10 things in tech you need to know today, November 28

Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg’s empty chair.
Gabriel
Sainhas, House of Commons

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

1. Mark Zuckerberg was humiliated
   by international lawmakers on Tuesday for failing to give
   evidence on Facebook scandals. Zuckerberg declined
   repeated requests to answer the questions of the self-described
   International Grand Committee. As a result, the committee
   decided to leave an empty chair for the Facebook CEO.
2. A cache of secret Facebook
   documents are said to reveal that it was warned about a
   potentially huge data issue involving Russia back in
   2014. That’s according to a UK lawmaker who
   reviewed the sealed Facebook papers. The firm later said
   it investigated the issue and “found no evidence of specific
   Russian activity.”
3. A former Facebook employee
   posted a 2,500-word memo about racial discrimination at the
   company. In a goodbye note to colleagues he
   subsequently shared publicly, Mark S. Luckie wrote: “Facebook
   has a black people problem.”
4. Google CEO Sundar Pichai
   has agreed to testify in front of US Congress in December,
   according to The Washington Post. Pichai will be
   grilled on a string of issues, including plans to launch a
   censored search engine in China and sexual misconduct at the
   company.
5. YouTube just gave a big
   clue that its $12-a-month Premium service is headed for
   extinction after only eight months. Starting in
   2019, new original content on YouTube will be available for
   free with advertisements, rather than being available
   exclusively through the company’s subscription service, YouTube
   Premium. 
6. Google employees are
   petitioning management to shut down work on a controversial
   censored search engine for China. The petition was
   signed by 11 Google engineers, with a note that said more
   signatures would be coming.
7. Uber was fined nearly
   $1.2 million over the giant 2016 data hack. Two
   fines were imposed by Britain’s Information Commissioner’s
   Office and the Dutch Data Protection Authority after the breach
   impacted 50 million riders and seven million drivers.
8. Amazon says Black Friday
   and Cyber Monday 2018 were the biggest shopping days in its
   history. Amazon said it sold “millions” more
   products from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday than it did during
   the same 2017 holiday period.
9. A Facebook glitch has been
   causing messages from users’ pasts to resurface — and people
   are calling it a ‘cringe-fest.‘ A glitch caused by
   software updates caused the messages to show up as if they were
   new, Facebook said in a statement. For some, it resurfaced
   unwelcome memories.
10. There’s a 23-year-old coder who
    uncovers hidden app features that tech giants like Facebook
    want to keep secret. Jane Manchun Wong is a star
    in the world of reverse-app engineering. She was the first to
    discover Facebook was testing an “unsend” message feature.

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