Techmeme
May 15, 2020, 8:50 PM

Top News

Axios:
Facebook to buy Giphy, keep its branding, integrate with Instagram; sources say the deal is worth ~$400M, while Giphy was valued at ~$600M in its latest round  —  Facebook has agreed to buy Giphy, the popular platform of sharable animated images, Axios has learned from multiple sources.
Owen Williams / OneZero :
Facebook's purchase of Giphy gives FB insight into how and where gifs are shared outside of its own apps, including device IDs and keystrokes in Giphy tools  —  GIPHY joins Facebook's data collection arsenal  —  Facebook announced on Friday that it will buy Giphy, a popular GIF search engine …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: DOJ and state AGs are likely to bring antitrust lawsuits against Google as soon as this summer, focusing on its ad business and search dominance  —  Both the federal and state investigations are focused on Google's ad business  —  WASHINGTON—Both the Justice Department and a group …
Reuters:
US bans sales to Huawei of semiconductors and semiconductor designs made abroad using certain US software and technology  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Friday moved to block shipments of semiconductors to Huawei Technologies from global chipmakers, in an action that could ramp up tensions with China.
Global Times:
China signals it is ready to retaliate for US' Huawei ban by launching investigations or imposing restrictions on companies like Qualcomm, Cisco, and Apple  —  China is ready to take a series of countermeasures against a US plan to block shipments of semiconductors to Chinese telecom firm Huawei …
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Sources: Clubhouse raised a Series A round from a16z, which includes $10M in primary capital and at least $2M in secondary shares, at a $100M valuation  —  Clubhouse is a voice-based social media app with about 5,000 beta test users.  Prospective listeners have to sign up for a waitlist via Google form …
Ben Lovejoy / 9to5Mac:
Netflix begins restoring full quality streaming in Europe; Apple TV+ restored 4K streaming in late April  —  Netflix is gradually lifting coronavirus-related streaming quality limits in Europe.  Netflix, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video has all complied with a European Commission request …
Saheli Roy Choudhury / CNBC:
Singapore state investor Temasek joins Libra, along with cryptocurrency investor Paradigm and private equity firm Slow Ventures  —  - Singapore state investor Temasek is one of the latest organizations to join the Facebook-backed digital currency project libra.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
Members of the anti-vaccine community are experienced at exploiting weaknesses of social media platforms and are primed to sow doubts about a COVID-19 vaccine  —  Social media is already filling up with misinformation about a Covid-19 vaccine, months or years before one even exists.
Stratechery:
Forcing Facebook and Google to pay for news could lead to uncritical reporting on tech; better approaches would tackle roots of media woes, including ad markets  —  Exponent — as promised! — will be back tomorrow, talking about podcasting, Spotify, and working from home.  —  On to the update:

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