Techmeme
August 21, 2018, 7:50 PM

Top News

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Facebook assigns a trustworthiness score to each of its users, tracking things like whether an article a user flags as false turns out, after review, to be true  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook has begun to assign its users a reputation score, predicting their trustworthiness on a scale from zero to one.
New York Times:
Research that looked at every anti-refugee attack in Germany over two years shows more attacks on refugees happened where Facebook use was higher than average  —  ALTENA, Germany — When you ask locals why Dirk Denkhaus, a young firefighter trainee who had been considered neither dangerous nor political …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Netflix is testing bypassing iTunes payment method in 33 countries, redirecting users to the mobile web version to log payment details directly with Netflix  —  Netflix is one of the highest-grossing apps on the iOS App Store, but it looks like the video streaming giant is contemplating …
New York Times:
Microsoft says hackers linked to the Russian military intelligence agency formerly known as the GRU targeted conservative US think tanks that challenge Moscow  —  BOSTON — The Russian military intelligence unit that sought to influence the 2016 election appears to have a new target …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Slack raises $427M Series H led by Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic at a valuation of over $7.1B  —  Slack, the workplace communications platform, has taken off like a rocket since launching in 2013 and now has more than 8 million daily active users and 70,000 teams paying to use it.
Facebook:
Facebook says it removed 652 Pages, groups and accounts that originated in Iran for coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram  —  Today we removed multiple Pages, groups and accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior on Facebook and Instagram.
Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed News:
Facebook says it plans to remove over 5,000 ad targeting options by this fall in an effort to prevent discriminatory advertising  —  Facebook is planning to remove more than 5,000 ad targeting options in an effort to prevent discriminatory advertising.  —  The bulk of the 5,000 targeting options …
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google Fit on iOS and Android is redesigned with “move minutes” and “heart points” to encourage cardiac exercise, new health-tracking rings, and activity goals  —  You'll collect ‘Heart Points’ instead of counting steps  —  Today, Google is rolling out a complete redesign …
Shona Ghosh / Business Insider:
Y Combinator says it's accepting all 15,000+ applicants to its Startup School program after a glitch sent acceptance emails to those who had been rejected  —  - Y Combinator emailed tech founders this week saying they had been accepted into Startup School, its free online course for entrepreneurs.
Taylor Soper / GeekWire:
Cloud-based file transfer company WeTransfer acquires FiftyThree, which makes the popular Paper app, including its entire patent portfolio and executive team  —  File-sharing company WeTransfer has acquired the Paper and Paste creative apps from FiftyThree.
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
A look at Facebook's voice ambitions: from developing a speech recognition feature for Facebook and Messenger apps called Aloha to patents for a speaker device  —  Code reveals unlaunched speech recognition feature  —  Facebook has been a bit slow to adopt the voice computing revolution.
Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat:
HTC announces Vive Wireless Adapter, coming Sept. 24 for $300, allowing wireless usage of Vive and Vive Pro, though the Pro needs a $60 compatibility add-on  —  HTC's long-awaited Vive Wireless Adapter is almost ready to purchase, the company announced today, as the cutting-edge collaboration between …
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed News:
In an interview, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says Twitter should be built around following topics and interests, thinks an impartial product can exist  —  Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey doesn't have all the answers.  For one, he's not sure whether you should delete your old tweets.
Patricia Hernandez / The Verge:
Google launches experimental feature for Assistant users in the US that shares stories from Solutions Journalism Network when asked “tell me something good”  —  Good news, literally  —  Trying to keep up with the news might be aspirational, but these days, it can also be depressing.
Hugh Son / CNBC:
JPMorgan Chase to debut You Trade service next week, letting investors make up to 100 free trades within first year, via Chase's mobile app and on its site  —  - J.P. Morgan's new digital brokerage service comes with free trades, portfolio building tool and access to equity research.
Peter Blumberg / Bloomberg:
Federal court filing: Uber harassment case settlement will award $1.9M in damages across 56 current and former employees who filed claims  —  The cost of Uber Technologies Inc.'s sexual harassment scandal is now itemized: 56 current and former employees who filed claims stand to collect an average of $33,928.57.
More: CNNMoney, Axios, and Engadget

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