Category: TECHNOLOGY
Fifteen shows off the latest generation of its shared, docked bikes
New bikes and new docks
A few months ago, Fifteen launched a new bike-sharing service in Marseille. This isn’t the first public bike share scheme in the city, but it represents a big overhaul compared to the previous service.
“It was a city with an old school bike service managed by JCDecaux with mechanical bikes that were rarely used — only one or two rides per bike and per day,” Fifteen CEO Benoît Yameundjeu said.
But if you’ve seen the bikes in Marseille, they look nothing like Fifteen’s bikes (Smoove’s bikes) in Paris or in other cities. That’s because the company’s revamped bikes and docking stations are the next iteration of Zoov’s bikes and stations.
These electric bikes come with a magnetic docking system. Instead of ‘slotting’ the bike in a dock, you put it next to the most recently used bike. Once the bike is locked, it is secured to the rest of the station with magnets — the station also acts as a charging hub for the batteries.
As a user, it means that you can’t pick a specific bike. You can only unlock the bike that is currently at the end of the station — unless it’s a big station and there are multiple charging stations.
If there is an issue with the bike that you just unlocked, you set it aside and lock it again in a specific area next to the station. This way, faulty bikes are quickly isolated from the rest of the fleet.
You can see how it works with this picture. There are four different charging stations and an area in the middle for faulty bikes:
Image Credits: Fifteen
“We wanted to build a dense parking system that is easy to install with our proprietary energy transfer system,” Fifteen chief product and technology officer Arnaud Le Rodallec said. With these stations, you don’t have to dig large holes for individual electrified docks.
As for the bike, Fifteen’s electric bike is more modular. Cities can pick and choose some features with multiple options for the front basket, an optional high-capacity battery with a range of 120km, etc.
“We’ve also worked on the frame. The more pieces there are, the more complicated it becomes,” Le Rodallec said. “It allows us to save 1kg in weight for the frame, to reduce costs and to improve reliability.”
But the most interesting feature is that it hasn’t been specifically designed for a dock-based bike-sharing service. Fifteen’s clients can offer long-term rentals as users can potentially unlock the battery with an app and charge it at home — more on that later.
There are also some built-in sensors so that cities can create virtual stations — it can be useful for special events for instance. They draw a rectangle on a map and users can then lock and unlock the bike in this area by scanning a QR code on the handlebar with an app.
Fifteen is already thinking about what’s next for Paris and other existing cities as the company says cities can get the new bikes with existing docking stations. There’s an adapter that you can attach at the front of the bike.
Augmented bike networks
Fifteen has deployed a fleet of 52,000 bikes across more than 30 cities. In 2022, 1.5 million people interacted with a Fifteen bike-sharing system at some point.
The company is now thinking about other use cases for its bike. For instance, it has designed a new service for Auxerre and its surrounding cities. In May 2023, 320 Fifteen bikes will be deployed across 42 docking stations.
“The first project that I want to talk about perfectly embodies our vision. We want to offer a solution that addresses all needs,” chief marketing and sales officer Amira Haberah said. “If I need a bike for five minutes, I use it for five minutes. If I need a bike for two days because I’m visiting the Yonne department, I take it for two days. And If I want to keep it for ten months, I can keep it for ten months.”
Whether you’re looking for short-term or long-term rentals, you can go to the nearest docking station and unlock a bike with the app. When you’re done, you go back to a station. 200 bikes will be available for short-term rides to help you move from A to B. The rest will be allocated for personal long-term rentals.
Fifteen is also working on another project with the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region around the regional train line that connects Royan to Angoulême. Many people still drive to work because their office isn’t next to a train station.
There are eight stops on that line, and Fifteen will deploy a docking station at each train station. When you get off the train, you can unlock a bike, use it for the day and bring it back to the train station in the evening.
So, Fifteen is now focusing on a single, unified platform that should address the needs of local governments of all sizes — from cities to regions — and for all needs — traditional bike-sharing service and long-term rentals. The company now has one bike, one docking station and one software stack.
Image Credits: Romain Dillet / TechCrunch
Fifteen might not be a familiar name, but you may already know some of Fifteen’s bikes. Fifteen is the new name of the companies formerly known as Smoove and Zoov — these two companies with weird names merged a couple of years ago.
Smoove is one of the companies behind the Vélib’ bike-sharing service in Paris (along with Indigo, Mobivia and Moventia). And Zoov offered a hybrid bike share program for short-term and long-term rentals. While Zoov never reached the scale of Smoove, its bikes and docks serve as the basis for Fifteen’s new offering. Essentially, Fifteen combines Smoove’s reach with Zoov’s technology.
The past few years have been both challenging and promising for Fifteen. When the city of Paris picked Smoove and its partners for the new Vélib’ service, it wasn’t a smooth transition. After some serious hiccups (including financial difficulties), the service has now reached hundreds of thousands of subscribers and tens of thousands of rides per day — Vélib’ is now arguably the world’s biggest bike sharing service.
Fifteen has now shifted its attention to other cities. The company has been working with local governments to design bike share programs with new use cases. In a press conference before the Autonomy Mobility World Expo in Paris, Fifteen unveiled the next generation of its bike system and talked about upcoming launches.
Image Credits: Fifteen
New bikes and new docks
A few months ago, Fifteen launched a new bike-sharing service in Marseille. This isn’t the first public bike share scheme in the city, but it represents a big overhaul compared to the previous service.
“It was a city with an old school bike service managed by JCDecaux with mechanical bikes that were rarely used — only one or two rides per bike and per day,” Fifteen CEO Benoît Yameundjeu said.
But if you’ve seen the bikes in Marseille, they look nothing like Fifteen’s bikes (Smoove’s bikes) in Paris or in other cities. That’s because the company’s revamped bikes and docking stations are the next iteration of Zoov’s bikes and stations.
These electric bikes come with a magnetic docking system. Instead of ‘slotting’ the bike in a dock, you put it next to the most recently used bike. Once the bike is locked, it is secured to the rest of the station with magnets — the station also acts as a charging hub for the batteries.
As a user, it means that you can’t pick a specific bike. You can only unlock the bike that is currently at the end of the station — unless it’s a big station and there are multiple charging stations.
If there is an issue with the bike that you just unlocked, you set it aside and lock it again in a specific area next to the station. This way, faulty bikes are quickly isolated from the rest of the fleet.
You can see how it works with this picture. There are four different charging stations and an area in the middle for faulty bikes:
Image Credits: Fifteen
“We wanted to build a dense parking system that is easy to install with our proprietary energy transfer system,” Fifteen chief product and technology officer Arnaud Le Rodallec said. With these stations, you don’t have to dig large holes for individual electrified docks.
As for the bike, Fifteen’s electric bike is more modular. Cities can pick and choose some features with multiple options for the front basket, an optional high-capacity battery with a range of 120km, etc.
“We’ve also worked on the frame. The more pieces there are, the more complicated it becomes,” Le Rodallec said. “It allows us to save 1kg in weight for the frame, to reduce costs and to improve reliability.”
But the most interesting feature is that it hasn’t been specifically designed for a dock-based bike-sharing service. Fifteen’s clients can offer long-term rentals as users can potentially unlock the battery with an app and charge it at home — more on that later.
There are also some built-in sensors so that cities can create virtual stations — it can be useful for special events for instance. They draw a rectangle on a map and users can then lock and unlock the bike in this area by scanning a QR code on the handlebar with an app.
Fifteen is already thinking about what’s next for Paris and other existing cities as the company says cities can get the new bikes with existing docking stations. There’s an adapter that you can attach at the front of the bike.
Augmented bike networks
Fifteen has deployed a fleet of 52,000 bikes across more than 30 cities. In 2022, 1.5 million people interacted with a Fifteen bike-sharing system at some point.
The company is now thinking about other use cases for its bike. For instance, it has designed a new service for Auxerre and its surrounding cities. In May 2023, 320 Fifteen bikes will be deployed across 42 docking stations.
“The first project that I want to talk about perfectly embodies our vision. We want to offer a solution that addresses all needs,” chief marketing and sales officer Amira Haberah said. “If I need a bike for five minutes, I use it for five minutes. If I need a bike for two days because I’m visiting the Yonne department, I take it for two days. And If I want to keep it for ten months, I can keep it for ten months.”
Whether you’re looking for short-term or long-term rentals, you can go to the nearest docking station and unlock a bike with the app. When you’re done, you go back to a station. 200 bikes will be available for short-term rides to help you move from A to B. The rest will be allocated for personal long-term rentals.
Fifteen is also working on another project with the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region around the regional train line that connects Royan to Angoulême. Many people still drive to work because their office isn’t next to a train station.
There are eight stops on that line, and Fifteen will deploy a docking station at each train station. When you get off the train, you can unlock a bike, use it for the day and bring it back to the train station in the evening.
So, Fifteen is now focusing on a single, unified platform that should address the needs of local governments of all sizes — from cities to regions — and for all needs — traditional bike-sharing service and long-term rentals. The company now has one bike, one docking station and one software stack.
Image Credits: Romain Dillet / TechCrunch
Fifteen shows off the latest generation of its shared, docked bikes by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch
TikTok called out for misusing Citizen Lab research
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was questioned in a U.S. government hearing on Thursday over the relationship between the fast-growing social media platform and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
In Chew’s pre-written opening statement, the chief executive cited a report from internet watchdog Citizen Lab, saying that “there was no overt data transmission by TikTok to the Chinese government and that TikTok did not contact any servers within China.”
According to Citizen Lab director Ron Deibert, this is a misrepresentation of what the report found.
When Chew’s testimony was published before the hearing, Deibert took to Twitter with a statement, expressing his disappointment with how this research was misconstrued.
According to Deibert, who founded Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto in 2001, researchers found in the 2021 study that they had no insight into what happened with user data once it’s collected and sent back to TikTok’s servers.
Deibert said in his statement, “Although we had no way to determine whether or not it had happened, we even speculated about possible mechanisms through which the Chinese government might use unconventional techniques to obtain TikTok user data via pressure on ByteDance.”
The report also surfaced concerns that TikTok has some dormant code originally written for Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
“We are concerned with the possibility where TikTok’s server-returned configuration values could enable those dormant code written for Douyin, which might lead to China-specific features being enabled,” the report reads.
Congressman Bill Johnson (R-OH) referenced the Citizen Lab report while questioning Chew, pointing out the discrepancies between TikTok’s positioning of the report and what the report actually says.
Per the research, TikTok and Douyin both contain code that can handle a special subset of server-returned search responses. In TikTok’s case, this might apply when a user searches for terms like “suicide,” for example — instead of surfacing videos, the search page will direct the user to a hub of
TikTok called out for misusing Citizen Lab research by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/23/tiktok-called-out-for-misusing-citizen-lab-research/
China reminds US that it can and will kill a forced TikTok sale
China pushed back against the U.S. government’s proposal to force a sale of TikTok on Thursday, rejecting the possible solution to ongoing national security concerns around the app.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before Congress on Thursday morning, facing questions from U.S. lawmakers that centered around concerns that the Chinese government could leverage the app’s data to surveil American citizens or otherwise undermine national interests.
In a press conference hours before the hearing began, China’s Commerce Ministry spokesperson Shu Jueting weighed in with Beijing’s opposition to the Biden administration’s proposal. “…Forcing a sale of TikTok will seriously damage the confidence of investors from all over the world, including China, to invest in the United States,” she said. “If the news is true, China will firmly oppose it.”
The idea to force the company to divest itself of Chinese ownership first surfaced during the Trump administration, culminating in a deal for TikTok to sell its U.S. operations to Oracle in late 2020. At the time, TikTok also rejected an acquisition offer from Microsoft, though ultimately neither company succeeded and the strange arrangement fizzled after a series of successful legal challenges. The deal was shelved indefinitely when the Biden took office the following year, but in recent days the administration has picked up the languishing mission to force a sale.
In rejecting the U.S. proposal, which the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) would spearhead, China is reiterated a point it made during the Trump administration.
In late 2020, China’s Ministry of Commerce updated its export rules, expanding its control over AI technology as a category. China’s state news agency Xinhua followed the change by suggesting that the new rules could apply to ByteDance, which leverages AI to serve algorithmic content on TikTok, and quoting a scholar who advised companies with relevant deals to “halt negotiations.”
At the time, ByteDance quickly issued a statement asserting that it would “strictly follow” the new export regulations. That commitment — and the fact of China’s regulatory control — could undermine Chew’s ongoing testimony emphasizing TikTok’s independence.
On Thursday, China also pointed to the adjusted export rules, suggesting that even if the U.S. succeeded in forcing a sale and clearing domestic legal hurdles, China could step in and kill the deal at will.
“The sale or divestiture of TikTok involves technology export, which must follow China’s regulatory approval procedures,” Shu said. “The Chinese government will make a decision in accordance with the law.”
China reminds US that it can and will kill a forced TikTok sale by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/23/china-reminds-us-that-it-can-and-will-kill-a-forced-tiktok-sale/
Klarna plugs ChatGPT into its platform for faster product recommendations
Payments and shopping service Klarna is the latest company to announce its integration with ChatGPT.
The company said it is “one of the first brands to work with OpenAI to use its protocol to build an integrated Plugin for ChatGPT,” and is rolling out a personalized shopping experience that provides product recommendations when Klarna users ask for shopping advice, inspiration and product links via Klarna’s search and compare tool.
Here’s how it works: Users install the Klarna plugin from the ChatGPT plugin store and then can ask ChatGPT questions. For example, “I have $150, which headphones can I afford?” and receive a selection of items relevant to that request.
Users can also ask other questions or for more product recommendations. If users tap on the product link, they can also navigate to the product page on Klarna’s search and compare tool to compare prices across its 500,000 retail partners, the company said.
“I’m super excited about our plugin with ChatGPT because it passes my ‘north star’ criteria that I call my ‘mom test,’ i.e. would my mom understand and benefit from this,” said Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, in a written statement. “And it does because it’s easy to use and genuinely solves a ton of problems — it drives tremendous value for everyone. Klarna is in a unique position to leverage the best technology and data to help people discover new products and solve problems for consumers at every stage of the shopping journey, and we’ll continue innovating to bring these services to our 150 million consumers.”
The company said the plugin will roll out initially to ChatGPT Plus subscribers in the U.S. and Canada and will then become available in other regions “following a period of safety testing, development and improvement.”
Last month, Klarna revealed that the U.S. was its biggest market after seeing a 71% year-over-year increase in gross merchandise value (GMV) in the U.S. last year compared to 2021. In addition, the Klarna Card went live last June in the U.S. with a 1 million-person wait list.
The new feature comes amid OpenAI’s own announcement that it launched plugins for ChatGPT and connected the chatbot to the internet.
Klarna is among some pretty big tech players getting in on generative AI, including Apple, all things Microsoft and Google.
Klarna plugs ChatGPT into its platform for faster product recommendations by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch
Live sports streaming service Fubo adds MLB.TV after YouTube TV drops MLB Network
With Major League Baseball Opening Day starting next week, on March 30, Fubo announced today that it is adding MLB.TV to its lineup in the coming days. The out-of-market package will be available as an add-on for $24.99 per month.
The live TV streaming service already offers MLB Network, MLB Strike Zone, as well as regional sports networks, local broadcast networks and national sports networks such as ESPN, Fox and FS1. Note that Fubo doesn’t broadcast TBS, so some games won’t be available for subscribers.
The news of MLB.TV coming to Fubo comes on the heels of YouTube TV dropping the MLB Network carriage after failing to reach an agreement with the league.
“With today’s MLB.TV partnership, Fubo now offers the most baseball coverage of any streaming company, on top of our already leading position for local sports coverage and our robust NFL and college sports packages,” David Gandler, co-founder and CEO of Fubo said in a statement. “Customers continue to vote for Fubo – we added more net subscribers in Q4 2022 compared to our peers in the space who reported – because of our sports-first differentiation delivered through a premium user experience. We are more confident than ever in our market position and believe that consumers will continue to choose Fubo as we head into baseball season.”
Formerly FuboTV, the company rebranded to Fubo earlier this week. The company claimed that the new name reflects its recent growth. In the fourth quarter of 2022, it reported having 1.45 million paid subscribers in North America and 420,000 paid subscribers in the rest of the world.
Live sports streaming service Fubo adds MLB.TV after YouTube TV drops MLB Network by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch
Hivemapper is 1M kilometers closer to goal of beating Google Maps
Hivemapper, the startup that puts dashcams on ride-hail and delivery vehicles to map the world, is getting a little closer to its goal of toppling the B2B mapping empire that Google has built.
With only 2% of the world’s roads mapped, Hivemapper is still very much the underdog in this fight. But Gabe Nelson, Hivemapper’s head of operations, reckons the startup is reaching an inflection point that will lead to exponential scale.
Hivemapper said Thursday it collected more than 1 million kilometers (about 620,000 miles) of unique street level imagery. Compared to Google’s 60 million kilometers, that’s small potatoes. However, Hivemapper collected this data within three months of launching. It took Google from 2007 to 2019 to collect 16.1 million kilometers of unique road data.
Now, the startup aims to map 10 million unique road kilometers by early next year.
Hivemapper relies on individual contributors around the world to collect its street view data, rather than spending millions of dollars putting dedicated mapping vehicles on the road. Its dashcams are equipped with a high quality imager and precise GPS, and they go for $549. Mapping with dashcams, the company says, means its data is continuously being refreshed, whereas much of Google’s Street View imagery, particularly outside of urban centers, is over a decade old.
It’s a similar model to GPS app Waze, which was acquired by Google in 2013. Waze relies on volunteer user data to monitor and share real time traffic information around the world. Where Waze users actively contribute to improve the product or simply for the love of maps, Hivemapper contributors are promised something that has, at least in theory, the potential to be financially valuable.
Hivemapper rewards drivers and editors with its native token called HONEY. As more roads are mapped and the map becomes more useful to end customers, their demand for tokens increases. When companies purchase map data from Hivemapper, that money is converted into tokens in the backend, which the system can then use to reward new or existing contributors with more tokens. Ariel Seidman, Hivemapper’s CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch there will only ever be 10 billion HONEY tokens in existence.
Before those tokens are actually worth anything at all, Hivemapper needs to collect enough data to be able to offer a viable product. The startup currently has more than 11,000 contributors and 418 regions mapped to some degree. For example, Hivemapper has tackled around 30% of Los Angeles’s roads, but only 1.4% of Genoa, Italy’s.
“Where this thing becomes really big is when you have 90% coverage in a region or in a country because then someone can completely replace what they’re using today with you,” said Nelson, noting the importance of fresh map data for businesses training autonomous vehicles. “On the map data side, we have conversations with a lot of the largest map data customers in the world. We’re in the validation stage with multiple of those.”
Hivemapper dashcam. Image Credits: Hivemapper
As part of its strategy to scale exponentially, Hivemapper is working to bring on fleets — particularly smaller to mid-sized fleets at first as the company builds up a network. Many fleets already buy dashcams as insurance in case their drivers get into accidents, so they’re more likely to follow best practices for mounting the devices and therefore will collect better quality imagery, Hivemapper reasons. Fleets also don’t always drive the same old routes, allowing Hivemapper to get data off the beaten track.
Fleet managers can access Hivemapper’s dashboard that provides information on high-earning routes, where drivers are going and how many tokens they’re collecting. They can then redirect or split tokens to any designated wallet to reward drivers.
The startup is also incentivizing drivers to collect data in certain regions to help scale faster and provide fresher data in high-demand areas or in areas where there’s rapid adoption from contributors. Last week, Hivemapper said it would provide higher rewards in South Korea, the Netherlands, Portugal, London, Paris, Madrid and Tokyo, according to Nelson.
David vs. Goliath
Since launching in November 2022, Hivemapper has mapped over 1 million unique road kilometers. Image Credits: Hivemapper
“The map space is desperately in need of disruption,” Nelson told TechCrunch. “Google Maps is essentially a monopoly in B2B maps…They have about 5 million business and government customers. And because they have such dominance in this space, they have been exploiting their position. They’ve increased their prices 1800% since 2018. Customers are now ruthlessly limiting how much they use Google Maps APIs in order to save costs.”
Google did not confirm how many customers it has, nor whether the company has increased its prices by 1800%, a percentage that Hivemapper arrived at via internal estimation. Google said it hasn’t altered its price structure since 2018. Over the years, though, many businesses have complained about Maps APIs being unaffordable, leading to customers indeed pulling back on usage.
Those businesses are looking for cheaper alternatives. Companies like Mapbox have caught some absconders, but Hivemapper says it differs from the new competition because it collects and edits its own data, rather than relying on third parties. Mapbox, for example, uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) data, which is a free, open geographic database that’s also updated by a community of volunteers.
“I would argue that we do the full stack, and that’s really important because if somebody comes to Mapbox and asks for a better map of India, then they have to go to the OSM community and ask them to work harder. They don’t really have control over the data,” said Seidman.
At the end of the day, Hivemapper is betting on two things: The first is that the amount of money Google spends to collect street view data will be its Achilles heel. And the second is that it will be able to build a large enough base of contributors who believe in the future value of HONEY tokens.
Seidman isn’t “religious about crypto.” He thinks of it as just a piece of technology, a tool that can give drivers shares of the company via tokens and incentivize them to improve the platform in a way that goes beyond whatever reason Waze’s over 30,000 volunteers do it for.
“In the early days of Waze, when all these people were contributing either by driving or editing the map and doing very tedious quality assurance work, they gamified the system,” said Seidman. “These people got these little candies for doing tasks. And when Waze ultimately monetized all that data by selling it to Google for $1.3 billion, they all had their virtual candies, but those weren’t worth anything. Hivemapper is different. Hivemapper also monetizes the data, but because the contributor did this work, they’re more economically aligned with people like me, quite frankly.”
Hivemapper is 1M kilometers closer to goal of beating Google Maps by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/23/hivemapper-is-1m-kilometers-closer-to-goal-of-beating-google-maps/
Kids tech camp iD Tech still silent weeks after data breach
Parents are still looking for answers weeks after hackers stole the personal data of thousands of users from kids’ tech coding camp iD Tech, with some fearing that their children’s data was compromised in the data breach.
iD Tech, which provides on-campus classes and online tech and coding courses for kids, has yet to acknowledge the breach or notify parents.
News of the data breach broke in February after a hacker on a cybercrime forum claimed to have hacked iD Tech a month earlier on January 3.
The hacker claimed to have stolen close to 1 million user records, including names, dates of birth, passwords stored in plaintext, and about 415,000 unique email addresses, which iD Tech did not dispute when reached by email. That can equate to each parent’s account having one or more kids in classes at the tech camp.
Some parents only found out as recently as March 6 when data breach notification services like Have I Been Pwned obtained the data and sent out notifications to affected families. Other parents found out when other services, like Firefox or their device security software, notified them that their information was found in the breached data.
One parent, who learned from a breach notification service that their data had been stolen, told TechCrunch that the stolen information is only a portion of the data that iD Tech collects on account holders and the children who use its platform, including gender, billing information, and some health data, like immunizations.
The parent said that the breached data must relate to the child’s date of birth because they never provided their own.
The parent said that iD Tech has not yet notified them of the breach. When the parent contacted the company to inquire, iD Tech claimed that it had already notified affected account holders.
iD Tech has not publicly acknowledged the breach, either on its website or any of its social media channels. And there’s no evidence that iD Tech has notified affected account holders of the breach, either.
When reached by email, iD Tech CEO Pete Ingram-Cauchi declined to explain why the company hasn’t publicly acknowledged the breach. When asked, Ingram-Cauchi declined to provide a copy of the communication that iD Tech claims to have sent to parents. The company declined to say if the breach had been reported to offices of state attorneys general per data breach notification laws.
Instead, iD Tech provided a brief statement from a generic company email address declining to comment citing its ongoing investigation. The sender of the email declined to provide their name for this story.
Ingram-Cauchi did not reply to a follow-up email.
Kids tech camp iD Tech still silent weeks after data breach by Zack Whittaker originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/23/id-tech-kids-tech-camp-data-breach/
TikTok CEO testifies before Congress
As the Biden administration escalates its threats against TikTok, the company’s chief executive made his first appearance before Congress on Thursday. Given the U.S. government’s aggressive recent posture, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was destined for a harsh turn under the glare of the government’s big, bright lights and that’s very much what played out across the hearing’s sprawling five hours.
In opening statements, Chew offered reassurances that the company would safeguard the safety of minors, bolster its privacy and security practices and ward off any possibility of “unauthorized foreign access” to U.S. user data.
“… I understand that there are concerns stemming from the inaccurate belief that TikTok’s corporate structure makes it beholden to the Chinese government or that it shares information about U.S. users with the Chinese government,” Chew said. “This is emphatically untrue.”
Chew asserted that TikTok has never shared data on U.S. users with the Chinese government nor has it ever received a request to do so. If China did request access to data on Americans, Chew argued that the company would not comply.
“Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said.
As the hearing unfolded, lawmakers from both political parties pressed Chew for answers about the company’s relationship with China, its failure to moderate disturbing content and its plans to build trust in the U.S., its biggest market.
Facing an onslaught of critical questions, TikTok tore a page out of the classic tech hearing playbook drafted by companies like Meta and Google in recent years. While Chew came off as comfortable and friendly — more than some U.S. tech executives can say — he overstated some of the company’s achievements and side-stepped substantive answers on tough issues time and time again.
A number of representatives focused on TikTok’s impact on young users. After Chew touted the app’s 60 minute watch limit for teens, Rep. John Sarbanes brought the company’s claims about its protections against social media addiction back to reality.
“My understanding is that teens can pretty easily bypass the notification to continue using the app if they want to,” Sarbanes said. “I mean, let’s face it, our teens are smarter than we are by half and they know how to use technology and they can get around these limits if they want to.”
Early in his testimony, Chew cited a report from internet watchdog Citizen Lab, claiming that the organization definitively found no connection between the Chinese government and TikTok data. Citizen Lab’s director responded in real time on Twitter, criticizing the characterization.
“Our analysis was explicit about having no visibility into what happened to user data once it was collected and transmitted back to TikTok’s servers,” he wrote. “Although we had no way to determine whether or not it had happened, we even speculated about possible mechanisms through which the Chinese government might use unconventional techniques to obtain TikTok user data via pressure on ByteDance.”
In another exchange with Florida Rep. Neal Dunn, Chew objected to using the term “spying” to describe an incident in which ByteDance employees surveilled U.S. citizens through TikTok in order to identify the source of leaked information.
Prior to Thursday’s hearing, Chew took to the app to announce that TikTok now has more than 150 million users in the U.S., a sizable jump up from its last reported numbers. The milestone cuts both ways, underlining concerns about TikTok’s massive influence among Americans and serving as a threat that a U.S. ban would outrage users and creators alike. At least one group of creators is staging a protest of the proposed ban in Washington, D.C. this week, drawing attention to the negative impact it would have on their businesses.
“Americans deserve to know the extent to which their privacy is jeopardized and their data is manipulated by ByteDance-owned TikTok’s relationship with China,” Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers said. “What’s worse, we know Big Tech companies, like TikTok, use harmful algorithms to exploit children for profit and expose them to dangerous content online.”
The committee pressed Chew over measures that TikTok is taking to protect kids on the app, noting that the hearing is the latest effort to make tech companies accountable for their negative impacts on society. Lawmakers also emphasized worries TikTok parent company ByteDance is based in China with Chinese ownership that it could be leveraged by the Chinese government to further state interests.
While there’s no evidence that China is harvesting data on Americans or intentionally shaping political behavior through its algorithms, there is reason to be concerned that the company’s privacy practices aren’t airtight.
Last year an internal investigation at the company confirmed reporting that employees at its Beijing headquarters intended to track U.S. journalists via their TikTok activity in an effort to uncover the source of internal leaks. That incident apparently prompted probes from multiple federal agencies, which were first reported last week. The Fraud Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division is working with the FBI and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to investigate the breach of user privacy, putting additional pressure on the company’s imperiled U.S. business.
TikTok has long pushed back over privacy concerns, arguing that TikTok’s American operations are walled off from its Beijing-based leadership — and from China itself. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that the U.S. government is currently seeking to force ByteDance to sell TikTok, threatening a national ban on the app if the company doesn’t comply.
TikTok responded by pointing to its recent campaign to self-regulate, an undertaking known as Project Texas. The campaign is part of an ongoing TikTok charm offensive in the U.S. that seeks to portray the company’s U.S. operations as transparent and comes with about $1.5 billion in infrastructure spending and corporate re-organization. The idea is that TikTok itself can erect a firewall between the company’s American business and its Chinese ownership, potentially placating the U.S. government in the process.
The U.S. doesn’t look likely to back down, but it’s far from clear it’s in a position to follow through on recent threats. The White House attempted a similar maneuver during the Trump White House, but its efforts fell apart before being picked back up by the Biden administration in an unusual show of policy continuity between the two. Former President Trump’s threats against TikTok eventually culminated in a plan to force ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations to Oracle in late 2020. At the time, TikTok also rejected an acquisition offer from Microsoft, but in time the deal with Oracle fizzled too.
Oracle never bought the company, but it’s still in the picture. TikTok later partnered with Oracle to shift U.S. data onto U.S.-based servers with the company and to run audits of its algorithms and content moderation systems — an odd move and an odd partner to do it with, given Oracle co-founder and chairman Larry Ellison’s participation in the campaign to undermine the legitimate results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Given the stakes for the company and its users — and politicians’ penchant for rousing anti-China sentiment — Thursday’s TikTok was explosive in form even when it wasn’t in function. Between lawmakers frequently opting to grandstand instead of allowing their sole witness to speak and others that failed to understand the basic features of the app in question, Thursday’s hearing offered more bark than bite.
TikTok CEO testifies before Congress by Taylor Hatmaker originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/23/tiktok-gears-up-for-its-big-day-in-congress/
SEC clamps down on Coinbase and Tron, while Do Kwon is arrested overseas
To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important crypto stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday at 12 p.m. PT, subscribe here.
Welcome back to Chain Reaction.
It was a big week in the crypto world as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission clamped down on major crypto companies like Coinbase and Tron — more on that below — and Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs, has reportedly been arrested in Montenegro, according to a local government official.
On Thursday morning, Filip Adzic, the minister of interior of Montenegro, tweeted in Bosnian that Kwon was arrested at the airport in Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro, with falsified documents.
Kwon has been under investigation for the past 11 months since the Terra/LUNA collapse, which wiped out about $40 billion from the cryptocurrency market.
In mid-September, Kwon tweeted, “I am not ‘on the run’ or anything similar – for any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we don’t have anything to hide.”
While Kwon declined claims he wasn’t hiding from authorities, prosecutors have refuted those claims.
In late September, his whereabouts were unknown and Interpol issued a red notice requesting law enforcement agencies worldwide search for and arrest him. Shortly after, the South Korean government ordered Kwon to surrender his passport or risk it getting revoked.
Kwon has said that charges leveled against him by the South Korean prosecutors are not legitimate and are politically motivated, TechCrunch previously reported.
Fast-forward to February, prosecutors in South Korea traveled to Serbia, suspecting that was where Kwon was staying. In mid-February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Terraform Labs and Kwon with defrauding U.S. investors who purchased its crypto assets, LUNA and the not-so-stable stablecoin, Terra.
Now that Kwon is in shiny silver handcuffs, it’ll be interesting to see what transpires next. TBD.
This week in web3
Coinbase stock drops after SEC Wells notice, a possible prelude to ‘enforcement action’
American crypto giant Coinbase received a Wells notice today from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Per a Coinbase SEC filing regarding the matter, the company writes that the government agency’s staff has “advised the Company that it made a ‘preliminary determination’ to recommend that the SEC file an enforcement action against the Company alleging violations of the federal securities law.”
As TikTok and Coinbase face regulators, some questions are simpler than others (TC+)
We learned last night that the SEC served Coinbase with a Wells notice, a prelude to taking enforcement action against the U.S. crypto giant over potential “violations of the federal securities laws.” The company intends to put up a fight, according to its CEO. But exactly how the SEC thinks Coinbase may be violating the rules will help us determine what course of action makes the most sense. While regulatory action against TikTok feels rather simple, in the case of Coinbase, we’re stuck in the middle of something with far more gray area.
The SEC also took legal action Wednesday against Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, for possible securities violations. The government agency is also suing a handful of celebrities and influencers, including Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Austin Mahone, Michelle Mason, Lil Yachty, Ne-Yo and Akon. All the celebrities aside from Soulja Boy and Mahone have agreed to pay a total of over $400,000 “in disgorgement, interest, and penalties” to settle the charges, without admitting or denying culpability regarding the SEC’s allegations.
Web3 gaming will onboard up to 100M gamers in next 2 years, Polygon and Immutable presidents predict (TC+)
Robbie Ferguson, co-founder and president of web3 gaming company Immutable, and Ryan Wyatt, president of layer-2 chain Polygon Labs, told TechCrunch+ that web3 will add the first 10 million to 100 million gamers within the next year or two. “We’re going to see 40% of the web3 games [ever] built go live over the next 12 to 18 months, which will be a huge amount of attempts or shot-on-goal to have that 100 million players,” Ferguson added. If this prediction becomes true, it would represent a massive wave of adoption that the decentralized gaming industry didn’t have before.
Magic Eden launches Bitcoin marketplace as Ordinal inscriptions continue to grow
Magic Eden, one of the largest cross-chain NFT platforms, launched a Bitcoin marketplace for digital artifacts, the company shared on Tuesday. “We are already a multichain platform and believe that adding Bitcoin will connect us to a deep community of people and a rapidly growing collectibles market thanks to Ordinals,” Zhuoxun Yin, COO and co-founder of Magic Eden, said to TechCrunch. “Adding a Bitcoin marketplace allows us to continue our multichain vision.” Prior to the announcement, Magic Eden supported NFT trading on Solana and Polygon and provided aggregated listings for Ethereum-based NFTs.
The latest pod
Due to technical difficulties, our newest episode with Emin Gün Sirer, founder and CEO of Ava Labs, will be released on Friday, instead of our usual Thursday timeslot. Be on the lookout for it tomorrow.
Subscribe to Chain Reaction on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the latest episodes, and please leave us a review if you like what you hear!
Follow the money
- Seed Club Ventures emerges from stealth with $25 million fund focused on DAOs
- eToro secures $250 million at a $3.5 billion valuation after scrapping SPAC
- OP3N raises $28 million to build “WhatsApp meets Amazon” for web3
- Crypto exchange Bitget invests $30 million in multichain wallet Bitkeep
- DAO-operated tomi raises $40 million for its “alternative internet”
This list was compiled with information from Messari as well as TechCrunch’s own reporting.
SEC clamps down on Coinbase and Tron, while Do Kwon is arrested overseas by Jacquelyn Melinek originally published on TechCrunch
Metaverse is just VR, admits Meta, as it lobbies against ‘arbitrary’ network fee
Meta, the self-styled “metaverse company” formerly known as Facebook, has taken on a novel role de-hyping the virtual world technology its founder bet the farm on just a few short years ago.
No, it hasn’t announced another pivot — rather it’s been forced to dial down the multicolored metaverse hype as it lobbies against a proposal pushed by European mobile network operators who want regional lawmakers to force major content providers (i.e. tech giants like Meta) to pay them a fee for carrying their data — a double-dip scenario they’ve suggested is required to fund network infrastructure upgrades they claim are needed to make the metaverse happen…
The telcos’ complaints about their (relative) poverty (vs tech giants) is obviously controversial but does appear to have bent ears in Brussels: In February, EU lawmakers announced an exploratory consultation on the future of network funding. And, shortly after that, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, took a turn on stage at an annual telco industry bash — sounding pretty sympathetic to their cause. (Although in remarks to press straight after this he maintained that nothing has been decided yet.)
In a blog post dubbing the telcos’ framing a “false premise”, Meta’s Kevin Salvadori, VP of network and Bruno Cendon Martin, director & head of wireless technologies, don’t mince their words — calling the telcos’ argument “nonsense” and the proposed network fee “arbitrary”.
Telcos lobbying for the proposal have suggested five or six of the biggest content providers should pay — putting Meta in the frame, along with other Internet giants like Netflix and Alphabet.
“We know that some European telecom operators have justified network fee proposals by speculating about capacity constraints caused by metaverse adoption — but this is nonsense,” Salvadori and Martin write. “The development of the metaverse will not require telecom operators to grow capital expenditures for greater network investment.”
They go on to explain this is because “metaverse adoption for the foreseeable future will continue to be driven predominantly through Virtual Reality (VR)” — and that “almost all VR content is currently consumed over fixed networks through Wi-Fi” — an infrastructure they argue is already well established across most of Europe.
“Looking ahead, Europe’s fixed network capacity, with easily upgradeable FTTH/B [fiber-to-the-home/building] deployments, is more than enough to supply demand for the metaverse and other internet services for decades to come,” they add, suggesting there won’t be a significant difference in product experience between being tethered to a headset in VR (something that’s been around for ooooh donkeys years) and being ‘in the metaverse’ for, er, many more donkeys’ years. Oh.
What about AR (augmented reality)? The blog post attempts a bit of a ‘reverse ferret’ on this, to reclaim a sprinkling of metaverse hype, with the Metamates writing: “The immersive worlds we can discover in VR are just one possible way to experience the metaverse. Augmented Reality (AR) devices, which overlay digital content onto the real world in a small form factor, will be another important part of the metaverse in the future.”
However they just as quickly pour more cold water on the notion of there being any meaningful mobile (AR) metaverse action on the horizon. So — tl;dr — you can shelve the idea of free-floating in any (queasily colored) Meta mobile metaverse/s that blend immersive virtual worlds with the physicality of being out and about for real. (Although, to be fair, that sounds like it would be an unpleasant and confusing nightmare — and moreover, notably, the blog post goes on to suggest even the AR metaverse is going to be fairly static, likely tethered to home/other wi-fi most of the time too. But, well, we’re sure the porn industry will invent some novel use-cases for that for the true ‘blended reality’ believers.)
“As we set out in December, our vision for the creation of true AR glasses will require years of progress to make our devices slimmer, lighter, faster, and more powerful, all while consuming less battery power and generating less heat. Devices will need to understand both the world and user expressions to effectively overlay pixels on top of reality to offer a truly transformative experience,” they warn.
“Our engineers are some of the best in the world, and they continue to be at the vanguard of bringing our AR vision to life. It is one of the most ambitious R&D efforts in the world today, focused on building a truly revolutionary new kind of computing platform. However, to overcome the challenges set out above, it will take years before AR devices become ubiquitous.”
That’s “years”, twice — straight from the Metamates’ mouth.
So metaverse lovers, better not wait around for this one. Get yourself over to Horizon Worlds right now — for a true taste of those metaverse decades to come.
Metaverse is just VR, admits Meta, as it lobbies against ‘arbitrary’ network fee by Natasha Lomas originally published on TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/23/meta-metaverse-network-fee-nonsense/