Techmeme
July 8, 2020, 6:00 PM

Top News

Mike Isaac / New York Times:
An independent audit commissioned by Facebook harshly criticizes the company, arguing that some of its decisions were “significant setbacks for civil rights”  —  An independent audit faulted the social network for “vexing and heartbreaking decisions” that affect its users — and potentially the November elections.
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Facebook's Oversight Board says it won't be operational until “late fall”, likely after the US Presidential election  —  Facebook has announced that the limp “Oversight Board” intended to help make difficult content and policy decisions will not launch until “late fall,” which is to say, almost certainly after the election.
Ina Fried / Axios:
Microsoft announces Together Mode for Teams, which overlays group call participants onto the same virtual background, and adds meeting transcripts and more  —  As the pandemic continues to reshape office work, Microsoft is adding new features to Teams that aim to make video calls more human …
Washington Post:
Facebook says it removed 100+ Pages and accounts linked to felon Roger Stone, as well as some linked to Brazil's Bolsonaro, for coordinated inauthentic behavior  —  The longtime Trump friend and former campaign adviser used fake accounts and other deceptive tactics to manipulate public debate, the company said
Nathaniel Popper / New York Times:
Sources describe horror stories of young and inexperienced investors on Robinhood, many engaging in riskier trades at far higher volumes than at other firms  —  Its users buy and sell the riskiest financial products and do so more frequently than customers at other retail brokerage firms …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Qualcomm announces the Snapdragon 865 Plus processor, designed to boost gaming, AI, and graphics performance by ~10%, expected to ship in phones in Q3  —  10 percent more power than the original Snapdragon 865  —  Qualcomm has announced a refreshed version of its flagship Snapdragon 865 processor called …
Bloomberg:
TikTok users are joining in the “Dogecoin Challenge”, driving up the cryptocurrency's market cap by 40% to $500M in a day, as many pitch fanciful price targets  —  - Dogecoin surges thanks to the latest TikTok challenge  — ‘Stay Safe.  Be Smart,’ Dogecoin Twitter tells investors
Ryne Hager / Android Police:
A slide from a YouTube video posted by Google for its Smart Home Summit suggests Android 11 will launch on September 8; the date fits with Google's timeline  —  Android 11 appears to have a launch date set, according to a video published by Google for the recent “Hey Google” Smart Home Summit.
Apple:
Apple expands its Independent Repair Provider Program to hundreds of new locations in the US and opens up to businesses in Europe and Canada  —  Independent Repair Provider Program also opens to businesses across Europe and Canada  —  Apple is expanding its Independent Repair Provider Program …
April Glaser / NBC News:
Report: US DOD and federal law enforcement have thousands of previously unreported contracts with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, HP, and Facebook  —  Over the past two years, thousands of tech company employees have taken a stand: they do not want their labor and technical expertise …
Megha Rajagopalan / BuzzFeed News:
Nandini Jammi, one half of pressure group Sleeping Giants, which has targeted Breitbart, Facebook, and others, leaves over disagreements with Matt Rivitz  —  Since 2016, copywriter Matt Rivitz and marketer Nandini Jammi have run Sleeping Giants, a social media campaign group that has pressured companies …
Angus Loten / Wall Street Journal:
Reports: nearly 70,000 tech startup employees worldwide have lost jobs since March, including over 25,500 in the San Francisco region  —  Layoffs among tech startups reflect economic fallout of Covid-19  —  Technology startups have been laying off tens of thousands of workers to cope …
More: PYMNTS.com
Chuong Nguyen / Digital Trends:
Intel details the Thunderbolt 4 standard coming to laptops later this year: USB4 compatibility, multi-monitor support, and data transfers of up to 40Gbps  —  Intel has detailed some of the biggest features coming to the next generation of its port protocol, known as Thunderbolt 4 …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
A job listing suggested Twitter is working on a new “subscription platform” under a team codenamed “Gryphon”, although most details remain unclear  —  A mysterious new Twitter subscription team, codenamed ‘Gryphon’  —  Twitter appears to be working on a subscription platform for its social networking service.
Ben Thompson / Stratechery:
Microsoft Teams vs. Slack: Teams is a part of Microsoft's vision to build an OS for the cloud whereas Slack is building an enterprise social network via Connect  —  On November 2, 2016, Microsoft announced Teams at a special event in New York City.  Slack decided to mark the occasion:
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Boston-based Notarize, a service that lets users sign and notarize official documents digitally, raises $35M Series C led by Camber Creek  —  Notarize, a platform that enables consumers and businesses to sign and notarize official documents digitally, has raised $35 million in a series C round of funding.
More: DocuSign
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Slack says it is acquiring Rimeto, a four-year-old startup that provides employee directories, and will leave it as a standalone service  —  Slack is getting into the corporate directory business through an acquisition the publicly-traded collaboration company says it will operate as its first additional standalone app.
Arielle Pardes / Wired:
The Police Data Accessibility Project, which started on Reddit, aims to aggregate all public police records into one easily searchable, open source database  —  The Police Data Accessibility Project aims to request, download, clean, and standardize public records that right now are overly difficult to find.
Andrew Webster / The Verge:
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins starts streaming on YouTube, following the surprise closure of Microsoft's Mixer  —  A short detour  —  One of the biggest names in streaming is heading to YouTube.  Today, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins started streaming on Google's platform …

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Gwyn Topham / The Guardian:
Richard C. Moss / Ars Technica:
Tom Simonite / Wired: