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Facebook calls Australia’s bluff

Good morning! This Thursday, Google and Facebook have very different answers to Australia's news regulation, Airbnb is betting on Atlanta, and you better make some popcorn because it's GameStop Hearing Day.
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Google and Facebook were both faced with regulation in Australia that would change the way they interacted with news organizations, in that country and potentially around the world. Google and Facebook decided to respond … differently:
Australian users won't be able to post any news links on Facebook going forward, and users around the globe won't be able to post links from Australian publishers. A few things, like government communications and COVID-related information, are exempted. (Though a bunch of government pages seem to have been caught in the crossfire.)
This isn't really about paying publishers. I mean it is a little, but not entirely: Most people think Google and Facebook should pay, and both already do so in some countries. Rather, Google and Facebook have continued to take issue with two things:
The take I get from folks around the industry is that the Australian law came from a reasonable place — trying to reset the balance between publishers and the distributors that destroyed their business — but has since warped into something totally untenable and with little benefit other than a big check with Rupert Murdoch's name on it.
But if things continue as they are now, we're at least about to get a real answer to a long-asked hypothetical: Do tech companies need publishers more than publishers need tech companies? Does a Facebook-less news industry die faster than a news-less Facebook? I suspect I know the answer, but it'll be interesting to watch.
Anna Kramer writes: Airbnb is building a brand new technical hub in … Atlanta. No big move to Miami or Austin for these folks, and the company has one big reason why: It wants its engineering and software development teams to have diverse perspectives, and Atlanta is the place where that might actually happen.
Atlanta is home to more Black college graduates (and engineers) than anywhere else in the country, meaning it has a deep talent pool for companies looking to diversify their workforce.
The location could grow into the company's second-largest, behind its Silicon Valley headquarters, though the company will grow slowly in order to accommodate its own needs and the community's.
Airbnb is just the latest tech company to make a big move in the city. Microsoft is building a massive new headquarters in a long-neglected Atlanta neighborhood, T-Mobile announced yesterday that it would work with Georgia Tech to build a 5G incubator and Apple announced last month that it was co-founding a tech education and innovation center for HBCU students and faculty there.
Robinhood's Vlad Tenev is at the GameStop hearing today, and he's going to come out firing:
Clover Health is under scrutiny from all sides, and CEO Vivek Garipalli took out his frustration on a Forbes reporter:
Mailchimp's Kelly Ellis quit her job as a principal engineer yesterday after a "conversation about comp went really south":
A Facebook product manager wanted to change its audience reach metrics, which a lawsuit alleges the company knew were inflated but didn't fix because of the potential revenue impact:
China is way ahead in its crypto planning, an unnamed Wall Street exec said:
Amazon is trying to involve customers earlier in its product-development process, Simon Joinson said:
Amazon saw an immediate positive impact when we increased our starting wage to $15 an hour in 2018. The investments we made in our hourly employees were quickly transferred to local businesses and economies, showing the benefits far transcend the workplace. We're ready to see this done on a larger scale.It's time to raise the wage.
Melissa Strait is Coinbase's new chief compliance officer. She joins from Stripe.
Benjamin Lyon is Astra's new chief engineer, after more than two decades building stuff at Apple.
iHeartMedia bought Triton Digital for $230 million, as the podcast industry consolidation continues.
Sinch bought Inteliquent for $1.14 billion, in an effort to go head-to-head with Twilio in the U.S.
Ford is spending $1 billion on an electric vehicle facility in Germany, overhauling an existing plant.
Google is reportedly restructuring its Responsible AI teams. The groups will now all report to Marian Croak, Bloomberg reported, who will in turn report to Jeff Dean.
Ah, 2011. Simpler times. I think? Who can remember. But with this very fun Internet Archive-powered site built by Neal Agarwal, you can tunnel back a decade and see what was happening everywhere online, from Apple.com to YouTube to Amazon to The New York Times. Am I crazy, or was the internet much nicer to look at 10 years ago? Except YouTube. Boy was YouTube ugly.
Amazon saw an immediate positive impact when we increased our starting wage to $15 an hour in 2018. The investments we made in our hourly employees were quickly transferred to local businesses and economies, showing the benefits far transcend the workplace. We're ready to see this done on a larger scale.It's time to raise the wage.
Today's Source Code was written by David Pierce, with help from Anna Kramer and Shakeel Hashim. Thoughts, questions, tips? Send them to david@protocol.com, or our tips line, tips@protocol.com. Enjoy your day; see you tomorrow.
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