Tech Roundup: Iran Signal Ban, Twitter Birdwatch & More

[A recurring feature on the latest in Science & Technology.]

• Norwegian Data Protection Authority fines Grindr US$ 11.7 million for disclosing user's precise locations to at least five advertisers and tagging users as LGBTQ without their explicit consent.
• Iranian authorities block privacy-focussed messaging app Signal from operating in the country amid a surge in popularity following privacy concerns from Facebook-owned WhatsApp; joins the list of other top social media applications that have been blocked by Iran, including Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. (WhatsApp and Instagram remain the only leading unblocked foreign social media platforms in Iran.)
• Twitter unveils Birdwatch, a community-based feature to combat misinformation on the platform by letting select users flag and add notes about tweets they think are misleading or false; expands into long-form content and subscription-based revenue with acquisition of five-year-old Dutch newsletter publishing company Revue.
• Facebook-owned Instagram adds a new "professional dashboard" for creator and business accounts, a dedicated space that brings together analytics, business tools, and shortcuts for monetization features; launches Facebook News in the U.K. in partnership with Axel Springer and Samsung's Upday for content curation.
• Amazon launches new smart home proactive control actions for Alexa that allows the voice assistant to proactively complete tasks around the house, such as turning off lights, based on user habits and frequent requests; debuts an energy dashboard to monitor power usage associated with Alexa-compatible devices and broadly rolls out US$ 4.99/month Alexa Guard Plus security-subscription service.
• Google workers across the world announce Alpha Global, an international union alliance comprising 13 unions representing workers in 10 countries.

• Mozilla rolls out Firefox 85 with network partitioning, a new feature to block supercookies by partitioning Firefox's browser cache on a per-website basis, thus preventing websites from tracking users as they move across the web.
• India to continue its ban on TikTok, UC Browser, and 55 other Chinese apps over concerns that the companies haven't done enough to adequately address cybersecurity issues charged against them, as TikTok and PUBG Mobile report over 5 million and 15 million monthly active users in the country despite the blockade, implying the use of specialised software such as VPNs to access them.
• TechCrunch reports that ByteDance has continued work on several properties in India including a productivity suite called Lark that remains operational in the country. But there are also rumours of ByteDance's apparent decision to wrap up its India operations and lay off 90%, or over 1,800 employees, following the permanent ban.
• Google officially ends active devlopment of its VR-based painting app called Tilt Brush, a month after it shut down Poly, its 3D object library which allowed users to share digital art; to open-source the code on GitHub for developers to build their own experiences and customizations.
• Vine's successor Byte gets acquired by TikTok competitor Clash, with plans to release the two apps "together as one product" over the next few months.
• With the market for video-sharing apps becoming extremely saturated, the new upstarts that have coasted on the popularity of TikTok face stiff competition not just from the ByteDance-owned app but from other rivals such as Instagram and Snapchat that have cloned the features in an attempt to lock users into their platforms.
• For instance, YouTube's take on the short-form videos, dubbed YouTube Shorts, although currently in beta-testing only in India, is already receiving 3.5 billion daily views.
• Pinterest officially debuts Story Pins, a carousel of stories displayed at the top of its homescreen, for Android and iOS, months after testing the feature in September, as major social media services, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, YouTube, and Behance, embrace the format.
• Amazon says it reviewed about 10,000 product listings each day in 2020 and over removed 2 million in total for violating its policies and guidelines, with more than 1.5 million taken down via its automated tools.