Techmeme
March 30, 2023, 4:35 PM

Top News

New York Times:
Document: Twitter plans to exempt its top 500 advertisers and 10K most-followed orgs that have been previously verified from paying $1K/month for a checkmark  —  Mr. Musk requested a meeting with Lina Khan, the chair of the F.T.C., which has been investigating Twitter's privacy and data practices.
Bloomberg:
Oliver Darcy / @oliverdarcy:
Chloe Xiang / VICE:
Some signatories of the open letter to pause AI training walk back their positions, others turn out to be fake, and many experts disagree with its proposal  —  The letter has been signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Andrew Yang, and leading AI researchers, but many experts and even signatories disagreed.
Matt Novak / Forbes:
As his companies lag OpenAI, Elon Musk tries to launder his AI “concerns” through the Future of Life Institute, which is primarily funded by the Musk Foundation  —  Elon Musk signed an open letter on Tuesday calling for a six-month pause in the development of artificial intelligence tools …
Washington Post:
Midjourney halts free trials, citing “extraordinary demand” and “abuse”, after fake images of Trump getting arrested and Pope Francis wearing a coat went viral  —  Midjourney, the year-old firm behind recent fake visuals of Trump and the pope, illustrates the lack …
Jay Peters / The Verge:
Microsoft is exploring new ad experiences in Bing Chat, like citations, and sharing ad revenue with “partners whose content contributed to the chat response”  —  It was inevitable, but Microsoft has confirmed that more ads are coming to Bing's AI-powered chatbot.
Hartley Charlton / MacRumors:
Kuo: Apple's MR headset may not appear at WWDC 2023, as the company pushed back mass production to Q3 amid doubts about the device creating an “iPhone moment”  —  Apple has again pushed back mass production of its mixed-reality headset and the device may not appear …
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: to comply with EU privacy rulings, Meta plans to let users opt out of some highly personalized ads via an online form that Meta must review and approve  —  Facebook, Instagram parent hopes plans to alter a privacy approach that would limit the impact from EU orders
Financial Times:
Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer:
Researchers say hackers have compromised the VoIP desktop client of 3CX's Phone System, used by 600K+ companies and 12M+ DAUs, in an ongoing supply chain attack  —  A digitally signed and trojanized version of the 3CX Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) desktop client is reportedly being used …
Jon Victor / The Information:
The Guardian:
Leaked documents from Moscow-based NTC Vulkan reveal the company helps the GRU, FSB, and SVR with hacking operations, national infrastructure attacks, and more  —  Documents leaked by whistleblower angry over Ukraine war  —  Private Moscow consultancy bolstering Russian cyberwarfare
Futurism:
BuzzFeed quietly started publishing fully AI-generated SEO-driven travel posts by non-editorial staff on March 14; a spokesperson calls the posts an experiment  —  Earlier this year, when BuzzFeed announced plans to start publishing AI-assisted content, its CEO Jonah Peretti promised the tech would be held to a high standard.
Jonathan Greig / The Record:
Google's Threat Analysis Group details two “limited and highly targeted” spyware campaigns using several zero-day exploits for Android, iOS, and mobile Chrome  —  Two targeted spyware campaigns involving several zero-day exploits for Android, iOS and mobile versions of the Chrome browser …
Adi Robertson / The Verge:
An AI tech ethics group asks the FTC to investigate OpenAI, saying its AI text generation tool rollout has been “biased, deceptive, and a risk to public safety”  —  An artificial intelligence-focused tech ethics group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate OpenAI …
Karissa Bell / Engadget:
Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Q&A with Vinod Khosla on how AI could “free humanity from the need to work”, seeing the AI future early, his OpenAI investment, AI and geopolitics, and more  —  At nearly 70, Vinod Khosla is an elder statesman in Silicon Valley but he's been on top of the most cutting-edge trends, including artificial intelligence.

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Zoho Books now enables direct VAT filing with EmaraTax  —  We're excited to announce that Zoho Books is now recognised as a Digital Tax Integrator by the Federal Tax Authority, enabling direct VAT return filing from within your favorite accounting software.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Techmeme Ride Home:
Tim Apple's Very Bad Week
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
The Logan Bartlett Show:
Jeffrey Katzenberg & Sujay Jaswa (WndrCo) on What Startup Founders Can Steal From The Entert
A podcast hosted by Logan Bartlett, an investor at Redpoint Ventures, covering tech with industry insiders.
Subscribe to The Logan Bartlett Show.
Hard Fork:
Google DeepMind C.E.O. Demis Hassabis on Living in an A.I. Future
The future is already here. Each week, journalists Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore and make sense of the latest in the rapidly changing world of tech.
Subscribe to Hard Fork.
Spotlight On:
VBSR 1.01: RTO is back (again) + data moats dry up + Sara vibecodes
A podcast from Accel about how companies are built, from the people doing the building.
Subscribe to Spotlight On.
BG2 Pod:
AI, Middle East, China, Tariffs, Recon Bill, Invest America
Open-source podcast on all things tech, markets, investing, and capitalism, hosted by Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley.
Subscribe to BG2 Pod.
Decoder with Nilay Patel:
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is okay with reinventing the bus
A show from the Verge about big ideas - and other problems.
Subscribe to Decoder with Nilay Patel.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:35 PM ET, March 30, 2023.

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

Alyssa Meyers / Marketing Brew:
Emma Roth / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

James Reddick / The Record:
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal: