Techmeme
August 19, 2020, 9:50 PM

Top News

Sheera Frenkel / New York Times:
Facebook says it has further cracked down on QAnon, removing 790 Groups and restricting another 1,950 Groups, 440 Pages, and over 10,000 Instagram accounts  —  The social network also said it was restricting another 1,950 groups, 440 pages on Facebook and more than 10,000 accounts on Instagram related to the conspiracy group.
Julia Carrie Wong / The Guardian:
Facebook removes over 980 Groups, 520 Pages, and 160 ads for “US-based militia organizations” and those that identify as Antifa  —  Facebook has taken down or restricted more than 10,000 groups, pages and Instagram accounts associated with QAnon, in the latest effort …
Jeremy Horwitz / VentureBeat:
Apple becomes the first US company to reach a $2T market cap during intraday trading, two years after reaching $1T  —  Just two years after becoming the first U.S. company to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization, Apple has officially doubled its value to $2 trillion.
New York Times:
Stocks of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Facebook rose a combined 37% in the first seven months of 2020, while all the other S&P 500 stocks fell 6%  —  As the economy contracts and many companies struggle to survive, the biggest tech companies are amassing wealth and influence in ways unseen in decades.
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Zoom says it is adding support for Amazon Echo Show, Facebook Portal, and Google Nest Hub Max later this year  —  Zoom from even more places  —  Zoom is expanding to a variety of new devices later this year, with the company announcing that the Amazon Echo Show, Facebook Portal …
Janko Roettgers / Protocol:
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Netflix confirms it's been testing a “Shuffle Play” feature, which will randomly play content based on what a user watches or saves to a list, since July  —  One variant is called Shuffle Play, and you might already see it  —  Does your Netflix home screen — you know …
Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC:
Airbnb said it submitted its draft S-1 for an IPO to the SEC on Wednesday  —  - Airbnb on Wednesday announced that it has submitted a draft registration to the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.  —  Airbnb on Wednesday announced that it has submitted …
The Guardian:
Avaaz: sites spreading health misinfo had ~500M views on Facebook in April; top 10 such sites had almost four times the views of top 10 reputable health sites  —  Research findings undermine firm's claims it is cracking down on inaccurate news  —  Websites spreading misinformation …
Committee to Protect Journalists:
Ankhi Das, a top Facebook exec in India, filed a criminal complaint against journalist Awesh Tiwari for sharing a WSJ article critical of Das on Facebook  —  Facebook regional director Ankhi Das should withdraw her criminal complaint against journalist Awesh Tiwari, and respect citizens' rights …
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Researchers say a new P2P botnet FritzFrog is using advanced measures to infect millions of SSH servers around the world  —  Botnet is hard to detect and with no centralized control server, harder to take down.  —  Researchers have found what they believe is a previously undiscovered botnet …
Ed Sealover / Denver Business Journal:
Palantir lists Denver as its headquarters on its website, after Alex Karp said in a May interview that Palantir was considering moving out of Silicon Valley  —  Palantir Technologies Inc., a $20 billion data-analysis software firm that sells its products to governments to help them track everything …
Wall Street Journal:
Ashley Carman / The Verge:
Instagram rolls out “suggested posts”, appearing when users reach the end of their feed, offering related content unlike Explore feed's adjacent content  —  You thought you were done  —  Instagram is expanding its feed today with the launch of “suggested posts.”
Pew Research Center:
Survey: 73% of US adults say it is very or somewhat likely social media sites intentionally censor political views; 90% of Republicans and 59% Democrats agree  —  Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say major tech companies favor the views of liberals over conservatives.
David Shayer / TidBITS:
Kyle Daly / Axios:
Twitter says it has locked or suspended 47% more accounts in H2 2019 for breaking its rules than in H1 2019, due to better human oversight, policies, and tools  —  Twitter nearly doubled its enforcement actions against accounts engaging in abuse and harassment and saw government requests …

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