10 things in tech you need to know today, July 27

Tyler
and Cameron Winklevoss.

REUTERS/Lucas
Jackson

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Friday.

1.
President Donald Trump on Thursday denounced the practice of
“shadowbanning” on Twitter. Trump’s tweets came
after a much-disputed Vice News report claimed the platform was
leaving out prominent Republican Twitter users in search
suggestions.

2.
Amazon on Thursday reported a $2.5 billion second-quarter profit,
which far exceeded Wall Street’s expectations.
Although its revenue fell shy of projections, investors still
applauded the results, sending the stock up as much as 4% in
after-hours trading.

3.
Workplace chat service Slack took out one of its biggest rivals
as it rallies against Microsoft. Slack has acquired
the IP for two competitors, Stride and HipChat, from owner
Atlassian.

4.
An activist
Facebook shareholder has drawn up a new proposal to fire Mark
Zuckerberg as chairman. Trillium wants to appoint an
independent chairman, citing Facebook’s “mishandling” of crises
like the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, but has a slim chance
of success.

5. Samsung
on Thursday released a teaser trailer for its Unpacked event on
August 9, giving a glimpse of what features could be on the
Galaxy Note 9. The video may
have hinted that the Galaxy Note 9 will have a bigger
battery than its predecessor, the Galaxy Note 8.

6.
Facebook joined YouTube in scrubbing videos from pages belonging
to InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex
Jones. Facebook has removed four videos on
pages belonging to InfoWars and its founder, Alex Jones, for
violating the company’s community standards, according to CNN.

7.
SoftBank-backed game tech firm Improbable doubled its valuation
to $2 billion after raising $50 million in strategic
investment. SoftBank has taken the investment from
NetEase, a Chinese gaming giant.

8.
Chinese bike-sharing firm Ofo is pulling out of lots of cities,
and it’s a sign the dockless bike bubble is
bursting. Sources suggested bike-sharing unit
economics are not profitable and that electric scooter startups
are, for now, more popular.

9.
The SEC rejected the Winklevoss twins’ bitcoin fund for the
second time, and bitcoin took a hit. Bitcoin
was trading down 1.2% after the news broke, at $8,068 a coin.

10.
The musician Grimes, who is dating Elon Musk, said she tried to
encourage a union vote at Tesla in a now-deleted
tweet. Tesla employees have alleged that the
company has disturbed their efforts to organize a union.

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