Techmeme
November 3, 2022, 10:30 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Sources: Elon Musk is weighing adding paid DMs to let users privately message “Very Important Tweeters”; docs: Twitter Blue checks won't require ID verification  —  The billionaire and his advisers have discussed adding paid direct messages, fees to watch videos and other features to the service.
Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post:
In an email to its employees, Twitter says that layoffs across its global workforce will begin on Friday to “place Twitter on a healthy path”  —  Employees said the layoffs came across teams, as Twitter broadly reduced its workforce.  Musk originally pitched investors on cutting Twitter's staff up to 75 percent.
Casey Newton / Platformer:
Sources: Twitter plans to shut down newsletter platform Revue, acquired in January 2021, by the end of 2022, and has paused its four-month-old Notes product  —  A new Vine camera is in.  Notes and Revue are out  —  With massive layoffs expected to hit Twitter tomorrow …
Will Oremus / Washington Post:
Sources: Twitter staff have yet to receive a single official message since Elon Musk took over, relying instead on his tweets, media reports, and private chats  —  Workers follow new boss's tweets and share rumors on anonymous apps amid silence from leadership on firings, staff cuts and product changes.
Wall Street Journal:
General Mills and Audi paused Twitter ads, and sources say Pfizer and Mondelez have as well, as concern over content moderation grows  —  Advertisers are concerned about a flurry of executive departures at Twitter and new owner Elon Musk's plans for content moderation
Jennifer Surane / Bloomberg:
Memo: Stripe plans to lay off 14% of its staff this week, reducing its headcount by 1,000+ to almost 7,000, to trim expenses in preparation for “leaner times”  —  Stripe Inc., one of the world's most valuable startups, will cut more than 1,000 jobs as it seeks to rein in costs ahead of any economic downturn.
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon pauses hiring for roles in its corporate workforce, after announcing in October plans to freeze hiring for corporate roles in its retail business  —  KEY POINTS  — Amazon is pausing hiring for roles in its corporate workforce, the company announced in a memo to staff Thursday.
Wall Street Journal:
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Amazon plans to roll out the Matter over Wi-Fi standard to 17 Echo devices in December, starting with Android phones, covering smart plugs, bulbs, and switches  —  Amazon will start its Matter journey slowly, bringing support for the new smart home standard to 17 Echo devices in December.
Dan Milmo / The Guardian:
TikTok plans to update its privacy policy on December 2 to confirm that its staff outside of Europe, including in China, can access the data of European users  —  Privacy policy update confirms data of continent's users available to range of TikTok bases including in Brazil, Israel and US
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
WhatsApp launches Communities, a structured discussion group feature for of up to 1,024 people, in testing since August 2022, worldwide over the next few months  —  WhatsApp today is officially launching Communities, the new feature offering larger, more structured discussion groups that first entered into testing earlier this year.
James Vincent / The Verge:
Google unveils an AI model trained on 400+ languages with the largest “coverage seen in a speech model” and plans to support the 1,000 most spoken languages  —  Google has announced an ambitious new project to develop a single AI language model that supports the world's “1,000 most spoken languages.”
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Sources: Apple paused hiring last month for many jobs outside of R&D, including some corporate functions and hardware and software engineering roles  —  Apple Inc. has paused hiring for many jobs outside of research and development, an escalation of an existing plan to reduce budgets heading …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Substack announces Chat, an opt-in feature letting writers host discussions with their subscribers, available in the Substack iOS app and coming soon to Android  —  Another company hoping to capitalize on Twitter's upheaval in the wake of Elon Musk's takeover is the newsletter platform Substack.
Thomas Brewster / Forbes:
Police and other sources say Block's Cash App has become a primary payment tool for adult and children sex traffickers due to lax monitoring and user ID rules  —  The Twitter and Block billionaire made Cash App into a $700 million monster.  Now police officers, nonprofit critics and current …
TechCrunch:
Ajit Mohan, the head of Meta India who joined the company in January 2019, has left to become the president of Snap's Asia Pacific business  —  Ajit Mohan, the head of Meta in India, has left the firm and joined rival Snap, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Jennifer Surane / Bloomberg:
PayPal reports Q3 revenue up 12% YoY to $6.85B, vs. $6.81B est., and payments volume up 14% YoY to $337B, vs. $343.2B est.; stock drops 8%+ on lower FY forecast  —  PayPal Holdings Inc. trimmed its forecast for annual revenue amid a slowdown in spending growth on its platform.  The shares fell as much as 14%.
More: The Block, Reuters, and CNBC

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