Digging into Facebook's ties to a controversial opposition research firm

THE DAILY CRUNCH FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16 2018 By Anthony Ha Facebook attempts to distance itself from a controversial opposition research group, court filings reveal charges against WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and BlackBerry makes its largest acquisition ever. Here's your Daily Crunch for November 16, 2018. 1. [Facebook has other ties to Definers, the GOP-led opposition research group]( Facebook has spent the past couple of days dealing with fallout over a big story in The New York Times outlining the company's apparent efforts to ignore, minimize and distract from its failures to stop the spread of misinformation and protect user privacy. Likely the most damning aspect of that story was Facebook's work with Definers, a controversial Republican opposition research firm. But while [Mark Zuckerberg]( and [Sheryl Sandberg]( have both denied knowledge of Facebook's work with the firm, particularly when it came to a campaign tying the company's opponents to George Soros (the Democratic billionaire who's become a frequent target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories), there are other connections worth noting between the two organizations. 2. [Court filings accidentally reveal charges against Julian Assange]( The information came to light as part of the recently unsealed filing of a seemingly unrelated sex crimes case. How Assange’s name and fate appeared in those court documents is apparently anyone’s guess. Sponsored By: MIT Press [Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About How Smart Machines Think The future is here: Self-driving cars are on the streets, an algorithm gives you TV recommendations, IBM's Watson triumphed on Jeopardy over puny human brains, computer programs can be trained to play Atari games. But how do all these things work?]( [Learn More…]( 3. [BlackBerry is buying Cylance for $1.4 billion to continue its push into cybersecurity]( The acquisition is BlackBerry’s largest ever and is set to close before February 2019. It will see Cylance operate as a separate business unit within BlackBerry’s business. 4. [A leaky database of SMS text messages exposed password resets and two-factor codes]( The exposed server belongs to Voxox (formerly Telcentris), a San Diego, Calif.-based communications company. The server wasn’t protected with a password, allowing anyone who knew where to look to peek in and snoop on a near-real-time stream of text messages. 5. [SpaceX gets FCC approval to add 7,518 more satellites to its Starlink constellation]( SpaceX’s application to add thousands of satellites to its proposed Starlink communications constellation has been approved by the FCC. Kepler, Telesat and LeoSat also got approval for various services. 6. [E3 slouches towards irrelevance again as Sony announces it’s skipping the show]( Sony won’t be alone — Nintendo hasn’t had a proper E3 press conference in years. 7. [Musca is the winner of TechCrunch Battlefield Tokyo 2018]( The startup is promising a solution to the global food crisis, creating high-quality organic fertilizer and animal feed in a manner that’s much quicker than existing methods. Apparently the secret weapon is a breed of housefly that's more resilient and more effective. [Get more stories at techcrunch.com ]( Newest Jobs From CrunchBoard: - [Senior full-stack software engineer - JS + Ruby at Sticker Mule (Anywhere)]( - [Software testing engineer at Sticker Mule (Anywhere)]( - [Portfolio Innovation Program Manager at Conduent (Morrisville, NC, USA)]( - [Senior Scientist - Deep Learning at Conduent (Morrisville, NC, USA)]( - [Software Engineer II, Programming Languages at Conduent (Morrisville, NC, USA)]( [SEE MORE JOBS ON CRUNCHBOARD]( [Post your tech jobs]( and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month [Facebook](  [Twitter](  [Youtube](  [Instagram](  [Flipboard]( [View this email online in your browser]( [Privacy Policy]( | [Terms of Service]( | [Unsubscribe]( © 2018 Oath Tech Network. All rights reserved. 410 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA 94107