Notices by Techmeme (techmeme@techhub.social)

Elon Musk's X and xAI all-stock merger broke Wall Street's usual rules, with the same advisers, Morgan Stanley and Sullivan & Cromwell, working on both sides (Wall Street Journal)

https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/elon-musks-megadeal-between-x-and-xai-breaks-wall-streets-rulebook-191b2706?st=6qUe5s&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
http://www.techmeme.com/250402/p12#a250402p12

Source: hackers broke into Oracle's Cerner servers sometime after January 22 and stole patient data to extort US medical providers; the FBI is investigating (Bloomberg)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-28/oracle-warns-health-customers-of-patient-data-breach
http://www.techmeme.com/250328/p30#a250328p30

Source: the White House sent a "records retention policy" to DOGE staffers on Monday, reminding them to preserve their Signal messages and disable auto-delete (Kyle Cheney/Politico)

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/27/white-house-doge-signal-records-00254122
http://www.techmeme.com/250327/p37#a250327p37

Nielsen: YouTube was the #1 TV distributor in February, making up 11.6% of all US TV; viewers over age 50 accounted for 36% of time spent watching YouTube on TV (Rick Porter/The Hollywood Reporter)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/youtube-most-tv-use-us-february-2025-1236171731/
http://www.techmeme.com/250325/p32#a250325p32

Sources: the real closer for Wiz and Google executives was President Trump's election, which brought with it the prospect of a friendlier antitrust review (Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/googles-32-billion-deal-wiz-accelerated-under-trump-sources-say-2025-03-19/
http://www.techmeme.com/250318/p51#a250318p51

OpenAI calls DeepSeek "state-controlled" and recommends that the US consider banning "PRC-produced" models that "violate user privacy and create security risks" (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/13/openai-calls-deepseek-state-controlled-calls-for-bans-on-prc-produced-models/
http://www.techmeme.com/250313/p44#a250313p44

Tech stocks lead a broad sell-off; the Nasdaq falls ~4%, with Apple dropping by ~6%, Meta by ~5%, Nvidia by ~5%, Google by ~5%, and Microsoft by 3%+ (Myles Udland/Yahoo Finance)

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-tesla-stocks-slide-as-magnificent-7-names-lead-markets-lower-142510967.html
http://www.techmeme.com/250310/p16#a250310p16

Sources describe the collapse of fintech middleman Synapse that left ~$200M in customer money frozen, with entities blaming each other for shoddy recordkeeping (Fortune)

https://fortune.com/2025/03/07/synapse-evolve-mercury-bankruptcy-lawsuits/
http://www.techmeme.com/250308/p15#a250308p15

An audit found that 10 top AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, repeated false claims from a pro-Kremlin disinformation network 33% of the time (NewsGuard's Reality Check)

https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/a-well-funded-moscow-based-global
http://www.techmeme.com/250306/p42#a250306p42

A Brazilian judge gives Apple 90 days to allow sideloading on iOS in Brazil, saying the "limitations" imposed by Apple on developers could stifle competition (Filipe Espósito/9to5Mac)

https://9to5mac.com/2025/03/06/brazilian-court-apple-sideloading-ios/
http://www.techmeme.com/250306/p37#a250306p37

The US Secret Service, Europol, and others take down Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange accused of being associated with ransomware hackers (Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/06/russian-crypto-exchange-garantex-seized-by-law-enforcement-operation/
http://www.techmeme.com/250306/p31#a250306p31

Cybereason CEO Eric Gan resigns after a months-long feud with investors SoftBank and Steven Mnuchin; a source says the planned Trustwave merger is also canceled (Bloomberg)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-05/softbank-backed-cybereason-ceo-quits-after-boardroom-turmoil
http://www.techmeme.com/250305/p9#a250305p9

The Los Angeles Times removes its AI-powered "Insights" feature from a column after the tool tried to defend the Ku Klux Klan, just a day after its debut (Corbin Bolies/The Daily Beast)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-newspaper-owners-ai-bot-defends-kkk/
http://www.techmeme.com/250304/p32#a250304p32

The Trump admin has fired 130+ staff at CISA, replaced staff refusing DOGE access to networks, appointed a DOD CISO whose clearance was suspended in 2021, more (Brian Krebs/Krebs on Security)

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/trump-2-0-brings-cuts-to-cyber-consumer-protections/
http://www.techmeme.com/250224/p19#a250224p19

Sources: the NHTSA is losing about 10% of its workforce through firings and buyout offers, including half of a small team that regulates autonomous vehicles (Ian Duncan/Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/21/musk-doge-tesla-autonomous-vehicles-nhtsa/
http://www.techmeme.com/250221/p11#a250221p11

How Breeze Liu, an advocate for digital abuse victims, got Microsoft to scrub 142 nonconsensual explicit images of her hosted on Azure after months of struggle (Wired)

https://www.wired.com/story/deepfake-survivor-breeze-liu-microsoft/
http://www.techmeme.com/250221/p4#a250221p4

US survey: views of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk tilt negative; Democrats and Republicans view Zuckerberg unfavorably; Musk is polarizing along party lines (Pew Research Center)

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/19/how-americans-view-elon-musk-and-mark-zuckerberg/
http://www.techmeme.com/250220/p17#a250220p17

Global Witness: ahead of German elections, TikTok's and X's For You feeds showed a substantial far-right bias; 78% of TikTok's recommendations supported the AfD (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/19/study-of-tiktok-x-for-you-feeds-in-germany-finds-far-right-political-bias-ahead-of-federal-elections/
http://www.techmeme.com/250220/p6#a250220p6

Mastodon is working on a quote posts feature, which it says is a "source of concern" for some and "highly requested" by others (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)

https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/14/mastodon-is-working-to-add-the-controversial-quote-posts-feature/
http://www.techmeme.com/250214/p17#a250214p17

Elon Musk and right-wing influencers redefine "doxxing" to include reporting on government employees; free speech advocates say they aim to intimidate the press (Ken Bensinger/New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/business/media/elon-musk-doxxing-marko-elez.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wk4.20-T.WJaiJFtQibu1&smid=url-share
http://www.techmeme.com/250213/p14#a250213p14