10 things in tech you need to know today

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

1. Months of internal audio recordings of Facebook meetings obtained by The Verge show CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg wrestling with questions of platform neutrality. The recordings show employees expressing dissatisfaction over the firm’s handling of the Black Lives Matters protests, provocative posts by President Trump, and office snacks.
   
2. Kenosha protesters who say they were assaulted by right wing militias are suing Facebook for hosting a ‘Kenosha Guard’ page. The plaintiffs claim that Facebook enabled the violence by hosting a “Kenosha Guard” page that encouraged militia members in Wisconsin to take up arms against protesters.
3. TikTok parent ByteDance has asked the Chinese government for approval to export technology, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. ByteDance filed a request with the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau asking for approval to export its technology under restrictions recently implemented by the Chinese government, according to Bloomberg.
4. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the TikTok-Oracle deal is unrecognizable from the one Microsoft bid on. Microsoft lost out on a bid for TikTok’s US operations to a joint bid by Oracle and Walmart.
5. TikTok has asked a federal judge to file an injunction halting Donald Trump’s ban. TikTok is facing down the deadlines set by Donald Trump’s executive orders to implement a partial app ban on Sunday and a total ban on November 12.
6. The US Department of Justice has proposed new legislation to reform a key legal liability shield for the tech industry known as Section 230. The current legislation, part of the Communications Decency Act, protects online platforms from liability for their users’ posts, but it also allows them to moderate and remove harmful content without being penalized.
7. E-commerce site Shopify said two employees stole data from more than 100 merchants, citing ‘rogue members’ of its support team. The scheme potentially exposed the personal information of consumers who shopped on web stores that use the company’s e-commerce software, per Bloomberg. 
8. Facebook pledged to fight misinformation about climate change but then suspended a slew of environmentalist groups. Groups that focus on climate justice including Greenpeace USA, Climate Hawks Vote, and Rainforest Action Network said they were suspended without warning.
9. Google CEO Sundar Pichai says the company is planning a more flexible approach to working, with employees set to work from home through the summer of 2021 at least. In an interview with Time Magazine, the Google chief said that the company “can do better” for its employees, and said it was thinking of a “hybrid” model of working.
10. Payments startup SpotOn Transact raised its second 2020 funding round, $60 million from DST Global, without a pitch deck. The company’s prior investors include former Twitter executives, Dragoneer Investment Group, Franklin Templeton, and EPIQ Capital Group. 

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