Jun 21, 2018

Twitter acquires Smyte, a startup that fights online abuse

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Smyte, a San Francisco-based startup tech company that specializes in in stopping online abuse, fraud and spam through an automated labeling system that identifies nefarious activity and flags it for manual review, is being acquired by Twitter.

Why it matters: Twitter has been criticized for not doing enough to control hate speech and misinformation on its platform due to the proliferation of bots that exist. This is a step in its ongoing effort to solve both problems.

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Jonathan Swan, Margaret Talev

Navarro memos warning of mass coronavirus death circulated in January

Image from a memo to President Trump

In late January, President Trump's economic adviser Peter Navarro warned his White House colleagues the novel coronavirus could take more than half a million American lives and cost close to $6 trillion, according to memos obtained by Axios.

The state of play: By late February, Navarro was even more alarmed, and he warned his colleagues, in another memo, that up to two million Americans could die of the virus.

Go deeperUpdated 29 mins ago - Health

Margaret Talev

Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index: The virus hits home

Data: Ipsos/Axios poll; Chart: Danielle Alberti/Axios

The share of Americans who know someone who's tested positive has more than tripled in just a few weeks, to 14%, according to the latest installment of our Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index.

It's still highest in the Northeast, but last week alone it doubled in the South — and it's becoming most pronounced among people who still must leave home to work.

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Axios

World coronavirus updates: Governments tighten restrictions to curb cases surge

Data: The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins, the CDC and China's Health Ministry. Note: China numbers are for the mainland only and U.S. numbers include repatriated citizens and confirmed plus presumptive cases from the CDC

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced plans to declare a state of emergency and a 108 trillion yen ($990 billion) stimulus package Tuesday, as several governments announced new restrictions amid a jump in cases.

The big picture: The virus is confirmed to have killed almost 75,000 people and infected 1.3 million globally as of early Tuesday, per Johns Hopkins data. Spain has reported the most cases outside the U.S. (more than 136,000) and Italy the most deaths (over 16,000) as half the planet's population is now on lockdown.

Go deeperUpdated 2 hours ago - Health