Techmeme
December 22, 2021, 7:50 PM

Top News

Washington Post:
Survey of 1,058 US internet users: 72% distrust Facebook, 63% TikTok, 60% Instagram, 53% WhatsApp, and 53% YouTube; 53% trust Amazon, 48% Google, and 44% Apple  —  You'll find all the usual technology suspects inside Mary Veselka's Pearland, Tex., home.  There's her iPhone …
Katanga Johnson / Reuters:
The US CFPB orders online payday lender LendUp to shutter lending operations after finding it repeatedly lied to and illegally cheated its customers  —  WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) - (This December 21 story corrects date of LendUp wind-down from 2020 to 2022)
Vlad Savov / Bloomberg:
Jack Dorsey's tweet sparks uproar: “You don't own ‘web3.’ The VCs and their LPs do. It will never escape their incentives. It's ultimately a centralized entity”  —  Fresh off relinquishing the chief executive reins of Twitter Inc., Bitcoin enthusiast Jack Dorsey …
Reuters:
Chinese state media says regulators suspended an info-sharing partnership with Alibaba Cloud over accusations it failed to promptly report and fix a Log4j flaw  —  Chinese regulators on Wednesday suspended an information-sharing partnership with Alibaba Cloud Computing …
The Economic Times:
India bans 20 YouTube channels and two websites for alleged “anti-India” propaganda from Pakistan, invoking its new IT Act's emergency powers for the first time  —  India banned 20 YouTube channels and two websites on Monday for allegedly running anti-India propaganda from Pakistan …
Ben Dummett / Wall Street Journal:
Skillsoft, which makes training software for businesses, acquires edtech startup Codecademy for $525M in cash and stock; Codecademy raised $40M in February  —  Acquisition is Skillsoft's largest deal since going public in June  —  Skillsoft Corp. has agreed to acquire rival U.S.-based …
Tom Krisher / Associated Press:
The US NHTSA opens an investigation to evaluate the driver distraction potential of Tesla's Passenger Play gaming feature, covering 580K cars from 2017 to 2022  —  ATHENS, Ohio (AP) — The U.S. has opened a formal investigation into Tesla allowing drivers to play video games on a center touch screen while its vehicles are moving.
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
A Discord announcement bot for Justin Kan's NFT platform Fractal was hacked by a scammer who made off with about $150K, before the platform even launched  —  Despite billions in VC investment, many web3 crypto platforms are still pretty hostile places for users new to the crypto world.
Nilay Patel / The Verge:
Q&A with Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell on meeting pandemic demand, relationships with Apple and Amazon, killing the Harmony remote line, USB-C, and more  —  Logitech is one of those ubiquitous companies — it's been around since 1981, selling all kinds of important things that connect …
The Markup:
Amazon warehouse workers in Oregon say they saw a spike in COVID-19 cases this fall after the company started rolling back pandemic safety protocols  —  Two Oregon warehouses have been in an active outbreak for nearly 19 months.  Elsewhere in the country, warehouse workers report continual cases
Alex Konrad / Forbes:
Retool, a low-code tool for creating enterprise apps, raises a $20M Series C from Stripe's founders and others at a $1.85B pre-money valuation  —  Covering venture capital, software and startups  —  When Retool CEO David Hsu set out recently to raise fresh funding for his low-code software startup …
David Pierce / Protocol:
Interview with Automattic's Matt Mullenweg on working from his always-connected RV, making “the Berkshire Hathaway of the internet”, and betting on open systems  —  In the early days of the pandemic, Matt Mullenweg didn't move to a compound in Hawaii, bug out to a bunker …
Chris Vallance / BBC:
The UK's ASA bans a webpage and a Facebook post promoting Arsenal FC's Socios-based Fan Tokens, as the club “failed to illustrate the risk of the investment”  —  A web page and a Facebook post by Arsenal football club promoting crypto-based fan tokens broke advertising rules, a watchdog has ruled.
Nathan Grayson / Washington Post:
OfflineTV VR, a virtual version of an LA pop-up built by a group of Twitch streamers and McDonald's, shows the limits of brand-constructed VR spaces  —  A man with no face rises into the sky.  Thanks to a stray beam of artificial sunlight, it almost appears he has a halo.  Onlookers gather to gawk.

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Earlier Picks

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk:
Mehul Srivastava / Financial Times:
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: