Techmeme
October 22, 2019, 9:00 PM

Top News

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Snap reports it added 7M DAUs in Q3 to hit 210M, up 13% YoY, revenue of $446M, up 50% YoY, and a net loss of $227M, down from $325M a year ago  —  The Snap-back continues.  Snapchat blew past earnings expectations for a big beat in Q3, as it added 7 million daily active users this quarter to hit 210 million, up 13% year-over-year.
Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
A look at HireVue's controversial AI-driven face and voice scanning “employability” assessment tool, used by 100+ employers including Hilton and Goldman Sachs  —  HireVue claims it uses artificial intelligence to decide who's best for a job.  Outside experts call it ‘profoundly disturbing.’
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Firefox 70 arrives with social tracking blocked by default, a personalized privacy report to show how many trackers have been blocked, and performance gains  —  Mozilla today launched Firefox 70 for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS.  Firefox 70 includes social tracking protection …
Tony Romm / Washington Post:
New York State's attorney general says 46 attorneys general have joined its antitrust probe into Facebook, separate from DOJ and FTC investigations  —  The expanded roster of 47 states and territories taking part reflects broad concerns among officials that ‘Facebook may have put consumer data at risk’
Conor Dougherty / New York Times:
Facebook announces a pledge of $1B in a package of grants, loans, and land as part of a partnership with California to help build more affordable housing  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook said on Tuesday it would give $1 billion in a package of grants, loans and land toward easing California's …
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Verizon is giving away Disney+ for free for one year to all of its wireless customers on unlimited-data plans and to FiOS and 5G home internet customers  —  New Fios broadband, 5G home wireless internet customers also eligible for 12-month free offer  —  Verizon is giving away Disney Plus …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
In prepared remarks for Congress, Mark Zuckerberg argues Libra “will extend America's financial leadership” and that China is pursuing similar projects  —  - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg intends to tell Congress that Facebook will not launch Libra anywhere in the world unless all U.S. regulators approve it.
Natalie Gagliordi / ZDNet:
Former SAP CEO Bill McDermott has been named chief executive of cloud automation platform ServiceNow; he replaces John Donahoe, who will become CEO of Nike  —  McDermott will replace John Donahoe, who is stepping down from his role leading ServiceNow to become the CEO of Nike.
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
US lawmakers debut a bipartisan bill that would force tech giants to make user data portable and interoperable via an API-like interface for secure transfers  —  Mark Zuckerberg wants his own apps to be interoperable, but not like this  —  Over the past few months, lawmakers have taken aim at Big Tech …
Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:
Medium says it will now pay its Partner Program writers based “primarily” on reading time, not claps; the platform has paid $6M+ to 30,000+ writers since 2017  —  Medium is announcing significant changes to its Partner Program, where subscribers pay for access to exclusive content, and the revenue gets split with writers.
Dami Lee / The Verge:
Browser-based UI design and prototyping tool Figma gives users public profiles to share design files and works in progress, as part of a new Community platform  —  Like GitHub for designers  —  Figma, the browser-based UI design and prototyping tool, is giving users public profiles to share design files and works in progress.
Joe Maring / Android Central:
The Pixel 4 and 4 XL support fast wireless charging on any Qi charger, unlike the Pixel 3, which needed Google's own Pixel Stand for fast charging  —  11W speeds seem to be supported on just about anything.  —  Updated October 22, 2019: So it turns out that the Pixel 4's wireless charging situation …
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Mark Zuckerberg's proposal of social media as a “Fifth Estate” highlights that the world is fundamentally changing; the sooner we realize that, the better  —  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began his speech last week by attempting to place free expression in the historical American context …
Nathaniel Gleicher / Facebook:
Facebook:
Nextgov:
Defense Secretary Esper recuses himself from JEDI contract decisions to avoid conflict of interest with his son's employer IBM, an original contract bidder  —  Defense Secretary Mark Esper  —  The Pentagon's acquisition team will continue its review of bids submitted by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft …
Nathan Ingraham / Engadget:
Task management app Todoist gets a major update to its mobile, desktop, and web apps, adding sections inside projects for better organization, and more  —  Todoist is one of the best to-do apps out there — in fact, we picked it as our favorite about 18 months ago.

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