TikTok temporarily bans new video creation in Russia

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok is suspending new video uploads and livestreams on its app in Russia, citing the country’s newly-passed “fake news” law as the reason for the change.

2/ In light of Russia's new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law. Our in-app messaging service will not be affected.

— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) March 6, 2022

“In light of Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law,” TikTok writes on Twitter. “Our in-app messaging service will not be affected.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on the...

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Activision Blizzard sued over claims sexual harassment contributed to employee’s death

Activision Blizzard faces a wrongful death lawsuit. | Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The parents of an Activision Blizzard employee who died by suicide during a company retreat in 2017 are suing the company for wrongful death, according to a report by The Washington Post. Paul and Janet Moynihan, the parents of Kerri Moynihan, a 32-year-old finance manager at Activision Blizzard, allege sexual harassment was a “significant factor” contributing to her death. Investigators ruled Moynihan’s death a suicide after she was found dead in a hotel room at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa in April 2017.

The suit claims Activision Blizzard “permitted a work environment in which sexual harassment was pervasive”

As noted by The Post, Moynihan was anonymously referenced in the lawsuit filed by California’s Department of Fair...

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What to expect from Apple’s ‘Peek Performance’ March event

Image: Apple

Apple is poised for its first livestream event of 2022 on Tuesday, March 8th at 1PM ET. The company sent out press invitation emails for the event titled “Peek Performance,” with rumors strongly suggesting Apple will announce a new third-generation iPhone SE with 5G.

The iPad Air might also get a new spec bump update at the event, with upgrades to both 5G and an A15 Bionic processor, similar to last year’s iPad Mini. Another rumor suggests an Apple Silicon “M2” upgrade alongside a redesigned MacBook Air might be coming. New Macs, including a Mac Mini with an M1 Pro / M1 Max processor update, could also get a showing, and new iMac and Mac Pro hardware are said to be in the works — but those will likely show up later in the year. Whatever...

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YouTube is reportedly paying podcasters to film their shows

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is reportedly offering money to podcasters in a bid to get them to create video versions of their shows, according to a report from Bloomberg. People close to the situation told Bloomberg that YouTube is offering individual shows $50,000 and up to $300,000 for podcast networks, potentially to fund filmed episodes and other video-based content.

YouTube has been making small advances towards pleasing listeners on the platform

Despite being a platform for video, the Google-owned YouTube hosts a number of popular podcasts, including the H3 Podcast, Full Send Podcast, and the Logan Paul-led Impaulsive. It even helped foster the growth of the controversial Joe Rogan Experience, which Spotify purchased the exclusive rights to in 2020.

Y...

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Visa and Mastercard suspend their services in Russia

Visa and Mastercard are suspending operations in Russia in light of its invasion of Ukraine. | Photo Illustration by Karol Serewis/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Visa and Mastercard are suspending operations in Russia in another major blow to the country’s financial system, according to a report from the Associated Press.

In an announcement on Visa’s website, the company says it’s working with partners in Russia to “cease all transactions over the coming days.” A separate press release from Mastercard contains a similar message, noting that it’s suspending services in Russia and that its decision wasn’t taken “lightly.” Both companies explain that any transactions made with Mastercard or Visa cards issued by banks in Russia won’t work outside of Russia, while any cards issued by banks outside of the country won’t work at Russian merchants or ATMs.

“We regret the impact this will have”

“We regret...

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Activision Blizzard halts new sales of games in Russia

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Activision Blizzard is suspending new sales “of and in” its games in Russia, the game company’s president Daniel Alegre announced in a publicly-shared letter to employees (via Eurogamer). The move bars Russians from any new transactions with the company, which includes both the sales of its games and in-game purchases.

The press release doesn’t specify whether the ban includes both digital and physical games. It does, however, highlight some of the contributions the company and its employees made to Ukraine, and also offers resources to workers affected by the war. The crisis in Ukraine comes at a sensitive time in Activision Blizzard’s history — the company continues to face criticism after it was sued for allegedly fostering a toxic...

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Internet backbone provider shuts off service in Russia

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Cogent Communications, an internet backbone provider that routes data across intercontinental connections, has cut ties with Russian customers over its invasion of Ukraine, as first reported by The Washington Post. The US-based company is one of the world’s largest internet backbone providers and serves customers in 50 countries, including a number of high-profile Russian companies.

The shutdown won’t disconnect Russians completely

In a letter to Russian customers obtained by The Post, Cogent cited “economic sanctions” and “the increasingly uncertain security situation” as the motives behind its total shutdown in the country. Cogent similarly told The Verge that it “terminated its contracts” with Russian customers in compliance with the E...

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My big fat Italian vampire-slaying family

The Vampire Survivors start screen, now in its true colors. | Photo illustration by Antonio G. Di Benedetto

I was floored as soon as I got to the main menu of Vampire Survivors. I knew this hot indie darling sounded up my alley when I heard it described as a reverse-bullet hell blended with a roguelike, but I was not prepared for it to hit so close to home. While the main menu looks low-rent and the Castlevania-inspired aesthetics seems at first like a poor imitation, what stopped me in my tracks was the starting character. Antonio Belpaese: the first in a lineup of four Belpaese family members and a menagerie of other characters with incredibly Italian-sounding names. Even before playing a minute of the game, I was enthralled by my namesake taking the lead. As I struggled through the first few runs and slowly unlocked more characters, I felt...

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PayPal pauses service in Russia, citing ‘violent military aggression’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

PayPal is suspending its services in Russia in response to the country’s “violent military aggression in Ukraine,” according to a report from Reuters. Ukraine’s vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted out a letter from PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, confirming the company’s decision to shut down its operations in Russia.

We received a letter from @Dan_Schulman, CEO PayPal. So now it’s official: PayPal shuts down its services in Russia citing Ukraine aggression. Thank you @PayPal for your supporting! Hope that soon you will open it in for pic.twitter.com/RaJxEMSLQe

— Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) March 5, 2022

“Under the current circumstances, we are suspending PayPayl services in Russia,” Shulman says in the letter. “We are...

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Paramount Plus is still figuring out Paramount Plus

Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Paramount Plus celebrated its first birthday yesterday. During its first year, the service debuted a _SpongeBob_movie, added original shows like 1883, and occasionally surprised us with exclusives like the second season of Evil, which was originally a CBS exclusive show. Plus, Paramount Plus managed to swipe the highly anticipated live-action Halo series — set to debut this month — from sister service Showtime.

But a year after its launch, Paramount Plus is still suffering an identity crisis: the streaming service has yet to prove why we should care about Paramount Plus beyond its big Star Trek catalog and obsession with Yellowstone. So far, it’s seemed as though Paramount has struggled to find the sweet spot between propping up its...

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Fully’s stellar Jarvis standing desks are still 15 percent off

Photo by Jay Peters / The Verge

The days are starting to get longer as we creep ever closer to springtime in the US. And coincidentally, the deals are getting better. Is there a correlation? Let’s go with yes and not think about it too much. The Verge Deals team has been playing the hits this week, with deals so good that they bear repeating for the weekend crowd. Check out some of the best deals below.

And if you’re looking slightly toward the future, stay tuned from whatever comes from next Tuesday’s Apple event. We expect the company to announce a new iPhone SE, among other exciting products. If you’re ready to upgrade your phone, there will probably be some good carrier deals and trade-in promos in store.

Fully Jarvis standing desks are 15 percent off through March...

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Snapchat turns off public ‘heatmap’ for Ukraine

The heatmap shows how many people are submitting snaps in an area.

Snap has announced that it’s temporarily turning off Snapchat’s “heatmap” feature for Ukraine, making it so the app no longer shows how many snaps are being taken in particular locations. The company says that the move is “a safety precaution” and that there will still be a curated public feed of snaps submitted by Ukrainians.

Normally, the Snap Map displays a color code to show how many people are posting public images in an area. In practice, that means you can get a good idea of where Snapchat users are concentrated. While this publicly available data isn’t usually meaningful (it’s not a surprise that more people are posting from downtown Seattle than the nearby national forest), in a wartime scenario where Russia may want to track...

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The best deals on 4K TVs

LG’s fantastic C1 OLED is on sale in the 55-inch configuration for around $1,297, its lowest price to date. | Image: LG

With CES 2022 having wrapped not too long ago, the future looks bright if you’re looking to nab a great TV deal. Many manufacturers — including LG and Samsung — announced new versions of some of their most popular models during the event, ranging from The Frame to LG’s new C2 lineup. That means we’re probably going to start seeing prices fall on last-gen models as newer models become available throughout the rest of the year.

For those looking to pick up a solid deal before the new models arrive, however, fret not, as there are still some great discounts available. There are currently a number of discounted 4K TVs to choose from, spanning a wide variety of prices, size configurations, and feature sets. Whether you want a secondary TV for...

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Facebook won’t let Russian advertisers create or make run ads ‘anywhere in the world’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook is cutting off ads in Russia. It’s pausing ads that target people in the country and is no longer letting advertisers in Russia “create or run ads anywhere in the world, including within Russia,” the company announced on Friday. The moves mark a big escalation of its actions against the country and could help prevent Russian misinformation tied to its invasion of Ukraine from appearing in Facebook ads.

Russia earlier on Friday began blocking Meta-owned Facebook entirely in the country, preventing many Russians from posting to social media amid the crisis. “As a result of the Russian government’s decision to block access to Facebook in the Russian Federation, soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from...

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Elon Musk, head of world’s largest EV company, now says we need more oil and gas

Elon Musk — the man whose Tesla and Tesla Solar have basically devoted their existence to competing with gas-guzzling cars, oil, and coal, and which briefly reached a market cap of $1 trillion and delivered nearly 1 million EVs last year — is now publicly in favor of increasing oil and gas production.

He tweeted late Friday:

Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil & gas output immediately.

Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures.

Obviously, this would negatively affect Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil & gas exports.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2022

“Obviously, this would negatively affect Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot...

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TikTok plans to add labels to ‘some’ state-controlled media

It’s piloting a state media policy. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok has announced that it’ll start putting labels on videos from “some” state-controlled media outlets as it starts rolling out its new state media policy. According to a news post from the company, it is “expediting” its plans for piloting the policy due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company says it started working on the policy last year. Users can expect the labels to start appearing within the next few days, according to the post.

A TikTok spokesperson told The Verge via email that the labels would be applied to at least some Russian state media accounts but didn’t specify which ones or how many. The Verge confirmed that at least one Russian state-controlled outlet, RT, has a verified account on TikTok. The spokesperson...

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Samsung has stopped shipping products to Russia

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Samsung is suspending shipments of all of its products to Russia, the company announced Friday. “Due to the current geopolitical developments, shipments to Russia have been suspended,” reads a statement from an unnamed Samsung representative, via Samsung’s generic PR email address. “We continue to actively monitor this complex situation to determine our next steps.”

It’s not just smartphones — Samsung’s suspension includes products ranging from “chips to smartphones and consumer electronics,” a source informed Bloomberg — meaning the move cuts off Russia from a huge range of products from one of the largest electronics vendors in the world.

Samsung is also making donations to humanitarian efforts

Samsung is also making donations to...

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Apple shareholders approve a civil rights audit and investigation of the risks of its NDAs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

At Apple’s annual shareholder meeting, investors in the company had more to consider than just how much money CEO Tim Cook and other executives stand to make — last year, the compensation for running a $2 trillion company added up to nearly $99 million for Cook. Instead, certain shareholder proposals brought up issues with social and cultural impact, like addressing forced labor, pay equity, and employee NDAs. On Friday, for the first time in years, two proposals actually passed (via CNET).

Bloomberg reports shareholders (unsurprisingly) opted to re-elect the same board of directors and approved the executive pay package outlined in the 2022 proxy statement. They also followed Apple’s recommendation in voting on eight of the ten...

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As Nvidia hacker deadline looms, 71,000 employee accounts have reportedly been exposed

Nvidia never denied that it got hacked. The GPU giant just didn’t say all that much about what happened, either.

