Techmeme
September 29, 2021, 1:35 PM

Top News

Gerrit De Vynck / Washington Post:
YouTube says it is banning prominent anti-vaccine activists, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and blocking all anti-vax content, not just about COVID-19 vaccines  —  The Google-owned video site previously only banned misinformation about coronavirus vaccines.  Facebook made the same change months ago.
Reuters:
Russia arrests Ilya Sachkov, the CEO of cybersecurity company Group-IB, on suspicion of treason and will hold him in custody for two months  —  Russia has arrested Ilya Sachkov, the chief executive of top Russian cybersecurity company Group IB, on suspicion of state treason and will hold …
Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica:
Apple says the “jelly scroll” issue on the 6th-gen iPad mini is normal for LCD screens; the issue isn't noticeable on other latest iPad models with LCD screens  —  Apple says the issue is caused by normal LCD screen behavior.  —  Update, 9/28/2021: In response to our inquiry …
Matthew Gault / VICE:
Internal docs detail Amazon's Astro, including its use of facial recognition and “Sentry” mode; sources who worked on Astro say it is a “privacy nightmare”  —  Leaked meetings show the robot will heavily rely on facial recognition and user behavior, but sources who worked on Astro say the robot is flawed.
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Netflix acquires its first game studio, Night School Studio, which was founded by Sean Krankel and Adam Hines in 2014 and is best known for the game Oxenfree  —  Netflix has acquired its first game studio with the acquisition of Oxenfree creator Night School Studio.  The purchase price wasn't disclosed.
Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch:
AngelList launches AngelList Stack, a set of tools to help founders start and run their companies, including end-to-end incorporation and banking services  —  AngelList Stack is a new suite of workflow products for founders  —  AngelList this week launched AngelList Stack …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: the FTC is considering strengthening online privacy protections, including for children, in an effort to bypass legislative logjams in Congress  —  Agency is looking at strengthening rules that govern how digital businesses collect user data  —  WASHINGTON—The Federal Trade Commission …
Krebs on Security:
Researcher discloses AirTag Lost Mode vulnerability that enables a phishing attack, and says Apple spent three months investigating and refused basic questions  —  The new $30 Airtag tracking device from Apple has a feature that allows anyone who finds one of these tiny location beacons …
Reuters:
Senators Blackburn and Blumenthal say a Facebook whistleblower will testify at an October 5 Senate hearing on child safety  —  Two U.S. senators said on Tuesday a Facebook Inc (FB.O) whistleblower will testify at a Senate hearing next week about what one of them called the social media company's “toxic effects” on young users.
Rachel Pannett / Washington Post:
Russia threatens to block YouTube unless it restores two German-language RT channels that were banned for COVID-19 misinformation  —  Russia has threatened to block YouTube unless the Google-owned video service restores two German-language channels managed by Russia's state media company RT …
Christine Hall / TechCrunch:
Cocoon, which offers a service to help companies and employees manage leave, raises $20M Series A led by Index Ventures  —  Employee leave benefits are a complicated web of company and government policies, and Cocoon is out to bring clarity and simplicity to both the employer and employee experience.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Tonic.ai, which helps engineers create synthetic data sets, raises $35M Series B led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raised to $45M  —  The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility.  Register now!
More: TechCrunch
Dalya Alberge / The Guardian:
Analysis by Swiss AI company Art Recognition of 148 paintings suggests UK National Gallery's Samson and Delilah by Peter Paul Rubens, bought in 1980, is a fake  —  Long-held doubts about the authenticity of the National Gallery's masterpiece, bought for £2.5m in 1980, are backed by pioneering technology
Annie Massa / Bloomberg:
Investment and savings app Betterment raises $100M debt and $60M Series F at a ~$1.3B valuation led by Treasury and says it has around 700,000 clients  —  Betterment LLC has raised an additional $160 million, pushing the robo-adviser's market value to almost $1.3 billion.
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
EquityBee, which runs a marketplace with ~12K investors to help startup employees exercise their stock options, raises $55M Series B led by Group 11  —  Stock options can hold a lot of potential reward for employees when their company is doing well, but not every person will have the funds …
Cherie Hu / Water & Music:
UK study: ~0.4% of artists generated enough streams in 2020, around 1M/month, to make a living, up from 0.1% in 2015, with 65%-75% of streams from back catalogs  —  This article is part of Extended Play, our new free weekly briefing built around contextualizing music-industry data.
Jennifer Surane / Bloomberg:
Affirm plans to debut a debit card and allow its customers to buy and sell crypto directly from Affirm savings accounts  —  - Customers will be able to buy, sell crypto including Bitcoin  — 'We won't let you do crazy things,' Affirm's Levchin says  —  Affirm Holdings Inc. is planning …
Source: AffirmMore: blockchain.news

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Benjamin Mullin / Wall Street Journal:
Gene Park / Washington Post:
Sarah Rieger / CBC News:
Wall Street Journal: