Musical.ly, the video lip-syncing app that took off like a rocket three years ago, will sell for at least $800 million. The buyer is Jinri Toutiao, the Chinese media startup. Musical.ly itself was created in China but enjoyed huge growth in the U.S. That growth has stalled in the last year, though. [Peter Kafka / Recode]
Recode Daily: Trump may be behind the roadblocks to the AT&T/Time Warner megamerger
Plus, Twitter is rethinking about verification after it blue-checked a white supremacist, and your connected holiday gift guide (privacy not included).
Photo by Thomas Peter - Pool/Getty Images
After white supremacist Jason Kessler was verified on Twitter, the company temporarily paused all account verifications while it clarifies its policy. Twitter verification gives public figures a blue check mark next to their names, which has become a sort of status symbol. The controversy arose less than a month after CEO Jack Dorsey recommitted once again to eliminating “hate symbols, violent groups, and tweets that glorifies violence” from the platform. Meanwhile, Dorsey says he was “absolutely” willing to testify before Congress about Russia if he had been invited. But he was — repeatedly. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]
Contradicting earlier reports, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said the Department of Justice did not ask him to sell CNN as a condition of acquiring Time Warner, and reiterated that he does not intend to sell CNN. If completed, the deal would transform AT&T into a colossus capable of both producing content and distributing it to millions of people via its wireless and satellite services. [Peter Kafka / Recode]
Comedian Louis C.K. has been accused of sexual misconduct by five women; last night’s scheduled premiere of his new movie, “I Love You, Daddy” was canceled, as was a scheduled appearance on Stephen Colbert’s show. And comedian Kathy Griffin, who lost high-profile jobs and was all but hounded out of the country after an ill-advised social media stunt about beheading Donald Trump, is on an international “Laugh Your Head Off” tour — and Trump’s condemnation is fueling her fierce new act. [The New York Times]
Wallpaper scored an interview with Apple design chief Jony Ive and Stefan Behling, one of the lead architects on the company’s new Apple Park HQ, which the design magazine calls “in some ways, the ultimate Apple product.” Ive goes into detail about how the unique circular structure functions, and muses on his concepts for the new iPhone X. Apple, meanwhile, released its latest diversity report, which notes that the overall racial and gender makeup of its workforce remains mostly unchanged since 2016. [Nick Compton / Wallpaper]
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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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