Bits: Social Media Ugliness Hits Home

Catch up on everything you missed from the world of tech this week. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, November 2, 2018 [For the latest updates, go to nytimes.com/bits »]( Social Media Ugliness Hits Home [A memorial at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. One of the biggest news stories this week was the role technology might have played in the deadly shooting at the synagogue.] A memorial at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. One of the biggest news stories this week was the role technology might have played in the deadly shooting at the synagogue. Hilary Swift for The New York Times Each week, technology reporters and columnists from The New York Times review [the week’s news]( offering analysis and maybe a joke or two about the most important developments in the tech industry. Greetings from sunny San Francisco. I’m Nathaniel Popper, a Times reporter covering financial technology and strange things like Bitcoin and the blockchain. I wrote a [story this week]( about a crazy scheme to build a blockchain-based community in the Nevada desert. But I couldn’t help spending much of the week riveted by the work my colleagues were doing. A few years ago, an Apple product introduction, which was [covered this week]( by Jack Nicas, or the quarterly earnings announcements of the big companies, might have been the thing everyone was talking about. And in more ordinary times, the biggest news in Silicon Valley would have been the fallout from the [article]( that my colleagues Daisuke Wakabayashi and Katie Benner published last week about Google and its handling of sexual harassment. Thousands of Google employees [walked out]( of work on Thursday to protest the company’s policies and decision-making. Earlier in the week, one of the executives named in the Times article, Richard DeVaul, [resigned](. Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, said that his initial response and apology had not been forceful enough. He promised to support and work with internal critics. But all of this happened at a time when Silicon Valley was fixated on the role technology might have played in the deadly synagogue shooting last Saturday, not far from where I grew up in Pittsburgh, and the package bombs that were intercepted last week. In the days after those events, Kevin Roose [looked at how]( Cesar Sayoc Jr., the man who was accused of sending the pipe bombs, had fallen into a maelstrom of right-wing conspiracy theories on Facebook and Twitter. These theories appear to have stoked Mr. Sayoc’s anger toward the people, mostly Democratic politicians, who received the pipe bombs. Kevin [followed that up]( by examining the online postings of Robert Bowers, the man accused in the slaughter in Pittsburgh, who had used the fringe online network Gab to voice his hatred of Jews and immigrants. Kevin also hosted two fascinating episodes of The Daily podcast, where he examined [the rise of anger-stoking websites]( and [Russian propaganda]( aimed at creating discord. The big social networks have, of course, been trying to confront the spread of divisive news and misinformation on their platforms. Facebook’s quarterly financial results, which it [announced on Tuesday]( showed a slowdown in revenue that appears to have been caused, at least in part, by the company’s efforts to rein in bad actors. But a flurry of reports this week underscored how ineffective these measures have been. A [Vice reporter, William Turton, found]( that despite Facebook’s new efforts at advertising transparency, he was able to get approval for ads that he posted in the name of fake political groups and sitting senators. When Twitter unveiled a page dedicated to capturing news on the midterm elections, [BuzzFeed quickly noticed]( that the page was spotlighting disinformation. Even when one social network manages to drive away bad actors, those bad actors are generally able to find other online outlets for their activities. Sheera Frenkel, Mike Isaac and Kate Conger [shined a spotlight]( on how Instagram has become the latest hot spot for anti-Semitic material. A few days after the synagogue shooting, a social network that began as a place to post happy vacation photos was found to be hosting over 11,000 posts with a hashtag that blamed Jews for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Kara Swisher, who has been covering the tech world for decades, wrote a [column]( for The Times this week where she described how the internet, which promised to promote global harmony, has instead become a tool of hate. All in all, it was enough to make at least this reporter long for a time when a new iPad was the thing everything was talking about. Some other tech stories of note this week: ■Nellie Bowles wrote a powerful trio of stories about our troubled relationship with the screens that dominate our lives. Her [first story]( looked at how many people in Silicon Valley do everything in their power to keep their children away from screens. Some parents have gone so far as to [bar the people taking care of their children]( from ever using a phone or other electronic device in front of the kids. Not long ago, people were worried about poor children missing out on the digital revolution. Now, [Nellie reported]( there is more concern that poor children are getting too much of the revolution, in the form of screen time, while wealthier parents keep their children away from addictive digital devices. ■Most Americans have probably not heard of Bytedance, the Chinese company Raymond Zhong [profiled this week](. But the company has risen into an unlikely Goliath of the internet — with a value of around $75 billion — by serving up lots and lots of fluff. In China, the company has a bunch of different applications that allow young users to share everything from news to their latest break-dancing moves. Outside China, the company’s video platform, TikTok, has gained popularity as a place to broadcast short, personal videos. ■Thomas Fuller and Cade Metz [explained]( that scientists are getting better at understanding earthquakes and potentially providing early warnings, thanks to artificial intelligence. Earthquake predictions have been notoriously bad, but some people in the field said their experiments had been helped by the kind of neural networks that are used to program talking digital assistants and driverless cars. Who said we don’t have any good news? Nathaniel Popper writes about financial technology and other unusual things for The New York Times. You can follow him on Twitter here: [@nathanielpopper](. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [bits_newsletter@nytimes.com](mailto:bits_newsletter@nytimes.com?subject=Bits%20Newsletter%20Feedback%20223). ADVERTISEMENT LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. In Case You Missed It [IBM to Buy Red Hat, the Top Linux Distributor, for $34 Billion]( By STEVE LOHR The deal is a big move to bring more software developers under IBM’s wing and hints at a bigger push into cloud computing. [On Gab, an Extremist-Friendly Site, Pittsburgh Shooting Suspect Aired His Hatred in Full]( By KEVIN ROOSE The social media site, a haven for neo-Nazis and other extremists, has lost support from service providers like GoDaddy and PayPal since Saturday’s massacre. [Google Walkout: Employees Stage Protest Over Handling of Sexual Harassment]( By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI, ERIN GRIFFITH, AMIE TSANG AND KATE CONGER Workers in the company’s offices around the world protested how it has handled cases of sexual harassment and misconduct. State of the Art [How Mark Zuckerberg Became Too Big to Fail]( By FARHAD MANJOO Facebook has had a turbulent two years. But almost no one in tech thinks Mr. Zuckerberg, the social network’s chief executive, should step down from the company he built. [Start-Ups Ask, ‘Are We Making Money for Saudi Arabia?’]( By ERIN GRIFFITH Following the money isn’t easy in the opaque world of venture capital. [A Cryptocurrency Millionaire Wants to Build a Utopia in Nevada]( By NATHANIEL POPPER A man spent millions on an enormous plot of land near Reno. Now he wants to build a community based on the blockchain technology introduced by Bitcoin. [Facebook’s Vision for the Future: Less News Feed, More Stories]( By MIKE ISAAC The social network, which reported slowing growth on Tuesday, has plans to reduce its dependence on News Feed. [Apple Raises Prices, and Profits Keep Booming]( By JACK NICAS Apple posted more than $14 billion in profit for the third quarter as customers willingly paid more for iPhones and the company’s other products. Nonfiction [Where Trolls Reigned Free: A New History of Reddit]( By DAVID STREITFELD “We Are the Nerds,” by Christine Lagorio-Chafkin, tells the story of the popular internet platform whose unfettered embrace of free expression has proved controversial. Tech Tip [How to Find the Video Games of Your Youth]( By J. D. BIERSDORFER The classics can take you back in time — and are probably easier to recapture than you think. We’ve got more newsletters! You might like DealBook.  Make sense of the major business and policy headlines — and the power-brokers who shape them. 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