 2021

More: FinSMEs, Entrackr, and Business Standard

Wired UK:

Apple and Google's vague and inconsistent policies around hookup apps can harm LGBTQ people, especially those in countries with explicitly anti-LGBTQ laws

Tweets: @mikestabile, @nigelwuk, @lewdapril, @cathyreisenwitz, @maasalan, @jules_aint_shit, @omarijhardy, and @julieowono

Earlier Picks

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Roblox reports Q2 bookings of $665.5M, up 35% YoY, vs. $689.2M est., revenue of $454.1M, up 127% YoY, net loss of $140.1M, and average DAUs of 43.2M, up 29% YoY

More: GamesIndustry.biz, FinSMEs, TrueAchievements, TechCrunch, Roblox, CNN, TheStreet, MarketWatch, PYMNTS.com, TechCrunch, Barron's Online, Reuters, and Bloomberg. Tweets: @peterpandam

Tim Marcin / Mashable:

Yik Yak, the app that creates anonymous message boards for users within a five mile radius, returns to the US iOS App Store after its 2017 shutdown

More: App Store, The Verge, TNW, 9to5Mac, Insider, iMore, The Overspill, Neowin, TechCrunch, Social Media Today, The Wrap, CNET, Complex, Forbes, MUO, Engadget, Gizmodo, and USA Today

Tweets: @yikyakapp, @wittlett, @ronnui_, @davidcelis, @codyfreshhh, @thekalenallen, @katiefliesaway, @imani_barbarin, @brotigupta, @iwriteallday_, @brookemiccio, @stepheniscowboy, @mashable, @emmajerome, @bigblackjacobin, @bigdonkey47, @mmasnick, @caseynewton, and @taylorlorenz

Matt Mullenweg:

Automattic closed a new funding round of $288M in February and recently completed a $250M share buyback aimed at current and ex-employees at a $7.5B valuation

Tweets: @photomatt, @danprimack, @jasonlk, and @peterpham

Brad Stone / Bloomberg:

A look at US lawmakers' efforts to rein in Google and Apple's app stores, after a bipartisan companion bill to Senate's Open App Markets Act debuts in the House

More: American Enterprise Institute, Macworld, Insider, Axios, Reuters, and AppleInsider

Tweets: @repkenbuck, @bradstone, @margarethmcgill, and @senblumenthal

Alex Konrad / Forbes:

A look at Coinbase Ventures, which has backed 150+ companies over three years, writes mostly seed checks of $50K to $250K, and does not have any full-time staff

Tweets: @alexrkonrad, @alexrkonrad, @iampaulgrewal, @joonian, @davidlee, @jeffjohnroberts, @katie_haun, @rachaelrad, @rsg, @efeng, @sarthakgh, and @magdalenakala. Thanks:@alexrkonrad

David Gilbert / VICE:

Research shows pro-Trump social network GETTR has no content moderation besides user reporting and reached 1.5M users in August, not July as claimed

Source: Stanford Internet Observatory. More: Philip Elmer‑DeWitt and Insider

Tweets: @elegant_wallaby, @elegant_wallaby, @elegant_wallaby, @elegant_wallaby, @daithaigilbert, @micahflee, @noupside, @milesmccain, @elegant_wallaby, @elegant_wallaby, @elegant_wallaby, @milesmccain, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, @alexstamos, and @alexstamos

Tom Krisher / Associated Press:

NHTSA opens a formal investigation into Tesla's Autopilot system, covering 765K vehicles, saying it has trouble spotting parked emergency vehicles

Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. More: New York Times, CNN, Reuters, Protocol, CNBC, The Verge, Wccftech, Financial Times, IT PRO, Bloomberg, TGDaily, New York Times, Bloomberg, Observer, TechCrunch, Mashable, Tom's Guide, The Hill, Bloomberg, Newser, KnowTechie, MSPoweruser, BBC, Coinspeaker, Gizmodo, and San Francisco Business Journal

Tweets: @nytimes, @bgrahamdisciple, @senmarkey, @teslacharts, @garyblack00, @tkrisher, @carnage4life, @ap, and @hypervisible

Joanna Ossinger / Bloomberg:

Crypto staking service Figment raises $50M Series B, led by Senator Investment Group and Liberty City Ventures, source says at a ~$500M valuation

More: Figment, CoinJournal, Coinspeaker, Blockworks, SiliconANGLE, FinLedger, CoinDesk, The Block, and Cointelegraph

Tweets: @spvenino33, @figment_io, and @jimandelman