Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Techmeme
December 20, 2022, 6:45 PM

Top News

Joshua Oliver / Financial Times:
FTX plans to recoup political donations by Sam Bankman-Fried and his associates, estimated at $70M+ in the 2021-2022 election cycle, to help repay creditors  —  Crypto group's new management says if funds are not returned voluntarily it will pursue recipients in court
Tracy Wang / CoinDesk:
A look at Modulo Capital, a mysterious multi-strategy hedge fund founded in 2022 that received $400M from Alameda and is based in the same Bahamas resort as FTX  —  Founded in early 2022, Modulo operated out of the same luxury Bahamian condominium community where Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX employees lived.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Washington Post:
Brian Fung / CNN:
SEC deposition: in 2017, Zuckerberg considered saying Facebook was investigating “organizations like Cambridge Analytica”, before advisers suggested against it  —  Mark Zuckerberg considered disclosing in 2017 that Facebook (FB) was investigating “organizations like Cambridge Analytica” …
Lee Fang / The Intercept:
Internal documents show that, going back to 2017, Twitter worked with the Pentagon to whitelist CENTCOM accounts used in online foreign influence campaigns  —  Twitter executives have claimed for years that the company makes concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed covert propaganda campaigns on its platform.
Alex Stamos / @alex@cybervillains.com:
Elon Musk is amplifying false claims the FBI “paid Twitter millions” to “censor info from the public”; law enforcement reimburses companies for data requests  —  This claim is false.  Law enforcement has the ability to get stored communications from companies like Twitter under 18 USC 2703(d).
Bloomberg:
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
OpenAI open sources Point-E, a machine learning system that generates and displays a 3D object from a text prompt in one to two minutes on an Nvidia V100 GPU  —  The next breakthrough to take the AI world by storm might be 3D model generators.  This week, OpenAI open-sourced Point-E …
Aisha Malik / TechCrunch:
TikTok begins telling users why a video was in their For You feed, such as content watched, likes, shares, comments, searches, followed accounts, or region  —  TikTok is launching a new feature that allows users to see why a particular video was recommended to them in their For You feed, the company announced on Tuesday.
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
Twitter pilots Blue for Business with select accounts, helping companies identify brands and key employees via badges, but doesn't share other perks and pricing  —  Twitter launched “Blue for Business” last week alongside relaunching Twitter Blue.  At that time, the social network had assigned a gold checkmark to businesses.
Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon agrees to settle two EU antitrust cases related to third-party sellers on its platform, won't pay a fine, and will make commitments for up to seven years  —  Amazon.com Inc. has agreed to settle two European Union antitrust cases related to allegations about its treatment …
James Reddick / The Record:
US prosecutors say two men conspired with Russian hackers to tamper with JFK airport's taxi queuing software, allegedly letting drivers cut the line for a fee  —  Two Queens men have been arrested and are facing up to 10 years in prison on charges that they conspired with Russian hackers …
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
The DEA finds a Mexico-based methamphetamine and cocaine gang working in the US, Mexico, Europe, and Australia used Binance to launder $15M to $40M in proceeds  —  A methamphetamine and cocaine gang operating across the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Australia used the world's biggest cryptocurrency …
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Insider Intelligence: Google will capture 28.8% of US digital ad revenue in 2022 and Meta will grab 19.6%, for a combined 48.4%, down from a 54.7% peak in 2017  —  Google and Meta, known together in the ad industry as the “duopoly,” are expected to bring in less than half of all U.S. digital advertising …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko says the social network reached 2.5M MAUs in November 2022, up from around 300,000 MAUs in October, as Twitter users flee the service  —  Mastodon, a decentralized social media platform that many are turning to as a Twitter alternative, saw its userbase skyrocket …
Cheng Ting-Fang / Nikkei Asia:
Sources: in a first, Apple plans to move some MacBook production to Vietnam in 2023, asking Foxconn to begin as early as May, to further diversify from China  —  iPhone maker aims to have ‘out of China’ production alternatives for key products  —  TAIPEI — Apple plans to move …
Jeff Kauflin / Forbes:
A profile of London-based crypto trading firm Wintermute in the aftermath of UST and FTX's implosion and a $160M hack, as revenue dramatically declined in 2022  —  By deftly navigating crypto's frontier markets and winning big on the collapse of Terra's stable coin, Wintermute has grown …
Marta Belcher / CoinDesk:
Senator Warren's Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act would be a disaster for privacy and civil liberties by effectively surveilling all blockchain users  —  The proposal would turn blockchains into permissioned ledgers surveilled by centralized gatekeepers.
Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk:
Over 100 BTC claimed to be inaccessible was moved out of cold wallets tied to QuadrigaCX, the exchange that went bankrupt in 2019 after its CEO allegedly died  —  More than 100 BTC tied to QuadrigaCX moved out of cold storage wallets over the weekend.  Quadriga's bankruptcy trustee …
Viola Zhou / Rest of World:
Sources: Foxconn workers in Zhengzhou say they got COVID-19 in December 2022 and some were asked to keep working; one supervisor advised workers against testing  —  Sick workers say they're being asked to stay on the assembly line as Foxconn ramps up iPhone 14 Pro production.
Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:
BetterHelp, Cerebral, and other digital mental health companies are providing low quality care thanks to unprofessional therapists, a pressure to grow, and more  —  Heavy advertising and other strategies from Silicon Valley's playbook boost providers' growth but not the quality of care

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Generate videos with Veo 3 in Google Gemini  —  Create high-quality, 8-second videos with Veo 3, our state-of-the-art AI video generator.  Try it with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
6 Tips to Unlock Revenue with Transactional Emails  —  This is a guest post by Tabular.You might think of transactional emails as boring necessities, but the truth is, they're far more powerful than you realize.
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:
Big Meta/Anduril Deal Is A Big Deal
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Social Radars:
Ron Conway, Founder, SV Angel Part 4 (Bonus)
Come be a fly on the wall as Y Combinator's Jessica Livingston and Carolynn Levy talk to some of the most successful founders in Silicon Valley about how they did it.
Subscribe to The Social Radars.
Hard Fork:
The A.I. Jobpocalypse + Building at Anthropic with Mike Krieger + Hard Fork Crimes Division
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Rick Smith (CEO, Axon): The Wild Ride From Near-Bankruptcy to $50B+
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Sewing Machine Repair Shop', With Patrick McGee
The director's commentary track for Daring Fireball. Long digressions on Apple, technology, design, movies, and more.
Subscribe to The Talk Show With John Gruber.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
How private equity kills companies and communities
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 6:45 PM ET, December 20, 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

Sarah Krouse / Wall Street Journal:

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: