News: Amazon Web Services gives Parler 24-hour notice that it will suspend services to the company

January 10, 2021
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Parler is at risk of disappearing, just as the social media network popular among conservatives was reaching new heights of popularity in the wake of President Donald Trump’s ban from all major tech social platforms. Amazon Web Services, which provides backend cloud services, has informed Parler that it intends to cut ties with the company

Amazon Web Services, which provides backend cloud services, has informed Parler that it intends to cut ties with the company in the next 24 hours, according to a report in BuzzFeed News. Parler’s application is built on top of AWS infrastructure, services that are critical for the operation of its platform. Earlier today, Apple announced that it was following Google in blocking the app from its App Store, citing a lack of content moderation.

Parler, whose fortunes have soared as users upset at the President’s silencing on mainstream social media outlets flocked to the service, is now another site of contention in the struggle over the limits of free speech and accountability online.

Parler CEO John Matze said that the platform would be offline for at least a week, as “they rebuild from scratch” in response to AWS’ communications. Some Parler users, as captured in screenshots shared on Twitter, seemed to respond with vague intentions to violently attack AWS data centers, perhaps proving Amazon’s point in the process.

In the wake of the riots at the Capitol on Wednesday and a purge of accounts accused of inciting violence on Twitter and Facebook, Parler had become the home for a raft of radical voices calling for armed “Patriots” to commit violence at the nation’s capitol and statehouses around the country.

Most recently, conservative militants on the site had been calling for “Patriots” to amplify the events of January 6 with a march on Washington DC with weapons on January 19.

Even as pressure was came from Apple and Amazon, whose employees had called for the suspension of services with the company, Parler was taking steps to moderate posts on its platform.

The company acknowledged that it had removed some posts from Trump supporter Lin Wood, who had called for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence in a series of proclamations on the company’s site.

Over the past few months, Republican lawmakers including Sen. Ted Cruz and Congressman Devin Nunes — along with conservative firebrands like Wood have found a home on the platform, where they can share conspiracy theories with abandon.

In an email quoted by BuzzFeed News, Amazon Web Services’ Trust and Safety Team told Parler’s chief policy officer, Amy Peikoff that calls for violence that were spreading across Parler’s platform violated its terms of service. The company’s team also said that Parler’s plan to use volunteers to moderate content on the platform would prove effective, according to BuzzFeed.

“Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service,” BuzzFeed reported the email as saying.

Here’s Amazon’s letter to Parler in full.

Dear Amy,

Thank you for speaking with us earlier today.

As we discussed on the phone yesterday and this morning, we remain troubled by the repeated violations of our terms of service. Over the past several weeks, we’ve reported 98 examples to Parler of posts that clearly encourage and incite violence. Here are a few examples below from the ones we’ve sent previously: [See images above.]

Recently, we’ve seen a steady increase in this violent content on your website, all of which violates our terms. It’s clear that Parler does not have an effective process to comply with the AWS terms of service. It also seems that Parler is still trying to determine its position on content moderation. You remove some violent content when contacted by us or others, but not always with urgency. Your CEO recently stated publicly that he doesn’t “feel responsible for any of this, and neither should the platform.” This morning, you shared that you have a plan to more proactively moderate violent content, but plan to do so manually with volunteers. It’s our view that this nascent plan to use volunteers to promptly identify and remove dangerous content will not work in light of the rapidly growing number of violent posts. This is further demonstrated by the fact that you still have not taken down much of the content that we’ve sent you. Given the unfortunate events that transpired this past week in Washington, D.C., there is serious risk that this type of content will further incite violence.

AWS provides technology and services to customers across the political spectrum, and we continue to respect Parler’s right to determine for itself what content it will allow on its site. However, we cannot provide services to a customer that is unable to effectively identify and remove content that encourages or incites violence against others. Because Parler cannot comply with our terms of service and poses a very real risk to public safety, we plan to suspend Parler’s account effective Sunday, January 10th, at 11:59PM PST. We will ensure that all of your data is preserved for you to migrate to your own servers, and will work with you as best as we can to help your migration.

– AWS Trust & Safety Team

Update January 9, 2020: Added a note about Parler users’ reactions.

News: Apple suspends Parler from App Store

January 10, 2021
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Following reports of a warning to site developers sent earlier this Apple today confirmed that it has pulled right wing social media platform Parler from the App Store. Apple tells TechCrunch, We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats

Following reports of a warning to site developers sent earlier this Apple today confirmed that it has pulled right wing social media platform Parler from the App Store.

Apple tells TechCrunch,

We have always supported diverse points of view being represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activity. Parler has not taken adequate measures to address the proliferation of these threats to people’s safety. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these issues.

In the wake of its design Apple sent Parler’s developers the following note,

To the developers of the Parler app,

Thank you for your response regarding dangerous and harmful content on Parler. We have determined that the measures you describe are inadequate to address the proliferation of dangerous and objectionable content on your app.

Parler has not upheld its commitment to moderate and remove harmful or dangerous content encouraging violence and illegal activity, and is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

In your response, you referenced that Parler has been taking this content “very seriously for weeks.” However, the processes Parler has put in place to moderate or prevent the spread of dangerous and illegal content have proved insufficient. Specifically, we have continued to find direct threats of violence and calls to incite lawless action in violation of Guideline 1.1 – Safety – Objectionable Content.

Your response also references a moderation plan “for the time being,” which does not meet the ongoing requirements in Guideline 1.2 – Safety – User Generated content. While there is no perfect system to prevent all dangerous or hateful user content, apps are required to have robust content moderation plans in place to proactively and effectively address these issues. A temporary “task force” is not a sufficient response given the widespread proliferation of harmful content.

For these reasons, your app will be removed from the App Store until we receive an update that is compliant with the App Store Review Guidelines and you have demonstrated your ability to effectively moderate and filter the dangerous and harmful content on your service.

Regards,

App Review Board

While the app is no longer available through the store at present, it see

If Apple pulls Parler from the App Store, people would not be able to download the app to their iPhones or iPads. People who had already downloaded the Parler iPhone app would still be able to use it, but the company would not be able to update the app, meaning it would eventually be rendered obsolete as Apple updated the iPhone software.

The news comes shortly after Google banned it from Google Play. The app, which became a home to Trump supporters and several high-profile conservatives in the days leading up the Capitol riots, had been operating in violation of Apple’s rules, we understand. Apple’s App Store guidelines require apps hosting user-generated content to have moderation policies to remove content that incites violence.

Despite these policies, neither Apple nor Google had taken action to remove Parler in prior weeks, even though Trump supporters and other far-right users had used the app to call for violence and organize their plans to storm the Capitol. The insurrection left five people dead, over 50 police officers injured, and more than a dozen facing federal charges, in addition to the growing number of arrests emerging as suspects are identified.

Image Credits: Parler via the App Store

BuzzFeed News on Friday reported Parler had received a letter from Apple which warned that the app would be removed from the App Store within 24 hours, unless the company submitted a content moderation improvement plan.

Apple’s notice read:

“We have received numerous complaints regarding objectionable content in your Parler service, accusations that the Parler app was used to plan, coordinate, and facilitate the illegal activities in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021 that led (among other things) to loss of life, numerous injuries, and the destruction of property. The app also appears to continue to be used to plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities.”

(TechCrunch additionally confirmed BuzzFeed’s reporting.)

Parler CEO John Matze posted about Apple’s ultimatum to his own Parler account, saying he would not cave to “those authoritarians who hate free speech.”

Ahead of its removal, Parler had ranked No. 1 in News on the iPhone App Store and No. 13 Overall, according to data from App Annie. On Friday, it was ranking as high as No. 1, at times, on the iPhone’s Top Charts of free non-game apps, though final data was not available.

Image Credits: App Annie

Typically, when an app is removed from an app store it will continue to function for those who already have it installed. But Parler’s future remains more uncertain than most, as there’s a growing push inside Amazon to pull the plug on Parler, too.

Currently, the app is hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS), but it appears to be in violation of the AWS Acceptable Use Policy which could serve as grounds for its removal.

The collective action of tech company employees is playing a key role in some of the decisions being made regarding Trump and his supporters’ access to platforms to communicate and organize in the days following the Capitol riots. According to The Washington Post, for example, over 350 Twitter employees signed a letter urging CEO Jack Dorsey and other execs to permanently suspend Trump’s account before the company followed through.

Trump has now lost his ability to post to Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Twitch, to name a few. Meanwhile, Parler’s removal from both app stores will limit the reach of the more radical and violent Trump supporter movement to some extent, forcing them to more obscure corners of the web. However, many argue these measures have come too late, as the damage to not only Capitol, but to the nation’s psyche as whole, has already been done.

Developing…

News: Parler reportedly removed posts by Trump affiliate Lin Wood calling for execution of VP Mike Pence

January 9, 2021
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It seems that even the “free speech” social network Parler has its limits. The social network that has attracted scores of conservative commentators because of its commitment to free speech has taken down several posts from Trump affiliate Lin Wood, according to a report in Mediaite. In one of the posts removed from the social

It seems that even the “free speech” social network Parler has its limits.

The social network that has attracted scores of conservative commentators because of its commitment to free speech has taken down several posts from Trump affiliate Lin Wood, according to a report in Mediaite.

In one of the posts removed from the social media platform, Wood called for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence .

Wood adds on Parler that he is currently serving a Twitter suspension. pic.twitter.com/JqvF0VM2gu

— Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) January 7, 2021

In a statement to Mediaite, Parler chief executive John Matze confirmed that the service had taken action against Wood’s posts to the platform.

“Yes, some of his parleys that violated our rules were taken down,” Matze told Mediaite. “Including the ones you are talking about.”

The move from Parler is significant because it would mark one of the first instances of a high profile conservative figure having their content removed from the service.

Parler, despite its reputation as a social platform dedicated to free speech, does have some rules governing content.

And, as Mediaite flagged, the posts from Wood likely ran afoul of a rule in the company’s terms of service that states “reported parleys, comments, or messages sent using our service will be deemed a violation of these Guidelines if they contain: an explicit or implicit encouragement to use violence, or to commit a lawless action, such that: (a) the Parleyer intends his or her speech to result in the use of violence or lawless action, and (b) the imminent use of violence or lawless action is the likely result of the parley, comment, or message.”

Wood, whose account remains active on Parler, had his Twitter account suspended on Thursday, as Forbes reported at the time.

Twitter permanently bans President Trump

Meanwhile, the incitements to execute Pence seem to have been animating factor for at least some of the rioters who stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday. Reuters Photo News Editor Jim Bourg tweeted about hearing at least three different rioters hoping to “find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor.”

I heard at least 3 different rioters at the Capitol say that they hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor. It was a common line being repeated. Many more were just talking about how the VP should be executed. https://t.co/fxHREouEWF

— Jim Bourg (@jimbourg) January 8, 2021

News: Human Capital: What’s next for Dr. Timnit Gebru

January 9, 2021
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Congrats on surviving this wild first week of 2021. Outside all-things political, a few labor developments happened that are worth noting. Also, shortly before the mob of Trump supporters wreaked havoc on the U.S. Capitol, I caught up with Dr. Timnit Gebru, the prominent AI ethics researcher who said she was fired from Google last month for speaking out about diversity issues. Our full conversation will be available to listen to next Saturday on the newest episode of TC Mixtape, but I’ve included some snippets for y’all below.

Google, Alphabet workers unionize

A group of more than 200 Google and Alphabet workers announced the formation of the Alphabet Workers Union. With the help of Communication Workers of America Union’s Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA), the union will be open to both employees and contractors.

Of the roughly 227 workers who had signed on to support the union as of earlier this week, they all committed to set aside 1% of their yearly compensation to go toward union dues. Those dues will be used to help compensate folks for lost wages in the event of a strike. The bulk of the workers who have signed on are mostly based in offices in the San Francisco Bay Area and one in Cambridge.

To be clear, though, the Alphabet Workers Union is a bit untraditional. The current union consists of just 227 workers out of Alphabet’s 132,121 people. For the Alphabet union, the intent is not necessarily to be able to bargain with Alphabet-owned companies but to be able to work collectively toward common goals.

Labor department issues filing ruling re: gig workers

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a final rule pertaining to gig workers. The rule, which goes into effect March 8, 2021, makes it easier for gig economy companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart to legally classify workers as independent contractors throughout the country.

However, it remains to be seen if this rule will fully manifest under the new leadership of President-Elect Joe Biden, who is set to be inaugurated on Jan 20, 2021. According to the Wall Street Journal, Biden spokesperson Jen Psaki previously pointed to the labor rule as an example of regulation Biden could stop or delay on his inauguration day.

Independent Drivers Guild Chicago forms

Rideshare drivers in Chicago recently teamed up with Independent Drivers Guild to launch a local branch of the drivers’ rights organization. IDG, which is affiliated with the Machinists Union, has historically advocated for the rights of rideshare drivers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

“IDG beat the odds to win higher pay and benefits for drivers in New York City and working together, we know we can do the same here in Chicago,” Steven Everett, a Chicago rideshare driver-organizer, said in a statement.

What’s next for Dr. Timnit Gebru

Many of you are likely familiar with Dr. Timnit Gebru, but the TL;DR is that she recently left Google after speaking out about diversity issues in artificial intelligence. Google says Gebru resigned and it merely accepted her resignation, while Gebru says Google fired her.

I caught up with Dr. Gebru on Wednesday to chat about what’s next for her, as well as some recent developments in tech’s labor struggles.

On the Alphabet Workers Union:

This is a combination of a lot of peoples work and frustration. And i think this is the only way because this is a way to give workers power, and so that they can be at the negotiating table, because right now, they don’t have power.

[…] One thing I really appreciate about this union is that it’s all workers. It’s not just, you know, full time workers, it’s temp workers and full-time workers, which is extremely important because the tech industry is right now running on the backs of these contract workers who have zero security.”

[…] What I worry about though, is that [Google has] been extremely aggressive with trying to union bust and trying to stop these kinds of organizing — any type of organizing and now that it’s become something real, I think they’re going to intensify their efforts, like a lot more in trying to stop this organizing from happening. And there are many well-known tactics to do this, right. This kind of like propaganda and kind of dividing and conquering and all that. So that’s my worry. And I think everybody needs to stay vigilant to make sure that that doesn’t happen.

On fighting for severance:

“I don’t know if I’m going to, you know, explain to you exactly what I’m thinking right now about that,” she said, adding that “I definitely have lawyers.”

Obviously, what they did to me was wrong and I definitely want to, you know, take some sort of action but what that is is not necessarily crystal clear.

On working at a tech company again

Prior to joining Google, Dr. Gebru held roles at Apple and Microsoft. While, she still plans to work in the field of artificial intelligence ethics and work with Black in AI, Dr. Gebru said “it’s very hard for me to imagine joining a corporation right now.”

I’m just sick of these institutions because you spend so much of your energy, fighting for simple things, just simple things that people don’t have any incentive to change.

[…] I want to spend more time thinking about how we can have our own institutions rather than just you know, fighting these people over and over again. That’s my current thinking.

Envisioning a firm or a non-profit that does what the ethical AI team at Google was doing under her leadership, but that’s not affiliated with any corporation.

“We want to create technology that would also work for us, rather than just playing catch up,” she said. “So I think that’s the idea of Black in AI.”

News: Bootstrapping to $80M ARR

January 9, 2021
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So much for a quiet start to the year. Any hopes of 2021 giving us respite from the turbulent waters of 2020 went splat, as the first week of the New Year was busy with venture capital deals, IPO news and SPAC news.

Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s broadly based on the daily column that appears on Extra Crunch, but free, and made for your weekend reading. Click here if you want it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Ready? Let’s talk money, startups and spicy IPO rumors.

So much for a quiet start to the year.

Any hopes of 2021 giving us respite from the turbulent waters of 2020 went splat, as the first week of the New Year was busy with venture capital deals (Divvy! Gtmhub!), IPO news (Affirm! Poshmark! Roblox!), SPAC news (SoFi! BuzzFeed!), and violence in the American capital. We’ll get to all of that in a minute, minus the political stuff as I don’t have the heart to scream again before the work week is over.

Today we’re starting with two growth stories, one from a company that is nearing IPO scale, and the other from a startup that is just getting its feet underneath it after a product launch.

We’ll start with Cloudinary, a media-focused software company that we covered in early 2020, when the bootstrapped company announced that it had reached $60 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR. I caught up with the private upstart again this week to check in on what it was like to bootstrap through a pandemic.

Cloudinary co-founder and CEO Itai Lahan told TechCrunch that his company has reached $80 million ARR, or 33% growth during a very busy year. Not bad, right? But according to Lahan, Cloudinary had targeted a number over $90 million for the year. So what happened?

Well, Cloudinary intentionally decelerated a little bit.

Lahan walked TechCrunch through how Cloudinary dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic, which had an impact on parts of its customer base. Lahan and the rest of the company decided to slow down, he said, reducing the pace at which it was hiring, among other initiatives. The goal was to get the company through the pandemic, switch to remote work with its culture intact, he said.

The Exchange is looking for startups between $35 million and $60 million ARR that are growing quickly and are willing to share performance metrics. Email in if that’s you. More on the project here.

The gap between the company’s $80 million ARR result and its original goal was a mix of COVID-19’s commercial impact and the company’s own choices, Lahan said.

When’s the last time I heard the CEO of a private technology company tell me that they were making conscious choices to slow their company down? I honestly don’t remember. Lahan had reasons, however, that went past not having recently raised $100 million or whatever. Instead, the company decided to exchange short-term financial growth for what the CEO described variously as long-term growth or sustainable growth.

Lahan said that if Cloudinary focuses on its customers and employees over short-term financial goals, it will grow more in the next half-decade than it will if it decided to sprint as fast as it could today. One example of the choice to go a little slower in 2020? The company has around 285 people today, under its original plan to have around 320.

Wild, right? This is all possible because Lahan and his team at once don’t have to answer to external investors with short, or medium-term time frames in mind for liquidity, and because Cloudinary makes secondary liquidity available to its workers, alleviating internal agitating for an IPO.

Not that we would mind Cloudinary going public so we could dig into its numbers more deeply. It should cross $100 million ARR this year, so it’s nearly time to start sending it regular, annoying emails.

Now on to our smaller company: OnJuno! If Cloudinary is nearly ready to go public, OnJuno is getting ready to think about a Series A. So it’s just a little bit younger.

TechCrunch first spoke with OnJuno in December, right after it launched, trying to figure out why the world needed another neobank of sorts. According to co-founder Varun Deshpande, OnJuno is targeted at affluent individuals, while other neobanks have more traditionally targeted less-wealthy customers.

OnJuno entices them with higher interest rates, and a focus on what Deshpande described as the more debit-focused Asian American community. How is it going? We checked back in with OnJuno, about three-and-a-half weeks after it launched. Per Deshpande, OnJuno expects to reach the $10 million assets under management (AUM) threshold shortly, with users bringing average deposits of $7,000 to $8,000. That’s a multiple of some other neobanks, the startup said.

The fintech upstart said that it expects to reach $100 million AUM in the next two to three quarters, adding that around 80% of its users come from traditional banks. Let’s see how fast it can reach $25 million AUM, and if its deposit averages hold up.

Now, venture rounds, IPOs news, and then — I am sorry — some SPAC news we need to discuss.

Venture capital

Despite it being the first minutes and hours and days of 2021, so very much happened. To pick an example, we have now seen around a half dozen new unicorns born, with another group in the provisional camp.

The pace of new unicorn creation feels exciting, but as we’re still too close to Q4 2020 for comfort, I don’t want to call this a trend yet. But as Divvy puts $165 million to work at a $1.6 billion valuation, Hinge Health blasts to a $3 billion valuation and Salesloft meets the mark and more, it’s been busy.

On the slightly-smaller-but-still-very-interesting side of the VC coin, Bangalore-based Jumbotail picked up $14.2 million this week to help it pursue what we called “the opportunity to digitize neighborhood stores in the world’s second-largest internet market.” That actually sounds cool? And important?

And in an even smaller round, Atlanta, Georgia-based Voxie raised a $6.7 million in Series A. Voxie “offers tools to help businesses automate and manage” their text message-based marketing. This shows how much space there still is in the software market for new startups. I would have bet you an espresso that we had tapped out the text messaging startup space three years ago. Nope!

Coming up, some re-digs into startup clusters. After looking at how quickly startups building corporate-cards-and-software businesses are growing, we’re dipping back into software startups building OKR software. If that’s you, get your data in or be left out.

IPOs

Zooming out from our regular coverage of IPOs, here’s what you need to know: Affirm and Poshmark are pursuing traditional IPOs at huge markups to their final private valuations. That means that the 2021 IPO market is kicking off like a mirror to the late-2020 IPO market. Expect some big pops in coming months for some companies you know by name.

The other bit of news that matters is that Roblox has scrapped its IPO plans, raised an enormous brick of cash, and now intends to direct list. Why is a perfectly fine question to ask, and one that we tried to answer here.

Takeaways? The IPO market will be active, and perhaps more diverse than expected in 2021. At least to start.

SPACs (alas)

While you are tired and bored of SPACs, and I am as well, they are actually doing things at last that we do care about. In brief to respect your time and sanity:

BuzzFeed might go public via a SPAC. Our verdict: That shit’s bodacious and we want to see BuzzFeed News have as much loot as possible to keep up its critical reporting.
SoFi might go public via a SPAC, you can read the investor deck here, which seems dumb. Why not just go public? But as Chamath is involved, this one is going to do a lot of press.
Bustle could go public via a SPAC. Our verdict: Wait, really?

Odds/Ends

Lots of venture capital funds raised capital, which we yammered about here on the podcast. But I wanted to throw one more into the mix: Transformation Capital, which put together a $500 million fund focused on digital health.

The nice thing about thematic funds, like this and USV’s new climate fund, is that you actually know what they do. Which in the case of Transformation Capital, is investing “investing in commercial-stage digital health companies,” in its own words. Word.

This is the second such fund from the group, which now has $800 million under management. Cool.

Alex

News: The next Zoom wants to be nothing like Zoom

January 9, 2021
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In the past few months, there hasn’t been one conversation I’ve had about remote work that doesn’t include a mention of Hopin, a virtual events platform last valued at $2.1 billion.

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In the past few months, there hasn’t been one conversation I’ve had about remote work that doesn’t include a mention of Hopin, a virtual events platform last valued at $2.1 billion.

For a company only a little older than a year, Hopin has a wild growth story. It grew its ARR from $0 to $20 million in nine months. It scooped up two businesses to differentiate its business, including StreamYard for $250 million just this week. And its last financing round left the company’s valuation at $2.1 billion.

Hopin’s growth amid Zoom’s fatigue is giving validation to a whole crop of remote-work-focused startups. I see startups in the category sitting in two camps: Either you’re betting that users want a more passive way to interact with video or you’re betting that users want a more active way to interact with video.

This week, for example, I wrote about Rewatch, which creates internal private channels for startups to archive all their videoconferencing meetings. The company is essentially turning live meetings into transcribed documents that employees can sift through on their own time, shifting from synchronous to asynchronous.

In contrast, I also covered Teamflow, a platform that wants to give a virtual space to companies to recreate the serendipity and productivity of an office. Unlike Rewatch, Teamflow thinks that employees want there to be more live moments in a distributed world.

Both previously in-stealth companies cited Hopin as an example of the need for innovation around how we interact virtually. Rewatch and Teamflow, respectively, see Zoom as a plug-in or competitor – not inspiration.

As I mentioned in this week’s podcast, it’s a dynamic I expect to play out even more over the next few months, as we evolve from a Zoom world to a Zoom alternative world. I want to hear from you, even if you disagree, about what companies in the remote work space should be on my radar. E-mail me at natasha.mascarenhas@techcrunch.com or tweet me @nmasc_ with companies you think should be on my remote-work radar.

The power of platform

This week, the U.S. Capitol building was stormed by pro-Trump insurrectionists in a fatal riot. Many in the tech community blamed Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg for not limiting hate speech on their respective platforms, thus stoking flames of domestic terrorism.

Here’s what to know:

Facebook banned Trump for 2 weeks
Twitter permanently suspended President Trump
Reddit promised to take action
Shopify pulled Trump’s stores off its website.

Even as many see the response as too little too late, the events mark a crucial change in the way that regulation between government and tech works.

Etc: Reggie James, CEO and founder of Eternal, framed the issue in a tweet:

You all have to make up your mind on if you want government to regulate technology or technology to regulate government

And recognize when you call for platforms to remove the current president, you are effectively breaking a silent power tension in one direction

Snowcrash

— (@HipCityReg) January 7, 2021

Image: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

FTC versus DTC

Sticking to our government and tech theme, P&G has officially terminated its plan to acquire razor startup, Billie, after the FTC sued over antitrust concerns.

Here’s what to know: Billie was founded in 2017 with the goal of fighting the “pink tax” on goods marketed to women, including razors and body wash. It was going to be acquired by P&G after raising just $35 million in venture capital.

Here’s our seed coverage of the startup.

Etc: Direct-to-consumer brands are not happy. The failed deal is not-so-subtly signaling to DTC brands that there is a cap to their scale, at least in the FTC’s eyes. Government regulation and limited scale also could hurt VC interest in the category.

The optimistic news is that VC funding might be falling out of favor with top D2C brands.

Many product-based brands, as it turns out, are no longer interested in chasing venture capital, playing the “grow-at-all-costs” game and relinquishing partial control to investors, despite the pandemic and the uncertain circumstances many founders find themselves facing.

Image Credits: Billie

IPOs, a direct listing, and sky-high valuations

My colleague Alex puts together a brilliant newsletter each week after his column, The Exchange. Subscribe to it for his in-depth analysis on the IPO market and late-stage startups. In the meantime, though…

Here’s what to know:

Etc: The Roblox Gambit

Green helium balloon carrying pink piggy bank with white strings on blue sky

Around TechCrunch

Remembering TechCrunch Japan’s Hirohide Yoshida (1971-2020)

Extra Crunch Live is back in 2021, connecting founders with tech giants and each other

A directory of the most active and engaged investors in VC: The TechCrunch List

The Mixtape Podcast: Behind the curtain of diversity theater

Across the week

Seen on TC

Elon Musk has a new title: world’s richest person

Waymo is dropping the term ‘self-driving,’ but not everyone in the industry is on board

VCs dispense political niceties during capitol riots: ‘Never talk to me again’

California vegan egg startup Eat Just yokes itself to China’s fast food chain

Detroit’s Ludlow Ventures goes for fund four

Seen on EC

Revenue-based financing: The next step for private equity and early-stage investment

5 questions about 2021’s startup market

What’s going on with fintech venture capital investment?

VCs discuss gaming’s biggest infrastructure investment opportunities in 2021

The tech-powered wave of smart, not slow, tutoring sessions

@EquityPod

If you’re new here, welcome! Equity is TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast. I chat with Alex and Danny about the most important tech news each week, from early-stage startups to IPOs, and crack a few jokes in the meantime. Produced by Chris, Equity is a perfect appetizer to this newsletter.

Despite your wishes for a slower and perhaps more uneventful year, tech clearly isn’t slowing down in 2021. The Equity team had a mountain of news to get through, from Twitter’s very active checkbook to a $185 million Series A round.

Here’s what you’ll hear about if you tune into our debut full-team episode for the year:

Why Hopin might be the fastest growing story of this era
How, and why, a Utah-based expense management company founded in 2018 is already a unicorn
What does a slew of acquisitions from Twitter and Amazon mean for the exit environment?
And a tip just for you: a ton of VC firms squeezed in SEC filings on New Years Eve bringing hundreds of millions of capital to potential startups.

Convinced? Good. Listen here, and make sure to check out our bonus episode with Roblox and gaming news that comes out on Saturday.

News: Parler jumps to No. 1 on App Store after Facebook and Twitter ban Trump

January 9, 2021
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Users are surging on small, conservative, social media platforms after President Donald Trump’s ban from the world’s largest social networks, even as those platforms are seeing access throttled by the app marketplaces of tech’s biggest players. The social network, Parler, a network that mimics Twitter, is now the number one app in Apple’s app store

The social network, Parler, a network that mimics Twitter, is now the number one app in Apple’s app store and Gab, another conservative-backed service, claimed that it was seeing an explosion in the number of signups to its web-based platform as well.

Parler saw approximately 210,000 installs globally on Friday 1/8, up 281% from approximately 55,000 on 1/7, according to data from the analytics service Sensor Tower. “In the U.S., the app saw approximately 182,000 first-time downloads on 1/8, up 355% from about 40,000 installs on 1/7. Since Wednesday, the app has seen approximately 268,000 installs from across U.S. app stores,” a press rep from Sensor Tower wrote in an email.

Parler’s ballooning user base comes at a potentially perilous time for the company. It has already been removed from Google’s Play store and Apple is considering suspending the social media app as well if it does not add some content moderation features.

Parler removed from Google Play store as Apple App Store suspension reportedly looms

Both Parler and Gab have billed themselves as havens for free speech, with what’s perhaps the most lax content moderation online. In the past the two companies have left up content posted by an alleged Russian disinformation campaign, and allow users to traffic in conspiracy theories that other social media platforms have shut down.

The expectation with these services is that users on the platforms are in charge of muting and blocking trolls or offensive content, but, by their nature, those who join these platforms will generally find themselves among like-minded users.

Their user counts might be surging, but would-be adopters may soon have a hard time finding the services.

On Friday night, Google said that it would be removing Parler from their Play Store immediately — suspending the app until the developers committed to a moderation and enforcement policy that could handle objectionable content on the platform.

In a statement to TechCrunch, a Google spokesperson said:

“In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content have moderation policies and enforcement that removes egregious content like posts that incite violence. All developers agree to these terms and we have reminded Parler of this clear policy in recent months. We’re aware of continued posting in the Parler app that seeks to incite ongoing violence in the US. We recognize that there can be reasonable debate about content policies and that it can be difficult for apps to immediately remove all violative content, but for us to distribute an app through Google Play, we do require that apps implement robust moderation for egregious content. In light of this ongoing and urgent public safety threat, we are suspending the app’s listings from the Play Store until it addresses these issues.“

On Friday, Buzzfeed News reported that Parler had received a letter from Apple informing them that the app would be removed from the App Store within 24 hours unless the company submitted an update with a moderation improvement plan. Parler CEO John Matze confirmed the action from Apple in a post on his Parler account where he posted a screenshot of the notification from Apple.

“We want to be clear that Parler is in fact responsible for all the user generated content present on your service and for ensuring that this content meets App Store requirements for the safety and protection of our users,” text from the screenshot reads. “We won’t distribute apps that present dangerous and harmful content.

Parler is backed by the conservative billionaire heiress Rebekah Mercer, according to a November report in The Wall Street Journal. Founded in 2018, the service has experienced spikes in user adoption with every clash between more social media companies and the outgoing President Trump. In November, Parler boasted some 10 million users, according to the Journal.

Users like Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo and the conservative talk show host Dan Bongino, a wildly popular figure on Facebook who is also an investor in Parler, have joined the platform. In the Journal article Bongino called the company “a collective middle finger to the tech tyrants.”

It’s worth noting that Parler and Gab aren’t the only companies to see users numbers soar after the Trump bans. MeWe Network, OANN, Newsmax and Rumble have also seen adoption soar, according to data from the analytics company Apptopia.

The company noted that Parler was the #1 app on the iOS app store for two days surging from 18th on Thursday and 592 on Wednesday. Overall, the app was the 10th most downloaded social media app in 2020 with 8.1 million new installs.

“It is an event driven app though,” a company analyst noted. “After events like the election, BLM protests, Twitter first applying labels to Trump’s Tweets, we see bursts of downloads and usage but it will then drop off.”

Sarah Perez and Lucas Matney contributed additional reporting to this article.

News: This Week in Apps: Social apps react to riots, Parler gets booted, FTC threatens regulation

January 9, 2021
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Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in global consumer spend in 2019. Consumer spend also hit a record $112 billion across

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy.

The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in global consumer spend in 2019. Consumer spend also hit a record $112 billion across iOS and Android alone.

Not including third-party Chinese app stores, iOS and Android users downloaded 130 billion apps in 2020. Due to COVID-19, time spent in apps jumped 25% year-over-year on Android.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.

Weekly News

Platforms: Apple & Google

Google says it will add privacy labels to its app either this week or the next, following a report that claimed it hadn’t updated its app since Apple’s new labeling requirements.
iOS 14.4 beta indicates guided audio walking workouts are on the way to Apple Watch.

Google to add App Store privacy labels to its iOS apps as soon as this week

Services

Quibi returns. Okay, not exactly. Instead, the content catalog from the deceased mobile streaming app has been bought by Roku, which will stream it for free in its The Roku Channel this year, including The Roku Channel app.

Roku acquires Quibi’s content

Gaming

Mobile games accounted for 58% of the total gaming market in 2020, up 10% year-over-year, according to SuperData’s annual report. They also accounted for the majority of the revenue, at $73.8 billion, compared with $33.1 billion for PC games and $19.7 billion for console games. Mobile games were also eight out of 10 of the top free-to-play titles, led by Honor of Kings.

Image Credits: SuperData

Augmented Reality

Tile to take on Apple’s forthcoming AirTags with a new tracker powered by ultra-wideband tech and will add AR-finding capabilities to its mobile app.

Tile to launch a new tracker powered by ultra-wideband technology, add AR finding to app

TikTok launches its first AR effect to leverage the LiDAR Scanner in iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max. The effect arrived for New Year’s and involves a dropping ball, similar to the one in Times Square, that explodes with confetti. Thanks to the LiDAR Scanner’s tech, the confetti can fall on the furniture in the room much as it would in real life.

To ring in 2021 we released our first AR effect on the new iPhone 12 Pro, using LiDAR technology which allows us to create effects that interact with your environment – visually bridging the digital and physical worlds. We’re excited to develop more innovative effects in 2021! pic.twitter.com/6yFD2FfHta

— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) January 6, 2021

Social & Photos

WhatsApp is alerting users they have to agree to the new privacy policy by February 8, or won’t be able to use the app. The agreement requires users to share their data with Facebook — a move that’s led to a boost in downloads for private messaging app Signal.
WhatsApp is working on multi-device support, according to references found in its 2.21.1.1 beta on Android.
Facebook reminds businesses it will have to comply with App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14, according to a recent email it sent them. The email states the change will hurt “the industry and the ability for businesses of all sizes to market themselves efficiently.”

Health & Fitness

Singapore confirmed its police can obtain COVID-19 tracing data to aid in criminal investigations via the TraceTogether app, used by more than 4.2 million residents.

Deadpool

Alibaba shuts down 12-year-old music streaming app Xiami, acquired in 2013.
Twitter to shut down podcast app Breaker following acquisition.
Microsoft will shut down Minecraft Earth AR game in June, due to pandemic.
BBVA to shut down neobank Simple, acquired in 2014. Users to be transferred to BBVA USA, which is merging with PNC.

Alibaba shuts down 12-year-old music streaming app Xiami

Trends

Global mobile app spending reached nearly $111 billion in 2020, up 30.2% year-over-year, according to Sensor Tower. The App Store accounted for the majority of the spending at $72.3 billion, up 30.3% from $55.5 billion in 2019.
Outside of games, Entertainment apps saw the most user spending worldwide in 2020, with $5.3 billion.
First-time installs set a new record in 2020, with 143 billion installs across the App Store and Google Play combined.
European mobile app spending grew 31% in 2020 to reach $14.8 billion, also according to Sensor Tower, representing a 31% year-over-year increase. The App Store drove the majority of the spending at $8 billion.
Apptopia pulled data to create charts of 2020’s top downloaded apps across 20 different categories, both for U.S. and global apps. It also released top grossing charts for apps, games and “health & fitness” apps.
CNBC estimates App Store gross revenue was over $64 billion in 2020. The estimate uses the figures Apple released on Wednesday about money paid to developers to back out roughly how much revenue the App Store made.
Apple said its customers spent $1.8 billion during the week of Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day. App Store customers also set a new single-day spending record on New Year’s Day by more than $540 million.
New CIRP data says the iPhone 12 models accounted for 76% of new iPhone sales from October-November 2020. The iPhone 12 mini only accounted for 6% of sales, however.

Image Credits: CIRP

Apple App Store customers spent $1.8B over the week of Christmas, set a spending record on New Year’s Day

Funding and M&A

Image Credits: Breaker/Twitter

Twitter acquires social podcasting app Breaker and acqui-hires creative agency Ueno to help it design new products, including Twitter Spaces.
Cross-platform gaming company Roblox raises $520 million in a round led by Altimeter Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group ahead of its planned IPO. The new round values the business at $29.5 billion.
Perfect Corp. raises $50 million Series C led by Goldman Sachs. The company develops the virtual beauty app YouCam Makeup app along with other AR makeup products, including those now embedded in Google Search.
Local news app News Break raises $115 million in a round led by Francisco Partners. IDG also participated. The Mountain View-based company has roots in China, where founder Jeff Zheng previously led Yahoo Labs in Beijing, and has team members in Shanghai. But the majority are in the U.S.

Local news app News Break raises $115M

Quantum Metric raises $200 million for its platform that helps companies improve their website and apps with real-time feedback from end users. It captures data at the session level, which can then be played back to see how customers interacted with the site or app.
(IPO) Poshmark plans to price its IPO between $35 and $39 per share, potentially valuing the business at $3 billion.
Indonesian robo-advisor app Bibit raises $30 million in round led by Sequoia Capital India.
AR gaming company Niantic acquires competitive gaming platform Mayhem for an undisclosed price. Mayhem had participated in YC’s winter 2018 batch before raising $5.7 million for its league and tournament organization platform.
Fortnite maker Epic Games acquires Rad Game Tools, the maker of game development tools. The companies had worked together, as Epic had used Rad Game Tools’ compression tech to speed the load time for Fortnite.
Indian social network ShareChat said to be raising funds from Google and Snap.

Quantum Metric raises $200M, now valued at over $1B, for its digital product design platform

Downloads

Overviewer

New app Overviewer, reviewed here by 9to5Mac, turns an iOS device into a document camera for sharing content on video conferencing apps, like Zoom. The app makes for a good companion for teachers doing virtual learning as well as businesses. The app was created by Dark Noise app developer Charlie Chapman.

Textcraft

Image Credits: TextCraft

Want an easier way to insert the clapping hands emoji into your online rants, type text as bubbled letters, type In aLtErNaTe cAsE, in hashtags, in superscript or anything else? The new Textcraft app can help. The app allows you to type in the text then copy and paste or share any one of its over 50 text transformations. The app is well-designed with support for dark mode, drag-and-drop on iPad, and other macOS design guidelines in mind when using it across platforms.

According to a tween who reviewed the app for me: “This is cool. I want it.” They then ignored me as they played with it. I think that’s a good sign. (Paid download of $6.99 on iOS, iPad and Mac).

Discovery+

Image Credits: Discovery

If you’ve binged it all during the pandemic, there’s a new option for you. Discovery+ launched this week, bringing Discovery’s networks — HGTV, Food Network, TLC, ID, OWN, Travel Channel, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet — to a $5 per month subscription video on demand service. (Or $7 if you don’t want ads.)

The app also includes some non-Discovery content, like nature documentaries from the BBC and programming from A&E, The History Channel and Lifetime.

If home renovation, travel and reality are your escapist favs, this could be the app for you.

Wellnest

Image Credits: Wellnest

It’s been a stressful week. Maybe it’s time for some self-care? Guided journaling app Wellnest is helping users prioritize their mental health using game design techniques. The app offers deep dive question sets, daily prompts, mood check-in, speech to text, insights and more, wrapped up in a colorful and simple package. The app is a free download, then $24 per year or $5 per month for full access.

News: The deplatforming of a president

January 9, 2021
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After years of placid admonishments, the tech world came out in force against President Trump this past week following the violent assault of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. From Twitter to PayPal, more than a dozen companies have placed unprecedented restrictions or outright banned the current occupant of the White House

The news was voluminous and continuous for the past few days, so here’s a recap of who took action when, and what might happen next.

Twitter: a permanent ban and a real-time attempt to shut down all possible account alternatives

Twitter has played a paramount role over the debate about how to moderate President Trump’s communications, given the president’s penchant for the platform and the nearly 90 million followers on his @realDonaldTrump account. In the past, Twitter has repeatedly warned the president, added labels related to electron integrity and misinformation, and outright blocked the occasional tweet.

This week, however, Twitter’s patience seemed to have been exhausted. Shortly after the riots at the Capitol on Wednesday, Twitter put in place a large banner warning its users about the president’s related tweet on the matter, blocking retweets of that specific message. A few hours later, the company instituted a 12-hour ban on the president’s personal account.

At first, it looked like the situation would return to normal, with Twitter offering Thursday morning that it would reinstate the president’s account after he removed tweets the company considered against its policies around inciting violence. The president posted a tweet later on Thursday with a video attachment that seemed to be relatively calmer than his recent fiery rhetoric, a video in which he also accepted the country’s election results for the first time.

Enormous pressure externally on its own platform as well as internal demands from employees kept the policy rapidly changing though. Late Friday night, the company announced that it decided to permanently ban the president from its platform, shutting down @realDonaldTrump. The company then played a game of whack-a-mole as it blocked the president’s access to affiliated Twitter handles like @TeamTrump (his official campaign account) as well as the official presidential account @POTUS and deleted individual tweets from the president. The company’s policies state that a blocked user may not attempt to use a different account to evade its ban.

Twitter has also taken other actions against some of the president’s affiliates and broader audience, blocking Michael Flynn, a bunch of other Trump supporters, and a variety of QAnon figures.

With a new president on the horizon, the official @POTUS account will be handed to the new Biden administration, although Twitter has reportedly been intending to reset the account’s followers to zero, unlike its transition of the account in 2016 from Obama to Trump.

As for Trump himself, a permanent ban from his most prominent platform begs the question: where will he take his braggadocio and invective next? So far, we haven’t seen the president move his activities to any social network alternatives, but after the past few years (and on Twitter, the last decade), it seems hard to believe the president will merely return to his golf course and quietly ride out to the horizon.

Snap: a quick lock after dampening the president’s audience for months

Snap locked the president’s account late Wednesday following the events on Capitol Hill, and seemed to be one of the most poised tech companies to rapidly react to the events taking place in DC. Snap’s lock prevents the president from posting new snaps to his followers on the platform, which currently number approximately two million. As far as TechCrunch knows, that lock remains in place, although the president’s official profile is still available to users.

Following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the concomitant Black Lives Matter protests, the company had announced back in June that it would remove the president’s account from its curated “Discover” tab, limiting its distribution and discoverability.

The president has never really effectively used the Snap platform, and with an indefinite ban in place, it looks unlikely he will find a home there in the future.

Facebook / Instagram: A short-to-medium ban with open questions on how long “indefinite” means

Facebook, like Twitter, is one of the president’s most popular destinations for his supporters, and the platform is also a locus for many of the political right’s most popular personalities. It’s moderation actions have been heavily scrutinized by the press over the past few years, but the company has mostly avoided taking direct action against the president — until this week.

On Wednesday as rioters walked out of the halls of Congress, Facebook pulled down a video from President Trump that it considered was promoting violence. Later Wednesday evening, that policy eventually extended into a 24-hour ban of the president’s account, which currently has 33 million likes, or followers. The company argued that the president had violated its policies multiple times, automatically triggering the one-day suspension. At the same time, Facebook (and Instagram) took action to block a popular trending hashtag related to the Capitol riots.

