Techmeme
August 20, 2019, 9:40 PM

Top News

Casey Newton / The Verge:
After announcing the Clear History privacy tool over a year ago, Facebook finally begins rolling it out in Ireland, South Korea, and Spain  —  But the United States isn't one of them  —  It was nearly a year and a half ago that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, standing onstage …
Jeff Benjamin / 9to5Mac:
Hands-on with an early preview of Apple Arcade, which will reportedly cost $4.99/month, and some early-access trial games on macOS  —  Today I was able to go hands-on with an early preview of Apple Arcade, which Apple announced back during its March services-oriented event.
Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac:
Apple announces that Apple Card is now available to all iPhone users in the United States, with a 3% cashback offer for Uber and Uber Eats  —  Apple today announced that Apple Card is available to everyone in the United States from today.  To sign up, simply open the Wallet app on your iPhone and begin the application process.
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Facebook debuts first findings from conservative bias audit led by former GOP senator, says it influenced policy changes like creating a content oversight board  —  Facebook will release the findings of a roughly year-long conservative bias audit Tuesday, along with changes to its advertising policies …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Pre-IPO analysis of WeWork, comparing its huge capital needs and other issues to its bull case, that it can overcome commoditization of its space like AWS did  —  There is a reason — beyond the fact it is August — that WeWork's upcoming IPO has driven so much discussion …
Mike Isaac / New York Times:
Facebook to hire a small team of journalists to curate a Top News section in its upcoming news tab, which it plans to release as a test before the year-end  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook has long relied on algorithms to select news stories for its users to see.
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Apple Music launches a new chart, the Shazam Discovery Top 50, powered by Shazam data and featuring songs trending in the US and 10+ other countries  —  Apple continues to make use of Shazam, the music recognition app it acquired for $400 million in 2018.  Earlier this month …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: a group of as many as 20 states will launch a joint antitrust investigation of big tech companies as soon as next month  —  Investigation would put additional scrutiny on an industry already under a federal spotlight  —  WASHINGTON—A group of states is preparing to move forward …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Google Go, the lightweight search app that takes up only ~7MB of phone storage, launches to Android users worldwide, is optimized to save about 40% on data  —  Google Go, a lightweight version of Google's search app, is today becoming available to all Android users worldwide.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Adult website Luscious left data of 1M+ users exposed, including user email addresses, location data, the content they uploaded, liked, and shared  —  A popular hentai porn site that promises anonymity to its 1.1 million users left a user database exposed without a password, allowing anyone to identify users by their email addresses.
Mark Bergen / Bloomberg:
Sources: to satisfy regulators, YouTube officials are finalizing plans to end targeted advertisements on videos kids are likely to watch  —  - The solution could impact ad sales for the video giant  — Groups that complained to regulators aren't satisfied by fix
Todd Feathers / VICE:
As ~20 US states use AI to grade standardized test student essays, a look at the problematic practice that has little oversight, misses nuance, introduces bias  —  Fooled by gibberish and highly susceptible to human bias, automated essay-scoring systems are being increasingly adopted, a Motherboard investigation has found
David Yaffe-Bellany / New York Times:
How companies like McDonald's and Facebook use podcasts, such as Gizmodo-produced The Sauce, as subtle brand-building efforts meant to entertain and persuade  —  With podcasts rising in popularity, it's no surprise that companies are producing their own.  What's more surprising is that people are actually listening to them.
Connie Loizos / TechCrunch:
Internal raises $5M seed round from David Sacks' Craft Ventures to help companies deploy consoles to manage employee access to sensitive customer data  —  Uber and Facebook and countless other companies that know an awful lot about their customers have found themselves in hot water …
Twitter:
Twitter says it proactively suspended ~200K “spammy” accounts, before they became “substantially active”, alongside its initial ban of 936 China-linked accounts  —  We are disclosing a significant state-backed information operation focused on the situation in Hong Kong …
Nathaniel Gleicher / Facebook:

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Earlier Picks

Jay Peters / The Verge:
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