Techmeme
March 18, 2018, 9:15 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Sources and documents reveal how Cambridge Analytica used harvested personal information from 50M Facebook profiles to build psychological profiles of US voters  —  LONDON — As the upstart voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica prepared to wade into the 2014 American midterm elections, it had a problem.
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Caroline Linton / CBS News:
Facebook “privately welcomed” help of Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie, then publicly suspended his account, says his attorney  —  Facebook announced Friday it had suspended the account of Christopher Wylie, the whistleblower from data firm Cambridge Analytica …
Washington Post:
Two former FTC officials say Facebook may have violated 2011 privacy consent decree as US and UK politicians demand more information from Zuckerberg personally  —  Two former federal officials who crafted the landmark consent decree governing how Facebook handles user privacy say the company …
Alexis C. Madrigal / The Atlantic:
Cambridge Analytica claims to not use Facebook data in voter profiles, perhaps because the models it built from 2014 data do not require more data from Facebook  —  On Friday night, Facebook suspended the account of Cambridge Analytica, the political-data company backed by the billionaire Robert Mercer …
Carole Cadwalladr / The Guardian:
Profile of Christopher Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica employee who is now blowing the whistle on his ex-employer's data harvesting practices  —  Now, 28-year-old Christopher Wylie goes on the record to discuss his role in hijacking the profiles of millions of Facebook users in order to target the US electorate
Kurt Wagner / Recode:
How Facebook's old terms of service allowed Cambridge Analytica to get data on 50M people from just 270K users of an app that used Facebook Login  —  Facebook says it isn't at fault.  —  Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm that helped Donald Trump get elected president …
Paul Grewal / Facebook:
Alexander J Martin / Sky News:
Sources: Twitter will ban ads for ICOs, token sales, and cryptocurrency wallets in the next two weeks  —  Twitter is preparing to prohibit a range of cryptocurrency advertisements amid looming regulatory intervention in the sector.  —  The microblogging platform is following similar moves …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Amazon is rolling out a new “Brief Mode” for Alexa that replaces verbal confirmations with chimes  —  Amazon confirmed it's rolling out an optional “Brief Mode” that lets Alexa users configure their Echo devices to use chimes and sounds for confirmations, instead of having Alexa respond with her voice.
Neil Cybart / Above Avalon:
Apple's projected 2018 R&D costs of ~$14B, up nearly 2x in 4 years and at a 14-year high as a percentage of revenue, hint at Apple's growing product ambitions  —  After a brief lull, Apple's R&D expenditures are once again exploding higher.  Apple's 2Q18 financial guidance implies …
James Cook / Business Insider:
YouTube Kids app suggested conspiracy theory videos in search results and related videos sections  —  - The YouTube Kids app is meant to filter out unsuitable content, but we found that it suggested that children watch conspiracy theory videos.  — The app suggested several videos …
Dave Smith / Business Insider:
Interview with YouTuber Marques Brownlee, aka MKBHD, about the past four years making technology-focused videos, his plans beyond YouTube, and more  —  In 2014, I met a 20-year-old named Marques Brownlee, who former Google VP Vic Gundotra once called “the best technology reviewer on the planet.”

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Ananya Bhattacharya / Quartz: