Facebook has discovered several new state-sponsored disinformation campaigns stemming from Iran and Russia, the company reported Tuesday.
The details: The company says in a blog post that it has removed 652 fake accounts, groups and pages associated with the campaign, which it says was coordinated from Iran. It has also flagged another new campaign based in Russia that has targeted politics in Syria and Ukraine.
Uber has reached a settlement to pay about $1.9 million to 56 current and former employees who have accused the ride-hailing company of gender discrimination, harassment and unfair work environment, reports CNN.
The details: A hearing to finalize the settlement is reportedly scheduled for November 6.
Facebook will begin ranking users on a trustworthiness scale from zero to one, The Washington Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin reports. It's a system that's been developed over the past year as part of its fight against misinformation.
Why it matters: Authenticating users has become an integral component of technology's fight against fake news, especially because many "users" that have been uncovered as posting false information are actually bots or stolen accounts.
Dan discusses the changing face of fake news with Axios media reporter Sara Fischer. In the "Final Two" Dan talks about Uber finaly hiring a CFO and dueling lawsuits surrounding a Silicon Valley venture capitalist.
Uber on Tuesday announced that it has hired veteran Wall Street executive Nelson Chai as chief financial officer, a position that has been empty since 2015.
Why it matters: Companies need CFOs to go public, which is what Uber wants to do next year.
Cybersecurity startup exits will most likely come in the form of mergers and acquisitions, rather than initial public offerings, according to a report from SharesPost, a private share exchange for startup investors.
What to watch: The top acquirers of cybersecurity firms will likely be big tech companies like Symantec, Cisco, Microsoft, and Raytheon, which have been snatching up cybersecurity startups lately.
Industrial-scale creators of fake news are becoming increasingly savvy in their efforts to avoid new web platform rules, defensive AI and readers on guard for propaganda.
Why it matters: The tactics used by bad actors during the last election cycle have been modified to avoid more sophisticated detection and to take advantage of new technologies, making some of them harder to identify and stop in real-time.
A report released this morning from Digital Content Next, a trade body representing publishers, shows the breadth of data Google collects about users, often in ways that are not obvious to them.
What they're saying: While the report didn’t break much news about Google’s practices, Google refutes the findings. "This report is commissioned by a professional DC lobbyist group, and written by a witness for Oracle in their ongoing copyright litigation with Google. So, it's no surprise that it contains wildly misleading information," according to a spokesperson from Google.
Enterprise collaboration platform Slack has raised $427 million in new Series H funding at a valuation north of $7.1 billion.
Why it's a big deal: Because while Slack is massive (8 million daily active users and over 70k paid teams) and has subsumed some rivals (RIP Hipchat), this new money reflects how competition is intensifying from deep-pocketed incumbents like Facebook and Microsoft.
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