Daily Crunch - Facebook faces gov't pressure over encryption

TechCrunch Newsletter [TechCrunch logo]( [The Daily Crunch logo]( Friday, October 04, 2019 • By Anthony Ha Happy Friday Facebook faces government pressure to pull back its end-to-end encryption plans, scooter startup Bird is now valued at $2.5 billion and Instagram launches an app for close friends. Here’s your Daily Crunch for October 4, 2019. [Facebook is being leaned on by US, UK, Australia to ditch its end-to-end encryption expansion plan]( U.S. Attorney General William Barr, acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel and Australia’s minister for home affairs, Peter Dutton, have co-signed an open letter to Facebook calling on the company to halt its plan to roll out end-to-end encryption across its suite of messaging products. Facebook isn’t the only messaging company using end-to-end encryption, but it’s in governments’ crosshairs on account of a plan to expand its use of e2e crypto. [Read more]( [Facebook is being leaned on by US, UK, Australia to ditch its end-to-end encryption expansion plan image] [Introducing Brex Cash: The ​cash management account ​that earns rewards.]( Sponsored by [BREX]( [Setting up a business operating account for your startup shouldn’t be hard. That’s why we built Brex Cash, the cash account that earns you both returns on your money and rewards points on every wire payment and ACH you make - all with zero transaction fees.]( [Read more]( [Bird raises $275 million Series D round at a $2.5 billion valuation]( The scooter startup’s new round comes a few months after TechCrunch reported Bird was looking to raise a Series D round at a $2.5 billion valuation. [Read more]( [Instagram launches Threads, a Close Friends chat app with auto-status]( What if Instagram could automatically tell your Close Friends you’re home, working, on-the-move or chilling and might want to hang out? That’s the idea behind its new companion app Threads. [Read more]( [Instagram launches Threads, a Close Friends chat app with auto-status image] [Startups ‘are staying private way too long’ says Salesforce founder Marc Benioff]( “What public markets do is indeed the great reckoning,” Benioff said while onstage at Disrupt SF. “But it cleanses [a] company of all of the bad stuff that they have.” [Read more]( [Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside]( HVSD (named after renowned physicist and electrical engineer Oliver Heaviside) is an electric aircraft designed to go anywhere and land anywhere fast and quietly. Sebastian Thrun’s aviation startup has been working on the aircraft for two years. [Read more]( [Kitty Hawk reveals its secret project, Heaviside image] Image Credits: Kitty Hawk/Photo www.krischeng.com [TikTok explains its ban on political advertising]( This isn’t really a new ban, but rather a reiteration of an existing one. The company says it won’t allow ads supporting a candidate, political party or issue, because they don’t fit with the “light-hearted and irreverent feeling” that the app is aiming for. [Read more]( [Google-backed Dunzo raises $45M to expand its hyperlocal delivery startup in India]( An Indian startup that is increasingly posing a threat to established food and grocery delivery businesses, as well as to e-commerce giants, just closed a new financing round. [Read more]( [Read more stories on TechCrunch.com]( Newest Jobs from Crunchboard - [Business Development/Product Manager at Netvirta, Inc. (Boston, MA, USA)]( - [Software Engineer - Full Stack at SugarCRM (Cupertino, CA, USA)]( - [Software Engineer - 2011 at SugarCRM (Cupertino, CA, USA)]( - [Senior UI Software Engineer at SugarCRM (Cupertino, CA, USA)]( - [Senior Software Engineer - Platform at SugarCRM (Cupertino, CA, 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]( © 2019 Verizon Media. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103