Techmeme
September 16, 2021, 11:30 PM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Internal docs show Facebook's weak response after staff flagged human traffickers and drug cartels using its platform for recruitment in developing countries  —  Employees raised alarms about how the site is used in developing countries, where its user base is already huge and expanding
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Adam Mosseri faces criticism after comparing social media to cars, saying “cars create way more value than they destroy”, even though people die in accidents  —  - Facebook Instagram chief Adam Mosseri came under a flurry of criticism after comparing the value of social networks to society to that of cars.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Initial benchmarks show iPhone 13's A15 chip offers a roughly 15% improvement for GPU performance and 10%-18% improvement for CPU performance over A14  —  Earlier today, we reported on a Geekbench Metal result for the iPhone 13 Pro showing an approximately 55% graphics performance improvement compared to the iPhone 12 Pro.
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Haroon Siddique / The Guardian:
Sir Clive Sinclair, the creator of the landmark ZX Spectrum who helped popularize the home computer, dies at age 81  —  Creator of the landmark ZX Spectrum and the less commercially successful C5 died after a long illness  —  Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor and entrepreneur who was instrumental …
Karen Hao / MIT Technology Review:
Internal report: Eastern European troll farms reached 140M US Facebook users per month before the 2020 election; 75% of the users didn't follow any of the Pages  —  In the run up to the 2020 election, the most highly contested in US history, Facebook's most popular pages for Christian …
Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
How law enforcement's ability to track people via commercially available data blurs the line between investigative due diligence and warrantless surveillance  —  Agencies' growing use of purchased data without warrants raises new legal questions  —  In January 2020, a 14-year-old girl …
Reuters:
Facebook says it will use the same tactics that it uses to remove bot networks to target real-user accounts engaging in tactics like mass reporting  —  Facebook (FB.O) is taking a more aggressive approach to shut down coordinated groups of real-user accounts engaging in certain harmful activities …
Financial Times:
China is cracking down on pessimistic financial blogs and social media accounts, as well as fraudulent ones; analysts worry independent voices will be silenced  —  China has launched a crackdown on financial blogs and social media, a move that risks exacerbating the difficulty …
Wenxin Fan / Wall Street Journal:
Mitchell Clark / The Verge:
Nate Chastain, OpenSea's head of product accused this week of a form of NFT insider trading, appears to no longer be working for the company  —  He's accused of buying NFTs before they appeared on the trading platform's homepage  —  OpenSea head of product Nate Chastain …
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Alphabet's Project Taara, which uses light beams to deliver internet, says it transmitted nearly 700TB of data across the Congo River over 20 days  —  The 20Gbps Free Space Optical Communications tech for Project Taara was originally part of Project Loon  —  In January, Google's parent company …
Joanna Ossinger / Bloomberg:
Avalanche Foundation, whose AVAX token is up 65% over the past week, raises $230M led by Polychain and Three Arrows Capital  —  - Cryptocurrency AVAX jumps 65% in past week to top 20 rankings  — Polychain, Three Arrows Capital led the investment purchase
Kenrick Cai / Forbes:
Glean, an enterprise search engine startup cofounded by Google and Facebook veterans, emerges from stealth with $55M in funding across two rounds  —  When Arvind Jain left his cushy tech job to cofound cloud data management company Rubrik, he ran into a familiar problem: search.
Politico:
DHS: American extremists used TikTok in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 riots to recruit new members and share “tactical guidance” for terrorist and criminal activity  —  Extremists foreign and domestic have used the video platform, DHS says.  The app says it has “absolutely no place” for violence and hate.
Aaron Mak / Slate:
Inside the r/aznidentity subreddit, an unofficial hub of “Men's Rights Asians” subculture, which has gained notoriety by harassing Asian women  —  They became notorious for trying to harass Asian women off the internet.  The racial trauma of the past year has only emboldened them.
Michaella Huck / dot.LA:
Omaze, a charity fundraising platform which offers celebrity meet-and-greets and other experiences, raises $85M Series C led by Moore Strategic Venture  —  Charity fundraising platform Omaze, which offers celebrity meet-and-greets and other fundraising experiences, landed its most high profile client …

Sponsor Posts

Termina:
AI Powered Diligence at Scale  —  VCs and founders deploy Termina AI Scans on >12% of all known series A+ deals to uncover hidden risks and opportunities.  Explore how you too can invest and build better companies with AI.
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
Gamification: A simple way to enjoy getting more work done  —  Work doesn't have to be boring.  Gamification transforms everyday tasks into exciting challenges, making employees feel more engaged and motivated.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
E2EE For All!
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Why Trump can't be trusted with Congress' new anti-deepfake bill
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months--one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen Breaks Down the Global Impact of Trump's New Tariffs
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Generative Now:
Dan Shipper: The First MultiModal Media Company
A podcast from Lightspeed dedicated to highlighting the stories, strategies and insights behind today's most exciting AI companies.
Subscribe to Generative Now.
Spotlight On:
Nebius's Arkady Volozh on What it Takes to Build Infrastructure Needed for the AI Era
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:30 PM ET, September 16, 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

Sarah McBride / Bloomberg: