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Recode Daily: Twitter, YouTube and Facebook race to contain conspiracy content after the Parkland shooting

Plus, Coinbase is hiring a CFO, Uber rolls out a new ride-sharing service today, and don’t give up hope — The Enlightenment is working.

Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, survivors of the recent high-school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, survivors of the recent high-school shooting in Parkland, Fla., have been outspoken in calling for tough action on gun control; they have been accused online of being “crisis actors.”
CNN

Social media has been a dark place since 17 people were killed at a Florida high school last week. Twitter is going out of its way to verify accounts of some of the most publicly outspoken student survivors of the Parkland shooting. YouTube and Facebook removed some of the conspiracy videos claiming that survivor David Hogg was a “crisis actor,” but in many cases the videos had already been promoted in the “trending news” sections of both services. Meanwhile, the father of an 18-year-old girl killed in the shooting made an impassioned plea to President Trump at the White House to act quickly to protect children in the country’s schools. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

Coinbase is hiring a CFO in what would be a big move for the cryptocurrency platform’s growth plans — and often a sign that a business is eyeing an IPO. Other expected hires include vice presidents to handle communications and corporate development. Coinbase continues to fend off late-stage investors who want to buy existing shares, despite the company’s recent warning to knock it off. [Theodore Schleifer / Recode]

Uber is rolling out a cheaper version of its UberPool ride-sharing service. Called Express Pool, the service is now available in San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, San Diego and Denver and will launch today in Miami, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Riders are required to walk a little to meet their driver — and then again to their destination after being dropped off; Uber thinks this will make shared rides more efficient. [Johana Bhuiyan / Recode]

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton is putting $50 million of his own money into the Signal encrypted messaging app, the security industry’s gold standard for surveillance-resistant communications. Acton also announced the launch of the tech nonprofit Signal Foundation, which will build and maintain Signal and potentially other privacy-focused apps. [Andy Greenberg / Wired]

Reporting mixed Q4 financial results yesterday, Pandora boasted a 63 percent bump in subscription revenue, bringing its yearly total to $97.7 million. The streaming-music pioneer also tallied 5.48 million subscribers, a 25 percent year-over-year increase. The company said it will invest $45 million into new growth initiatives like ad tech, non-music content, device integration and marketing technology, as it continues to build out its “Premium Access” on-demand services to better compete with rivals like Spotify. And Roku posted a blowout 2017 holiday quarter yesterday, thanks largely to a big increase of its licensing and advertising revenue; a dip in hardware revenue spooked investors, sending Roku stock down 20 percent in after-hours trading. [Chloe Aiello / CNBC]


Recode Presents ...

For the third year in a row, Recode’s Kara Swisher and Jason Del Rey are gathering some of the brightest e-commerce and retail minds for a night of live journalism at An Evening with Code Commerce, Tuesday, March 20 at The Venetian in Las Vegas. We’ve just announced three of the five speakers you’ll hear from at the three-hour event: Rent the Runway co-founder and CEO Jennifer Hyman, DoorDash founder and CEO Tony Xu and The Cheesecake Factory’s president David Gordon; look for one more Code Commerce speaker announcement next week. These events always sell out, so register today.


Top stories from Recode

Amazon is now worth more than 2.5 Walmarts.

It was worth just two Walmarts last month.

Priceline’s 2005 acquisition of Booking.com has been so transformational that the online travel company is changing its name to Booking Holdings.

Take a look at its stock price since.

Lauren Duca became an internet star overnight. Now, she says she’s “fireproof.”

On the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka, Duca said she owes her fame (or infamy) to one mega-viral Teen Vogue column and a 10-minute interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News.

This is cool

Don’t give up hope: The Enlightenment is working.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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