Techmeme
December 18, 2021, 1:30 AM

Top News

Luke Plunkett / Kotaku:
GSC Game World decides to “cancel anything NFT-related” in its game Stalker 2 after fans criticize its plans for in-game NFTs in partnership with DMarket  —  It hasn't been a great week for the GSC Game World team  —  STALKER 2 developers GSC Game World announced yesterday that they'd be adding NFTs to the game.
Kim Lyons / The Verge:
TikTok says it is removing “alarmist warnings” about a supposed day of school violence that prompted some US districts to cancel classes on Friday  —  It hasn't found any videos threatening school violence on Friday, the company said  —  TikTok said Friday that it's working to remove …
Kate Krader / Bloomberg:
TikTok partners with Virtual Dining Concepts to launch TikTok Kitchen, a food delivery service based on viral trends, starting with 300 US locations in March  —  The video platform is teaming up with Virtual Dining Concepts to deliver those viral foods across the country.  Baked feta pasta, anyone?
Reuters:
How Amazon grew its business in China, including partnering with a government propaganda arm for a books section on Amazon US, AWS-related concessions, and more  —  Amazon.com Inc was marketing a collection of President Xi Jinping's speeches and writings on its Chinese website about two years ago …
UPI:
JPMorgan Chase will pay fines of $125M to the SEC and $75M to the CFTC for letting some employees use WhatsApp and other unapproved channels to conduct business  —  JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay a $125 million penalty for allowing employees on Wall Street to use smartphone apps …
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
ByteDance launches Douyin Box, a fashion-focused shopping app in China akin to its Fanno app in Europe, betting on the Gen Z trend of buying on influencer tips  —  The stand-alone Douyin Box app signals that ByteDance, the world's most valuable start-up, is betting big on e-commerce in China …
More: Protocol
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Meta bans seven surveillance-for-hire groups, including Cytrox, removing over 1,500 Facebook and Instagram accounts and alerting 50K users who were targeted  —  Cytrox is one of seven surveillance companies now banned from Meta's platforms  —  While NSO Group was taking flak for hacking …
The Citizen Lab:
FinSMEs:
Fable, which provides a social reading platform for online book clubs, raises a $20M Series A led by Tiger Global  —  Fable, a Palo Alto, CA-based platform for social reading to improve mental wellness, raised $20m in Series A funding.  —  The round was led by Tiger Global with participation …
Craig Chapple / Sensor Tower Blog:
Eight mobile games passed $1B in global revenue on the App Store and Google Play so far in 2021; PUBG Mobile and Honor of Kings led with $2.8B each  —  A record-breaking eight mobile games including PUBG Mobile from Tencent, Honor of Kings from Tencent, and Genshin Impact from miHoYo …
Washington Post:
The Biden administration is concerned with US investments in Chinese companies developing “dual use” tech that could have civilian and military applications  —  Last year, a fast-rising artificial intelligence company in China won a little-noticed contract from a Chinese military academy …
Zachary Basu / Axios:

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More News

Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Tom Warren / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Joe Miller / Financial Times:
Paul R. La Monica / CNN:
Kyle Orland / Ars Technica:
Sara Fischer / Axios:
Kris Holt / Engadget:
Todd Spangler / Variety:
Liza Lin / Wall Street Journal:
Henry Mance / Financial Times: