Netflix
Netflix crushed Wall Street's earnings projections in its results on Wednesday.
Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.
- Insiders told Business Insider that a celebrity-centered religious sect deeply influenced how Adam Neumann ran WeWork before its spectacular collapse. As Adam and Rebekah Neumann built WeWork into a $47 billion coworking giant, the couple relied on the teachings of the Kabbalah Centre, a spiritual organization whose high-pressure donation tactics have drained multiple former members' bank accounts, sources told Business Insider.
- Facebook's blockchain boss David Marcus defended the feasibility of Libra after a quarter of its partners dropped out. Speaking to Yahoo Finance, Marcus said Libra was "absolutely not" in jeopardy, adding that the project is "going to get harder before it gets easier."
- Federal prosecutors shut down the 'largest child porn marketplace' on the dark web containing more than 200,000 videos. A 23-year-old South Korean man is facing multiple charges from US prosecutors for allegedly running the "largest dark web child porn marketplace" in the world, NBC News first reported Wednesday.
- Netflix climbed 10% on international and earnings growth, despite missing subscriber targets for the second straight quarter. Wall Street was looking for Netflix to rebuild investor confidence after the company missed its own forecasts for subscriber growth during the prior period.
- A UK competition regulator has launched a formal antitrust probe into Amazon's major investment into British food delivery startup Deliveroo. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) first mooted an investigation in July, after Amazon led a $575 million funding round into Deliveroo, which is a major rival to Uber Eats outside the US.
- Leaked messages show WeWork employees internally discussed the toxic phone booth problem in July - and a pregnant tenant is furious. Earlier this month WeWork said it was removing 1,600 phone booths from locations across the US and Canada after it discovered they had "potentially elevated levels of formaldehyde."
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to give his 'most comprehensive take' on freedom of speech in a livestream on Thursday. Zuckerberg said the speech will focus on why it's important for people to have a voice and the biggest threats to freedom of speech on the internet and around the world.
- SoftBank reportedly plans to offer $5 billion in financing to WeWork without majority control, offering an alternative to JPMorgan's high-interest option. The money will reportedly come from the Japanese investor directly, rather than its Vision Fund, according to Nikkei Asian Review.
- TikTok has hired former US lawmakers to review its content policies after facing backlash and accusations of censorship. The company hired former Rep. Bart Gordon and former Congressman Jeff Denham, of law firm K&L Gates, to "further strengthen our teams, moderation policies, and overall transparency," The Wall Street Journal reported.
- The UK porn block has been scrapped by Boris Johnson's government. The legislation behind the so-called "porn block" was introduced in 2017 as part of the Digital Economy Act and originally supposed to roll out in April 2018, but was subsequently delayed until July 15 of this year.
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