Network Support Blog

Evelyn Douek / Lawfare: Analysis of the first Oversight Board rulings, which in the long term may influence Facebook moderation rules more than the upcoming decision on Trump ban  —  After seemingly endless announcements heralding the arrival of the Facebook Oversight Board (FOB) over the past 18 months, the board has … https://bit.ly/39zyTqq

Zeyi Yang / Protocol: A look at Bilibili, the “YouTube for China”, as it balances competition and cooperation with Alibaba and Tencent, both of which invested in the video platform  —  “Should Bilibili keep expanding and become a larger player, their relationship with Tencent will surely deteriorate.” https://bit.ly/3ao137d

Cat Ferguson / MIT Technology Review: VAMS, a CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M to manage rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, has been abandoned by states due to bugs and problems  —  The CDC ordered software that was meant to manage the vaccine rollout.  Instead, it has been plagued by problems and abandoned by most states. https://bit.ly/36r8XLZ

Tom Hals / Reuters: Legal experts say Robinhood is not legally bound to carry out every trade and is protected from lawsuits by its user agreement  —  (Reuters) - Robinhood Markets Inc's user agreement is likely to protect the brokerage app from a barrage of lawsuits filed by customers after it blocked … https://bit.ly/2YwEoAa

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch: Canalys: smartphone shipments in China fell 4% YoY to 84M in Q4 2020 and shipments for 2020 fell 11% YoY to 330M, as iPhone's share jumped from 15% to 18% YoY  —  The impact of United States government sanctions on Huawei is continuing to hurt the company and dampen overall smartphone shipments in China … https://bit.ly/2MIY9Ss

Adam Satariano / New York Times: Graphika: Huawei officials retweeted messages from fake accounts on Twitter to spread a pro-5G influence campaign in Belgium; Huawei is investigating the claim  —  A covert online push to sway telecommunications policy in favor of the Chinese company may presage a new twist in social manipulation. https://bit.ly/3cq6Njw

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Physna, a Cincinnati-based startup developing an AI-powered 3D modeling platform for industrial engineering, raises $20M Series B led by Sequoia  —  Physna, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based startup developing an AI-powered 3D modeling platform for industrial engineering, today announced that it raised $20 million. https://bit.ly/39vBdij

Russell Brandom / The Verge: A look at Global Privacy Control, a new web standard designed to let users opt out of data sharing with all third-party brokers globally, with a single click  —  On today's internet, information is nearly impossible to control.  It's become commonplace for a single website visit to spill … https://bit.ly/2YpiHBI

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: Microsoft reports it has “high confidence” the hacking campaign targeting infosec researchers is linked to ZINC, a DPRK-affiliated and state-sponsored group  —  Earlier this week, Google disclosed that a North Korean government-backed hacking group has been using social networks to target security researchers. https://bit.ly/3t16521

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: Webull and Public, which restricted transactions of some stocks, cite costs of settling the trades with Apex as the cause and have now removed all restrictions  —  Three of the popular retail stock market trading apps that have hosted much of the activity related to the Wall Street Bets subreddit-spurred run … https://bit.ly/3iUyYbv

Jennifer Elias / CNBC: YouTube says its TikTok competitor Shorts is getting 3.5B views per day in its test run in India and plans to expand the feature into more markets in 2021  —  - YouTube's short video feature is gaining traction in India, the company's CEO, Susan Wojcicki, said Tuesday. https://bit.ly/3qXMJZI

Megan Graham / CNBC: Zuckerberg says Apple is one of Facebook's “biggest competitors” and uses its dominant position to preference apps like iMessage against WhatsApp and Messenger  —  - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used the opening remarks of the company's fourth quarter earnings call to blast Apple … https://bit.ly/3iX51HU

Cory Weinberg / The Information: Sources: Bird is finalizing a deal to raise $100M in convertible debt, led by Sequoia Capital and Valor Equity, amid discussions about going public via SPAC  —  The scooter operators already were struggling when Covid-19 hit, robbing them of customers.  As the companies position themselves … https://bit.ly/3iUR8tO

Ryan Browne / CNBC: As r/WallStreetBets causes GameStop, BlackBerry, and others to surge, online trading platforms like Robinhood and WeBull have rapidly climbed US app store ranks  —  - The flurry of Redditors taking on Wall Street appears to have resulted in a usage boom for share trading apps. https://bit.ly/36gK6uf

PYMNTS.com: Pilot, an automated accounting service for SMBs and startups, raises $60M Series C led by Sequoia, bringing its total funding to $120M  —  Pilot, which provides back-office services for startups, has raised $60 million through a new Series C funding round, according to a press release. https://bit.ly/3sZv0CS

Sean Lyngaas / CyberScoop: Chris DeRusha, an ex-Obama staffer and Biden campaign's CISO, announces he has been appointed as the US CISO, responsible for coordinating cybersecurity policy  —  The former top cybersecurity official on Joe Biden's presidential campaign said late Monday that he is now in charge of helping protect … https://bit.ly/3iNwQSG

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: TikTok has fixed a vulnerability that would have allowed hackers to access users' private information, including phone numbers, avatar pictures, and user IDs  —  ByteDance, the tech firm behind TikTok, has fixed a security vulnerability in the video-sharing social networking service … https://bit.ly/3cgIX9E

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Facebook News launches in the UK, partners with Axel Springer and Samsung-owned Upday for curation; announces new partnerships and payments for some publishers  —  As the United Kingdom prepares to sharpen its focus on how it regulates big tech companies, Facebook is taking a big step … https://bit.ly/3iPWh6m

Romain Dillet / TechCrunch: French startup Alma, which offers Klarna-like payment installment tools for retailers, raises €49M Series B  —  French startup Alma is raising a $59.4 million Series B funding round (€49 million).  The company has been building a new payment option for expensive good. https://bit.ly/2Yf6Lmc

Reuters: Sources: Huawei is in early stage talks to sell its premium smartphone brands P and Mate to a Chinese consortium led by state-backed investment firms  —  (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is in early-stage talks to sell its premium smartphone brands P and Mate … https://bit.ly/3oiqjkf

Catalin Cimpanu / ZDNet: Hacker leaks data of 2.28M+ users of dating site MeetMindful, including real names, Facebook user IDs, email addresses, and geolocation information  —  Data belongs to dating site MeetMindful and includes everything from real names to Facebook account tokens, and from email addresses and geo-location information. https://bit.ly/2NnQ31F

Clubhouse: Clubhouse raises a new round of funding led by a16z, says it has 180+ investors, will test options for paying creators and soon begin work on an Android app  —  Clubhouse is moving quickly today, but in some ways it feels like the journey started a long time ago. https://bit.ly/2MlKIYp

Dave Gershgorn / OneZero : Research: GPT-3 frequently creates sentences associating Muslims with shooting, bombs, murder, and violence, a bias OpenAI acknowledged upon its public release  —  OpenAI disclosed the problem on GitHub — but released GPT-3 anyway  —  Last week, a group of researchers from Stanford … https://bit.ly/3cf4EXw

Cromwell Schubarth / Silicon Valley Business Journal: Globality, whose AI-based sourcing software connects companies with service providers, raises $138M Series E from Sienna Capital and SoftBank's Vision Fund  —  Service marketplace provider Globality Inc. on Tuesday said it raised a $138 million Series E funding that likely added another unicorn to the Silicon Valley herd. https://bit.ly/39crxcw

Crispian Balmer / Reuters: Italy tells TikTok to block all unverified user accounts after a 10-year-old girl dies while allegedly participating in the “blackout challenge” on the app  —  ROME (Reuters) - The Italian data privacy watchdog ordered video app TikTok on Friday to block the accounts of any users … https://bit.ly/3qKjKIL

Will Knight / Wired: A look at the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, a government-sponsored research lab, and its work on a new language model similar to GPT-3  —  China produces as many artificial intelligence researchers as the US, but it lags in key fields like machine learning.  The government hopes to make up ground. https://bit.ly/366GMSe

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Microsoft president Brad Smith defended the company's political contributions in a meeting with employees after some questioned donations from its PAC  —  - Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, said the company needs the Microsoft Political Action Committee.  — The company is looking … https://bit.ly/397OIo3

Matt Day / Bloomberg: Despite the pandemic, Amazon wants Alabama warehouse workers to vote in person on a proposal to form a union, objecting to NLRB's decision to allow vote by mail  —  - Company says labor regulator erred in ordering mail vote  — Yes vote would be first union win at a U.S. Amazon facility https://bit.ly/3o9OSzI

Daniel Oberhaus / Wired: NASA has discovered dozens of fresh craters on Mars by using an AI to analyze orbital image data, a promising new method to study planets in our solar system  —  An algorithm discovered dozens of Martian craters.  It's a promising remote method for exploring our solar system and understanding planetary history. https://bit.ly/3iB6AuE

Alex Kantrowitz / OneZero : Internal memo: Facebook's Andrew Bosworth told staff in Dec. to build products prioritizing privacy, as the public's expectations around privacy have shifted  —  Facebook VP Andrew Bosworth tells colleagues that privacy matters more than the product experience https://bit.ly/3c39ibc

Margaret Harding McGill / Axios: Biden designates Jessica Rosenworcel, currently a Democratic commissioner at the FCC, as acting chairwoman of the agency  —  President Biden has designated Jessica Rosenworcel as acting chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, according to an agency statement. https://bit.ly/364GRpo

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: Google signs an agreement with French media to create a framework for payment for publisher content and has reached agreements with three major newspapers  —  Google has reached an agreement with an association of French publishers over how it will be pay for reuse of snippets of their content. https://bit.ly/3sL6w0c

Mitchell Clark / The Verge: The Biden administration updates WhiteHouse.gov with several new accessibility features, including dark mode, a large text mode, and more  —  From dark times to dark mode  —  The official website of the White House, WhiteHouse.gov, has been completely replaced with a new version … https://bit.ly/3o3frXh

Rob Walker / Marker: An in-depth look at the PDF file format, a staple since the 1990s, as Adobe says 303B PDFs were opened using its services in FY2020, a 17% rise YoY  —  How has the low-fi 30-year-old innovation reigned for so long?  —  When is the last time you downloaded, opened, printed, or created a good old-fashioned PDF? https://bit.ly/3a5h3Ll

Tim Anderson / The Register: Interview with Drupal founder Dries Buytaert as it marks 20 years, on importance of user experience, open source, API first approach, JavaScript bloat, and more  —  Commercial involvement in open source is essential, says CMS boss  —  Interview Content management system Drupal is 20 years old … https://bit.ly/39T9mYe

Kia Kokalitcheva / Axios: Biden picks former CFTC chairman Gary Gensler, who taught courses on cryptocurrencies and blockchain at MIT, to head the SEC  —  Gary Gensler's nomination to head the U.S. Securities and Exchange is welcome news for the cryptocurrency industry given his ongoing and deep interest in the technology. https://bit.ly/2LRC7fU

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 … https://bit.ly/2XSjk6R

Duncan Riley / SiliconANGLE: Trovata, which develops automated cash management software, raises $20M Series A led by Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, bringing its total raised to $30M+  —  Automated cash management startup Trovata Inc. said early Tuesday that it has raised $20 million in new funding to deliver new services … https://bit.ly/3ivrPhI

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: UK-based Bloom & Wild, an online florist that delivers flowers sourced directly from growers, raises $102M Series D led by General Catalyst for expansion in EU  —  Bloom & Wild, a London-based startup that takes an updated and online approach to the very traditional business of ordering … https://bit.ly/2LLKWI7

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: All-in-one HR service Personio raises $125M Series D at a $1.7B post-money valuation co-led by Index Ventures and Meritech  —  With the last year changing how (and where) many of us work, organizations have started to rethink how well they manage their employees, and what tools they use to do that. https://bit.ly/3bRC6mQ

Will Knight / Wired: A Harvard medical student used OpenAI's GPT-2 to submit comments on Idaho's Medicaid draft proposal; volunteers couldn't tell them apart from those by humans  —  A Harvard medical student submitted auto-generated comments to Medicaid; volunteers couldn't distinguish them from those penned by humans. https://bit.ly/35UgTVM

Wall Street Journal: Surging demand for laptops and 5G chips, alongside a boom in car sales, is fueling chip shortages and pushing prices higher, with older chips affected the most  —  Surging appetite for 5G smartphones, rebounding car sales squeeze semiconductor makers  —  Semiconductor companies are asking … https://bit.ly/39BMeNW

Eileen Brown / ZDNet: Trend Micro: 32% of 500 IT leaders believe AI will replace all cybersecurity roles by 2030; 19% say attackers using AI will be commonplace by 2025  —  In 2021 Trend Micro predicts that cybercriminals will look to home networks as a critical launch pad to compromising corporate IT and IoT networks. https://bit.ly/3inX6my

Miriam Berger / Washington Post: Iran blames legal and illegal crypto mining for massive blackouts in the country, shuts down a large, licensed Chinese-Iranian mining operation  —  Massive blackouts and smog have hit cities across Iran.  It's a toxic mix as the country, already under economic duress and suffocating U.S. sanctions … https://bit.ly/3oSKLJj

Chloe Lo / Bloomberg: Yidu Tech, which offers AI software to the health care industry, saw its shares jump 148% in its Hong Kong debut on Friday after raising ~$531M in its IPO  —  - Health-care tech firm raised $531 million in Hong Kong IPO  — Yidu Tech's IPO was very heavily oversubscribed by investors https://bit.ly/2M0NzFH

New York Times: How a group of Dorsey's lieutenants overcame his reluctance to ban Trump's account when it became clear Trump was using his Twitter presence to incite violence  —  Jack Dorsey, the chief executive, had reservations about locking the president's account.  But the calls for violence that his tweets provoked were too overwhelming. https://bit.ly/3iiN2eB

Alex Pasternack / Fast Company: How Wikipedia, where neutrality is prized above all, struggled to chronicle the Capitol insurrection in real time  —  ‘Storming’?  ‘Insurrection’?  ‘Riot’?  ‘Attempted coup’?  On Wikipedia, where neutrality is prized above all, volunteers are still searching for the words. https://bit.ly/39zOaqk

Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat: Oqton, which is developing a factory OS that combines several fabrication processes like CNC and polymer 3D printing, raises $40M Series A  —  Oqton, a startup developing a factory operating system that integrates engineering software with manufacturing hardware, today raised $40 million. https://bit.ly/2KkGO1f

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: Apple to launch redesigned iMacs this year with a Pro Display XDR-like design, and is working on two new Mac Pros, one of which may use Intel CPUs  —  Apple Inc. is planning the first redesign of its iMac all-in-one desktop computer since 2012, part of a shift away from Intel Corp. processors … https://bit.ly/3qumiux

Sujeong Lim / Counterpoint Research: 238M units of true wireless stereo hearables were shipped in 2020, up 83% YoY, with Apple devices comprising 29% market share, Xiaomi 13%, and Samsung 5%  —  San Diego, Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Delhi, Beijing, London, Buenos Aires  —  TWS (true wireless stereo hearables) … https://bit.ly/2XGzQ9E

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: Facebook says it has filed a suit against the makers of four malicious Chrome extensions used for scraping user data and other info from Facebook's website  —  Facebook has taken legal action against the makers of malicious Chrome extensions used for scraping user-profiles and other information … https://bit.ly/3nFQqBe