Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch
Ashton Kutcher shared his thoughts on electric scooters.
Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch
Ashton Kutcher shared his thoughts on electric scooters.
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.
1. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was grilled by Congress for claims of anti-conservative bias he says just aren't true. The Republicans have repeatedly pushed claims that big tech firms are biased against conservatives.
2. Jeff Bezos complains to his staff if he goes a week without a brainstorming session, and is always working "two or three years into the future." In a new Forbes profile, Bezos discussed his management style, and explained how he and his leadership prefer to focus on the long-term goals at Amazon.
3. Elon Musk is said to have hired a lawyer who used to work for the SEC as the agency reportedly investigates his "funding secured" tweet. Musk has hired two lawyers, Roel Campos and Steven Farina, as the Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly investigates statements Musk made about converting Tesla into a private company, Fox Business Network reports.
4. Jeff Sessions is summoning state attorney generals to discuss whether tech companies are "intentionally stifling" free speech. The US Justice Department said in a statement that it would convene a meeting to discuss whether social media platforms are purposefully stifling free speech and obstructing competition.
5. A congressman shut down a far-right protester during Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's testimony by speaking like an auctioneer. Missouri congressman Billy Long, who was an auctioneer in Missouri for more than 30 years, began speaking like an auctioneer to drown the protester out as she was escorted from the room.
6. Jack Dorsey shared a look at his spiking heart rate while he was getting grilled by Congress. The 41-year-old CEO, who fasts every day, has an impressively low resting heart rate.
7. NASA's longest-lived robot on Mars may be dying due to a global dust storm that has been raging on the planet since June. If the robot can't get enough sunlight, its batteries may lack the electricity to power heaters, and the blistering cold on Mars can snap electronic circuits.
8. Actor-turned-investor Ashton Kutcher thinks it's "absurd" if anyone has a problem with the scooters that were littering San Francisco's sidewalks. Electric scooter companies like Lime, Bird, and Spin faced regulatory issues after introducing their pay-as-you-go scooter services to the streets of San Francisco earlier this year.
9. Apple's largest new iPhone could have the weirdest name yet. Apple is expected to launch a trio of new iPhone models next week, and the biggest and most expensive one could be called "iPhone Xs Max," according to a report.
10. More than one in four Americans have deleted the Facebook app in the past year, according to a new survey. A new study from Pew taken shortly after the Cambridge Analytica scandal found that 26% of Americans had deleted the Facebook app from their phone in the last year.
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