Techmeme
February 16, 2019, 8:55 PM

Top News

Jason Del Rey / Recode:
Amazon's grave NYC HQ2 mistake: the political landscape changed but the company's playbook didn't  —  The HQ2 contest was very Amazonian.  So was its refusal to back down.  —  No one looks good in the wake of Amazon's decision to scrap plans for a giant New York headquarters in Long Island City, Queens.
Brad Stone / Bloomberg:
Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post:
Records obtained via FOIA requests and interviews with local officials reveal the unusual lengths Google goes to keep its data center construction plans secret  —  Last May, officials in Midlothian, Tex., a city near Dallas, approved more than $10 million in tax breaks for a huge …
Ryan Mac / BuzzFeed:
Twitter hides a tweet, reportedly from Iran's head of state, for pointing out that a previous leader's verdict to murder novelist Salman Rushdie is still valid  —  Twitter has previously used a newsworthiness standard to defend its refusal to apply abuse and harassment rules to President Donald Trump's account.
Wall Street Journal:
An account of the rise and untimely death of Vine and HQ Trivia cofounder Colin Kroll, based on interviews with and documents from friends, police, and others  —  Self-taught coder Colin Kroll shot to startup fame, allowing him to live life in a fast lane  —  Colin Kroll, a college dropout …
Dave Lee / BBC:
Interview with GoFundMe CEO Rob Solomon on medical fundraisers, some campaigns becoming highly politicized, fighting scams, and more  —  Kelsey Colker is less than a year old but she's already spent more time in hospital than most of us will in our lifetime.
Duncan Cooper / Pitchfork:
While some artists whose music is used in TikTok videos are compensated through their labels' sales of blanket licenses, others forgo payment for exposure  —  The company behind lip-sync app TikTok is reportedly worth three times as much as Spotify, but the artists whose music powers the platform are seeing very little of that money.
TechCrunch:
Security researcher says Twitter retains direct messages for years, including messages users have deleted, which may be illegal under the EU's new GDPR laws  —  When does “delete” really mean delete?  Not always or even at all if you're Twitter .  —  Twitter retains direct messages for years …
Matthew Gardner / ITEP:
Amazon has made $11.2B in profits in 2018 but will pay no federal income tax and will receive a rebate of $129M due to unspecified tax credits  —  Amazon, the ubiquitous purveyor of two-day delivery of just about everything, nearly doubled its profits to $11.2 billion in 2018 from $5.6 billion …

Sponsor Posts

TELUS Digital:
The brand supporting the biggest brands in tech  —  Deliver memorable experiences throughout the customer journey with customer experience support from TELUS Digital.  Scale quickly, automate efficiently and win decisively.
Intel:
Intel Delivers powerful CPUs for AI and Networking  —  With the onset of AI, businesses demand powerful and efficient CPUs.  Explore new Intel Xeon 6 processors, for the broadest set of workloads with leadership performance and lower TCO.
Zoho:
8 must-have assets in every recruiter's work folder  —  Car mechanics can teach us an important lesson.  They always carry a handy toolbox with everything they need to troubleshoot common auto problems.
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

The Talk Show With John Gruber:
'Podcasting Technology Cadence', With MG Siegler
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.
Lenny's Podcast:
Superhuman's secret to success: Ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every new user, obsessing over every detail, and positioning around a single attribute: speed | Rahul Vohra (CEO)
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:
A Look At LibGen
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Hard Fork:
A.I. Action Plans + The College Student Who Broke Job Interviews + Hot Mess Express
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.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 8:55 PM ET, February 16, 2019.

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

Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Abner Li / 9to5Google:

Earlier Picks

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios:
Stefan Etienne / The Verge:
Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:
Sam Byford / The Verge: