10 things in tech you need to know today

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Monday.

1. Elon Musk won the defamation trial over his “pedo guy” tweet. “My faith in humanity is restored,” Musk said after the verdict was announced.
2. Reddit released the most upvoted posts of 2019, and it shows how much trolling is part of the platform’s culture. Included in the list of top posts are a timely dad joke, a wholesome cartoon, and a random stream of consciousness.
3. China has ordered all non-Chinese PCs and software be removed from government offices within the next three years, the Financial Times reports. Chinese government agencies have to replace 30% of foreign equipment by next year, followed by 50% in 2021, then 20% in 2022.
4. TikTok’s chief is heading to Washington to defend the video-sharing platform against censorship and privacy concerns as lawsuits and investigations pile up.The US government is currently investigating TikTok over concerns about its ties to China because its parent company, ByteDance, is based there.
5. Homeland Security is walking back its plans to use facial recognition on US citizens traveling internationally. Facial recognition scanning is already a requirement for non-citizens who travel in the US.
6. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out Trump after news that Amazon plans to hire 1,500 employees in New York City. In February Amazon cancelled its HQ2 plans to add 25,000 jobs in New York, and laid the blame with local politicians such as Ocasio-Cortez opposing the deal.
7. Snapchat is launching a feature that essentially deepfakes users’ selfies onto gifs, TechCrunch reports. The feature is called “cameo” and is an alternative to Bitmojis.
8. Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is reportedly looking at a direct listing for his $1.5 billion startup Asana to go public next year. According to the FT, Asana has hired Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase to advise on its listing.
9. A top US Marine said young troops should not be blamed for using TikTok. Gen. David Berger said it was the army’s responsibility to educate younger troops about the risks of technology.
10. Cybersecurity insiders say big companies use NDAs to hide data breaches, potentially avoiding millions of dollars in fines. One cybersecurity employee told Business Insider a major international law firm suffered a hack where its webcams were hijacked to listen in on sensitive meetings for weeks on end.

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