10 things in tech you need to know today
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.
- Sheryl Sandberg and other Facebook execs investigated if they could ban Donald Trump after Mark Zuckerberg was "appalled" by his call for a Muslim ban. In 2015, Facebook executives investigated whether Trump's call for a ban on Muslim immigration broke the company's rules, according to a blockbuster report from The New York Times.
- Mark Zuckerberg made his executives use Android phones after Tim Cook slammed Facebook's approach to privacy. According to the Times report, Cook's public criticism of the Cambridge Analytica scandal "infuriated" Zuckerberg.
- Facebook reportedly had its Republican-linked PR firm try to blame George Soros for the anti-Facebook movement. The firm sent a research document to reporters that accused Soros of backing the anti-Facebook groups behind the scenes, the Times reports.
- Employee morale at Facebook has plummeted following all the company's scandals, according to an internal company survey. The Wall Street Journal obtained the results of the survey, which showed the percentage of employees who were "optimistic" about the company's future dropped from 84% to 52% in a year.
- Uber lost nearly $1 billion last quarter as the ride-hailing giant's growth slows. Uber reported its third-quarter financials to select media outlets on Wednesday.
- Senator Chuck Schumer intervened on Facebook's behalf this summer, telling a prominent Democratic critic of the company to back off. Schumer reportedly told Senator Mark Warner, one of the company's most prominent congressional critics, to tone down his criticism.
- Google's impressive "Night Sight" camera feature rolled out on Wednesday. The feature comes with its Pixel smartphone and is designed to take better photos in low-light conditions for both the rear and selfie cameras.
- The mayor of Nashville reportedly learned through Twitter that Amazon picked his city as a consolation prize in the HQ2 race. Amazon announced Tuesday it would split its new HQ2 between two locations: New York City and northern Virginia, but also announced plans to build an "Operations Center of Excellence" in Nashville, Tennessee.
- Netflix is testing a mobile-only subscription plan that costs half the price. Netflix is testing the half-priced subscription plan in countries like Malaysia.
- Uber's CEO said he is "anxious" for more details about the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but says Saudi Arabia still deserves a board seat. Uber has taken $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, plus its biggest shareholder is SoftBank, whose Vision Fund is also backed by Saudi Arabia.
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