Techmeme
October 15, 2020, 4:45 PM

Top News

Bloomberg:
Ajit Pai says FCC will start a rulemaking to clarify the meaning of Section 230, and social media doesn't have “special immunity denied to other media outlets”  —  - Agency chief says it will conduct rulemaking Trump sought  — Social media doesn't have special immunity, Chairman Pai says
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Facebook and Twitter deserve some credit for rapidly restricting the New York Post hack-and-leak operation that made allegations about Hunter Biden  —  In a New York Post report, Facebook and Twitter smell a rat  —  I.  —  In the run-up to the 2020 election, platforms have been preparing for all manner of threats.
BuzzFeed News:
Facebook limits the distribution of a New York Post story that makes disputed claims about Hunter Biden, pending fact-check, while Twitter blocks sharing  —  Facebook and Twitter said they will be limiting the distribution of or blocking a New York Post story making unverified claims about former vice president Joe Biden.
Wall Street Journal:
@twittersafety:
NBC News:
YouTube bans conspiracy theory content, such as QAnon or Pizzagate, that justifies “real-world violence”, but stops short of banning QAnon content outright  —  YouTube said Thursday that it would no longer allow content that targets individuals and groups with conspiracy theories …
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Stripe acquires Nigerian startup Paystack, which enables integration of payments services using an API, sources say for $200M+  —  When Stripe announced earlier this year that it had picked up another $600 million in funding, it said one big reason for the funding was to expand its API-based payments services into more geographies.
Matthew Leske / The Keyword:
Google says Chat will be available as a free service next year, both as a standalone app and integrated into Gmail; Google will remove Fi support in Hangouts  —  Over the past few years, we've invested in building helpful and secure products you can use to communicate and stay connected with the people in your life.
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Google details how it is using AI to improve search, including indexing individual passages from webpages, allowing searches for songs by humming, and more  —  During a livestreamed event this afternoon, Google detailed the ways it's applying AI and machine learning to improve the Google Search experience.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Xbox Series X preview: focus on basics that matter like being quiet and cool, high frame rates, faster load times, accessory support, and backward compatibility  —  I haven't been using my Xbox One as much recently, as it just feels outdated.  As someone who plays primarily on PC …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
Apple confirms an upcoming update will let HomePod, but not HomePod mini, output Dolby Atmos as well as 5.1 and 7.1 channel audio from Apple TV 4K  —  With new home cinema feature  —  Apple's HomePod is getting a lot more useful as a home cinema speaker for Apple TV 4K owners.
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Snapchat now lets iOS users add song clips from a curated catalog of music to their Snaps and Stories  —  Snapchat today is launching a new feature called Sounds — which, taking a page from TikTok, lets app users add song clips to their Snaps and Stories.  Currently, though, it's available only in the app for Apple's iOS.
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Telegram says when Apple recently ordered it to delete specific posts, Apple demanded it not leave a notice explaining why, because such info was “irrelevant”  —  Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has been writing about a controversy that I think is fairly summarized as follows …
Kieren McCarthy / The Register:
Barnes and Noble confirms it was hacked, says some users' personal information may have been stolen; some customers were unable to download purchased e-books  —  Nook, line and sinker: Servers restored from backups, punters unable to download purchased e-books
Taylor Lorenz / New York Times:
How “Among Us”, an online social deduction game from 2018, took off among people of all ages during social distancing; one Discord server has 98,000+ fans  —  YouTubers, influencers and streamers popularized the multiplayer game.  Then their fans started playing too.

Sponsor Posts

Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 11/21 - What The DOJ Wants Google To Do
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:45 PM ET, October 15, 2020.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

David Pierce / Protocol:
ASPI:

Earlier Picks

Kurt Wagner / Bloomberg:
Joe Rossignol / MacRumors: