Monthly Archives: November 2020

News: Daily Crunch: DOJ files suit to stop Plaid acquisition

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The DOJ challenges Visa’s acquisition of a fintech startup, Apple releases the latest version of iOS and goPuff acquires an iconic alcohol retailer. This is your Daily Crunch for November 5, 2020. The big story: DOJ files suit to stop Plaid acquisition The Department of Justice is challenging Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of financial services

The DOJ challenges Visa’s acquisition of a fintech startup, Apple releases the latest version of iOS and goPuff acquires an iconic alcohol retailer. This is your Daily Crunch for November 5, 2020.

The big story: DOJ files suit to stop Plaid acquisition

The Department of Justice is challenging Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of financial services startup Plaid. There were reports last month that the DOJ was investigating the acquisition, but now the department has actually filed suit.

“By acquiring Plaid, Visa would eliminate a nascent competitive threat that would likely result in substantial savings and more innovative online debit services for merchants and consumers,” DOJ argued.

Visa responded in a statement arguing that the suit shows “a lack of understanding of Plaid’s business and the highly competitive payments landscape in which Visa operates.”

The tech giants

Facebook takes down ‘Stop the Steal 2020’ group organizing around false claims of election chicanery — Facebook has taken down a group that had amassed more than 300,000 members while sharing misinformation and organizing around false allegations of impropriety during the 2020 elections.

Apple releases iOS 14.2 with new emojis and an accessibility feature that locates people with lidar — Among other things, this release introduces more than 100 new emojis.

Review: Microsoft’s Xbox Series X is ahead of its time — This thing has a lot of specs behind it.

Startups, funding and venture capital

Delivery startup goPuff acquires BevMo for $350M — This comes less than a month after goPuff announced a $380 million round that valued the startup at $3.9 billion.

Proctorio used DMCA to take down a student’s critical tweets — A series of tweets by one Miami University student that were critical of a proctoring software company have been hidden by Twitter after the company filed a copyright takedown notice.

Vivid Money raises $17.6M for its European challenger bank — Vivid Money is a challenger bank with a few nifty features.

Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch

Three tips for SaaS founders hoping to join the $1 million ARR club — Building a SaaS company is much, much more difficult if you approach it without a tried and true process.

Implementing a data-driven approach to guarantee fair, equitable and transparent employee pay — The lack of clarity can lead to confusion and negative feelings that affect our productivity and relationships with our employers.

Inside fintech startup Upstart’s IPO filing — The fintech startup facilitates loans between consumers and partner banks, an operation that attracted around $144 million in capital prior to its IPO.

(Reminder: Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.)

Everything else

DOJ says it seized over $1 billion in bitcoin from the Silk Road drugs marketplace — In a statement today, the Justice Department confirmed it seized the 70,000 bitcoins generated in revenue from drug sales on the Silk Web marketplace.

NASA wants new and innovative storytelling tech to document its Artemis moon missions — NASA has issued a new request for proposals from partners that would be able to help it supplement its own storytelling in new and innovative ways.

Mixtape podcast: Wellness in the time of the struggle — Shine co-founder and co-CEO Marah Lidey discusses mental health, venture capital, portfolio diversity and connecting with other founders.

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here.

News: A better look at Apple’s iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone Mini

• November 5, 2020
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The various iterations of the new iPhone were announced 800 million years ago. Actually, wait, I just double checked — it was only about two or so weeks ago, but it turns out that time has no meaning anymore. Another cursory glance at my calendar tells me that, while the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12

The various iterations of the new iPhone were announced 800 million years ago. Actually, wait, I just double checked — it was only about two or so weeks ago, but it turns out that time has no meaning anymore. Another cursory glance at my calendar tells me that, while the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro were released in late-October, not long after being announced, the iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone Mini, meanwhile, won’t be available for sale for another week or so.

You can check out Matthew’s substantial review of those middle of the line devices here. And while we wait for the low and high end of the line to arrive, I spent a little time with the devices and snapped a couple of photos with the products, which you can check out below.

Again, we can talk more in-depth write-ups at some point in the future, likely, but for now a smattering of thoughts and images. Consider this a kind of make up for the sorts of hands-ons with products we used to do at Apple’s in-person events, back in the before times, when Apple had in-person events.

All of the four sizes were present and accounted for. As someone who’s been testing a fair number of large Android devices in recent months, the 6.7-inch Pro Max doesn’t appear exceptionally large. As you can see in that top photo, however, the difference between it and the Mini is pretty pronounced.

It’s amazing how quickly our perceptions of screen sizes have shifted over the years, that a handset sporting a screen two inches larger than the original iPhone is now considered “mini” by a fairly considerable margin. Heck, even the 6-inch Pixel 5 I’ve been using off and on feels pretty small by today’s standards.

The standard iPhone 12 and 12 Pro’s 6.1-inch display seem like a pretty good sweet spot for many or most users. Many of the key specs are surprisingly consistent, given the $400 price difference between the high and low end. All sport 5G connectivity, the new magnetic MagSafe connector, OLED displays and an A14 chip.

Beyond size, storage and battery capacity, the big differentiator are the cameras. No huge surprise there, as that continues to be where most smartphone manufacturers are making their biggest strides. Here’s a chart we made to break down those distinctions:

The iPhone 12 Pro Max and iPhone 12 Mini hit retail November 13.

News: Why Florida residents may soon be seeing jet-powered ‘flying taxis’

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Florida is renowned for its strange news stories. In recent weeks alone, one resident reported an alligator in her garage that turned out to be a pool floatie; another discovered a python in her washing machine; and a horse needed to be pulled out of a septic tank by firefighters. Still, don’t dismiss Orlando residents

Florida is renowned for its strange news stories. In recent weeks alone, one resident reported an alligator in her garage that turned out to be a pool floatie; another discovered a python in her washing machine; and a horse needed to be pulled out of a septic tank by firefighters.

Still, don’t dismiss Orlando residents who report seeing flying taxis overhead because they may just be coming. Lilium Aviation, a five-year-old, Munich, Germany-based, venture-backed startup that designs and makes electric vertical take-off and landing jets, is reportedly seeking tax incentives from the city to build a 56,000-square-foot transportation hub with the promise that it will create 100 high-wage jobs in return.

According to the Orlando Business Sentinel, the proposed facility — a takeoff and landing area that would be part of Lilium’s first transportation network in the U.S. — would represent a $25 million investment and, according to the city’s own estimates, generate $1.7 million in economic impact in a 10-year period. (Lilium in September began separately exploring with Germany’s Düsseldorf Airport and Cologne Bonn Airport  how to turn the two airports into regional air mobility hubs.)

It’s seemingly a smart time for Lillium — whose planes aren’t expected to be up and running until 2025 — to be talking with cities about additional airport revenue. Passenger traffic has fallen through the floor, owing to the pandemic, and cargo traffic has not been immune, either. Meanwhile, 95% of revenue from airports comes aeronautical and non-aeronautical services.

Lilium also has a little more spending money, after raising $35 million in fresh funding in June led by Baillie Gifford, the largest investor in Tesla, a round that brought the company’s total funding to date to $375 million.

Earlier investors in the company include Atomico, Tencent Holdings and Freigeist.

We sat down with Atomico founder Niklas Zennström in late 2016 when the firm had just led a €10 million Series A in Lilium, a bet that seemed early at the time despite the existence already of rivals like Terrafugia and AeroMobile, yet that may be a reality fairly soon. Indeed, there are now at least 15 flying ‘cars’ and ‘taxis” in development.

News: Huge delivery demand fails to stop Uber’s revenue from shrinking in Q3

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Despite surging delivery demand, Uber’s third-quarter ultimately failed to meet investor revenue expectations in the third quarter. Uber reported gross bookings of $14.7 billion, in the period, a decline of 10% compared to the year-ago quarter. That level of platform spend generated revenue of $3.1 billion for the company, down 18% from a year-ago result.

Despite surging delivery demand, Uber’s third-quarter ultimately failed to meet investor revenue expectations in the third quarter.

Uber reported gross bookings of $14.7 billion, in the period, a decline of 10% compared to the year-ago quarter. That level of platform spend generated revenue of $3.1 billion for the company, down 18% from a year-ago result.

Analysts had expected the company to report revenues of $3.2 billion. The company’s top line miss was partially ameliorated by an earnings-per-share beat, with Uber losing $0.62 per share in the quarter, against an expectation of $0.65.

Uber’s third-quarter net loss was $1.1 billion, down a hair form a year-ago net loss of $1.2 billion.

The company’s two core segments were a tale of two cities: Uber’s ride-hailing (Mobility) business shrank, but made money, while Uber’s food delivery (Delivery) business grew, but continued to lose money.

In financial terms, Mobility-adjusted net revenues fell from $2.9 billion in the year-ago quarter to $1.4 billion during the most recent three-month period. That 52% decline led to a 61% decline in “segment adjusted EBITDA,” a heavily-tweaked profit metric, to just $245 million during Q3 2020.

Delivery, in contrast, saw its adjusted net revenue rise from $392 million in the year-ago period to $1.1 billion in the third quarter. That 190% gain led to a sharp decline in the Delivery unit’s unprofitability. The segment was able to cut its adjusted EBITDA from -$316 million in Q3 2019 to -$183 million in Q3 2020.

In total, Uber’s adjusted EBITDA for the company was -$625 million, about 7% worse than what it managed in the year-ago quarter.

Looking around the world, Uber’s fortunes varied greatly. In the United States and Canada, its revenues fell 30% in Q3 2020, compared to Q3 2019. In Latin America, a steeper 39% decline was recorded. But in both EMEA and APAC regions, revenues were up, rising 20% and 43%, respectively.

Uber wrapped Q3 with $6.2 billion in cash and equivalents, along with an additional $1.1 billion in short-term investments. On the other side of the ledger, Uber has around $6.7 billion in debt, net of current portion.

The American tech-ish giant reduced its costs greatly in Q3 2020 compared to Q3 2019, seeing its operations and support line-item dip, along with its expenses relating to R&D. General and administrative spending at the company rose from the year-ago period.

Shares of Uber are off 2.2% in after-hours trading.

Despite some of these headwinds, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi exuded confidence for the future of the company and its path to profitability. Uber is sticking with its profitability goals, even with its mobility gross bookings still down significantly, Khosrowshahi said during an earnings call Thursday.

“Based on our current cost structure we are confident that we can achieve total company adjusted EBITDA breakeven with mobility gross booking 10% to 20% lower than Q4 2019 levels,” Khosrowshahi said. “We now expect delivery to be breakeven sometime in 2021.”

News: Bentley is making the shift to an all-electric lineup

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Bentley Motors, the ultra luxury automaker under VW Group, will only produce plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars starting in 2026 with an aim to drop all combustion engines in the next decade. The company said Thursday its entire lineup will be all-electric by 2030. That plan, known as Beyond 100, is already underway with the

Bentley Motors, the ultra luxury automaker under VW Group, will only produce plug-in hybrid and all-electric cars starting in 2026 with an aim to drop all combustion engines in the next decade.

The company said Thursday its entire lineup will be all-electric by 2030. That plan, known as Beyond 100, is already underway with the British manufacturer confirming that two plug-in hybrid models will come out next year. The company’s first all-electric vehicle will come to market in 2025.

The aim is turn a company known for its 12-cylinder combustion engine-powered grand touring machines into a leader in “sustainable luxury mobility,” according to the company. Bentley noted that it has already renovated its 80-year-old headquarters, which became the first UK factory certified carbon neutral by the Carbon Trust.

The Beyond 100 plan will touch every aspect of the company from the development of its electrified models and operations to its Tier 1 supply change and retailer network, according to Bentley Motors Chairman and CEO Adrian Hallmark.

Bentley’s shift is part of its parent company’s broader strategy to become a leading producer and seller of electric, connected cars. Volkswagen has set a target to sell about one million electric cars per year by 2025.

The plan over at Bentley expands on its previous commitments to offer a hybrid variant on every model line by 2023 as well improve its operations. All suppliers will have passed a sustainability audit, verifying their sustainability credentials at the end of the year, according to Bentley.

Bentley isn’t just shifting to electric cars. The company also aims to make itself “recession proof,” an ambitious goal that has started with a restructuring and a workforce reduction of about 800 positions, of which about 200 were filled by contractors. Bentley had been on a tear last year, but like so many other automakers was affected by government shutdowns prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Bentley said Thursday that its cost cutting measures and restructuring has put the business in a position to “achieve a positive financial performance for the full year 2020, in spite of the extenuating external circumstances.”

News: Vimeo raises $150M, while IAC is ‘contemplating’ a spin-off

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Vimeo has raised $150 million in new equity funding, announced in conjunction with the third quarter earnings of its parent company IAC. In a letter to shareholders, IAC CEO Joey Levin said the company has “begun contemplating spinning Vimeo off to our shareholders.” “Given Vimeo’s success, and investor adulation for the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) category generally,

Vimeo has raised $150 million in new equity funding, announced in conjunction with the third quarter earnings of its parent company IAC.

In a letter to shareholders, IAC CEO Joey Levin said the company has “begun contemplating spinning Vimeo off to our shareholders.”

“Given Vimeo’s success, and investor adulation for the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) category generally, we expect Vimeo’s access to capital inside of IAC will be much more expensive than access to capital outside of IAC, and that capital will be helpful to enable Vimeo to achieve its highest ambitions,” Levin continued, adding, “We just tested Vimeo’s ability to access capital with a small private fundraise to bolster Vimeo’s balance sheet and to repay capital to IAC.”

Over the summer, Match Group (which owns a variety of dating services, including Tinder) completed its separation from IAC, with IAC’s ownership distributed to IAC shareholders.

Vimeo, meanwhile, has shifted its focus over the past couple years — instead of trying to compete with YouTube as a consumer video destination, it sells video tools to enterprises and other businesses. For example, it recently launched a free video messaging product called Vimeo Record.

The company says it has 1.5 million paying subscribers and more than 3,500 enterprise clients, including Amazon, Starbucks, Deloitte, Zendesk, Rite Aid and Siemens.

The new funding comes from Thrive Capital and GIC. According to the earnings report, in Q3, Vimeo grew revenue by 44% year-over-year, to $75.1 million. And it had its first quarter of positive EBITDA — $3.4 million.

“Our goal is to radically simplify how businesses create and share video, with tools that are far more intuitive and cost-effective than they’ve been historically,” said Vimeo CEO Anjali Sud in a statement. “We’re energized to access additional capital to pursue this enormous opportunity with the full focus and scale of the Vimeo platform.”

News: Facebook takes down “Stop the Steal 2020” group organizing around false claims of election chicanery

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Facebook has taken down a group that had amassed over 300,000 members and was sharing misinformation and organizing around false allegations of impropriety during the 2020 elections. The group, called “Stop the Steal 2020” was organizing protests targeting the election officials currently counting ballots cast in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. “In line with

Facebook has taken down a group that had amassed over 300,000 members and was sharing misinformation and organizing around false allegations of impropriety during the 2020 elections.

The group, called “Stop the Steal 2020” was organizing protests targeting the election officials currently counting ballots cast in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Phoenix, and Las Vegas.

“In line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension, we have removed the Group ‘Stop the Steal,’ which was creating real-world events,” said a Facebook spokesperson in a statement emailed to TechCrunch. “The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group.”

Facebook’s action was first noticed by Ryan Mac of Buzzfeed who reported the move in a tweet.

Protestors advocating for votes to be counted and for vote counting to cease are cropping up across the country as Republican party organizers and campaign officials try to derail the count of mail-in ballots and absentee votes cast in the 2020 race and Democratic supporters organize counter-protests.

While the organizers may be tapping supporters of President Trump across the country, their messaging is different depending on the state.

In Phoenix, protestors are calling for all votes to be counted, as Presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden hangs on to a slim lead in Arizona.

Meanwhile, the messaging is the opposite in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada where President Donald Trump is trying to preserve the slim margins that have him ahead or reverse the counts that had put him behind in the polls. In Detroit, for instance, Trump supporters held up signs that said “stop the steal” and “stop the cheat” according to news reports.

Conservative advocates across the Twittersphere have had their tweets amended by the company to indicate that they were sharing election misinformation.

Facebook has also added “labels” to election posts that break the rules, though they are designed to mostly point users to contextual, factual information rather than to offer explicit warnings about false claims.

In fact, as a direct response to Trump’s premature claims of victory, Facebook also rolled out an eye-catching set of messages across Facebook and Instagram reminding users that votes were still being counted.

Facebook has also instituted changes to its policies about groups that organize real-world events in the wake of 2016’s election disinformation campaign carried out by Russian agents and the recent shooting in Kenosha, Wis. in which two men were killed after a local self-declared militia group organized a response to pprotests against the killing of Kenosha resident, Jacob Blake.

News: Fortnite is actually a SaaS company

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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. What a week from us here in the United States, where the election is still being tabulated and precisely zero people are stressed at all. But, no matter what, the wheels of Equity spin on

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast (now on Twitter!), where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

What a week from us here in the United States, where the election is still being tabulated and precisely zero people are stressed at all. But, no matter what, the wheels of Equity spin on and so Danny and Natasha and Alex and Chris got together once again to chat all things startups and venture capital.

• Up top there was breaking news aplenty, including a suit from the US government to try and block the huge Plaid-Visa deal. And, it was reported that Airbnb will drop its public S-1 filing early next week. That IPO is a go.
• Next we turned to the gaming world, riffing off of this piece digging into the venture mechanics of making and selling video games. Our hosting crew had a few differences of opinion, but were able to agree that Doom 3 was a masterpiece before moving on.
• Then it was time to talk Ant, and what the hell happened to its IPO. Luckily with Danny on deck we were in good hands. What a mess.
• Prop 22 was passed, which effectively allows Uber, Instacart, and Lyft to keep their gig workers labeled as independent contractors, instead of employees. As a result, Uber and Lyft stocks soared, while gig worker collectives said that the fight is still on.
• Natasha scooped a series of Election Day filings from venture capital firms. In the mix: Precursor Ventures Fund III, Hustle Fund II, and Insight Partner’s first Opportunity Fund.
• And finally, despite Election Day turning into an entire week, the public markets are rallying. Will we see a boom of IPOs?

And, as a special treat, we didn’t even mention Maricopa county for the entire episode. Take care all!

Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

News: Proctorio used DMCA to take down a student’s critical tweets

• November 5, 2020
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A series of tweets by one University of Miami student that were critical of a proctoring software company have been hidden by Twitter after the company filed a copyright takedown notice. Erik Johnson, a student who works as a security researcher on the side, posted a lengthy tweet thread in early September about Proctorio, an

A series of tweets by one University of Miami student that were critical of a proctoring software company have been hidden by Twitter after the company filed a copyright takedown notice.

Erik Johnson, a student who works as a security researcher on the side, posted a lengthy tweet thread in early September about Proctorio, an Arizona-based software company that several U.S. schools — including his own — use to monitor students who are taking their exams remotely.

But six weeks later, Johnson received an email from Twitter saying three of those tweets had been removed from his account in response to a request by Proctorio filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Proctoring software isn’t new, but its usage has skyrocketed because of the pandemic. More students than ever are having to take exams and tests from home, and colleges and universities are relying on proctoring software to administer the tests. Students have to install their university’s choice of proctoring software, which gives the exam administrator deep access to the student’s computer, often including their webcams and microphones, to monitor their activity to spot potential cheating.

But students say that proctoring software is fraught with problems. Vice reported that students had complained that the proctoring software they had to use could not recognize darker skin tones, and others say the software requires high-speed internet, which many low-income houses don’t have.

Falling foul of any of these checks, whether known to the student or otherwise, could result in failing the test altogether.

Thousands of students at schools in Washington and Florida have already petitioned their schools to stop using proctoring software — including Proctorio — citing privacy and security risks.

Proctorio, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., says its proctoring software is privacy friendly. Students are required to install its Chrome extension before taking a test, which the company says students can remove once they’re done.

Unlike desktop software, most Chrome extensions can be easily downloaded and their source code viewed and examined. Johnson did this and tweeted his findings. Three of those tweets described under what circumstances Proctorio would “terminate” a student’s exam if it detected signs of potential cheating — such as if a student “switched networks” or if “abnormal clicking” and “eye movements” were detected. The tweets also included a link to snippets of code found in Proctorio’s Chrome extension, which Johnson posted to code-sharing site Pastebin.

Those three tweets are no longer accessible on Twitter after Proctorio filed its takedown notices. The code shared on Pastebin is also no longer accessible, nor is a copy of the page available from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which said the web address had been “excluded.”

A spokesperson for Twitter told TechCrunch: “Per our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives.”

Johnson provided TechCrunch a copy of the takedown notice sent by Twitter, which identified Proctorio’s marketing director John Devoy as the person who requested the takedown on behalf of Proctorio’s chief executive Mike Olsen, who is listed as the copyright owner.

Olsen is no stranger to controversy. Earlier this year he drew ire after posting private support chat logs from a student, which he later deleted and set his Twitter account to private following the incident. Proctorio is also suing security researcher Ian Linkletter, a learning technology specialist at the University of British Columbia, after tweeting critically of the company’s software.

When reached by phone, Olsen claimed that Miami University had accepted the company’s terms and conditions on behalf of Johnson, and that Johnson allegedly violated those terms when he tweeted about the code.

Following the call, Proctorio emailed TechCrunch a statement through its crisis communications firm Edelman, claiming Johnson “violated Proctorio’s exclusive rights by copying and posting extracts from Proctorio’s software code on his Twitter account,” and in response, Proctorio filed the DMCA takedown request “to ask that the content be removed and Twitter removed it.”

“Mr. Johnson’s claim that he has the right to reproduce the code because he was able to download it is simply not true. Regardless of his ability to download the files, they remain protected under the Copyright Act. Also, had Mr. Johnson looked at the files he downloaded, he would have seen the multiple copyright notices in the header of each file that state expressly that the code is owned by Proctorio and that ‘unauthorized reproduction, display, modification, or distribution of this software, or any portion of it, may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the full extent permitted by law.’ His reproduction of that code violated Proctorio’s rights, which is why Proctorio asked Twitter to remove it,” said Edelman’s senior vice president Andy Lutzky, on behalf of Proctorio.

With help from the non-profit internet rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Johnson said he has now submitted a counter notice to appeal the takedown.

“This is really a textbook example of fair use,” said EFF staff attorney Cara Gagliano. “What Erik did — posting excerpts of Proctorio’s code that showed the software features he was criticizing — is no different from quoting a book in a book review. That it’s code instead of literature doesn’t make the use any less fair.”

“Using DMCA notices to take down critical fair uses like Erik’s is absolutely inappropriate and an abuse of the takedown process,” said Gagliano. “DMCA notices should be lodged only when a copyright owner has a good faith belief that the challenged material infringes their copyrighted work — which requires the copyright owner to consider fair use before hitting send.

“The application of fair use is clear cut here, and this notice never should have been sent,” she said.

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News: TikTok takes down some hashtags related to election misinformation, leaves others

• November 5, 2020
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As social media platforms struggle to get U.S. election misinformation under control with varying degrees of success, TikTok has taken new actions to stop people from searching and browsing select hashtags associated with misinformation and conspiracies related to the U.S. election results. The video app has redirected some hashtags — including #RiggedElection, #SharpieGate and others

As social media platforms struggle to get U.S. election misinformation under control with varying degrees of success, TikTok has taken new actions to stop people from searching and browsing select hashtags associated with misinformation and conspiracies related to the U.S. election results.

The video app has redirected some hashtags — including #RiggedElection, #SharpieGate and others — where users have been publishing election misinformation. And it has taken down various videos making claims of “election fraud.”

However, based on our scans of the app and other election-related hashtags today, it’s clear that it’s still an uphill battle for TikTok in terms of getting a handle on violating content.

Because of TikTok’s size and scale, even smaller videos from unknown publishers can rack up thousands of views before they disappear.

Media Matters, for example, reported yesterday it was able to identify 11 examples of election misinformation spreading across TikTok, with more than 200,000 combined views. The videos shared conspiracies that ranged from unfounded “magic ballot” narratives to the completely untrue allegations that Arizona poll workers handed out markers to Trump voters so their votes wouldn’t count.

TikTok says all the videos Media Matters reported have since been removed except one where a user made a premature declaration of victory. That one was shadowbanned — meaning its discoverability on the platform was reduced. It also has a banner pointing to authoritative information about the election results.

These individual takedowns are a drop in the bucket compared to the number of videos that are still out there making claims of election fraud. And, so far, TikTok has only removed a small number of hashtags on this subject.

TikTok confirmed it has removed content and redirected searches for the hashtag #RiggedElection as of yesterday. Now, when you try to find videos flagged with this term in the app, you’ll get to a blank page with a notification that says the search term “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.” The page also provides a link to TikTok’s Community Guidelines.

“Promoting a safe and positive experience is TikTok’s top priority,” the message reads.

This is the same playbook that TikTok recently used to address the spread of QAnon-related content on its platform. By redirecting searches and hashtags, it makes misinformation harder to find.

While TikTok declined to share an exhaustive list of hashtags it has taken action on during the elections, we found a few hashtags that returned either no results — like #RiggedElection and #SharpieGate — as well as those that returned only a small handful videos, or what TikTok considers “counter speech.”

The TikTok community will often create videos with counter speech or other content related to a misinformation-related hashtag. In these videos, they’ll provide factual information or will dispute the claims being made in another video. TikTok says this sort of counter speech doesn’t violate its policies. That’s why you may see videos listed under hashtags that would otherwise be associated with misinformation, as opposed to seeing the hashtag entirely silenced.

We also found some lesser-used hashtags like #RepealtheSteal and #VeritasArmy, which have been seen on Twitter, were not showing on TikTok at all. (However, upon reaching out to TikTok, the company chose to redirect these hashtags, too.)

A popular misinfo hashtag, #StoptheSteal, was also not available, but its variation, #StoptheStealing, had seven videos.

Many other hashtags were being used, too, as of the time of writing, including #VoterFraud (and its misspelling #VoterFruad), #DemsCheat, #CorruptElection, #ElectionCorruption, #StoptheStealing, #ElectionFraud (and misspelling #ElectionFruad), #CrookedJoeBiden, #CrookedDems, #Fraud (and its misspelling #Fruad), #Rigged, #Rigged2020, #MailinBallots, #CoupdEtat, #ElectionMeddling, #DemocratsAreDestroyingAmerica and #BallotHarvesting, to name a few.

While some hashtags had little content, many were filled with videos that weren’t just expressing their political views — they were making claims of election fraud. Combined, these hashtags have tens of millions of views, or even more.

For example, when we searched for the hashtag #VoterFraud (20.9 million views), we first encountered videos posted in the months leading up to Election Day that were responding to the Republican-driven claims of voter fraud associated with mail-in ballots.

But many videos under this hashtag have been published by Trump supporters this week, and are videos where the supporters are directly disputing the election results.

Among the videos we found were those reposting videos TikTok had already taken down. These included videos featuring Trump supporters’ protests against or for the counting of ballots in various states, calling them proof of election fraud.

In other videos, users opine about how Trump’s lawsuits will prove fraud took place and win him re-election. They sometimes use screenshots of website vote tallies as their “proof.”

We also saw videos using text labels overtop their video footage. The text was used to make their claims of election fraud, while the video itself may have them talking in more measured terms about their disappointment with the election results. (It’s unclear if this is a viable workaround to avoiding rule enforcement, however.)

TikTok says its list of blocked hashtags continually grows as new terms and phrases emerge and it’s able to determine how the terms are being used on its platform. It also said it block more election misinformation hashtags in the hours, days and weeks to come.

To be clear, TikTok’s decision to keep this sort of content online doesn’t make it much different from other social networks.

During election season, Facebook and Twitter have taken to labeling election misinformation from high-profile accounts (like Trump’s). Facebook even ran in-app notifications to inform users that votes are still being counted. But both platforms today still easily allow users to click through on a wide range of hashtags that promote this idea of election fraud or rigged results.

TikTok may not much be doing much better, overall, in addressing the sizable amount of content promoting election misinformation on its video network. But TikTok’s ban of top election misinformation hashtags works differently from hashtag bans on other social networks.

Once TikTok has made the decision to ban a term like “SharpieGate,” for example, the content won’t be surfaced whether you use the hashtag symbol (#) itself or not. Facebook, on the other hand, may ban the hashtag specifically, but not the term entirely. That means you can still find content about SharpieGate on its platform — even if it’s largely posts and videos from news organizations.

#SharpieGate was also among the hashtags Facebook began blocking today related to election misinformation. It also blocked #StoptheSteal and a related group.