Here’s what Facebook’s new focus on private messaging means. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement that the future of communication is in “private, encrypted services” is a big shift in the company’s public thinking about its core set of products. As Recode’s Kurt Wagner writes, “Intimate, encrypted, private messaging services like WhatsApp and Messenger are in. Facebook’s semi-public, not-very-private News Feed is out.” While the company won’t be able to drop its moneymaking News Feed any time soon, “this feels like the beginning of the end for Facebook’s social network.” [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

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Airbnb is acquiring hotel booking app HotelTonight. Airbnb announced it’s acquiring discount hotel booking app HotelTonight — a company that was recently valued at $463 million. The major deal solidifies Airbnb’s status as a top player in the hotel and travel industry, one that’s no longer a “mere platform for wayward travelers looking for a spare room in an off-beat home.” The challenge ahead of its hotly anticipated IPO is whether Airbnb is able to “maintain the mission that made it a $30 billion company in the first place”: a company that is intent on changing — not becoming — the hotel industry. [Teddy Schleifer / Recode]

Huawei is suing the US government over a law that bans federal agencies from buying the company’s products. Chinese tech behemoth Huawei — one of the world’s top smartphone makers — is fighting back, arguing that the ban on their products violates the US Constitution by singling out an individual or group for punishment without trial. For years, the US has put restrictions on government use of Chinese telecommunications products over security concerns, which the company denies are legitimate. Speaking at a news conference on Thursday, Huawei Chairman Guo Ping said the ban “not only is unlawful, but also restricts Huawei from engaging in fair competition, ultimately harming US consumers.” [Sherisse Pham and Julia Horowitz / CNN]

Facebook is finally making moves to limit the spread of anti-vaccination posts and hoaxes. Amid rising public criticism, Facebook made the call not to show Pages and Groups that spread anti-vaccination conspiracies in users’ search results. Although it’s better late than never, some are asking what took Facebook so long. As Recode’s Kurt Wagner explains, “sharing things that are false on Facebook — so-called fake news — is not actually against the company’s terms of service,” but content that causes “immediate harm” is. Anti-vaccination misinformation “appears to fall somewhere in the middle” so “Facebook is taking extra steps to fight it.” Anti-vaccination theories are a public health concern, especially with a growing measles outbreak spreading through Washington state. [Kurt Wagner/ Recode]

Russia is cracking down on internet freedoms, under the guise of policing “fake news.” A new law passed the Duma, or lower house of Russia’s parliament, imposing fines of up to $15,000 for posting “fake news” on social platforms and imposing jail time for offenses such as spreading information online that demonstrates “disrespect for society, the state, [and] state symbols of the Russian Federation” — including of President Vladimir Putin. Free-speech advocates and media watchers have expressed alarm over a move seen as intended to chill criticism of the state at a time when Russia appears to be moving away from an open internet toward a state-policed China-style model. [James Griffiths and Nathan Hodge / CNN]

RECODE PRESENTS … 

We all know Kara Swisher talks tech. But this year, at South By Southwest, she and Peter Kafka have a few surprises up their sleeves. Whether chopping it up with Kathy Griffin, sliding into the shark tank with Mark Cuban, or grilling presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the two Recode heavyweights are bringing their A-game to Austin. The two, along with Pivot co-host Scott Galloway, will be live podcasting in Austin at Vox Media’s The Deep End March 8 through 10 and at several SXSW events over the weekend. If you’re in Austin, please join us for free at The Belmont for The Deep End events. Can’t make it to Austin? We’ll be covering all our interviews on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Each interview will also be featured as a podcast episode. So subscribe to Recode Decode, Recode Media, and Pivot to catch them all. Find Kara and Peter’s full schedule of events here.

Top stories from Recode

Resy, the high-end restaurant reservation rival to OpenTable, is about to be sold. The popular app for booking hip restaurant reservations is about to be acquired, multiple sources tell Recode. [Theodore Schleifer and Jason Del Rey]

The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer says Congress should investigate if Trump ordered the DOJ’s AT&T-Time Warner lawsuit. Mayer recently published a bombshell investigation into the links between Fox News and the Trump White House. When she heard about the alleged incident, she says on Recode Media, “my jaw dropped.” [Peter Kafka]

This is cool

Here’s how San Francisco’s soon-to-be IPO millionaires plan to spend their riches.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Facebook’s future is private messaging, says CEO Mark Zuckerberg; the company is “shifting its focus away from public posts to encrypted, ephemeral communications on its trio of messaging apps,” which also include Instagram and WhatsApp. “As I think about the future of the internet, I believe a privacy-focused communications platform will become even more important than today’s open platforms,” Zuckerberg wrote in a 3,000-word blog post that focused on encryption as the way forward. Meanwhile, Facebook’s corporate reputation took a hit over the past year — it dropped to No. 94 from No. 51 out of the 100 most visible US companies — as it flailed through a series of crises and controversies. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

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The French government plans to levy a 3 percent tax on internet giants like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook. “The bill is an attempt to get around tax avoidance measures by multinational companies, which pay most of their taxes in the EU country they are based in — often at very low rates. That effectively means the companies pay next to zero tax in countries where they have large operations.” About 30 companies — mostly US-based but also from China and Europe — will be affected by the tax, which will apply to digital companies with global revenues in excess of 750 million euros ($848 million), and French revenue over 25 million euros. [Sylvie Corbet / AP]

Apple is bringing 1,200 employees to San Diego, some 470 miles south of Cupertino — and home to its current legal foe, Qualcomm. Reportedly trying to reduce its dependence on third-party chips, Apple is trying to bring its modem-chip engineering in-house; the company recently stopped using Qualcomm modems and switched to Intel chips. Apple wants to add up to 200 employees in San Diego by the end of the year; new positions in the three-year plan “would span a variety of specialty engineering fields in hardware and software. … The company plans also to develop thousands of square feet of office, lab and research space in the area to accommodate the new employees.” [Lauren Feiner / CNBC]

Even with the spread of online banking, JPMorgan and its rivals — Wells Fargo and Bank of America — are sticking to brick-and-mortar as a growth strategy. But the largest consumer US banks are closing more branches in poorer areas; banks have shut 1,915 more branches in lower-income neighborhoods than they have opened in the four years through 2018. The effect threatens to widen the wealth gap: After a branch closes in poor and minority neighborhoods, the number of new small-business loans declines 13 percent, according to a paper by an MIT economist. [Michelle Davis / Bloomberg]

People may lol at Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand and e-commerce platform, Goop. But Paltrow doesn’t care: “Goop is now worth some $250 million, revenues are growing and Ms. Paltrow is looking to Disney for inspiration, visualizing a company that makes money through online retail, offline experiences, ad partnerships and more.” Here’s a fresh and holistic Q&A with Paltrow about her business, including “the tech stacks, contextual commerce strategies and email service providers that power Goop.” [David Gelles / The New York Times]

Top stories from Recode

Why companies like Lyft and Uber are going public without having profits. The last time unprofitable companies went public at this rate was in 2000 — the year the dot-com bubble burst. [Rani Molla]

Media startups trying to drive people to their websites are doing it wrong, says Overtime CEO Dan Porter. Don’t listen to the conventional wisdom about relying on Instagram or Snapchat, Porter says on the latest Recode Media — just go where your audience is. [Peter Kafka]

This is cool

BuzzFeed pivots to print: “Social. Mobile. Recyclable.”

Meet the delete-nevers.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Google is banning political ads in the runup to Canada’s October federal election; the search giant says the country’s new ad transparency rules would be too challenging to comply with. Bill C-76, which passed in December, requires online platforms to keep a registry of all political and partisan ads they directly or indirectly publish. “We’ve come to the decision that the best way for Google to comply with the Elections Act in the 2019 election cycle is actually to stop accepting elections ads as defined in the legislation,” said Colin McKay, Google Canada’s head of public policy and government relations. “This isn’t a negotiating tactic,” he added. [Tom Cardoso / The Globe and Mail]

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T-Mobile acknowledged that it dramatically increased its company visits — and spending — at President Trump’s hotel in Washington, DC, after announcing its $26 billion merger with Sprint last April. The company disclosed in a letter last month to Congressional Democrats that it has spent about $195,000 at the Trump International Hotel, which is housed inside the federally owned Old Post Office building in downtown DC. Meanwhile, a group of 36 House Democrats is trying to block the proposed T-Mobile-Sprint deal; the lawmakers signed letters sent to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and Justice Department antitrust head Makan Delrahim arguing that combining two of the four major wireless providers will drive up prices and reduce competition. [David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell / The Washington Post]

Chinese hackers targeted more than two dozen universities in the US, Canada, and Southeast Asia in an attempt to steal research about military use of maritime technology. At least 27 schools were targeted by hackers associated with the Chinese government, including the University of Hawaii, the University of Washington, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology; most of the schools either house undersea technology research hubs or have faculty with experience in a relevant field. [Dustin Volz / The Wall Street Journal]

The LA Times looks into the prescription eyewear business and sees “a near-monopolistic, $100 billion industry” that represents “perhaps the single biggest mass-market consumer rip-off to be found” — part one finds that markups on consumer prices for frames and lenses often approach 1,000 percent. A related column zeros in on how the market for designer frames came to be so heavily dominated by Milan-based Luxottica, which owns and licenses brands including Armani, Chanel, Coach, Michael Kors, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, and Ray-Ban. “In 1995, Luxottica purchased LensCrafters’ parent company, US Shoe Corp., for $1.4 billion. The goal wasn’t to get into the shoe business. It was to take control of LensCrafters’ hundreds of stores nationwide.” [David Lazarus / Los Angeles Times]

Imagine if your April Fools’ pranks were bankrolled by Elon Musk. A “billionaire with some sense of humor,” Musk has co-founded a new satirical media company called — perhaps presciently — Thud. Musk is drawn to satire — he has called The Onion “the greatest publication in the history of all conscious beings, living or dead” — and he’s working on this venture with Ben Berkley and Cole Bolton, former top editors of The Onion who jointly departed the company in 2017. Funny story: “After funding a budget of just under $2 million, Musk began to worry that the satire company’s output could be weaponized against SpaceX and Tesla, and so he sold the company to Berkley and Bolton with no strings attached.” [Scott Nover / The Atlantic]

Top stories from Recode

Laurene Powell Jobs says President Trump’s attacks on the press are “right out of a dictator’s playbook.” On the latest Recode Decode: Laurene Powell Jobs founded the Emerson Collective, which owns Pop-Up Magazine and has a majority stake in the Atlantic. [Kara Swisher]

This is cool

It’s here.

Billionaires.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Chinese electronics giant Huawei is preparing to sue the United States government for barring federal agencies from using its telecommunications equipment. The lawsuit is expected to challenge the law on the basis that it singles out a person or group for punishment without a trial, which the US Constitution prohibits. Meanwhile, Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, filed a lawsuit against the Canadian government. In November 2018, Meng was arrested in Canada on suspicion of violating US sanctions against Iran; she is fighting extradition to the US. Some Canadians view Meng’s life in Vancouver detention as “luxurious.” [Raymond Zhong and Paul Mozur / The New York Times]

Congressional Democrats plan to unveil the “Save the Internet Act” tomorrow; the legislation aims to reinstate the net neutrality rules repealed by the Trump administration in December 2017. The Republican-controlled Senate voted in May 2018 to reinstate the rules, but the House did not take up the issue before Congress adjourned last year. [David Shepardson / Reuters]

Joining three other Republican senators, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he will support a House resolution opposing President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the US-Mexico border. Paul’s vote could give Democrats the 51st and decisive vote they need to send the measure to Trump — who has said he would veto it. “But it’s worth taking stock of how significant this moment is — and how it could potentially impact the battle that actually will decide the fate of the national emergency declaration: the legal case.” [Aaron Blake / The Washington Post]

A new subscription-based podcasting service aims to be the Netflix of podcasts. For $7.99 a month, the Luminary app will launch by June with more than 40 original shows by Lena Dunham, Trevor Noah, and Malcolm Gladwell, along with fresh content from Bill Simmons’ The Ringer, Planet Money creator Adam Davidson, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. And there’s more, including a follow-up to John Cameron Mitchell’s musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, starring Broadway diva Patti LuPone as a bebop-singing junkie nun. “We want to become synonymous with podcasting in the same way Netflix has become synonymous with streaming,” said Luminary co-founder and CEO Matt Sacks. [Brooks Barnes / The New York Times]

Days before the company’s annual meeting, Walt Disney cut tens of millions of dollars of future potential earnings for CEO Bob Iger. According to a regulatory filing, Iger’s target annual compensation will be cut 28 percent to $35 million after Disney’s completes its deal to acquire assets from 21st Century Fox. Iger will still be one of the highest-paid CEOs of a publicly traded US company: “Iger’s annual target compensation would have risen to $48.5 million, from roughly $32 million before the deal was announced, an increase of about 50 percent.” Investors are set to vote on Disney’s executive compensation program at the company’s annual meeting on Thursday. [Anders Melin, Jenn Zhao, and Christopher Palmeri / Bloomberg]

Top stories from Recode

Trump reportedly tried to order a lawsuit to block the AT&T/Time Warner merger. “I want that deal blocked!” [Peter Kafka]

How New York City earned its reputation for being tough on tech. Community outrage over Amazon HQ2 is just one example of the city demanding oversight of tech’s expansion. [Shirin Ghaffary]

This is cool

The AI diet.

A new luxury retreat caters to elderly workers in tech (ages 30 and up).

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

SpaceX launched an unmanned Crew Dragon craft from Florida to the International Space Station on Saturday morning — “a milestone for CEO Elon Musk’s goal of enabling humans to live on other planets, and a big win for NASA’s gamble of partnering with private industry.” Meanwhile, Musk’s latest terrestrial challenge is persuading mainstream consumers to purchase Tesla cars online the way they buy books or clothes. “Tesla needs the savings it will get from closing stores to cut the price of its Model 3 sedan — the Silicon Valley automaker’s bid to go from niche to mass market — down to $35,000 while still achieving profit.” [Dana Hull and Julie Johnsson / Bloomberg]

Google has rejected calls to remove the Saudi government app Absher from its Google Play app store; the app allows Saudi citizens to interact with the state, but it also lets men track women and control where they travel, including setting up SMS alerts for when women use their passports. Democratic Rep. Jackie Spier and 13 colleagues in Congress wrote to Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook demanding that the app be removed; they called Google and Apple “accomplices in the oppression of Saudi Arabian women” for hosting the app. Google reviewed the app and concluded that since it does not violate the terms of service, it can remain. [Bill Bostock / Business Insider]

Fast Company has assembled a list of 121 data brokers that are routinely buying and selling your personal information in the US. The companies range from lesser-known organizations that help landlords research potential tenants to “the quiet giants of data,” including some big names in people search, like Spokeo, ZoomInfo, and Intelius. Enabled by a new Vermont law that requires companies that buy and sell third-party personal data to register with the Secretary of State, FC reporters got a rare inside look at “a bustling economy that operates largely in the shadows, and often with few rules”; they also provide some advice on removing yourself from a company’s databases. [Steven Melendez and Alex Pasternack / Fast Company]

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg is speaking out against streamed films like Netflix’s Roma being eligible for Academy Awards. At the upcoming annual post-Oscar meeting, Spielberg — an Academy governor representing the directors’ branch and a staunch advocate for the theatrical experience of a movie over streaming — will argue that Netflix and the like don’t play by the same rules as their analog studio competitors, and should only compete for awards in the Emmy arena. Traditional movie studios are rattled that Roma came so close to winning the Academy’s top prize; among their complaints: Netflix, which doesn’t report box office, spent up to an estimated $50 million in its massive Oscar push for Roma, compared to Green Book’s $5 million spend. “While studios may have knives out for Netflix, the streaming behemoth isn’t their only concern. Other streamers are coming. Amazon Studios is changing its release parameters to a more flexible model; Disney +, AT&T, and Apple hover on the horizon.” [Anne Thompson / IndieWire]

The future of retail is here: An Evening with Code Commerce, hosted by Senior Commerce Editor Jason Del Rey and Editor-at-Large Kara Swisher, returned to Shoptalk last night in Las Vegas. Discussions ranged from how Lord & Taylor is trying to reinvigorate and revolutionize the department store, to Poshmark’s flourishing platform that’s both a retailer and a social community — independent of more traditional networks like Facebook or Twitter. Watch the full sessions with Hudson’s Bay CEO Helena Foulkes, Poshmark CEO Manish Chandra, and Tim Armstrong, former CEO of Oath and current founder and CEO of a new commerce venture, The DTX Company.

Here’s the full roundup from Las Vegas: 

Lord & Taylor lives in retail’s “middle” ground — and that’s a hard place to survive. Lord & Taylor’s flagship store closed last year. The problem? “It is handicapped by its positioning in the marketplace,” says parent-company CEO Helena Foulkes. [Kurt Wagner]

Poshmark CEO Manish Chandra credits Marie Kondo and the social experience for his company’s boom. Even he is surprised by our new willingness to resell our clothing. [Theodore Schleifer]

Tim Armstrong wants to create Coachella, but for retailers. What does that mean? Armstrong is getting into the events business. We think. [Kurt Wagner]

Top stories from Recode

Lyft’s IPO filing shows how founders create their own supremacy in Silicon Valley. Believe in Logan Green and John Zimmer. Or don’t. [Theodore Schleifer and Rani Molla]

Two years after going public, Snap’s problems are still all about growth. A redesign of the Snapchat app and a shift to programmatic ads threw it off course. [Kurt Wagner and Rani Molla / Recode]

Can the media business be saved? A “Spotify for news” is not the answer, says News Media Alliance CEO David Chavern, on the latest Recode Decode. Chavern’s organization advocates on behalf of 2,000 print and online media outlets. [Kara Swisher]

After an “identity crisis,” Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya says he’s taught himself how to be happy again. “To all the people that worked for me and whose money I took, you’re fucking welcome,” he said on Recode Decode. [Kara Swisher and Teddy Schleifer]

This is cool

How Jeff Bezos went to Hollywood and lost control.

How to not fall for viral scares like Momo.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Amazon has recruited millions of small- and mid-sized businesses to sell their products on its Amazon Marketplace platform in its ambition to create an “everything store” that sells “every genuine product in the world.” During the holiday season, these third-party sellers accounted for more than $13 billion of Amazon’s revenue; in 2018, more than 50,000 of them brought in more than $500,000 each from Amazon. But as Amazon gives more of these third parties access to its global store, the opportunities for scammers and bad actors to plot nefarious things multiplies, endangering customer trust. And “as Amazon’s megastore grows and becomes more popular, so does the risk that it blows itself up.” [Jason Del Rey / Recode]

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Meanwhile, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is reportedly working behind the scenes to lure Amazon back to his state after the retail giant’s stunning decision to abandon its plans to build a second headquarters in Queens, New York. The Amazon deal had promised to create 40,000 jobs in Long Island City in exchange for tax breaks that would have exceeded $2 billion. Cuomo is said to have had multiple phone conversations with Amazon executives — including CEO Jeff Bezos — and said he would help the company navigate the complicated governmental process. “I do believe Amazon should have stayed and fought the opposition,” Cuomo said in a radio interview. “It was a vocal minority opposition. Seventy percent of the people support Amazon.” [J. David Goodman / The New York Times]

YouTube is disabling the comment sections on video channels that feature children. The move comes after major corporations including Disney, Nestle, AT&T, and Fortnite maker Epic Games paused their ad spending after it was discovered that their ads were playing adjacent to videos featuring young people that had predatory comments on them. “A YouTube spokesperson told The Verge that although the company understands comment sections are important to creators as way of measuring engagement, ‘we also know that this is the right thing to do to protect the YouTube community.’” [Julia Alexander / The Verge]

Dell reported “marginally better-than-expected quarterly revenue growth but a higher-than-expected net loss” in its first quarter as a newly public company. The computer, storage, and data center services giant reported 9 percent revenue growth centered in servers and networking gear, and Dell’s share of the returns from its 80 percent ownership of computing virtualization giant VMware, which also reported surprising results. Dell reported that its net loss for Q4 2019 more than doubled from a year ago, to $287 million, on revenue of $23.84 billion; the company earned an operating profit of $2.7 billion. [Robert Hof / Silicon Angle]

Revenue from streaming services like Spotify accounted for 75 percent of the US music industry’s total revenue in 2018, with CD sales making up 12 percent, digital downloads bringing in 11 percent, and synch at 3 percent. The music industry marked its third consecutive year of double-digit growth, according to the year-end revenue report issued by the Recording Industry Association of America, which said “recorded-music revenues rose 12 percent to their highest level in 10 years — $9.8 billion, up from $8.8 billion the previous year but still below 2007’s $10.7 billion.” Total subscription revenue increased 32 percent to $5.4 billion. “Stream-ripping, and a lack of accountability for many Big Tech companies that drive down the value of music, remain serious threats as the industry strives for additional growth,” said Mitch Glazier, the RIAA’s new chairman and CEO, in a blog post. [Jem Aswad / Variety]

Top stories from Recode

Google employees won a battle against forced arbitration. Now they’re pushing for nationwide legislation. Tech workers have helped minimize the controversial employment practice within their industry, and now they’re pushing to stop it at a national level. [Shirin Ghaffary]

Spotify and Warner Music are fighting, so Spotify users in India can’t listen to Cardi B or Ed Sheeran. Big Tech and Big Music are used to being frenemies. Now things are getting feistier. [Peter Kafka]

Visa approvals for tech workers are on the decline. That won’t just hurt Silicon Valley. More tech work could head overseas as the US allows fewer tech workers into the country. [Rani Molla]

This is cool

It’s a good thing, maaaaaan.

The best photos from Apple’s global Shot on iPhone challenge.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Cutting Facebook out of your life even temporarily turns out to have consequences — and many of them are positive. Last year, Stanford researchers asked thousands of Facebook users how much they would need to be paid to give up their account for a month. Among the key findings: People who gave up Facebook spent less time overall online; they were less informed, but also less politically polarized; there was positive impact on people’s health and well-being; and the study subjects said they planned to spend less time on Facebook in the future. “This isn’t the first study to explore the health effects of social networks. But in a world where Facebook is now used by more than 2.3 billion people per month, studying its impact on mental health, news distribution, and tech addition has never been more important.” [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

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Calling his former boss “a racist,” “a con man” and “a cheat,” Michael Cohen, the former lawyer and “fixer” for President Donald Trump, took the stand to testify publicly against Trump before the House Oversight Committee. Cohen, who built his career and identity by making Trump’s problems go away, alleged to Congress how Trump “manipulated financial records, paid to cover up extramarital affairs, and reacted with glee when he learned in advance that the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy organization would release emails damaging to his political opponent.” Cohen also dropped the revelation that federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating previously undisclosed wrongdoing related to the US president. Trump’s Republican allies aggressively questioned Cohen’s credibility and motives for speaking out. Here is Cohen’s prepared testimony; you can follow his statements with this time-stamped analysis from New York Times reporters. [Matt Zapotosky, Rosalind S. Helderman, Karoun Demirjian, and Rachael Blade / The Washington Post]

Meanwhile, more than 8,000 miles away in Hanoi, Vietnam, Trump publicly embraced North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as they opened a two-day nuclear summit. Trump referred to the brutal authoritarian dictator as “my friend,” and tweeted after a social dinner of grilled sirloin and chocolate lava cake that the two had “very good dialogue.” US negotiators are seeking “detailed commitments from Pyongyang to dismantle at least some of its nuclear weapons facilities, while Kim’s regime wants relief from punishing economic sanctions and a declaration to formally end the Korean War.” [David Nakamura and Simon Denyer / The Washington Post]

Jack Dorsey’s other company — the payment startup Square — reported fourth-quarter results that beat Wall Street’s expectations for earnings and revenue, though analysts were disappointed by Q1 projections. Despite solid growth — $464 million of adjusted revenue for Q4 (a year-over-year rise of 64 percent) and earnings per share of 14 cents (a 6-cent increase from a year earlier) — shares fell more than 7 percent in after-hours trading. Square’s peer-to-peer Cash App also showed positive growth, with more than 15 million monthly active customers in December 2018 — doubling from a year earlier. Dorsey said that more than half of Square’s adjusted revenue came from products Square created in the last five years, while attributing Cash App’s growth in downloads to a “network effect” of friends and families. [Kate Rooney / CNBC]

The social media app Musical.ly — which is now known as TikTok — has been fined a record $5.7 million by federal regulators for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The Chinese-owned app, which has been downloaded more than 200 million times, was illegally hoovering up data from children under age 13, including names, email addresses, pictures, and locations. The app lets users make and share short videos (like Vine but 15 seconds); it has 65 million registered users in the US, and at last count was the fourth- and 25th-most popular free app on Google and Apple devices, respectively. [Craig Timberg and Tony Romm / The Washington Post]

At the tech trade show formerly known as Mobile World Congress, most of the 100,000 attendees and 2,400 companies ignored the US-led campaign against China’s Huawei, and focused instead on gadgets: foldable smartphones, 5G tech, AR goggles — and robots, of course. Here’s a words-and-pictures overview of what stood out at MWC Barcelona. [Adam Satariano and Edu Bayer / The New York Times]

Top stories from Recode

A Y Combinator program was once exclusive. Then it accidentally let 15,000 people in — and decided that works a lot better. This all gets at a big question: Does Silicon Valley only work if there is some exclusion, some selectivity, and some prestige? Or can it scale? [Theodore Schleifer]

Meet J2’s Vivek Shah, the CEO quietly presiding over a $4 billion media business. The CEO of J2 Global, a company that owns a portfolio of media and internet service companies that includes PCMag, Mashable, and Speedtest by Ookla, on the latest Recode Media. [Peter Kafka]

This is cool

When the bully is the boss.

Bill Gates on how we’ll reinvent the future.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

A US court has ruled that AT&T’s $80 billion-plus takeover of Time Warner can proceed — for the second time this year. Antitrust enforcers at the US Department of Justice tried to stop the deal last year; yesterday, a US District Court denied the agency’s appeal to challenge the acquisition. The question now is who is going to manage the giant entertainment company once AT&T is in full control. “AT&T executives have been acting for a long time as though this was a done deal. They’ve spent months telling Wall Street — and their own employees — about some of the company’s plans to overhaul Time Warner assets like HBO.” [Peter Kafka / Recode]

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More than a dozen House Republicans joined Democrats in voting to overturn President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the Mexican border. The resolution of disapproval — part of an attempt to block Trump’s plan to divert funding to a border wall without approval from a recalcitrant Congress — passed 245-182. “Is your oath of office to Donald Trump or is it to the Constitution of the United States?” Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Republican colleagues in a speech preceding the vote. Now the resolution must be taken up by the Senate; successful passage might occasion Trump’s first veto. [Emily Cochrane / The New York Times]

During the 2018 midterm elections, the US military blocked internet access to the Russia-backed Internet Research Agency, which was attempting to interfere with the elections. The operation was the first instance of offensive action by US Cyber Command, with help from the National Security Agency, since additional powers were granted the government last year. One source said the military group “basically took the IRA offline.” The Russian agency is funded by a Putin ally, who was among the 16 Russian individuals and companies indicted by a grand jury a year ago as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. [Ellen Nakashima / The Washington Post]

Twitter permanently suspended Jacob Wohl, a 21-year-old internet hoaxer and supporter of President Trump, after he boasted in a USA Today article about using Twitter and Facebook to spread lies and disinformation, including a false claim that presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris wasn’t eligible because she had immigrant parents and spent part of her childhood in Canada. Meanwhile, Facebook and Instagram banned Tommy Robinson, the far-right founder of the English Defence League, for repeatedly breaking policies on hate speech; Robinson is already banned from Twitter. [Gus Garcia-Roberts / USA Today]

Spotify officially launches in India today; yesterday, some local users reported that they could already access the streaming music service on their devices. Pricing for the service in India is far below what it charges elsewhere: Premium service is free for 30 days, and then goes up to 119 rupees (roughly $1.67) per month. Spotify was able to secure direct licensing agreements with Sony Music and Universal for the Indian market, but Warner Music remains a holdout. [Janko Roettgers / Variety]

Top stories from Recode

Amy Klobuchar, a critic of big tech, will be raising money for her presidential campaign in San Francisco next month. Tickets to the Klobuchar event range from $1,000 to $5,600 a seat. [Theodore Schleifer]

Innovative sex toys aren’t a joke, says Lora DiCarlo CEO Lora Haddock on the latest Recode Decode. Haddock’s company won an innovation award from CES — but then the trade group decided that her work was “profane.” [Kara Swisher]

This is cool

The most effective form of exercise isn’t “exercise” at all.

Finding what’s “oddly satisfying” on the internet.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Elon Musk’s itchy Twitter finger has got him in trouble again. The Tesla CEO’s Twitter use is supposed to be closely monitored since he reached a settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a different tweet-first, justify-later controversy — last August, Musk tweeted that he had sufficient funding to take Tesla private. But on Feb. 19, Musk told his 25 million Twitter followers that Tesla would “make around 500k” cars in 2019; four hours later, he clarified: Tesla was merely on pace to hit that number at the end of the year, given its current production rate. Yesterday, the SEC asked a federal judge to hold Musk in contempt; that could jeopardize the deal struck last September, which notably required Musk to step down as chair of the electric car company and pay a fine of $20 million. [Theodore Schleifer / Recode]

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After an exposé by The Verge detailed the disturbing working conditions of Facebook’s US content moderators at Arizona-based Cognizant — contract workers make about $28,000 a year; some develop severe anxiety, PTSD, and burnout from witnessing hours of graphic violence and sexual activities; and a few have been radicalized by the conspiracy videos and memes seen each day — Facebook said it is adjusting its compliance and audit processes for its third-party contractors. [Casey Newton / The Verge]

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella defended his company’s $479 million contract with the US military to supply its HoloLens augmented reality systems after receiving a letter from more than 100 employees saying that they “did not sign up to develop weapons.” Nadella said he will continue to engage with employees’ concerns, but that the company will not “withhold technology from institutions that we have elected in democracies.” HoloLens AR technology overlays virtual graphics onto a headset-based lens; the second iteration of this device (costing a cool $3,500) was unveiled recently. “Microsoft was awarded the contract to supply ‘Integrated Visual Augmentation System’ prototypes to the US military in November. The company could eventually deliver more than 100,000 headsets under the contract.” [Charles Riley and Samuel Burke / CNN]

At MWC Barcelona, Microsoft debuted its $3,500 HoloLens 2 mixed-reality headset. Dieter Bohn gets an inside look at the device, “which is only being sold to corporations, not to consumers — it’s designed for ‘first-line workers,’ people in auto shops, factory floors, operating rooms, and out in the field fixing stuff.” Here’s a detailed walk-through of the new, improved HoloLens experience. At MWC, the usually tightly controlled Microsoft surprised the industry by committing to being open in what it calls “the third era of computing”; HoloLens inventor Alex Kipman said the company believes in an open app store model, an open web-browsing model, and an open API surface area and driver model. That’s a big change from Microsoft’s usual tight control of its platforms. [Dieter Bohn / The Verge]

Amazon named former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi to its 11-member board. The e-commerce giant has been criticized for its male-dominated board, but appears to be attempting to rectify the imbalance: Nooyi is the second woman appointed this month; Starbucks COO and former Sam’s Club CEO Rosalind G. Brewer was named a director on February 4. Nooyi’s appointment brings the total to five women on Amazon’s board. [Matt Day / Bloomberg]

It’s Uber, for doctors! Better check that star rating. The New York Times reports that a host of new startups are entering the health and wellness field, offering on-demand services straight to consumers: “Heal, DispatchHealth, MedZed, Dose Healthcare, and Pager will send a doctor or a nurse practitioner to a person’s home or workplace to treat nonemergency problems like strep throat or a sprained ankle.” Feeling a little short of fluids after a rough night out? I.V. Doc will hook you up with vitamin drips. Can’t be bothered to ride your Bird to a CVS? Capsule will deliver prescriptions. And for those feeling really lazy (but still wanting to work out), GymGuyz will send a trainer and dumbbells to your door. Snicker all you want, but the $3.5 billion health services industry could use a little disruption. [Janet Morrissey / The New York Times]

Top stories from Recode

Chart: How the definition of “journalist” is changing. The plight of journalists might not be that bad if you’re willing to consider a broader view of “journalism.” [Rani Molla]

This is cool

The future is here, almost: Virtual travel becomes more of a reality.

The future of gaming is subscription.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

If any Democratic presidential candidate has tapped into the Silicon Valley zeitgeist over their careers, it is Cory Booker. And in 2019, that could be as much a political liability as it is a financial asset. Although the presidential candidate has collected half a million dollars from the internet industry over his five years in the Senate, he found himself traipsing into a very different fundraising environment when he arrived in Silicon Valley over the weekend. Silicon Valley is itself a minefield that in some ways sums up the broader political challenge for Booker in 2020: He’s running as a liberal on issues including tech regulation, but the progressive left holds him in suspicion — and he could face more as he begins to court tech money more openly. As one political activist put it: “He’s going to run into problems as the public becomes more aware that he’s in bed with our generation’s Big Tobacco.” [Theodore Schleifer / Recode]

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Huawei’s fate will hang over the wireless industry’s largest annual trade conference, MWC Barcelona, previously called Mobile World Congress, which starts today in Barcelona. Typically a celebration of new handsets from Samsung, LG, Sony, and other brands, this year’s conference in Spain is being overshadowed by less-glamorous policy questions about how to safeguard the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that keeps those devices connected to the internet. Add to that the roiling debate about the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, and uncertainty over whether European countries would ban the company from 5G networks because of national security concerns being raised by the Trump administration. 5G networks are considered critical to the future global economy, increasing mobile phone speeds by up to 20 times from the current 4G system, while also creating new applications in medicine, augmented reality, and manufacturing; Huawei makes the antennas, base stations, switches, and other gear that make the technology work. [Adam Satariano / The New York Times]

Here’s a roundup of what to expect from MWC 2019, from the dawn of the foldable phones to the continued rise of Chinese handhelds to the return of Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality headset. In the wake of Samsung’s big announcement of its $2,000 Galaxy Fold phone, the aforementioned Huawei has already unveiled its Mate X, a $2,600 foldable 5G phone with a 6.6-inch front screen and a 6.38-inch back screen that unfolds for a combined eight-inch display. [Jon Porter / The Verge]

Several popular health and fitness apps scrambled to stop sending sensitive personal information to Facebook after a Wall Street Journal report that many apps were transmitting detailed information about topics including their users’ weight and menstrual cycles. Apps that cut off transmission of sensitive data to Facebook include Flo Health’s Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker and Azumio’s Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor. Another popular food- and exercise-logging app, Lose It! from FitNow, also stopped sending Facebook information; the app had been sending Facebook the weight users logged, along with how much they had gained or lost, and the caloric content of every food item they logged. [Sam Schechner / The Wall Street Journal]

Microsoft workers are demanding that the company cancel its $480 million contract with the US military. More than 100 Microsoft employees signed a letter addressed to CEO Satya Nadella and president Brad Smith that takes issue with the Pentagon’s use of Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality technology to increase the lethality of warfare, arguing that it turns combat into a “simulated ‘video game’” and is “further distancing soldiers from the grim stakes of war and the reality of bloodshed.” Microsoft plans to release a new version of its HoloLens headset at MWC this week. The Microsoft employees’ objections are reflective of a larger “Tech Won’t Build It” movement by tech workers who are demanding a stop to what they feel are morally questionable uses of their companies’ products. It’s the latest point of tension with tech employees who are against defense uses of the tools they’re building. [Shirin Ghaffary / Recode]

One of Toronto’s regional public transit services teased a radical, futuristic mode of transportation on Twitter last week. In a dramatic video full of lightning strikes and movie trailer music, GO Transit asked viewers to imagine this scenario: You hop in a vehicle, slide into a comfortable seat, and text or browse cat memes until you arrive at your destination. Best of all, you never even need to input where you’re going. The vehicle just gets you there. And then pow! Another lightning strike! Surprise! It’s a bus! [Sean O’Kane / The Verge]

Top stories from Recode

Ev Williams is finally moving on from Twitter. Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and longtime board member, announced he’s leaving the board. [Kurt Wagner]

How do you preserve art when it was made for people using Netscape Navigator on Windows 98? On the latest Recode Decode, Rhizome artistic director Michael Connor talks about that and the other questions he and his team have to face as they chronicle “net art.” [Kara Swisher]

This is cool

“I grew up watching foreign language films, and learning from them, and being inspired. Films like Citizen Kane, Jaws, Rashomon, The Godfather, and Breathless.” — Alfonso Cuaron, accepting the 2019 Academy Award for foreign language film for Roma.

It was a big night for Netflix, which distributed Roma and earned 15 Oscar nominations. The streaming service chose the occasion to drop the trailer for its upcoming Martin Scorsese movie.

A meme is born.

About the rock that Gaga got.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.