NewsBytes Briefing: GameStop controversy attracts government scrutiny, and more
What's the story
The battle between working class Americans and Wall Street billionaires has garnered bipartisan support from both sides of the US Senate. Cooperating across party lines, US Senators Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrat) and Ted Cruz (Republican) have called for Congress to investigate Robinhood's dastardly act of market manipulation favoring hedge funds interests. Read on to find out how things get even more interesting on this count.
Crony capitalism
Google, Facebook silence working class investors; Cover for fellow billionaires
After successfully using their censorship tactics to eliminate former US President Donald Trump and competitors such as Parler from public discourse, Big Tech has now turned its sights on the WallStreetBets movement. Now that the working class has figured out a way to beat the Wall Street oligarchy at their own game, Facebook and Google have gone ahead and destroyed their communication lines.
They're afraid
Discord makes an about turn; Robinhood explains its market manipulation
However, it's not all bad news for the common man. After nuking the WallStreetBets server under the usual pretext, Discord seems to have had a change of heart. It is not only allowing the intrepid Reddit traders to exist on its platform, but also helping them moderate their server. Meanwhile, Robinhood almost managed to come up with a convincing excuse for its market manipulation.
Broken armistice
Apple goes after Facebook, Google with its pro-privacy PR move
After a brief detente to eliminate immediate threats and the competition, Silicon Valley oligarchs have turned their sights on each other again. In a carefully orchestrated PR move, Apple CEO Tim Cook pontificated about privacy, while also releasing a document aimed at educating people of Facebook and Google's evil data handling policies. And hoping that they don't find the skeletons in its own closet.
This was inevitable
Brace yourselves for boring Silicon Valley lawsuit stories
Trump has been credited as the first US president in a long time to have not started a war. And it looks like his presence also prevented Big Tech from indulging in frivolous litigation. But with the orange man out of the White House, it looks like 2021 is poised to be an extremely fruitful year for corporate lawyers in the US.
Science fiction
Now for some actual technology news
If you found Robinhood's justification for stopping common folk from purchasing GameStop stocks, but allowing hedge fund billionaires to sell the same hard to believe, we have something equally unbelievable from Xiaomi. The company claims to have made a wireless charger that works over several meters without even needing a docking station. Meanwhile, GM has vowed to eliminate gas powered cars by 2035.