Technology

Recode Daily: Facebook is taking action in Myanmar; a deadly eSports shooting in Florida

Plus, YouTube superstars Logan Paul and KSI finally put up their dukes in a pay-per-view bout; what it will take for IGTV to be a YouTube challenger; Google wants to give you good news.

by Recode Staff

Aug 27, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

Alexander Koerner / Getty

Facebook banned 20 individuals and organizations in Myanmar, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the military’s TV network, following violence there that the United Nations described as having “genocidal intent.” Facebook admitted — again — it was too slow to act, but said it was removing accounts because “we want to prevent them from using our service to further inflame ethnic and religious tensions.” [James Vincent / The Verge]

[Want to get the Recode Daily in your inbox? Subscribe here.]

Multiple people were killed in a mass shooting at an eSports video game tournament in Jacksonville, Fla. Three people died, including the gunman, who died at the scene. The GLHF Game Bar in the Jacksonville Landing complex was hosting a regional tournament for players of EA’s new Madden 19 on Sunday. Apparent gunshots can be heard in recordings from the tournament on the bar’s Twitch account, which was livestreaming the competition. [Eric Levenson and AnneClaire Stapleton / CNN]

YouTube superstars Logan Paul and KSI finally exchanged blows in front of millions of people. The official way to watch the heavily hyped boxing match was supposed to be a $10 pay-per-view stream on YouTube, but pirated broadcasts of the bout seemed to be everywhere on social media; on Twitter, one top stream had 70,000 people tuning in on Periscope. At its height, more than a million people were using Twitch to watch a fight on YouTube. Here’s how the match turned out. [Patricia Hernandez / The Verge]

Elon Musk capped more than two weeks of “to take private, or not to take private” on Friday with a near-midnight blog post saying that after consulting with investors and meeting with Tesla’s board of directors, he had decided the better path forward for the company is to remain public. The announcement closes a chapter of uncertainty about Tesla’s business structure, but the company still has plenty of other issues facing it. (Should Apple buy it?) Here’s what Musk gained from his 17 days of drama and indecision: Not much. [Theodore Schleifer / Recode]

While you can’t call the two-month-old IGTV a flop yet, Instagram’s long-form video hub is far from the instant hit Stories was. The standalone IGTV app peaked at No. 5 among overall U.S. iPhone apps, with 2.5 million downloads across iOS and Android; it has since dropped to No. 1,497, with weekly installs dropping 94 percent to just 70,000 last week. Here’s a look at IGTV’s launch and growth to date, and what Instagram needs to do to make it a YouTube challenger. [Josh Constine / TechCrunch]

After a customer-service backlash involving California firefighters, Verizon removed all speed cap restrictions for first responders on Hawaii and the West Coast while both regions deal with natural disasters. Verizon faced criticism for allegedly throttling the data plan of the Santa Clara County Fire Department as it sought to fight the largest wildfire in California history. [Brian Fung / The Washington Post]

Google is rolling out a feature that allows users to hear positive news stories on command. The feature, which was developed in conjunction with a journalism group focusing on combating negative news fatigue, will exist on Google Assistant devices and will play a randomly selected positive news story focusing on an individual or a group solving a problem when prompted with the voice command, “Hey Google, tell me something good.” [John Bowden / The Hill]

In the new memoir “Small Fry,” Steve Jobs comes across as a jerk, and the details are devastating. The author — Jobs’s first daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs — forgives him. Should we? The book comes out on Sept. 4. [Nellie Bowles / The New York Times]