Technology

Bloomberg ByteDance Ltd. is said to be exploring a sale of the India operations of TikTok to rival unicorn Glance, in an attempt to resuscitate the once-thriving short video sharing app that’s been banned indefinitely in the South Asian nation. The discussions have been initiated by Japan’s SoftBank group conglomerate. SoftBank is a backer of Glance’s parent InMobi as well ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc. has been “helping” law enforcement identify people who posted photos of themselves at the January 6 riots at the US Capitol, “even after the attack was over,” said Monika Bickert, the company’s head of global policy management. Bickert said Facebook removed posts from several militant groups in the lead-up to the violent event and continued to remove ...

Bloomberg The first hints of trouble emerged in the spring of 2020. The world was in the early throes of a mysterious pandemic, which first obliterated demand then super-charged internet and mobile computing when economies regained their footing. That about-face — in a span of months — laid the seeds for potentially the most serious shortage in years of the ...

Bloomberg ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok unit is said to have identified five possible locations for a new headquarters in Dublin with space for about 2,000 workers. The Chinese tech firm is seeking about 200,000 square feet of space initially, according to the person, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. TikTok plans to move staff into the ...

Bloomberg Content from discredited websites that masquerade as journalism proliferated on Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. in 2020 despite the companies’ efforts to stem disinformation, according to research from the German Marshall Fund. On Twitter, the spread of deceptive websites was driven by accounts that have been verified as real but tweet out content from other sites that repeatedly post ...

Bloomberg The UK’s top data-protection regulator told lawmakers that millions of people have stopped using WhatsApp in favour of alternative messaging services such as Telegram and Signal. Elizabeth Denham said that changing terms of service have led consumers to vote with their virtual feet away from the Facebook Inc. business. WhatsApp delayed introduction of a new privacy policy after confusion ...

Bloomberg Xiaomi Corp. sued the US Defense and Treasury departments, challenging a blacklisting that blocks American investors from buying the Chinese smartphone giant’s securities. The lawsuit came after the Defense Department determined earlier this month that China’s biggest smartphone maker was affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army. Beijing-based Xiaomi called the blacklisting “unconstitutional” and seeks a court ruling to reverse ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tim Cook lambasted tech giants for “data exploitation” and called for reform around the practices of selling user data to target ads. The iPhone maker is rolling out new privacy features that restrict how mobile apps such as those from Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google gather data about users to target ads. ...

Bloomberg WeChat creator Allen Zhang is counting on a breakthrough in video to thwart TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd., building on the success of his last big overhaul of the all-in-one messaging app. Zhang, celebrated in China for inventing Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s signature creation, has toyed for years with ways to keep and expand WeChat’s industry lead, particularly as upstarts like ...

Bloomberg AT&T Inc. is holding exclusive talks to sell a significant stake in DirecTV to private equity firm TPG, the latest stage of a months-long push to unload at least part of the struggling pay-TV business. A potential deal is weeks away, and the talks could still fall apart, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the ...