Facebook Vice President of Ad Product Rob Goldman tweeted Friday that he can "very definitively" say that swaying the election was not the main objective of the Russian actors that meddled in the 2016 elections using social media, but rather sowing discord was their goal.
Why it matters: Facebook executives have been saying for months that the majority of Russian ad spend occurred after the election, meaning the objective of the Russians was to cause disruption and division among Americans, not tip ballots.
Facebook reiterated Friday that it's increasing the number of people working on security from 10,000 to 20,000 this year, the company's VP of Global Policy Joel Kaplan said following Robert Mueller's indictment of Russian cybercriminals Friday.
Why it matters: Social media companies have come under fire over the past year for failing to police the activity of bad actors using their platforms to meddle in the election.
Twitter said Friday that it is halting the availability of the Twitter for Mac app and will stop supporting it in 30 days.
Why it matters: The company has been slow to add the latest feature to that and other dedicated apps. The move leaves the Web client and a dwindling number of other apps as the only means for tweeting from the Mac
The National Labor Relations Board concluded last month that Google's firing of engineer James Damore over his infamous memo didn't violate labor laws, according to Bloomberg.
Why it matters: Damore's firing after he published a document arguing that biological gender difference could account for the lack of women in tech has been hailed as proof of Silicon Valley's intolerance for conservative viewpoints.
Apple says it is prepping a fix for an issue that can cause its messaging app to crash when it receives a certain character in Telugu, a language used in parts of India.
Why it matters: It's the latest in a string of software quality issues for Apple. Another bug, now fixed, caused the letter "I" to appear as the letter "a" and a question mark symbol. As first reported by Axios, Apple is delaying some features planned for the next version of iOS in an effort to make quality a bigger focus.
Uber is reportedly preparing to sell its Southeast Asian operations to Grab, its rival in the region that's also backed by investor Softbank, in exchange for a stake in the company, according to CNBC.
Why it makes sense: The deal would be similar to what Uber did with its Chinese operations in 2016, which put an end to the $1 billion it was spending per year there. Earlier this week, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi called the company's spending to compete in regions like Asia "optional," adding that its ride-hailing business in developed markets like North America and Europe is financially sustainable.
Grab declined to comment and Uber has not returned a request for comment.
A court in Brussels told Facebook to halt its collection of data generated when its users are on the internet but away from the social network, according to multiplereports.
Why it matters: The court is threatening the company with a fine as high as 100 million Euros — with daily fines of a quarter-of-a-million Euros — if it doesn't comply with the ruling. Facebook is taking a beating on privacy issues in Europe, with a German court contesting the company's data practices earlier this week.
It's been two years since the FBI and Apple got into a giant fight over encryption following the San Bernardino shooting, when the government had the shooter's iPhone, but not the password needed to unlock it, so it asked Apple to create a way inside.
What's most surprising is how little has changed since then. The encryption debate remains unsettled, with tech companies largely opposed and some law enforcement agencies still making the case to have a backdoor.
