10 things in tech you need to know today

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Friday. Sign up here to get this email in your inbox every morning.

1. The Treasury Dept. has reportedly reached a deal for Oracle, Walmart, and other US investors to take a majority stake in TikTok. The deal will have to be approved by Donald Trump, as well as the Chinese government, before it’s finalized.
2. Facebook employees with video camera glasses are prowling the streets to do research on privacy. The research is intended to inform best practices for the future, including getting ahead of potential privacy concerns, Facebook said. In practice, the project will capture a lot of photos of public spaces.
3. Podcaster Joe Rogan falsely claimed that ‘left-wing’ activists set forest fires in Oregon. According to Vice, there are currently internal discussions over Spotify’s decision to host his podcast.
4. Twitter is ramping up account security measures for high-profile US politicians and media to prevent hacking ahead of 2020 elections. Twitter has made several election-related policy changes in recent weeks as it seeks to bolster the platform’s security after hackers hijacked dozens of high-profile accounts in July.
5. 2 US senators demanded Amazon stop spying on its workers via social media after news surfaced that the tech giant was monitoring drivers’ plans to protest or strike. Amazon has a track record of being staunchly opposed to its workers organizing, even listing a job opening for an analyst to come on board to monitor employees’ efforts to unionize.
6. TikTok reportedly approached Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom about becoming the app’s CEO. TikTok’s last CEO, Kevin Mayer, resigned in late August after just three months on the job.
7. Google is reportedly cracking down on employee message boards after seeing a rise in posts flagged for racism or abuse. The company will now require more active moderation from the owners of internal discussion groups and mandate that they participate in moderation training.
8. Bed Bath & Beyond just made a five-year commitment to Google Cloud as the pandemic pushes it towards a pivot to e-commerce.The firm has been pivoting to focus more on e-commerce during the coronavirus pandemic.
9. Amazon reportedly had dozens of listings for doping drugs, but told reporters they were allowed for ‘research’ despite being shown evidence of human use. According to the investigation, sellers were able to bypass Amazon’s ban and list the non-FDA approved drugs, which are commonly used for doping.
10. Bessemer Venture Partners released memos showing why they invested in small companies that later made it big like LinkedIn, Twitch, and Shopify. The memos contain the stark analyses a partner made of startup’s strengths and weaknesses at the time and why they thought these companies could succeed.

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