The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 How Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire crumbled
It’s becoming abundantly clear that FTX’s collapse was down to deception rather than bad luck. (Vox)
+ US lawmakers are shaken —and want answers. (WP $)
+ A judge in the Bahamas has denied SBF bail. (Reuters)
+ Crypto exchange Binance is trying to reassure its investors. (Bloomberg $)
+ FTX’s Japanese arm has promised its customers they’ll be repaid within weeks. (Rest of World)
2 Twitter may stop paying severance to laid off workers
It’d be the latest extreme cost-cutting measure. (NYT $)
+ Jack Dorsey says he’s the one to blame, but also defended the sale to Elon Musk. (Bloomberg $)
+ Musk is behaving suspiciously like Donald Trump these days. (WP $)
3 Covid is sweeping across China
But there’s no way of knowing the actual scale of the problem. (Economist $)
+ Hospitals in Beijing have been inundated with cases. (Nikkei Asia)
+ The US has added 31 Chinese companies to its official trade blacklist. (Bloomberg $)
4 The US is facing a destructive winter storm
Tornadoes, thunderstorms and blizzards are damaging homes in the south of the country. (ABC News)
+ Stitching together the grid will save lives as extreme weather worsens. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Women’s pain is ignored by doctors
A growing number of studies confirm what women have been saying for a very long time. (WP $)
+ The long journey to bring IVF to Africa. (Slate $)
6 YouTubers are making millions by licensing their old videos
However, many are contractually obliged to keep uploading new ones. (WSJ $)
+ YouTube has introduced a new abusive comment checking tool. (TechCrunch)
7 Indonesia has criminalized criticizing its president online
People who fall foul of the new laws could face years in jail. (Rest of World)
8 DNA phenotyping risks both racial profiling and stigmatization
Despite its obvious pitfalls, it’s still being used across the world. (Undark Magazine)
9 We need new ways to store our endless cat photos
Magnetic tape is still surprisingly efficient—but even that will run out of space one day. (New Scientist $)
10 Fanfiction zines are being given a second life online
They were fandom pioneers, creating something outside of strictly-controlled franchises. (Motherboard)
+ What I learned from studying billions of words of online fan fiction. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“My fear is that we will view Sam Bankman-Fried as just one big snake in a crypto Garden of Eden. The fact is, crypto is a garden of snakes.”
—Representative Brad Sherman tells a US congressional hearing about his grave misgivings about the crypto sector, CoinTelegraph reports.