Techmeme
April 21, 2022, 7:45 PM

Top News

Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
In a speech on disinformation, Obama said social media firms' design choices contribute to polarization, and called for more transparency and Section 230 reform  —  - Former President Barack Obama criticized social media companies for contributing to polarization through design choices on their platforms.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Filing: Elon Musk has secured $46.5B to acquire Twitter, including $25.5B in debt financing via Morgan Stanley and other firms, and is exploring a tender offer  —  - Elon Musk is exploring whether to commence a tender offer for Twitter, according to a new securities filing.
Bloomberg:
Elon Musk's free speech promise for Twitter follows years of silencing or punishing criticism at Tesla and SpaceX, including attacking staff trying to unionize  —  If Elon Musk is able to take over Twitter Inc., his biggest promise is to transform it into a platform for free speech with few restrictions …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Meta is reviewing whether COO Sheryl Sandberg pressured the Daily Mail in 2016 and 2019 into killing stories about her then-boyfriend Bobby Kotick  —  Social-media executive, who dated the Activision Blizzard CEO, was part of campaign to persuade the U.K. tabloid to shelve a potential article
New York Times:
Warner Bros. Discovery will shut down CNN+ on April 30, after its March 29 debut; sources: CNN+ had ~150K subscribers and was on pace to hit first-year goals  —  The new corporate owners of CNN are moving to end the new streaming service after a splashy debut.  —  In the end, CNN+ lasted less than a month.
Frank Chaparro / The Block:
Andreessen Horowitz launches a16z Crypto Research, a lab focused on Web3 breakthroughs that can contribute to deployable code, led by academic Tim Roughgarden  —  Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is diving deeper into the crypto market with the launch of a new academic lab dedicated …
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Amazon announces a $1B Industrial Innovation Fund to back companies of all stages developing customer fulfillment, logistics, and supply chain technologies  —  Amazon on Thursday announced a new $1 billion venture fund that the tech giant will use to back companies of all stages developing …
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
Binance begins enforcing tougher KYC checks, including proof of address, on Russian users with crypto holdings exceeding €10,000, following further EU sanctions  —  Crypto exchange Binance is enforcing tougher Know Your Customer (KYC) checks for Russian users after the latest wave of European Union sanctions.
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Spotify now lets all creators in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand upload video podcasts via Anchor, which Spotify acquired in February 2019  —  After over a year of more limited tests  —  All creators in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand can now upload video podcasts …
Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg:
After years of regulatory pressure, Google unveils “a full redesign” of its cookie consent banner in Europe, including a “reject all” button, starting in France  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Google said it's rolling out a new European-wide policy allowing users to more easily avoid …
Cobie:
Crypto staking evolved from rewards for collateralized coins validating blocks into a Ponzi scheme; Yuga Labs is effectively paying ApeCoin to hold ApeCoin  —  Recently, I was contacted by a member of the board of ApeCoin, which is the BAYC token's equivalent of a board of directors I guess.
MIT Technology Review:
How AI data-labeling companies like Appen use cheap labor in crisis-ridden countries like Venezuela to manually tag videos, sort photos, and transcribe audio  —  It was meant to be a temporary side job—a way to earn some extra money.  Oskarina Fuentes Anaya signed up for Appen …
Kif Leswing / CNBC:
Snap reports Q1 revenue of $1.06B, up 38% YoY, vs. $1.07B est., global DAUs up 18% YoY to 332M vs. 330M est., and net loss up 25% YoY to $360M  —  - Snap missed Wall Street expectations for profit and sales when it reported first-quarter results on Thursday after the bell.
Javier Espinoza / Financial Times:
Sources: on Friday, the EU will unveil the Digital Services Act, which bans targeting users based on religion, gender, or sexual preferences, among other rules  —  Digital Services Act lays out rules for technology groups to keep users safe online  —  The EU is poised to unveil a law …
Josh Ye / Reuters:
Chinese social media and e-commerce app Xiaohongshu has laid off 9% of its staff amid crackdowns; Xiaohongshu raised $500M in November at a $20B valuation  —  Chinese social e-commerce app Xiaohongshu, known as China's answer to Instagram, said it had cut about 9% of its staff as the company joined other internet firms in retrenching.
More: Pandaily

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
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:
5 common accounting mistakes  —  This is a guest post by Yaali Bizappln Solutions.  A lot of businesses manage their customers and finances on separate platforms.  This disconnect often leads to missed invoices …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
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 7:45 PM ET, April 21, 2022.

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

Annie Palmer / CNBC: