Business & Tech Facebook and Twitter Sign On With 'Christchurch Call' To Quash Extremist Content; White House Refuses The White House is signaling to white nationalists that it wants to protect their free speech rights by refusing to sign on with multiple Western governments to a non-binding pledge to stem the tide of extremist content.
Business & Tech Rideshare Vehicles Are Hotbeds For Germs, Moreso Than Taxis, Says Study Those dangling bottles of hand-sanitizer might be more than just a courtesy! A small-scale study comparing swabs taken from rideshare vehicles with those taken in taxis and rental cars found that the rideshare vehicles had the highest overall presence of bacteria and other germs.
Business & Tech Uber IPO Sputters, Stock Already Trading Below Initial Price Uber's big, much ballyhoo'd IPO did not get off to the most glorious start Friday afternoon, as an already conservative $45 initial share price appears too rich for investors' blood. Even Lyft had a bit of a first-day bounce on its IPO day!
Business & Tech Amazon Go a No-Go As Supes Vote To Ban Cashless Stores The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted to ban all retail outlets in the city that don't accept cash as payment. The move to quell a growing trend of cashless stores and restaurants is meant to ensure access to all stores by low-income residents.
Business & Tech Kamala Harris Wants To Make Twitter and Facebook Accountable For Hate Speech Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris said over the weekend that she wants to hold social media companies responsible for allowing radicalization and hate speech on their platforms.
Business & Tech Facebook In Talks With Dozens Of Financial Firms About Launching Its Own Cryptocurrency As has been rumored on the tech blogs for months, Facebook is reportedly working to create its own cryptocurrency, and now we know the name of the covert project: Project Libra.
Business & Tech Uber Drivers Plan Strike Ahead Of IPO Uber drivers are planning to strike in seven cities on May 8, which may be right around the time the company has its big IPO day on Wall Street. The drivers are demanding better pay, benefits, and transparency around their wages.
Business & Tech Facebook Could Be Fined Up To $5 Billion By The FTC For Its Mishandling Of Data The fine, expected to be between $3 billion and $5 billion, is potentially more firm back-hand thwack that it is a wrist-slap, as such fines have mostly been in the past.
Business & Tech Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp Shut Off In Sri Lanka Following Terror Attacks After Sunday's deadly suicide bombings that killed nearly 300 people, the government of Sri Lanka shut off nationwide access to most social media sites and apps citing safety concerns and the spread of false news reports.
Business & Tech Facebook Algorithm Purposely Played Up Stories About Politics, Crime, and Tragedy While Mark Zuckerberg was talking out one side of his mouth in January 2018 about encouraging more "meaningful interactions" with friends and family, Facebook was simultaneously tweaking its News Feed algorithm to display more posts on the topics of "politics, crime, or tragedy."
Business & Tech Parents Of Slain Woman Launch #WhatsMyName Safety Campaign For Rideshare Users The parents of a South Carolina college student who was kidnapped and killed last month, allegedly by a man whose car she got into believing it was her Uber, are trying to raise awareness of the dangerous trend of people getting into strangers' cars thinking they're rideshares.
Business & Tech Lyft Reverts To Old-Timey Taxi Line In San Diego Airport Test Everything old is new again with rideshare company Lyft at San Diego Airport. The company is using San Diego for a pilot program in which Lyft users will be asked to go to a specially designated taxi line to meet up with a driver.
Business & Tech New Startup Hopes to Fill Your Living Room With Lonely Freelance Workers Yet another startup wants to cram more co-working into Mission District homes, Airbnb style, but city officials are already questioning whether this is even remotely legal.
Business & Tech Mark Zuckerberg Is Now Welcoming Congress To Regulate Facebook Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's latest masterstroke is to shift blame for all the election meddling and harmful content on the internet onto the government, rather than on Facebook.
Business & Tech Facebook Has Decided That 'White Nationalist' And 'White Separatist' Are Just Two Ways to Say 'Racist' On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it's changing its content moderation policy surrounding the categories of "white nationalism" and "white separatism," acknowledging that these are no different than white supremacy.
Business & Tech Apple Announces New Original Shows With Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carrell, J.J. Abrams and More For Apple TV+ At its much anticipated spring unveiling event today in Cupertino, Apple announced the launch of its big Netflix competitor, Apple TV+. The reboot of the Apple TV platform comes with a big slate of new original programming set to start airing this fall.
SF News Facebook Says It Removed 1.5 Million Copies Of The New Zealand Shooting Video The horrifying 17-minute Facebook Live video made by the accused New Zealand shooter proliferated on social media in the first 24 hours, and Facebook says it removed 1.5 million copies in that first day alone — 1.2 million of which were caught on upload.
Business & Tech Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp Experience Simultaneous Server Issues It ain't so great having three major social platforms served from the same place when the servers go down!
Business & Tech Jilted YouTuber Arrested for Making Criminal Threats Against Google Personnel Upset that his YouTube channel was shut down, a man drove 3,000 miles across the country to settle a score with Google.
Business & Tech Airbnb Acquires HotelTonight In Hopes Of Becoming ‘The Amazon Of Travel’ The company’s biggest acquisition yet adds a last-minute hotel booking app to its growing arsenal of hospitality offerings.
Business & Tech Teacher Documents How Many Phone Notifications Her Students Get During One Period And It's Stress-Inducing We are raising a generation of constantly distracted chatbots and an experiment by one beleaguered teacher illustrates this in a most upsetting fashion.
Sponsored This Mother-Son Real Estate Duo Has Handled Nearly $500,000,000 in S.F. Home Sales It is no secret that the San Francisco real estate market is among the world's most desirable. From extravagant mansions priced multiple times beyond your expected lifetime earnings to run down, single-room shacks
Business & Tech Facebook Is Reportedly Receiving Mounds of Sensitive Health Data Via Third-Party Apps Without Your Knowledge After a year of especially terrible press, growing government scrutiny, and eroding public affection, Facebook is staring down yet another potential scandal involving sensitive user data.
SF News Reese Witherspoon Surprised The Current Residents In Her Old Stanford Dorm Room Elle Woods is like, in my room. The Huffington Post reports that actress and clothing company proprietress Reese Witherspoon popped by her former dorm room while on a recent visit to her alma
SF News As Rumors Of Second Massive Round Of Layoffs Swirl, Twitter Reschedules Its Earnings Report Alas, poor Twitter. Once upon a time, it was fun and useful, helping foment political change and providing a home for succinct quips. But those days are long gone, it appears, and the
