BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti. Getty Images/Michael Kovac

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti admits the company "invested more than we should have earlier than we should have" in the UK. The NBCUniversal-backed firm made 39 British staff redundant in January, 23 of whom worked in the newsroom. A further 60 lost their jobs in the US. The job cuts were quick and clean, as staff left with what a source described as "extremely generous" redundancy packages. The upheaval is not over, however, and Business Insider understands that the company is looking to vacate its swanky London offices because they are too expensive. Despite the difficulties, BuzzFeed's reporting has still set the agenda in January.

Late last week, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti admitted that his company overreached in its mission to figure out the future of journalism in the UK. To an extent, he was acknowledging the obvious.

BuzzFeed UK had just laid off 39 of its 140 employees when he told the Columbia Journalism Review that "we invested more than we should have earlier than we should have" during a "tough business climate" in Britain.

Sources in the company speaking to Business Insider fleshed out the situation, describing a bleak process which saw almost a third of the company shown the door in a few weeks.

Peretti's admission comes against a backdrop of missed revenue targets last year — BuzzFeed fell 15-20% short of its $350 million (£247 million) goal — and declining traffic.

ComScore figures show BuzzFeed UK hovering at just over 10 million unique users towards the end of 2017, down 20% since January 2015 (see chart below). BuzzFeed does, however, consider itself a multiplatform publisher and its website traffic is not its only measure of success.

Comscore

Business Insider has spoken to a number of BuzzFeed UK insiders coming to terms with the unexpected severity of the cuts after Editor-in-Chief Janine Gibson once said there's a "genuine sense that we might just be figuring out the future of journalism over here."

The redundancies were part of a global cull of 100 jobs, and the full scale of the impact on the UK was made clear in early December. US Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith originally said around 20 people would be affected in Britain, but this figure was revised up to 40 when the London newsroom was brought up to speed a week later. The Christmas party was also swiftly cancelled. Insiders were floored by the news.

Thirty-nine of 140 UK staff left, 23 of whom worked in the newsroom. Business Insider compiled this list of those willing to go public with their departure. By the middle of January, there was a flurry of "last day at BuzzFeed" tweets, as journalists publicly said their farewells.

In most cases, it was quick and clean (although not as brusque as in the US where staff were shown the door on the same day as the cuts were announced). BuzzFeed dished out "extremely generous" redundancy packages, according to one source, in exchange for silence from those involved with non-disclosure agreements. This kind of arrangement is not unusual in Britain if golden goodbyes exceed statutory requirements.

BuzzFeed UK Editor-in-Chief Janine Gibson. BuzzFeed

BuzzFeed targeted some obvious areas. Gone are its full-time staff in Scotland, while the website’s British science desk has been shut down. A layer of what an insider called "ceremonial" management was also stripped out, with founding editor-in-chief and Head of European Growth, Luke Lewis, the highest-profile departure.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) was on hand to assist members (there were around 44 at the company prior to the cuts) with legal advice, but said the redundancy programme was "brutal," and carried out without "any meaningful consultation."

Staff are still fighting for union recognition at BuzzFeed UK and the case is currently with the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), which will help define the terms of a group bargaining unit.

Two of the most prominent voices in the campaign for union recognition, Science Editor Kelly Oakes and news journalist Francis Whittaker, were made redundant this month.

They publicly disagreed with BuzzFeed's vision for union recognition, openly questioning management's characterisation of the way staff are organised and rewarded. You can read a summary their testimony here. Oakes and Whittaker declined to comment.

A BuzzFeed UK spokeswoman made clear that the redundancy programme was not linked to the ongoing wrangle over unionisation. She said: "BuzzFeed UK's restructure was driven by internal business needs. The timing of the restructure was unrelated to the CAC proceedings, which have been going on for more than a year. The restructure was part of a global company change."

Outside BuzzFeed's UK office. Google Street View

One insider reflected that it was "weird and ridiculous" to wave goodbye to so many colleagues.  "I am just gutted. So many talented people — couldn’t be prouder of the work we do," they said. It was a sentiment shared by others. Head of Celebrity and Entertainment Kimberley Dadds tweeted:

And the upheaval is not yet over. BuzzFeed UK will likely have to move out of its swanky central London offices, located practically next door to Oxford Circus station. Some insiders said the lease has become too expensive, but others pointed out that the space simply doesn't make sense with a smaller team.

There is also speculation over more job cuts in the future. "That should be the end of that, at least until some sort of round two," said one source. 

Some remaining staff were keen to move on from the narrative of cuts. It is noticeable that the majority of its highest-profile journalists remain in place. The London investigations team, for example, was kept intact under former Sunday Times journalist Heidi Blake. Politics was also left largely untouched.

The impact of its reporting has remained high in January too. Notably, BuzzFeed first reported TV news presenter Carrie Gracie's bombshell letter about the BBC's "secretive and illegal pay culture," which has reinvigorated the controversy around the gender pay gap at the British broadcaster.

BuzzFeed's Jim Waterson and Emily Ashton during the website's EU referendum debate last year. Getty

And if evidence were needed that BuzzFeed is now a firm part of the British media illuminati, then it came only this week. Senior Political Correspondent Emily Ashton was elected chair of the parliamentary lobby, a prestigious position, which means she poses and fields daily press questions to Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman.

As Political Editor Jim Waterson noted, only four years ago, BuzzFeed was refused a lobby pass "because the parliamentary authorities didn't think it was worth having us in there."

And as Peretti pointed out to the Columbia Journalism Review, BuzzFeed is still a growth story. "We had another year of growth in 2017, but we’re always trying to grow more and faster. I would say we had a good year but not a great year," he said.

Original author: Jake Kanter

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Stephen Lam/Reuters

Facebook and Google face bigger regulatory risks than Amazon, according to David Eiswert, the portfolio manager of T. Rowe Price's Global Stock Fund. Top lawyers from Facebook, Twitter, and Google appeared in Congress in November to answer questions about Russia's meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Facebook's advertising platform is "like a wide-open Wild West," Eiswert said.

The largest online platforms have come under intense scrutiny about how their sites were used and abused before the 2016 US presidential election.

But even though investors have coined a convenient acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google — FAANG — they're by no means lumping their risks together.

"The giants that I am more concerned about than Amazon are Facebook and Google," said David Eiswert, the portfolio manager of the $950 million Global Stock Fund at T. Rowe Price, which manages $991 billion.

"Apple and Amazon don't monetize through selling private data," he said. "Apple sells iPhones; Amazon delivers customer service."

In November, top lawyers from Facebook, Twitter, and Google appeared before the congressional intelligence committees to answer questions about Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election. Facebook, for example, had found evidence that fake accounts, most likely run from Russia, bought thousands of ads during the presidential campaign.

So it's no surprise that these are the companies directly in the crosshairs of regulators.

"You've created these platforms, and now they are being misused," Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said at the November hearing. "And you have to be the ones to do something about it, or we will."

In October, senators introduced a bill to require online platforms with at least 50 million monthly viewers to keep a public log of ads bought by individuals or groups that spend more than $500 over one year.

"I think Facebook's EBIT" — earnings before interest and taxes — "margins are too high, and those returns represent a company that is just like a wide-open Wild West: Anybody can come on there and through an automated platform, buy ads, and target whatever they want and spew whatever evil stuff they want to do," Eiswert said.

Critics are asking why free services like Facebook and Google can't be regulated like radio or broadcast TV, Eiswert said.

Amazon, which Eiswert describes as a stock every long-term investor should own, is not completely off the hook. Its most prominent critic is none other than President Donald Trump, who has said the company is "doing great damage" to other retailers and making the US Postal Service "dumber and poorer."

But Eiswert sees Trump's regulatory influence over Amazon as limited.

Another trait that distinguishes Amazon from the other tech giants, Eiswert said, is that it is constantly investing to grow its business.

"We think there's potential over the long term to have much higher returns because their dominance increases as they grow," he said.

Get the latest Google stock price here.

Original author: Akin Oyedele

Original author: Dominic Umbro

Original author: Avery Hartmans

AMC Networks

The "Blue Planet II" production team's submersible sprung a leak when they were almost 1,500 feet deep in Antarctic waters. Fortunately, they were able to discover the cause and to conduct repairs underwater. Pushing the envelope is necessary to discover something new and show unseen parts of the world, according to one of the show's producers, but they managed to do that without anyone getting hurt.

Water started to pool on the submersible floor almost 1,500 feet deep into the first dive the "Blue Planet II" production team took in Antarctic waters.

A quick taste revealed it was salty, leaking in from the frigid seas outside.

"That wasn't on the schedule for that day," Orla Doherty, producer of the episode examining life in "the deep," told Business Insider.

As Doherty said in a behind-the-scenes featurette from the episode, it's a bit concerning to discover that half an hour into a dive — when it takes 30 minutes to get back to the surface — that there's water coming in.

Fortunately, within 20 minutes, the sub's pilot was able to trace the problem to a faulty pressure gauge, which allowed them to repair the leak and resume their examination of the underwater world.

AMC Networks

"The way I see it is that I thought it was our duty to put ourselves in extraordinary situations because we wanted to show the extraordinary and you can't do that from your desk in the UK, you've got to get out there and go to these places," said Doherty.

And show the extraordinary they did. The team dove deeper than anyone else ever had in those waters, and revealed that the freezing seas below the most remote and extreme environment on the planet teem with life.

"To film in Antarctica, to really try and do something that humans haven't done before, there's going to be risks," said Doherty.

But it's not risk for the sake of risk, she said.

"Never think that we're just saying, 'oh let's get out there and do something wild.'"

In spending 6,000 hours underwater over four years, traveling to 39 countries to mount 125 expeditions,  and covering every ocean in the world, there were no serious injuries, according to Doherty.

"We're not out there to push the envelope just for the sake of it, we're out there to do it to tell a new story, but as importantly, to do it with safety as the number one priority," she said.

"Blue Planet II" airs at 9 pm ET on Saturdays on BBC America.

Original author: Kevin Loria

Melia Robinson/Business Insider

The San Francisco Shipyard, a mixed-use development rising on the site of a former nuclear testing facility, is in limbo amid new allegations. The Navy has found evidence that a government contractor hired to clean radioactive contamination from the area botched the cleanup. Almost half of the cleanup work was later showed to be falsified or "suspect." Workers swapped soil samples from contaminated sites with clean ones.

 

A sprawling middle-class neighborhood is rising on the site of a former nuclear testing facility in San Francisco. But its future is uncertain amid new allegations of a botched cleanup.

The US Navy has learned that Tetra Tech, a government contractor tasked with the cleanup of radioactive contamination at the retired San Francisco Naval Shipyard, faked more soil tests than previously thought, in order to expedite the city's largest redevelopment project. Workers swapped samples from areas known to be highly contaminated with dirt from clean areas.

According to investigations by Curbed SF and NBC Bay Area, almost half of the toxic waste-site cleanup was "suspect" or has "evidence of potential data manipulation or falsification."

These findings could cause the project to be delayed many years. The Navy is expected to release the results of its investigation into Tetra Tech in a public meeting on January 31.

This long-forgotten patch of the San Francisco waterfront holds promise for the city's strained housing market. The plan is to transform the retired shipyard into a bustling live-work community with 12,000 new homes and about five million square feet of office and commercial space. The project is being developed by Five Point, a spinoff of mega-developer Lennar.

The project has a price tag to match its hefty ambitions: $8 billion. That's on top of the $1 billion or more in taxpayer money that has been spent on the cleanup since the 1990s.

Melia Robinson/Business Insider

Hunters Point was a private commercial shipyard from 1869 until the start of World War II, when the Navy bought the property. The military repaired ships and submarines there. From 1948 to 1969, the shipyard hosted a then-secret laboratory that ran tests on ships exposed to nuclear weapons, as well as research on the effects of radiation on living organisms.

Military equipment and ships contaminated by atomic bomb explosions were left at Hunters Point, and toxic substances including petroleum fuels, pesticides, and heavy metals seeped into and polluted the soil at Hunters Point, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in 2015.

After the shipyard closed, it was declared a "superfund" site — a toxic-waste site where the United States Environmental Protection Agency can force parties responsible for the contamination to either perform cleanups or reimburse the government to do the work.

That burden fell on the Navy. It outsourced the work of decontamination and soil-testing to Tetra Tech. But several investigations into the nature of those efforts have led to scandals.

Melia Robinson/Business Insider

The City of San Francisco selected Lennar as the master developer of the shipyard in 1999. A year later, an investigation by SF Weekly found that the Navy mishandled the radioactive waste it produced there. It reportedly dumped huge amounts of contaminated sand into the San Francisco Bay and sprinkled radioactive material around the base to practice cleanup.

In 2017, several former employees of Tetra Tech admitted to faking soil tests. They described a company culture that valued speed over safety and accuracy. The whistleblowers led the federal Environmental Protection Agency to delay transfers of land from the Navy to the new master developer, Five Point.

The latest revelations suggest the cleanup was more questionable than previously thought.

Last fall, the Navy hired third-party contractors to conduct a review of Tetra Tech's data. A series of draft reports that those contractors presented to the Navy (and which Curbed SF reviewed via a public records request) showed that 853 "units" of land at the shipyard were tested. Of them, 414 were identified as falsified or suspect, representing 48% of total units.

The reports, which have not been publicly released, recommend retesting those 414 units.

Melia Robinson/Business Insider

Greenaction, a local non-profit fighting for health and environmental justice, has filed a petitionwith the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to strip Tetra Tech of its license to perform radiological cleanup. Tetra Tech received a $85 million contract from the EPA in October to assess the abandoned uranium mines in the Navajo Nation across the American southwest.

It's unclear what impact the new allegations leveled against Tetra Tech might have.

Construction on the mixed-use development at the (rebranded) San Francisco Shipyard began long ago. Five Point has sold about 300 townhouses and condominiums and plans to build 11,000 more units. A recent quarterly report from Five Point said it expects the Navy to deliver the last 408 acres it owns in phases between 2019 and 2022, instead of starting this year.

Five Point declined to comment on the draft reports and referred Business Insider to the Navy.

The Navy has said that residents who already live at the San Francisco Shipyard are "100 percent safe." The existing housing is located on land that was used for military housing and non-industrial activities, SF Curbed reported and a spokesperson with Five Point confirmed.

Bradley Angel, executive director of watchdog-group Greenaction, told Business Insider that he thinks prospective buyers will think twice before settling down at the shipyard.

"If I was living there, I would definitely be asking some questions," Angel said.

Original author: Melia Robinson

Original author: Hilary Brueck

The European competition commission has fined Qualcomm almost $1 billion for paying Apple to use its chips exclusively in the iPhone and iPad.The deal was struck in 2011 until the end of 2016, and meant Apple would need to repay Qualcomm if it decided to use a rival's chipsets.The commission found the deal blocked Qualcomm's competitors from doing business with Apple and stifled innovation.

The European Union has slapped a €997 million (£873 million, $1.2 billion) fine on Qualcomm for paying Apple to use its chips exclusively in the iPhone and the iPad.

The EU's competition watchdog ruled that the chipmaker had taken advantage of and then cemented its dominant position when it agreed to pay Apple from 2011 to use its chips exclusively.

Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said: "Qualcomm illegally shut out rivals from the market for LTE baseband chipsets for over five years, thereby cementing its market dominance.

"Qualcomm paid billions of US dollars to a key customer, Apple, so that it would not buy from rivals. These payments were not just reductions in price — they were made on the condition that Apple would exclusively use Qualcomm's baseband chipsets in all its iPhones and iPads."

The agreement meant that no challenger could take on Qualcomm, hurting innovation in the chip sector. It also meant Apple would have to repay all of Qualcomm's money if it decided to give its business to a rival.

The investigation found that Apple had considered switching to Intel, a major competitor, but decided not to in part because of its exclusivity agreement.

Qualcomm's fine represents 4% of its turnover in 2017. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The EU is separately investigating Qualcomm for undercutting rivals in the broadband chipset market by selling its chips below cost. That investigation is still ongoing.

Original author: Shona Ghosh

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Original author: James Cook

10 things in tech you need to know today, January 24 - Business Insider

Original author: James Cook

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Andy Bryant, COO of BitFlyer Europe. BitFlyer

BitFlyer has trading volumes of $150 billion in November and December of last year, European COO said. Japanese exchange now averaging $50 billion in monthly trade. Disclosures came as BitFlyer announced its European launch.

LONDON — Japan's largest bitcoin exchange saw trading volumes of $150 billion in the last two months last year, according to the company's European head, more than doubling the company's expected annual volume.

BitFlyer's European COO Andy Byrant told Business Insider: "When we launched in the US we were telling people our trading volume data. At that time, just between January and November, we were quoting year to date volumes of $100 billion. Full-year was $250 billion. December was certainly an interesting month."

The exchange charges fees between 0.01% and 0.15% per transaction in Japan, where it offers leverage of up to 15x, allowing traders to boost their profits or losses.

BitFlyer is launching in the UK and Europe, offering free trading until the end of February but no leverage. 

Bitcoin's price rocketed from around $5,000 to a peak of over $19,000 in December amid an explosion of interest in cryptocurrencies. It has since fallen back to around $10,000.

"Of course [volumes] are up and down, you have to even them out," Bryant said. "It seemed like December was a big month in terms of awareness. Now we're clocking $50 billion a month so it's certainly a higher pace than it was this time a year ago."

Recode reported on Monday that US cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase had revenue of $1 billion last year as it rode a wave of interest in cryptocurrency.

Asked about BitFlyer's revenues, Bryant said: "I can't really comment on our financials because we're a private company. Suffice to say, on trading volume, $250 billion just last year is a huge number and we will continue to build on that strength."

Bryant was talking to Business Insider at London Blockchain Week on Tuesday, where BitFlyer was announcing the launch of its European operation. BitFlyer has obtained a license to operate a bitcoin-to-euro exchange in Luxembourg and is targeting institutional and high-volume clients looking to trade bitcoin.

"It could be funds, it could be day traders, anyone who's trading multiple times a day or multiple times an hour even," Bryant said.

BitFlyer was founded in Japan by former Goldman Sachs banker Yuzo Kano in 2014. The company claims to process around 25% of all global bitcoin trading volumes, according to Coinhills, thanks to strong interest in the cryptocurrency from Japanese investors. Coinhills ranks BitFlyer the biggest bitcoin exchange in the world by volume. Rival data provider CoinMarketCap.com ranks the exchange as the 6th biggest.

"It's always been our goal to be a global company and right now we're the world's biggest bitcoin exchange by volume," Bryant said. "Based on our strengths in Japan and our track record, it was an obvious next step to expand internationally."

BitFlyer now operates in Japan, the US, and Europe. It is licensed in all three markets.

Get the latest Bitcoin price here.>>

Original author: Oscar Williams-Grut

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BTCC founder and CEO Bobby Lee. Matteo Giachetti Photography

China banned bitcoin exchanges at the end of 2017. BTCC was one of the largest operators in the country and CEO said it had "a huge effect on revenues." BTCC has now pivoted to bitcoin mining and a mobile wallet product.

LONDON — The CEO of one of China's biggest bitcoin companies says Beijing's decision to crackdown on bitcoin trading in the country lost his businesses tens of millions in revenue.

Founded in 2011, BTCC was the world's oldest bitcoin exchange until it shuttered its exchange in September last year under pressure from Chinese authorities.

BTCC founder and CEO Bobby Lee told Business Insider: "We always knew it was a risk that the Chinese government would look unfavourably on bitcoin and put some strong rules around it.

"We were always running it with a sense of uncertainty, we were operating in a grey area. Finally last year, 2017, they made a final decision, which was to essentially shut down all exchanges. It was unfortunate but it was in the realm of our worst possibility."

Asked about the financial impact, Lee said it cut off revenues in the tens of millions more or less overnight. China was one of the world's most active bitcoin markets until the government crackdown. 

"It has a huge effect on revenues so as a company we have to pivot," Lee said. "We’re doing the mining pool and we’re also doing the Mobi wallet."

The Mobi wallet is a digital wallet that lets people send crypto and fiat currencies to each other worldwide. Lee said the app has had over 100,000 downloads across over 180 countries.

BTCC's headcount has declined since the government crackdown but Lee wouldn't be drawn on specific numbers. The company currently employs around 100 people in Shanghai.

Lee also hinted the company may move some operations out of China, saying "come back in a few months or a few weeks" when asked.

Lee said BTCC is interested in raising money, saying: "We’re constantly working with investors on how to upgrade our company to the next level."

Asked how much he was looking to raise, he said: "That’s not something I talk about in the press."

Lee, who is the brother of litecoin creator Charlie Lee, was talking to Business Insider at London Blockchain Week.

Original author: Oscar Williams-Grut

Original author: Rachel Gillett and Áine Cain

Little more than five years ago, Netflix looked like a train wreck. The company had announced then quickly aborted a widely ridiculed effort to set up its profitable DVD business as a separate operation and rename it Qwikster. Customers were incensed by a big price hike. And investors were none too happy about the company's overseas expansion efforts, which were weighing on its profits.

Boy, how things have changed. Netflix dominates the streaming media market and its DVD business is an afterthought. Its stock price has doubled in the last 13 months. And, as this chart from Statista shows, its profit is now more than double what it was in the good old days before the Qwikster debacle. Of course, it's still borrowing billions of dollars to keep its library of videos well stocked and it faces a potentially dangerous threat in the form of an upcoming streaming service from Disney, but those seems like minor quibbles when everything else is going so well.

Samantha Lee/Business Insider

Original author: Troy Wolverton

Facebook is asking its users to decide how trustworthy news outlets are — and its survey is only two questions long.The social network has been repeatedly criticised over the spread of misinformation and hoaxes.Facebook argues it will look at how news sources are viewed across different demographics — but it's not clear if "trustworthiness" is the best way to rank them.

We've got our first look at the survey Facebook is going to use to assess how trustworthy news outlets are — and it's only two questions long.

After months of criticism over its role in the spread of misinformation and fake news, Facebook is making sweeping changes to its News Feed. The social network announced last week that rather than judging the reliability of news sources itself, it is going to ask users to assess their trustworthiness for themselves via surveys and then promote or demote the websites in the News Feed algorithm accordingly. 

BuzzFeed News has now got its hands on the survey — and on the face of it, there's not much to it.

First, it asks: "Do you recognize the following websites," and gives only two options in response: "yes" or "no."

It then follows up with "How much do you trust each of these domains?" The possible answers are "entirely," "a lot," "somewhat," "barely," and "not at all."

The brevity of the survey has attracted the ire of some critics and journalists. "Trust in news is much more-complicated," tweeted Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier. "How well-sourced is the article? Are other sites verifying it? Is it news or analysis?"

Guardian audience editor Dave Earley chimed in: "Come on. This is a joke, right?"

Facebook argues that it will only rank publications higher or lower if people across different groups and demographics agree on how trustworthy a given news source is — and users can't opt in to do the survey if they haven't been selected, so bad actors can't group up together to skew the results one way or the other. 

On Twitter, Facebook's News Feed boss Adam Mosseri defended the change, writing that "how we incorporate survey data is every bit as important as the specific questions we ask."

He added Facebook will also be tracking what people read and using that to affect how people's responses are weighted. "The other important thing to understand is this isn’t a simple vote. We are not just valuing more publishers that a lot of people trust, but rather valuing more publishers that a lot of different types of people (based on reading habits) trust," he wrote.

(Mosseri also admitted Facebook explained the trustworthiness change badly when it was announced, saying: "We should have done a better job explaining this one, we were trying to balance clarity and detail and didn't quite get the balance right. But that's also why we're here and on Facebook answering questions.")

But weighting based on users' reading habits can't account for reading behaviour that takes place outside of the Facebook ecosystem. For example, the binary option for the first question doesn't differentiate between someone who's subscribed to the print edition of The Guardian for 40 years, and a fringe conspiracy theorist who only has the vaguest conception of what The Guardian publishes.

And by treating publications as monolithic entities, to be considered trustworthy or not in their entirety, it means that those that publish a mix of news and non-news content could be penalised.

Take BuzzFeed. The media organisation publishes everything from deeply reported investigations on targeted Russian assassinations on British soil to quizzes about "What Do You Love Based On Your Zodiac Sign?" One of these is a trustworthy, researched news story. The other one is clearly just for fun — but could contribute to a negative overall perception of the website's trustworthiness.

Regardless of the exact phrasing of the survey, there are arguably broader concerns about this approach: Is asking users for their views on trustworthiness really the best way to stamp out misinformation?

In a blog post published last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company wasn't "comfortable" assessing the trustworthiness of news outlets itself, and that asking outside experts wouldn't be "objective." So, he wrote, "we decided that having the community determine which sources are broadly trusted would be most objective."

In other words, Facebook is making a big bet on the wisdom of the crowd. Sometimes, that pays off. But sometimes, the wisdom of the crowd is dead wrong.

Original author: Rob Price

Original author: Daniel Brown

Shutterstock

Researchers have looked at more than a dozen studies on marijuana's effect on the heart, and their takeaway is far from conclusive. That finding contradicts a study published in August that claimed marijuana users faced a threefold higher risk of dying from hypertension than nonusers. The August study had some major limitations, including that it defined users as anyone who'd ever tried the drug.

A study published in August claimed that marijuana users faced a threefold higher risk of dying from hypertension than those who had never used the drug.

The findings sounded alarming. But like any study, this one had key limitations, including the fact that it defined cannabis "users" as anyone who'd ever tried the drug. More importantly, however, it highlighted an important gap in our current understanding of the science of cannabis: How does the drug affect the heart?

A new paper highlights how clouded this picture currently is. Scientists simply don't know the overall impact of cannabis on cardiovascular health.

For the new study, researchers in California, Pennsylvania, and New York looked at dozens of studies on marijuana and the heart. Those studies examined links between cannabis and health problems that put people at a higher risk of developing a heart condition — like high cholesterol or high blood pressure — as well as links between cannabis and actual heart conditions, such as heart disease. 

But they found that all of the past studies were plagued by problems. Some were too small, others were too short-term, and others failed to study the right groups of people, such as those who would be the most at-risk for these conditions.

So the researchers came to a depressing conclusion: "Evidence examining the effect of marijuana on cardiovascular risk factors and outcomes ... is insufficient," they wrote.

That jibes with previous research on marijuana and the heart.

What we know about marijuana and heart health

Blair Gable/Reuters

There's plenty of reason to be concerned about how marijuana impacts our health. Yet in many areas, we simply lack enough comprehensive research to draw any conclusions.

Scientists know that using marijuana increases your heart rate by between 20 and 50 beats a minute for anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours. That sounds like it could be enough to impact heart function, but again, we need more research.

A large, recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found "insufficient evidence" to support or refute the idea that cannabis might increase the overall risk of a heart attack, though it also found some limited evidence that using the drug could be a trigger for the phenomenon.

Another study, albeit a very small one, found an increase in blood pressure — but only when regular pot users stopped using the drug, not before. That aligns with research from the Mayo Clinic, which suggests that using cannabis could result in decreased, not increased blood pressure.

With this in mind, Francesca Filbey, director of cognitive neuroscience research of addictive disorders at the Center for Brain Health, told Business Insider in August that future studies should assess a wider range of factors linked with cannabis use and heart health. That could include weight, BMI, and the use of other substances.

How one study came to such a stark conclusion

Given the limits of our knowledge about marijuana and heart health, how did one study come to such stark conclusions about the drug and our hearts? As it turns out, multiple factors muddled the picture, including the authors' decision to define "regular" marijuana users as anyone who'd ever tried weed.

iStock

For their study, the researchers looked at more than 1,200 people age 20 or older who had been recruited previously as part of a large and ongoing national health survey. One question on that survey was whether an individual had ever used marijuana. People who answered "yes" were classified as marijuana users; those who answered "no" were classified as nonusers. Researchers took that data and merged it with statistics on death from all causes pulled from the US National Center for Health Statistics.

A statistical analysis suggested that the people deemed marijuana users were 3.42 times as likely to die from hypertension, or high blood pressure, than those who said they had never used. That risk also appeared to rise by a factor of 1.04 with what the researchers labeled "each year of use."

That's a pretty stark finding. But in reality, more than half of Americans have tried cannabis, which would classify all of them as users in this study. Just a fraction of those people use it regularly, according to recent surveys.

In addition, the study was observational, meaning it followed a group of people over time as opposed to assigning specific groups to try specific interventions. That type of study cannot be used to conclude that there's a cause-and-effect relationship between two things, which the authors acknowledged in their paper.

Original author: Erin Brodwin

Original author: Fionna Agomuoh

On Tuesday, Anthony Noto, the man running Twitter under part-time CEO Jack Dorsey, resigned to take a CEO role at a fintech startup.Noto was credited for creating Twitter's growth strategy in video and was the person who knew Twitter more intimately than anyone.This can only be seen as a bad sign for the endlessly struggling internet company, says one top internet analyst.

Rumors had been swirling for days that Twitter's COO, Anthony Noto, was talking with fintech startup Social Finance (aka SoFi) to become its next CEO.

And on Tuesday, it happened. Two weeks before Twitter will report its fourth quarter and year-end financials, the news became official. Noto resigned from Twitter effective immediately. He will begin as SoFi's CEO on March 1.

It's a move that makes sense for Noto in many ways. Noto is an ambitious former Goldman Sachs banker who was widely known to be dreaming of a CEO role.

Noto was credited for designing Twitter's most recent strategy to drive growth: its expansion into video. Most insiders thought that he was hoping to become CEO of Twitter, if cofounder Jack Dorsey ever decided to stop being a part-time CEO and focus on his other company, Square. But Dorsey has shown no signs of that and so Noto has taken his final bow at Twitter.

But the news and the timing of it, so close to the release of Twitter's year-end quarter, is not a good sign at all for Twitter, says RBC Capital's Mark Mahaney. Mahaney is one of the gurus of internet stocks, and he's been bearish on Twitter for a while. 

"I don’t see how anyone could interpret this as a good thing for Twitter," Mahaney told Business Insider. "Twitter started out with a managerial hole, with the CEO part time. That gap has deepened."

Noto made it possible for Jack Dorsey to be a part time CEO

Anthony NotoAsa Mathat for Vox MediaAs we previously reported, Noto was the reason that Dorsey could be a part-time CEO in the first place. Noto was notorious for working nearly inhuman hours as well as for being a hard-charging, opinionated executive who was both intimidating and brilliant with all things numbers.

Beyond the management hole, Noto's departure is a red flag for other reasons: it highlights the question of whether Twitter will ever find a path to growth.

There was a glimmer of hope among investors in October after Twitter's third quarter earnings. Twitter sent shares soaring when management said Twitter was on track to turn a profit in the next quarter. This, thanks to the cost-cutting measures under Noto's watchful eye. The stock had been up about 40%, above $24 a share, since that earnings report.

And yet, at the same time, Twitter reported a year-over-year decline in revenues and an admission that it didn't really have as many monthly users as it said it had.  Analysts are projecting it will report yet another decline in revenue for the fourth quarter.

If Twitter was on the verge of rebound, Noto would have known

Noto is liked and respected on the Street, Mahaney says, and Noto had "the single best visibility into the fundamentals."

If Twitter was on the verge of "a big inflection point" that would make the stock jump, Noto would know it. "If he says, 'I’m leaving,' it makes you wonder if you, as an investor, should follow his footsteps," Mahaney says.

We don't know how much money Noto is leaving on the table by resigning from Twitter. But we do know that he was a very highly paid exec, mostly from stock grants. Between 2014 and 2016, Noto was granted about $100 million dollars worth of stock, on a varied vesting schedule, and he had a new set of performance grants in the wings for 2017 through 2019.

In other words, he definitely had a lot of wealth tied to the performance of Twitter's stock.

So, what will Twitter do now?

Without Noto the workhorse running the show, the board will likely face increasing investor pressure to get Dorsey to either come back full time or step aside and let them hire a CEO who will. It was already a constant topic for both Dorsey and Noto.

There's one more possibility for Twitter's future to consider. If Noto's leaving is a harbinger of things to come, and the stock drops low enough, Twitter may become an acquisition target again, Mahaney believes.

Original author: Julie Bort

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Business Insider

Apple released new updates for older versions of its Mac operating system to protect against the Meltdown and Spectre attacks.
The company had previously issued a patch for macOS High Sierra, the most recent version of its Mac operating system, but it put out a new update for High Sierra also.
The updates shouldn't cause the rebooting problems that some PC users experienced after installing similar fixes for Meltdown and Spectre.  

If you've got a Mac running an older version of Apple's computer operating system, you can now download a software patch to protect your device from the Meltdown and Spectre attacks.

Apple on Tuesday issued updates for macOS Sierra and OS X El Capitan, the two versions of its computer operating system that preceded macOS High Sierra, which the company released last fall. Although the company had previously released a fix for High Sierra to protect against Meltdown and Spectre, it also released a new update for that version of macOS on Tuesday to address the vulnerability that can be exploited by both of those attacks.

Intel on Monday warned users not to install its latest patches for Meltdown and Spectre, because those fixes can cause computers to reboot unexpectedly. However, an Apple representative said these latest updates for macOS and OS X don't include Intel's faulty code and shouldn't trigger the reboot problem.

The Spectre and Meltdown attacks are made possible by an underlying vulnerability related to a feature called speculative execution that's been used by nearly every computer chip found in PCs, tablets, and smartphones made over the last 20 years. The attacks, which became public earlier this month, could allow a malicious actor to exploit that vulnerability and get access to the secret data that's on a computer, including passwords. Intel chips, which underly not only most Windows PCs but Apple's Mac computers, are particularly vulnerable to the Meltdown attack.

Florence Fu/Tech Insider

Apple has another patch for Spectre in the works

To protect against those attacks, Mac users running OS X El Capitan should look for version 10.11.6 in the updates section of the App Store app on their computers. Those running macOS Sierra should look for version 10.12.6.  The newly released version of High Sierra is 10.13.3.

With the updates, Apple is protecting against Meltdown and one version of the Spectre attack, the company representative said. The faulty patches issued by Intel address another variation of the Spectre attack, but one that is more of concern to cloud computing service providers, the representative said. Apple computers aren't widely used in cloud providers' data centers; still, the company has a fix for that variant in the works, the representative said.

"Not to minimize the risk. We are still planning to issue a mitigation," the representative said.

Get the latest Intel stock price here.

Original author: Antonio Villas-Boas