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Google has found that Russian operative spent thousands on search and display ads on its YouTube, Gmail and DoubleClick platforms; now Microsoft is reviewing its sales records to determine whether trolls aligned with the Russian government purchased ads on Bing or other company products. Here’s everything you need to know about why Google, Facebook and Twitter find themselves in the middle of multiple investigations about how Russia exploited U.S. social media and online advertising. [Tony Romm and Kurt Wagner / Recode]
Venture capital spending is on track to be the highest it’s been in the last decade — while the number of high-end deals is at a five-year low. Here’s what’s behind the boom, and why megadeals between VCs and companies are simultaneously getting both bigger and harder to land. [Theodore Schleifer and Rani Molla]
YouTube has banned tutorial videos that demonstrate how to modify guns with a “bump stock,” like the devices used in last week’s mass shooting in Las Vegas; the company has modified its content guidelines to reflect the ban. And Twitter blocked a Senate campaign announcement by Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, in which she boasts that she “stopped the sale of baby body parts”; Blackburn urged supporters to repost her video and join her in “standing up to Silicon Valley.”
The Weinstein Company plans to remove disgraced co-founder and CEO Harvey Weinstein's name from forthcoming TV and movie credits, and is considering changing its name. Before being fired by his independent production company on Sunday, Weinstein emailed Hollywood insiders, begging them to speak up in his defense. Media columnist Jim Rutenberg said nearly four decades of stories about Weinstein's sexual harassment went unreported because “too many people in the intertwined news and entertainment industries had too much to gain from (Weinstein) for too long.” [Deadline Hollywood]
Donald Trump's current cold war with the media runs counter to how he controlled the narrative about himself for nearly four decades. Here's a fascinating look at how the man who “checks the papers and the internet so he can know that he exists” lost control of his self-propaganda machine. [Lloyd Grove / Columbia Journalism Review]
Top stories from Recode
Americans are spending more time on media, thanks to multitasking.
Not all media is equal.
ESPN’s Jemele Hill has been suspended for tweeting that fans should boycott NFL advertisers.
“Change happens when advertisers are impacted,” Hill tweeted.
Why GM is vertically integrating as it moves deeper into making self-driving cars.
Its latest move: Buying 11-person sensor startup Strobe.
Deception on the internet is nothing new, but you're right, it is getting worse.
I’m not calling it “fake news,” because that term has been hijacked by Donald Trump to refer to news he disagrees with.
2017: It’s the greatest time to be alive and simultaneously the worst.
How did we get here?
This is cool
Why paper catalogs still matter.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
