Facebook has suspended the account of Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, an associate of Rudy Giuliani accused by the U.S. of being "an active Russian agent for over a decade," for election interference activity.
Why it matters: The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach in September for "alleged efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election," including by releasing edited audio tapes and other unsubstantiated claims to denigrate Joe Biden and other officials.
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, the latest installment in Nintendo’s racing franchise, brings together the fun of a remote control car with the versatility of a video game, bridging the two with a clever use of augmented reality.
The big picture: As we've written before, games that merge digital and physical play have tremendous promise, but that pairing has seen more misses than hits.
Google's $2.1 billion deal for Fitbit might go down as the only merger to qualify as both pre-pandemic and post-pandemic.
Driving the news: European Union antitrust regulators have again extended their decision deadline, this time to Jan. 8, 2021. And it could be further complicated by U.S. authorities, who are drawing up a broader antitrust case against Google and/or its parent company Alphabet. The deal was originally announced on Nov. 1, 2019.
Why it matters: It highlights the power that the app continues to have over the charts, where one video — and its innumerable clones — can vault a 43-year-old album back to cultural relevancy.
The internet and social platforms have made it easier for political actors to manipulate elections by posing as fake media operations or by manipulating real media companies into reporting and spreading disinformation.
Why it matters: Consumers already struggle to differentiate between straight news, fake news, opinion journalism and political advertising on the internet, and partisans in today's information war are deliberately blurring the lines, with technology's help.
The coronavirus-sparked shift to widespread remote work has been generally smooth because most modern offices were already using a raft of communication, collaboration and administrative tools. Remote learning has faced a much rougher transition.
Why it matters: Even the best technology can't eliminate the inherent problems of virtual schooling. Several key technological stumbling blocks have persisted in keeping remote learning from meeting its full potential, experts tell Axios.
Twitter took down a tweet from one of President Trump's most visible coronavirus task force members, Scott Atlas, that claimed widespread use of face masks does not help slow the spread of COVID-19.
Why it matters: Atlas — who is a radiologist, not an epidemiologist — has become one of the president's favorite coronavirus advisers, despite his controversial views.