But now — as we wait to see whether the hackers make good on their threat to dump hundreds of gigabytes of proprietary Nvidia data on the web, including details about future graphics chips, by an unspecified Friday deadline — the compromised email alert website Have I Been Pwned suggests that the scope of the hack includes a staggering 71,000 employee emails and hashes that may have allowed the hackers to crack their passwords (via TechCrunch).

It’s not clear how Have I Been Pwned obtained this info, and Nvidia won’t say. Nvidia would not confirm or deny to The Verge whether 71,000 employee credentials have been compromised,...

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Tesla wins approval for German Gigafactory but still has to meet conditions

Tesla is planning a Gigafactory in Germany | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla’s Gigafactory in Germany won approval from local officials on Friday, but the company still has to meet several requirements before the plant can begin production of vehicles, Reuters reported, including concerns about the plant’s water use.

Construction on the factory, which is nearly complete, was delayed several times by complaints from environmental groups in the area who protested the factory’s water use and potential disruption to wildlife. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the Gigafactory will use “relatively little” water and has argued that the forest that was cleared before the plant’s construction was “not a natural forest” since it had only been planted to make cardboard.

Musk first announced in 2019 that Tesla would locate...

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iFixit’s Steam Deck replacement parts will be available beginning this summer

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

iFixit plans to start offering Steam Deck replacement parts this summer, iFixit’s Kevin Purdy tells The Verge. Valve first announced in February that the repair experts at iFixit would be one of the authorized sellers of replacement parts but did not give a specific timeline as to when they would be available. The vast majority of consoles aren’t easily user repairable, so making official Steam Deck replacement parts available, even if they aren’t out just yet, is a good thing for consumers. And hopefully, it will push other hardware makers to do the same in the future.

We’ve asked iFixit if it can share information about which parts you’ll be able to get and how much they’ll cost. In Valve’s official Steam Deck teardown video from...

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Google Fiber workers begin voting on whether to unionize

Google Fiber workers voting whether to unionize | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Voting is open for workers for a Google Fiber subcontractor in Missouri, who are deciding whether to unionize as part of the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), a division of the Communication Workers of America. If successful, the 12 workers, who are employed by staffing agency BDS Connected Solutions as workers at Google Fiber stores_,_would be the AWU’s first bargaining unit to be recognized by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

The workers have to mail their ballots back to the NLRB by March 24th, when they’ll be counted by the agency’s regional office.

Google spokesperson Jennifer Rodstrom noted in an email to The Verge that the AWU petition filed with the NLRB mentions BDS, but not Google. “We have many contracts with both...

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Russia’s Yandex ‘pauses’ autonomous vehicle testing in the US

Russian technology company Yandex said that it was “pausing” its autonomous vehicle and sidewalk robot testing in the US. The news was first reported by Automotive News.

The company said it was shutting down its robotaxi fleet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as a delivery service with Grubhub powered by its six-wheeled sidewalk robots. “We hope to resume the operations in the future,” a spokesperson said.

The news comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued to send shockwaves around the world. The conflict has sparked a fierce outcry among Western nations, leading many to cut business ties with Russian companies. On Friday, Russia announced it was blocking access to Facebook.

The news comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued...

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Peacock is swiping back some of Hulu’s most popular streaming shows

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Some of the most popular programming on Hulu will now head to Peacock. A contract between the streaming services’ parent companies Disney and Comcast to stream NBCUniversal shows to Hulu has been terminated.

“The Hulu agreement was terminated,” NBCUniversal spokesperson Lisa Scalzo confirmed to The Verge.

The partnership will see episodes of NBCUniversal-owned shows like Saturday Night Live and The Voice debut on Peacock, rather than Hulu, after airing on pay-TV. Because Hulu will no longer be paying for some of NBC’s biggest titles, the deal could give Hulu the financial freedom to pursue more originals.

The change will likely go into effect next broadcast season, possibly around September and October. The termination will not wipe all...

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Nintendo gamers in Russia just got locked out of digital game purchases

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nintendo has temporarily put its Russian eShop into maintenance mode, the company said in a notice on its Russian website, which appears to mean that players in the country can’t buy digital games from the store.

“Due to the fact that the payment service used in Nintendo eShop has suspended the processing of payments in rubles, Nintendo eShop in Russia is temporarily placed into maintenance mode,” according to a Google-translated version of the message. “We apologize for any inconvenience caused.” It’s unclear what payment service Nintendo uses. The Verge has reached out for more information.

Many gaming companies have taken action in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. EA and CD Projekt Red have halted sales of their games in...

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Heardle is like Wordle for pop music

It’s hard to guess a song in the first few seconds.

If you’ve finished your Wordle, Worldle, and Octordle and have more room in your heart for more Wordle-alikes, may I suggest trying out Heardle.app? It’s a guessing game where you’re given progressively longer snippets of a pop song and get six tries to figure out what it is. It’s a fun twist on the Wordle format, especially for those of us who are significantly more interested in music than words like “knoll” or “vivid.”

An interesting twist with Heardle is that it gives you a skip button. Mechanically, it makes sense — with Wordle, you’re only going to get closer to the answer by guessing a word and seeing what letters are or aren’t in the correct answer. But when you’re guessing a song, hearing a new snippet will give you more...

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How to connect your Xbox controller to a PC or phone and swap back to your console

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

If you own any wireless Xbox controller from the current or previous generation, you already have a great option for playing controller-based games on a PC or smartphone. The key to the adaptability of these controllers is their support for both the Xbox Wireless protocol and Bluetooth. After Apple rolled out iOS 14.5 with support for wireless Xbox controllers and Microsoft tested and rolled out firmware updates for the older Bluetooth-equipped Xbox One controllers and the Elite 2 (matching the functionality of newer Series X models), these controllers went from being the only de facto option for Xbox or PC gamers to one of the most versatile options for use across consoles, phones, tablets, and Windows PCs.

Connecting to all these...

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How to upgrade your Nintendo Switch storage and migrate your games

The Nintendo Switch only comes with 32GB of internal storage, which is minuscule if you plan on having more than just a handful of games and apps downloaded to your handheld console. The solution is to use a microSD card to expand the Switch’s storage. But what’s the easiest way to do that? And if you already have a microSD card and want to use a new one with more capacity, how do you migrate your files? Don’t worry; we’ll walk you through it all.

Before you begin, it’s always a good idea to back up your games to a desktop computer using a microSD card. Of course, any title downloaded from the Nintendo eShop (they’re tied to your account) can be archived and downloaded again directly, if needed. But it takes a lot longer to download...

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Here are the best Kindle deals right now

The ad-free Kindle Paperwhite Kids is identical to the base Paperwhite, but comes with a few extras. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

When it comes to finding a device to use to read your ebooks, you have a few options to choose from. You can always buy a tablet or use your smartphone, but those devices are multipurpose and can be used for a ton of things, like surfing the web or doom-scrolling on Twitter. If you are looking for something to strictly read books, e-readers, while niche, are designed to store all of your books in a virtual library with limited functionality.

Amazon, one of the pioneers of the e-reader, has dominated the space for years with its Kindle lineup, which consists of several unique models with their own pros and cons.

Below, we’ve listed each model currently available for purchase. Sometimes, there isn’t a deal for one, or any, of the...

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Microsoft will let you play Xbox cloud games with a mouse and keyboard: ‘it’s coming’

The newest Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the most demanding games ever made — and yet you can now play it on a shitty PC (or an original Xbox One) with the power of Microsoft’s cloud. There’s just one big hole: you can’t play currently play Xbox with a mouse and keyboard because Xbox Cloud Gaming only supports gamepads (and touch) for now. But according to Microsoft Flight Simulator boss Jorg Neumann, that’s about to change: mouse and keyboard control is coming.

Neumann spilled the beans in a Flight Simulator video Q&A (via Windows Central), where he says it will be platform-level support, meaning, theoretically, any Xbox cloud game could offer mouse and keyboard control. Here’s my transcript of the most relevant part:

This is a...

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