Year: 2020

Twitter is developing a new product called “Birdwatch,” which the company confirms is an attempt at addressing misinformation across its platform by providing more context for tweets, in the form of notes. Tweets can be added to “Birdwatch” — meaning flagged for moderation — from the tweet’s drop-down menu, where other blocking and reporting tools are found today. A small binoculars icon will also appear on tweets published to the Twitter Timeline. When the button is clicked, users are directed to a screen where they can view the tweet’s history of notes.

Based on screenshots of Birdwatch unearthed through reverse engineering techniques, a new tab called “Birdwatch Notes” will be added to Twitter’s sidebar navigation, alongside other existing features like Lists, Topics, Bookmarks and Moments.

This section will allow you to keep track of your own contributions, aka your “Birdwatch Notes.”

The feature was first uncovered this summer in early stages of development by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong, who found the system through Twitter’s website. At the time, Birdwatch didn’t have a name, but it clearly showed an interface for flagging tweets, voting on whether or not the tweet was misleading, and adding a note with further explanations.

Twitter updated its web app a few days after her discovery, limiting further investigation.

This week, however, a very similar interface was again discovered in Twitter’s code, this time on iOS.

According to social media consultant Matt Navarra, who tweeted several more screenshots of the feature on mobile, Birdwatch allows users to attach notes to a tweet. These notes can be viewed when clicking on the binoculars button on the tweet itself.

In other words, additional context about the statements made in the tweet would be open to the public.

What’s less clear is whether everyone on Twitter will be given access to annotate tweets with additional context, or whether this permission will require approval, or only be open to select users or fact checkers.

Twitter early adopter and hashtag inventor Chris Messina openly wondered if Birdwatch could be some sort of “citizen’s watch” system for policing disinformation on Twitter. It turns out, he was right.

According to line items he found within Twitter’s code, these annotations — the “Birdwatch Notes” — are referred to as “contributions,” which does seem to imply a crowdsourced system. (After all, a user would contribute to a shared system, not to a note they were writing for only themselves to see.)

Image Credits: Chris Messina

Crowdsourcing moderation wouldn’t be new to Twitter. For several years, Twitter’s live-streaming app Periscope has relied on crowdsourcing techniques to moderate comments on its real-time streams in order to clamp down on abuse.

There is still much we don’t know about how Birdwatch will work from a non-technical perspective, however. We don’t know if everyone will have the same abilities to annotate tweets, how attempts to troll this system will be handled, or what would happen to a tweet if it got too many negative dings, for example.

In more recent months, Twitter has tried to take a harder stance on tweets that contain misleading, false or incendiary statements. It has even gone so far as to apply fact-check labels to some of Trump’s tweets and has hidden others behind a notice warning users that the tweet has violated Twitter’s rules. But scaling moderation across all of Twitter is a task the company has not been well-prepared for, as it built for scale first, then tried to figure out policies and procedures around harmful content after the fact.

Reached for comment, Twitter declined to offer details regarding its plans for Birdwatch, but did confirm the feature was designed to combat the spread of misinformation.

“We’re exploring a number of ways to address misinformation and provide more context for tweets on Twitter,” a Twitter spokesperson told TechCrunch. “Misinformation is a critical issue and we will be testing many different ways to address it,” they added.

Daydream, Google’s mobile-focused virtual reality platform is losing official support from Google, Android Police reports. The company confirmed that it will no longer be updating the Daydream software, with the publication noting that “Daydream may not even work on Android 11” as a result of this.

This isn’t surprising to anyone who has been tracking the company’s moves in the space. After aggressive product rollouts in 2016 and 2017, Google quickly abandoned its VR efforts which, much like the Samsung Gear VR, allowed users to drop a compatible phone into a headset holster and use the phone’s display and compute to power VR experiences. After Apple’s announcement of ARKit, the company did a hard pivot away from VR, turning its specialty AR platform Tango into ARCore, an AR developer platform that has also not seen very much attention from Google in recent months.

Google bowing out of official support from Daydream comes after years without product updates to their own View headset and very little investment in their content ecosystem which wrecked the chances of Lenovo’s third-party effort the standalone Mirage Solo.

What went wrong? Once it became clear that Daydream wasn’t going to be an easy win, they kind of just abandoned the effort. Google’s hardware business is already peanuts to their search and ads business so it probably wasn’t clear what the point was, but virtual reality also quickly went from being the “it” technology to work on to clearly being a labor of love for a select few. Google determined it wasn’t the effort while Facebook continued to double down. It’s hard to fault them for it, in 2020, even with some very good hardware on the way from Oculus, it still isn’t clear what VR’s future looks like.

It is clear, however, that Daydream won’t be part of it.

Grindr, one of the world’s largest dating and social networking apps for gay, bi, trans, and queer people, has fixed a security vulnerability that allowed anyone to hijack and take control of any user’s account using only their email address.

Wassime Bouimadaghene, a French security researcher, found the vulnerability and reported the issue to Grindr. When he didn’t hear back, Bouimadaghene shared details of the vulnerability with security expert Troy Hunt to help.

The vulnerability was fixed a short time later.

Hunt tested and confirmed the vulnerability with help from a test account set up by Scott Helme, and shared his findings with TechCrunch.

Bouimadaghene found the vulnerability in how the app handles account password resets.

To reset a password, Grindr sends the user an email with a clickable link containing an account password reset token. Once clicked, the user can change their password and is allowed back into their account.

But Bouimadaghene found that Grindr’s password reset page was leaking password reset tokens to the browser. That meant anyone could trigger the password reset who had knowledge of a user’s registered email address, and collect the password reset token from the browser if they knew where to look.

Secret tokens used to reset Grindr account passwords, which are only supposed to be sent to a user’s inbox, were leaking to the browser. (Image: Troy Hunt/supplied)

The clickable link that Grindr generates for a password reset is formatted the same way, meaning a malicious user could easily craft their own clickable password reset link — the same link that was sent to the user’s inbox — using the leaked password reset token from the browser.

With that crafted link, the malicious user can reset the account owner’s password and gain access to their account and the personal data stored within, including account photos, messages, sexual orientation and HIV status and last test date.

“This is one of the most basic account takeover techniques I’ve seen,” Hunt wrote.

With a leaked password reset token, an attacker could reset a user’s password, hijack their account and access their private data. (Image: Troy Hunt/supplied)

In a statement, Grindr’s chief operating officer Rick Marini told TechCrunch: “We are grateful for the researcher who identified a vulnerability. The reported issue has been fixed. Thankfully, we believe we addressed the issue before it was exploited by any malicious parties.”

“As part of our commitment to improving the safety and security of our service, we are partnering with a leading security firm to simplify and improve the ability for security researchers to report issues such as these. In addition, we will soon announce a new bug bounty program to provide additional incentives for researchers to assist us in keeping our service secure going forward,” the company said.

Grindr has about 27 million users, with about 3 million using the app every day. Grindr was sold earlier this year by its former Chinese owner, Beijing Kunlun, to a Los Angeles-based company said to be led largely by Americans, following accusations that the company’s Chinese ownership constituted a national security threat.

Last year, it was reported that while under Chinese ownership, Grindr allowed engineers in Beijing access to the personal data of millions of U.S. users, including their private messages and HIV status.

You can send tips securely over Signal and WhatsApp to +1 646-755-8849 or send an encrypted email to: zack.whittaker@protonmail.com

One year ago, Uber’s business model could be categorized as an “all of the above approach,” a strategy to generate revenue from all forms of transportation, including ride-hailing, micromobility, logistics, and package and food delivery.

The COVID-19 pandemic upended that business strategy prompting Uber to offload its shared micromobility unit Jump, double down on delivery with its acquisition of Postmates, and now, to sell a stake in its growing, but still unprofitable logistics arm Uber Freight.

Uber said Friday that an investor group led by New York-based investment firm Greenbriar Equity Group has committed to invest $500 million in a Series A preferred stock financing for Uber Freight . The deal values the unit at $3.3 billion on a post-money basis. Greenbriar managing partners Michael Weiss and Jill Raker will join the Uber Freight board. Uber didn’t name the other investors.

Uber said it will maintain majority ownership in Uber Freight and will use the funds to continue to scale its logistics platform, which helps truck drivers connect with shipping companies.

Uber Freight launched in 2017. In August 2018, it was spun off into a separate business unit, a move that simultaneously allowed it to gain momentum and burn more cash. After spinning off of Uber, the freight company underwent an expansion. Uber Freight redesigned its app, an improvement that included adding new navigation features to make searching for and filtering loads easier to customize.

The company expanded to Canada and Europe. Uber Freight also established a headquarters in Chicago as part of its parent company’s broader plan to invest more than $200 million annually in the region, including hiring hundreds of workers. Last September, Uber said it would hire 2,000 new employees in the region over the next three years; most would be dedicated to Uber Freight.

More recently, Uber Freight signed on new API integration partnerships with cloud TMS providers, including SAP, Blue Yonder, BluJay, MercuryGate, and Oracle. The company also expanded its enterprise software offering with the launch of Uber Freight Enterprise and Uber Freight Link. Not all of its growth worked out. Uber pulled out of Europe and this month sold off its business there to Berlin-based sennder in an all-stock transaction.

The business unit has experienced a jump in revenue. Still, that growth hasn’t translated into a profit. Uber Freight took in $211 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2020, a 27% increase from the same period last year. Uber Freight reported an adjusted net loss of $49 million in the second quarter, a slight improvement from the $52 million loss in the same period in 2019.

The investment with Greenbriar is being couched by Uber Freight CEO Lior Ron as the company’s “next chapter.”

“We are tremendously proud of what we have accomplished in a few short years. We have led the industry with technology, transforming dated and analog processes to ensure that both shippers and carriers are equipped to succeed in a rapidly changing industry,” Ron said in a statement, adding that Greenbriar is a partner “with deep expertise and a shared passion for simplifying logistics.”

Welcome back to Human Capital, a weekly digest about diversity, inclusion and the human labor that powers tech.

This week, we’re looking at a number of topics because a lot went down. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took a controversial stance on social, Clubhouse found itself under scrutiny again, but this time around anti-Semitism and a new site launched that sheds light on some of the negative experiences of underrepresented people in tech. Meanwhile, the founder from Ethel’s Club unveiled Somewhere Good, which aims to provide a safe social platform for people of color. The timing couldn’t be better.

Human Capital launches as a newsletter on Friday, October 23. Be sure to sign up here to get it sent straight to your inbox. 

Stay Woke

Coinbase CEO’s stance on societal issues stirs up controversy 

Over the weekend, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company does not engage on border societal issues when they are not related to its core mission. On political causes, Armstrong said Coinbase also does not advocate for any causes or candidates that are not related to its mission “because it is a distraction from our mission.” In that Medium post, Armstrong recognized that some employees may disagree and even resign. 

A couple of days later, Armstrong began offering employees who don’t feel comfortable with the direction of the company a severance package, The Block Crypto reported. 

“It’s always sad when we see teammates go, but it can also be what is best for them and the company,” Armstrong wrote in an internal memo. “As I said in my blog post, life is too short to work a company that you aren’t excited about.”

It’s quite a statement to make just weeks away from a very important presidential election. But Armstrong’s justification seems to be that he doesn’t want the internal strife that has happened at companies like Google and Facebook to happen at Coinbase. 

Obviously, people have feelings and thoughts about Armstrong’s stance. One on side, there’s Y Combinator Founder Paul Graham saying Coinbase will push away the “aggressively conventional-minded” people but that those types of people “tend not to be good at building things anyway.”

And on another side, there’s Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey pointing out how Armstrong’s stance leaves people behind. 

Then, there’s also confusion around how Armstrong could say that Black lives matter in June and then go on to say that workers essentially need to leave their politics and beliefs that don’t relate to work at home. Well, GitHub Director of Engineering Erica Baker tweeted that someone probably forced Armstrong’s hand into speaking out about Black lives. 

The latest Clubhouse drama

The invitation-only audio social app was home to a discussion titled, “Anti-Semitism and Black Culture” this week. During the discussion, someone reportedly said Black and Jewish communities differ because of their relationship to economic advancement, Bloomberg reported. In response, another person reportedly said, “The Jewish community does business with their enemies; the Black community is enslaved by their enemies” — to which some people pushed back, saying it perpetuates a harmful stereotype about Jewish people.

Ethel’s Club founder teases Somewhere Good, a digital space that centers people of color

Amid private social app Clubhouse finding itself again under heavy scrutiny, there perhaps is no better time for the emergence of a platform that provides a safe space for people of color.

Naj Austin, founder and CEO of subscription-based physical and digital community Ethel’s Club, is building Somewhere Good to be a one-stop shop for people of color. Beyond being a place for people of color to connect, it’s also about creating a safe space for folks to be their authentic selves.

“A lot of how we’re talking about Somewhere Good with investors is this idea of a new online world where our identities are centered,” Austin told me. “The vision for Somewhere Good is you take your phone out of your pocket and, as a Black person or person of color, all of your needs are met there in that one place.”

Greylock teams up with Management Leadership for Tomorrow to diversify tech’s wealth cycle

Greylock is one of a number of VC firms that have kicked into action following the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other unarmed Black people and people of color. The multi-pronged partnership will enable Greylock to tap into MLT’s network of around 8,000 Black, Latinx and Indigenous professionals and connect them with potential roles at the firm’s portfolio companies. Additionally, Greylock and MLT will work together to support retention at those companies, as well as help MLT professionals pursue careers in venture capital.

“And look, VCs and tech startups — we just have to be honest that we’ve been really bad at getting this right,” Greylock Partner David Sze told TechCrunch. “Historically, I mean, we’ve let the system sort of evolve without much top down oversight in regards of diversity and inclusion and we just really need to change that.”

Twitter releases latest diversity report

Twitter’s most recent diversity report showed that the company has done an okay job of increasing representation of Black employees at its company since 2017. In 2017, Twitter was just 3.4% Black and in August 2020, Twitter was 6.3% Black.

Image Credits: Twitter

By 2025, Twitter aims for at least 25% of its workforce to be underrepresented minorities, and at least 10% of that overall 25% to be Black. Overall, Twitter is 41.4% white, 28.4% Asian, 5.2% Latinx, 3.7% multi-racial and less than 1% Indigenous. 

Twitter’s technical team is also mostly white (41.4%) so perhaps it’s no wonder why Twitter has had some algorithmic bias issues. 

DiscoTech highlights diversity issues in tech

A new site popped up that details the discrimination people experience in tech. The folks behind DiscoTech describe themselves as “a diverse group of cross-tech organizers who are committed to ending discrimination in the workplace.”

The posted experiences — all anonymous — describe sexism, racism, ageism, sexual harassment and assault, weight discrimination, suicide and mental illness. Here are a few stories that jumped out:

On being a woman in tech:

After introducing myself to a peer at a social gathering, I was asked if I had ‘come to Microsoft to find a husband?’ The blatant question left me speechless, and I was shocked by his total disregard for my professional aspirations. My friend overheard and she quickly asked if he would pose the same question to a man, asking if he’d ‘come to Microsoft to find a partner?’ He got defensive and denied his originally offensive inquiry.

On being underpaid in tech:

This event happened prior to my joining the team, but I didn’t find out about it until years later.  The hiring manager bragged openly about how ‘little’ she hired me for while I was desperately leaving a toxic work environment. I pushed back, she was persistent and being afraid of losing the offer I took it. I ended up leaving the position for a job that paid market value. Irony.

On being a Black woman in tech:

I’m not sure where to begin with the amount of discomfort I’ve experienced in the work place. As a Black, woman in tech I’m all too familiar with being an extreme minority. I guess you could say my discomfort began at the beginning of my professional career. I accepted a position at my company in a 6 month training program for recent college graduates. Upon arrival at orientation I realized I was the only Black woman out of 70 participants. 70 other co-workers and I was the only one. I felt completely alone and as if I had no one who could relate to my unique experience. From there, it was small incident after small incident that caused my discomfort to grow. From my technical trainer referring to me as Sheba, as in the Queen of Sheba, in the middle of a training session to my colleagues constantly questioning my intelligence, work became a stressful environment. It didn’t help that when I tried to reach out throughout the company for assistance with existing in the workplace, I was often told to keep to myself and try my best to ‘fit in.’ It took me a while to find a support system but I’m glad I finally did because the amount of microaggressions I face on daily basis is often overwhelming.

Labor Organizing

Shipt shoppers protest new pay model

Shipt shoppers are organizing a handful of actions in protest of Shipt’s new pay structure that began rolling out this month. The first action is happening from Saturday, Oct. 17 through Oct. 19, when workers are calling on their fellow Shipt shoppers to walk out and boycott the company. Organizers are asking for shoppers not to schedule any hours or accept any orders during that time.

“Our goal is to draw attention to the fact that this pay scale really does affect shoppers and regardless of Shipt’s position of it taking into account effort and benefitting shoppers, we are finding it is the opposite on both fronts,” Willy Solis, a Shipt shopper in Dallas and lead organizer at Gig Workers Collective, told TechCrunch. “It’s not holding up to the true reality. We are getting paid less for more effort.”

Spin workers ratify first union contract

A group of 40 workers at Ford-owned Spin ratified their first union contract with Teamsters Local 665 this week. The group of workers consists of shift leads, maintenance specialists, operations specialists, community ambassadors, and scooter deployers and collectors.

“This new contract gives us job security and immediate money up front, with guaranteed increases each year going forward. We also got holiday pay and vacation, which we didn’t have before we organized,” Spin worker Shamar Bell said in a statement. “All this means a lot during the pandemic. We know our union will have our back if our boss or the city government tries to make changes. I can say for sure, we’re proud to be Teamsters.”

As part of the three-year agreement, Spin workers will get annual pay raises of more than 3% each year, six paid holidays (compared to zero holidays), vacation days based on years of employment (compared to no vacation days), five sick days a year, a $1,200 per employee ratification bonus, benefits accrual for part-time workers and other benefits.

In Other News

• Serious injuries at Amazon fulfillment centers topped 14,000, despite the company’s safety claims – TechCrunch
• Lack of oversight and transparency leave Amazon employees in the dark on Covid-19 – NBC News
• Newsom signs law mandating more diversity in California corporate boardrooms – The Los Angeles Times
• Bird Is Quietly Luring Contract Workers Into Debt Through a New Scooter Scheme – OneZero
• AOC flagged ‘material risks’ to Palantir investors in letter to SEC

By the way, TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility is coming up next week. Since you made it to the end of this, here’s a 50% off code for you to get full access to the event. This code will get you into the expo and breakout sessions for free.

GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, will invest $752 million in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail, the Indian firm said Saturday midnight.

The Government of Singapore Investment Corp is the fifth high-profile investor to back Reliance Retail, India’s largest retail chain, in the past four weeks. Reliance Retail — like its sister sibling Jio Platforms — is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, India’s most valuable firm.

GIC’s investment gives Reliance Retail a pre-money valuation of $58.5 billion, the Indian firm said. GIC, which has backed firms in over 40 nations, will get a 1.22% equity stake in the retail giant.

The announcement today caps a busy week for Reliance Retail, which in the past three days has revealed that Mubadala ($855 million for a 1.4% stake), Silver Lake ($254 million for a 0.38% stake), and General Atlantic ($498 million for a 0.84% stake) would be investing in it.

In total, investors have committed about $4.1 billion in Reliance Retail in the current fundraising spree. (Silver Lake committed to invest another $1 billion in Reliance Retail last month, and KKR has announced it would invest about $754 million.)

Reliance Retail, founded in 2006, serves more than 3.5 million customers each week (as of early this year) through its nearly 12,000 physical stores in more than 6,500 cities and towns in the country. Physical retail commands about 97% of all retail sales in India, according to estimates from several research firms.

“We believe Reliance Retail will continue to use its extensive supply chain and store networks, as well as strong logistics and data infrastructure, to add value to its customers and shareholders,” said Lim Chow Kiat, CEO of GIC, in a statement.

Reliance Retail operates supermarkets, electronics chain, fashion outlets, and a cash-and-carry wholesaler. In recent months, the firm has rushed to widen its dominance in the retail market. It bought several parts of Future Group, India’s second largest retail chain, for $3.4 billion in late August.

Late last year, it also entered the e-commerce space with JioMart. JioMart, a joint venture between Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms, has presence in over 200 Indian cities and towns and maintains a partnership with Facebook for a WhatsApp integration.

Facebook, which invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms earlier this year, has it will explore various ways to work with Reliance to digitize the nation’s 60 million mom and pop stores as well as other small and medium-sized businesses.

Jio Platforms has raised more than $20 billion in India this year from a roster of marquee investors including Facebook, Google, General Atlantic, Mubadala, Silver Lake, and KKR. Some industry executives have argued that investments in Jio Platforms make no business case and is largely foreign firms’ push to get friendly with Ambani, India’s richest man and an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“I am delighted that GIC, with its track record of close to four decades of successful long-term value investing across the world, is partnering with Reliance Retail in its mission to transform the Indian retail landscape. GIC’s global network and track record of long-term partnerships will be invaluable to the transformation story of Indian Retail. This investment is a strong endorsement of our strategy and India’s potential,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries, in a statement.

The neobank, or digital bank, phenomenon continues to take the world by storm, with global winners, from Brazil’s Nubank valued at $10 billion and Berlin’s N26 valued at $3.5 billion, to Chime, now valued at $14.5 billion as the most valuable consumer fintech in the United States.

Neobanks have led the charge of the $3.6 billion in venture capital funding for consumer fintech startups this year. And as the coronavirus-fueled acceleration of digital transformation continues, it seems the digital bank is here to stay, with some estimates pointing to neobanks reaching 60 million customers in North America and Europe by the end of 2020, and surpassing 145 million by 2024.

The space is also becoming more crowded, a trend which will only accelerate with fintech eating the world and creating greater infrastructure that enables any company to include a bank account as a product extension.

FT Partners Fintech Industry Research, January 2020

As a result, neobanks are not a monolithic model and not all are created equal. Looking underneath the hood of business models across the globe reveals remarkable operational differences and highlights specific features that are more likely to succeed in the long-term.

Five global models of neobanks

Today there are five distinct models that are leading globally:

Interchange-led: Relies on payments revenue, sourced through interchange as the revenue driver. Every time a customer uses the neobank’s card as a payment method they get paid [e.g. Chime / US; Neon (hybrid of 1 & 2) / Brazil].

Credit-led: Leverages a credit-first model, starting off with a credit card or similar offering, and later providing a bank account [e.g. Nubank, Neon (hybrid of 1 & 2) / Brazil].