Techmeme
January 19, 2021, 6:50 PM

Top News

The Markup:
Data from Facebook users: 12 political groups were in the top 100 recommended in Jan.; FB said it would not recommend “political content or social issue groups”  —  According to Citizen Browser data, the platform especially peppered Trump voters with political grouprecommendations
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
FireEye releases a free tool that audits networks to determine whether certain techniques, known to be employed by SolarWinds hackers, were used  —  New Azure AD Investigator is now available via GitHub.  —  Cybersecurity firm FireEye has released today a report detailing the techniques used …
Lauren Feiner / CNBC:
Netflix reports Q4 revenue of $6.64B vs. $6.63B est., up 21.5% YoY, global streaming paid memberships 203.7M, up 8.5M vs. 6.5M est.; stock up 10%+ after hours  —  - Netflix reported fourth quarter 2020 earnings Tuesday that beat analyst expectations on revenue and net subscriber additions but fell below EPS estimates.
Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch:
Electric autonomous vehicle startup Cruise raises $2B at a $30B valuation from Microsoft, GM, Honda, and others  —  Cruise has raised $2 billion in a new equity round that has pushed its valuation up to $30 billion and delivered Microsoft as an investor and partner.
Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet:
Brave becomes the first major browser to natively support IPFS protocol, useful for accessing censored content; Wikipedia and other sites offer IPFS versions  —  Brave users will now be able to seamlessly access ipfs:// links.  —  With the release of Brave 1.19 today …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
India asks WhatsApp to withdraw the planned change to its privacy policy over “grave concerns” and questions why users in the EU are exempt from it  —  India has asked WhatsApp to withdraw the planned change to its privacy policy, posing a new headache to Facebook-owned service …
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Instagram head Adam Mosseri on keeping users safe at scale, content moderation, Facebook's actions against Trump, future regulation, Reels, and more  —  Adam Mosseri has a broad view of Facebook, its capabilities, and its challenges.  And Facebook has a lot of challenges right now …
Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:
Citrix acquires SaaS collaborative work management service Wrike for $2.25B in cash  —  Citrix has confirmed reports from earlier this week that it is buying enterprise-focused work management platform Wrike, in an all-cash deal worth $2.25 billion.  —  Founded in 2006, San Jose-based Wrike …
Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge:
Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon 870 with a similar design to the 865 and 865 Plus, clocked at 3.2GHz, making it about 10% faster than the 865  —  A slightly faster refresh of last year's Snapdragon flagship  —  Qualcomm has announced a new mobile phone processor: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 …
Douglas Soltys / BetaKit:
Bold Commerce, which offers tools for e-commerce including checkout, subscriptions, and more, raises $27M Series B led by OMERS Ventures  —  Once known only as Shopify's largest app developer, Winnipeg-based Bold Commerce is hoping a $35 million CAD ($27 million USD) Series B round will help …
Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
WeChat says it facilitated ~$250B in annual transactions through its third-party “mini programs”, double the value of transactions in 2019  —  WeChat continues to advance its shopping ambitions as the social networking app turns 10 years old.  The Chinese messenger facilitated …
Reuters:
Turkey bans ads on Twitter and Pinterest for not appointing local representatives as mandated by social media law, says their bandwidth will be cut 50% in April  —  ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Ankara has imposed advertising bans on Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest after they failed …
Meagan Simpson / BetaKit:
South Korean search engine company Naver Corp. has acquired online self-publishing platform Wattpad for an estimated ~$600M  —  Wattpad is set to be acquired by South Korean internet company Naver Corp. for an estimated $754 million CAD ($600 million USD).  —  Naver announced the deal early before market open in South Korea.
Thanks:@tron

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