Technet: Bird comes crashing down

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Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Grinchmas came early for one unlucky mobility startup. In today's top story, Bird, the electric scooter company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Paul writes that Bird simply couldn't sustain itself in a crowded market built on questionable economics. Read more.

Rite Aid was the recipient of unwelcome news, too, with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) banning the drugstore chain from using facial-recognition tech for five years after falsely identifying shoplifters. The FTC said that the company’s “reckless use” of AI humiliated and degraded customers. Learn more.

And across the pond, the EU named three porn sites — Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos — that are now subject to its strictest online content rules under the recently passed Digital Services Act. As a result, age verification tech could be headed to those sites, Natasha writes. Read more.

Image Credits: Philippe Lopez / Getty Images

More top reads

Consumer Reports dings Tesla: Tesla's fix for its Autopilot recall of more than 2 million vehicles is being called "insufficient" by Consumer Reports, following preliminary tests. Sean has more.

Off-limits tech gifts: Zack has a roundup of gifts you definitely shouldn’t get for friends and family this holiday, thanks to security vulnerabilities, privacy concerns and otherwise consumer-hostile design choices. Read the full list.

Gifts for remote workers: So what should you buy for loved ones? Natalie writes on the best home gifts for remote workers in 2023, because if there’s one thing for certain heading into 2024, it’s that remote work life is here to stay. Learn more.

Tesla requests pause in bias suit: Tesla wants to pause a federal agency's lawsuit against the automaker for racial discrimination directed at Black workers at its Fremont assembly plant. Rebecca has more.

Spill enters beta: Spill, a platform founded by ex-Twitter employees, is closing out its first year on the market by opening up its beta to all users. Amanda writes that Spill is like the polar opposite of X, attempting to prioritize diversity from the get-go. Read more.

ShareChat faces valuation cut: ShareChat, the Indian social networking service, is in the final stages of deliberations to secure about $50 million in new funding that trims the startup's valuation to below $1.5 billion. Read more.

Fund for Africans, by Africans: Tage writes about Al Mada Ventures, the $110 million, Casablanca-based VC firm that wants to address the shortage in growth-stage investing with local capital. Learn more.

Volkswagen adopts Tesla’s charging standard: The Volkswagen Group is the latest automaker to announce it’ll adopt Tesla's North American Charging Standard, making it one of the last major automakers to embrace what is now the de facto EV plug in the United States. Read more.

Here's six more stories:

Claim, a social network that lets users earn and trade rewards with friends, raises $4M

Micromobility.com gets delisted from the Nasdaq

Re-commerce marketplace Soum gets $18M backing to scale in MENA

Fulfillment is still hot, as GreyOrange raises $135M

OurCrowd makes the first 8 investments from its Israel Resilience Fund

AR platform Really launches 'Fandime' NFTs to reward users with exclusive movie-related content

Image Credits: Tesla

On the pods

Today on Equity, we're bringing you a special mini episode led by TechCrunch senior reporter and co-host of our sister podcast, Found, Dominic-Madori Davis.

During this year's Disrupt, Dominic-Madori caught up with Hilary Mason from Hidden Door, an AI-driven narrative game engine. They got into how generative AI is changing online gaming, building a team of creatives, fundraising in the gaming space, and more. Listen here.