On Thursday morning, Mark Zuckerberg, in a personal post on his own platform, announced an “indefinite” suspension for the president, with a minimum duration of two weeks. That timing would neatly extend the suspension through the inauguration of president-elect Biden, who is to assume the presidency at noon on January 20th.

What will happen after the inauguration? Right now, we don’t know. The president’s account is suspended but not deactivated, which means that the president cannot post new material to his page, but that the page remains visible to Facebook users. The company could remove the suspension once the transition of power is complete, or it may continue the ban longer-term. Given the president’s prominence on the platform and the heavy popularity of the social network among his supporters, Facebook is in a much more intense bind between banning content it deems offensive, and retaining users important to its bottom line.

Shopify / PayPal: Ecommerce platforms won’t sell Trump official merchandise for the time being

It’s not just social networks that are blocking the president’s audience — ecommerce giants are also getting into moderating their platforms against the president. On Thursday, Shopify announced that it was removing the storefronts for both the Trump campaign and Trump’s personal brand.

That’s an evolution on policy for the company, which years ago said that it would not moderate its platform, but in recent years has removed some controversial stores, such as some right-wing shops in 2018.

PayPal meanwhile has been deactivating the accounts of some groups of Trump supporters this week, who were using the money-transfer fintech to coordinate payments to underwrite the rioters’ actions on Capitol Hill. PayPal has been increasingly banning some political accounts, banning a far-right activist in 2019 and also banning a spate of far-right organizations in the wake of violent protests in Charlottesville in 2017. These bans have so far not extended directly to the president himself from what TechCrunch can glean.

Given the president’s well-known personal brand and penchant for product tie-ins before becoming president, it’s a major open question about how these two platforms and others in ecommerce will respond to Trump once he leaves office in two weeks. Will the president go back to shilling steaks, water and cologne? And will he need an ecommerce venue to sell his wares online? Much will depend on Trump’s next goals and whether he stays focused on politics, or heads back to his more commercial pursuits.

Google removes Parler from the Google Play Store, while Apple mulls a removal as well

For supporters of Trump and others concerned about the moderation actions of Facebook and other platforms, Parler has taken the lead as an alternative social network for this audience. Right now, the app is number one in the App Store in the United States, ahead of encrypted and secure messaging app Signal, which is at number four and got a massive endorsement from Elon Musk this week.

Parler’s opportunism for growth around the riots on Capitol Hill though has run into a very real barrier: the two tech companies which run the two stores for mobile applications in the United States.

Google announced Friday evening that it would be removing the Parler app from its store, citing the social network’s lack of moderation and content filtering capabilities. The app’s page remains down as this article was going to press. That ban means that new users won’t be able to install the app from the Play Store, however, existing users who already have Parler installed will be able to continue using it.

Meanwhile, Buzzfeed reports that Apple has reportedly sent a 24-hour takedown notice to Parler’s developers, saying that it would mirror Google’s actions if the app didn’t immediately filter content that endangers safety. As of now, Parler remains available in the App Store, but if the timing is to be believed, the app could be taken down later this Saturday.

Given the complexities of content moderation, including the need to hire content moderators en masse, it seems highly unlikely that Parler could respond to these requests in any short period of time. What happens to the app and the president’s supporters long-term next is, right now, anyone’s guess.

Discord / Twitch / YouTube / Reddit / TikTok: All the socials don’t want to be social anymore with President Trump

Finally, let’s head over to the rest of the social networking world, where Trump is just as unpopular as he is at Facebook and Twitter HQ these days. Companies widely blocked the president from accessing their sites, and they also took action against affiliated groups.

Google-owned YouTube announced Thursday that it would start handing out “strikes” against channels — including President Trump’s — that post election misinformation. In the past, videos with election misinformation would have a warning label attached, but the channel itself didn’t face any consequences. In December, the company changed that policy to include the outright removal of videos purveying election misinformation.

This week’s latest policy change is an escalation from the company’s previous approach, and would result in lengthier and lengthier temporary suspensions for each additional strike that a channel receives. Those strikes could eventual result in a permanent ban for a YouTube channel if they happen within a set period of time. That’s precisely what happened with Steve Bannon’s channel, which was permanently banned Friday late afternoon for repeated violations of YouTube’s policies. Meanwhile, President Trump’s official channel has less than 3 million followers, and is currently still available for viewing on the platform.

Outside YouTube, Twitch followed a similar policy to Facebook, announcing Thursday morning that it would ban the president “indefinitely” and at least through the inauguration on January 20th. The president has a limited audience of just about 151,000 followers on the popular streaming platform, making it among the least important of the president’s social media accounts.

In terms of the president’s supporters, their groups are also being removed from popular tech platforms. On Friday, Reddit announced that it would ban the subreddit r/DonaldTrump, which had become one of a number of unofficial communities on the platform where the president’s most ardent supporters hung out. The social network had previously removed the controversial subreddit r/The_Donald back in June. Discord on Friday shut down a server related to that banned subreddit, citing the server’s “overt connection to an online forum used to incite violence.”

Lastly, TikTok announced on Thursday that it was limiting the spread of some information related to the Capitol riots, including redirecting hashtags and removing violent content as well as the president’s own video message to supporters. The president does not have a TikTok account, and therefore, most of the company’s actions are focused on his supporters and broader content surrounding the situation on Capitol Hill this week.

News: Who is underpricing Roblox?

January 9, 2021
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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re back on this lovely Saturday with a bonus episode! The normal crew assembled, including Alex, Natasha, Danny, and Chris, to chatter about a chunk of creator and gamer news. And some big numbers, the sorts that we always find

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture-capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. We’re back on this lovely Saturday with a bonus episode!

The normal crew assembled, including Alex, Natasha, Danny, and Chris, to chatter about a chunk of creator and gamer news. And some big numbers, the sorts that we always find fun to chat about.

A sneak peek at what we discussed during this second-ever Equity Leftovers:

Roblox’s epic pre-IPO raise, and its decision to go public through direct listing instead of the IPO that it had previously planned.
Niantic buying a gaming platform with an esports-focus.
Nintendo buying a gaming studio, leading the crew to declare that the famous company is the Disney of video games.
Cameo, which allows fans to pay celebrities for personalized messages, is on a hiring spree after bringing in $100 million in transactions last year. The Information says that the company is seeking funding, which isn’t entirely surprising. Axios reports that it has brought in a couple high-profile hires, as well.

Back to our regular schedule Monday! Chat then!

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

Monthly Archives: January 2021