Note: Techmeme is hiring part-time editors. Go here to apply, or tell a friend!
Techmeme
February 9, 2023, 10:20 PM

Top News

Platformer:
Sources: Elon Musk fired a Twitter engineer for suggesting that his engagement numbers are tanking not because of a bug but because his popularity is waning  —  Inside Twitter 2.0, turmoil leaves employees stretched to the max  —  For weeks now, Elon Musk has been preoccupied with worries about how many people are seeing his tweets.
Austin Weinstein / Bloomberg:
Kraken agrees to pay $30M and discontinue its crypto-asset staking products to settle SEC allegations that its staking services broke US securities rules  —  Kraken will pay $30 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it broke US securities rules …
Financial Times:
Inside FTX's final hours, described by employees, chat logs, and Sam Bankman-Fried: panic selling assets, failing to raise money, SBF's silence, and bankruptcy  —  In January, I walked up the front steps of a single-storey, grey-shingled house in a neighbourhood on the fringe of Stanford University.
New York Times:
Rejecting a deal to let Sam Bankman-Fried use encrypted messaging, a judge orders SBF's lawyers to form a plan to tighten his bail to ensure messages are saved  —  A federal judge said he was not satisfied with a plan that lawyers for the disgraced FTX founder struck with prosecutors to limit his use of encrypted messaging apps.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Yahoo plans to lay off 20%+ of its workforce and restructure its ad tech unit, impacting 50%+ of the unit, or 1,600+ people; CEO says the cuts are “strategic”  —  Yahoo plans to lay off more than 20% of its total workforce as part of a major restructuring of its ad tech unit, executives told Axios.
Maria Deutscher / SiliconANGLE:
Microsoft's GitHub cuts 10% of its staff, or an estimated 300+; GitLab cuts 7%, or an estimated 114; report: GitHub will close offices and shift to remote work  —  Microsoft Corp.'s GitHub unit and publicly traded rival GitLab Inc. today both announced layoffs, disclosing plans to let go 10% and 7% of their respective workforces.
Alexander Martin / The Record:
The US and the UK sanction seven people based in Russia, with likely FSB ties, connected to the Conti and Ryuk ransomware gangs and the Trickbot banking trojan  —  The United Kingdom and United States on Thursday sanctioned seven people connected to what officials have told The Record …
Bloomberg Law:
A US jury finds an artist violated Hermès' rights to the Birkin trademark in 2021 by creating and selling MetaBirkin 100 NFTs depicting versions of the handbags  —  Luxury brand Hermès International SA won its lawsuit against the digital artist behind “MetaBirkin” …
Celso Martinho / The Cloudflare Blog:
Michael Kan / PCMag:
The FCC approves Amazon's plan to mitigate its Kuiper satellite internet system's orbital debris; SpaceX asked for stricter conditions on Kuiper's deployment  —  SpaceX had urged the FCC to impose stricter conditions to prevent Amazon's satellite internet system Project Kuiper from producing orbital debris.
Joey Roulette / Reuters:
SpaceX has limited Ukraine's military from using Starlink to control drones; COO Gwynne Shotwell says the internet service was “never meant to be weaponized”  —  SpaceX has taken steps to prevent Ukraine's military from using the company's Starlink satellite internet service …
Bloomberg:
Meta submits data to the EU showing that pop up content warnings stopped Facebook users sharing 25% of flagged posts and 38% on Instagram; TikTok reports 29%  —  The warnings that pop up when someone tries to share potentially false or misleading posts on TikTok Inc., Instagram and Facebook are ignored most of the time.
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Tether claims $700M in Q4 profit, in addition to its reserves, and $67.04B in total assets and $66.08B in liabilities; Tether reduced its secured loans by $300M  —  - Tether issued its latest attestation report, saying its assets exceeded its liabilities as of December 2022.
Ted Chiang / New Yorker:
As ChatGPT and other LLMs repackage info into superficial approximations, like lossy compression for images, the web will become a blurrier version of itself  —  OpenAI's chatbot offers paraphrases, whereas Google offers quotes.  Which do we prefer?  —  In 2013, workers at a German …

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.
Tribe AI:
State of AI: Adoption, Challenges and Recommendations  —  Examining the current state of AI, the key challenges organizations face, and practical recommendations for utilizing AI integration alongside other best practices.
Zoho:
WhatsApp-CRM: Drive business growth with efficient customer communication  —  This is a guest post by WAPlus.For many businesses, WhatsApp has become an indispensable channel for customer communication.
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

Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Runway CEO Cris Valenzuela wants Hollywood to embrace AI video
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
Lenny's Podcast:
Anthropic's CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram)
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.
Techmeme Ride Home:
State Of The AI Coding Landgrab
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View:
Tyler Cowen on how AI will reorder economies, schools, and spirituality
Azeem Azhar explores how AI and exponential technologies are shaping our future.
Subscribe to Azeem Azhar's Exponential View.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
Bluesky Wasn't Supposed to be a Twitter Rival. Now It Is.
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Invest Like the Best:
John Zito - Inside Apollo
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:20 PM ET, February 9, 2023.

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

Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

New York Times:
Bloomberg:
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Michael Potuck / 9to5Mac: