Business

The Verge reports: YouTube has announced that it’ll be hiding public dislike counts on videos across its site, starting today. The company says the change is to keep smaller creators from being targeted by dislike attacks or harassment, and to promote “respectful interactions between viewers and creators.” The dislike button will still be there, but it’ll be for private feedback, …

The New York Times reports: Consumer inflation surged in October as fuel costs picked up, supply chains remained under pressure and rents moved higher — bad news for economic policymakers at the Federal Reserve and for the Biden White House, which had been emphasizing a recent slowdown in price gains. Inflation picked up to 0.9 percent last month from September, …

CNN reports: Roughly three-quarters of adults believe Facebook is making American society worse, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds, with about half saying they know somebody who was persuaded to believe in a conspiracy theory because of the site’s content. Americans say, 76% to 11%, that Facebook makes society worse, not better, according to the survey. Another 13% …

CNBC reports: A federal judge in Texas on Monday ruled that United Airlines’ employee vaccine policy can proceed. The Chicago-based airline has one of the strictest employee vaccine policies in the country. In September, it said that staff who receive medical or religious exemptions would be placed on unpaid leave. Six employees filed suit to block the policy in September. …

USA Today reports: Given a chance to repudiate the lies and misinformation spread last week about COVID-19 vaccines by Green Bay Packers quarterback and company pitchman Aaron Rodgers, State Farm punted. “Aaron Rodgers has been a great ambassador for our company for much of the past decade,” a company spokeswoman said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports Monday morning. …

The Verge reports: Is it fair that the democracy I live in might have some demands of me? How can I prove that I’m super edgy and totally unfazed by the prospect of paying more tax? These are the questions apparently motivating Elon Musk, who replied to a tweet from Wyden by asking why the senator looks like he’s just …

Forbes reports: SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk just launched a Twitter poll that is literally worth over $25 billion. Musk, who doesn’t take a significant salary and whose wealth is therefore protected from taxation as his companies’ valuations grow, is asking his Twitter followers if he should sell Tesla stock in order to pay tax. This is no idle …

The Verge reports: Apple is reportedly planning to begin ending mask requirements for customers at some of its US retail stores as early as Friday. The company told employees about the change in an internal memo on Thursday, Bloomberg reported, saying the decision was based on a decline in coronavirus cases and a rise in vaccination rates. The latest memo …

ABC News reports: Last call could come three hours earlier in Miami Beach, where a majority of voters fed up with nighttime violence chose “Yes” to rolling back the 5 a.m. closing time for alcohol sales. The voter referendum was held Tuesday in response to increasingly raucous crowds and public drinking in the South Beach entertainment district, where tension has …

The New York Times reports: Facebook plans to shut down its decade-old facial recognition system this month, deleting the face scan data of more than one billion users and effectively eliminating a feature that has fueled privacy concerns, government investigations, a class-action lawsuit and regulatory woes. Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence at Meta, Facebook’s newly named parent company, …

The Washington Post reports: Southwest Airlines is conducting an internal investigation after one of its pilots reportedly said a phrase used in right-wing circles as a stand-in for swearing at President Biden over the plane’s public address system — apologizing to customers and insisting it does not condone employees sharing personal political opinions while on the job. The airline faced …

CNBC reports: American Airlines has canceled more than 1,000 flights since Friday, disruptions it blamed on staffing problems and high winds at its busiest hub. . American’s COO David Seymour said in a staff note on Saturday that the problems started with high wind gusts on Thursday that cut capacity at its Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport hub and that crew …

CBS News reports: Elon Musk’s net worth has surpassed $300 billion, making him the first person on the planet to reach that milestone. It also means the Tesla chief executive is worth tens of billions more than the second-richest person on earth, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Musk was worth $302 billion as of Thursday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. …

The BBC reports: Facebook’s announcement that it is changing its name to Meta has caused quite the stir in Israel where the word sounds like the Hebrew word for “dead”. To be precise, Meta is pronounced like the feminine form of the Hebrew word. A number of people have taken to Twitter to share their take on the name under …

CNBC reports: Facebook on Thursday announced that it will change its company name to Meta. The name change, which was announced at the Facebook Connect augmented and virtual reality conference, reflects the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media with the metaverse, a classic sci-fi term Facebook has adopted to describe its vision for working and playing in a virtual world. …

The New York Times reports: Facebook has told employees to “preserve internal documents and communications since 2016” that pertain to its businesses because governments and legislative bodies have started inquiries into its operations, according to a company email sent on Tuesday night. The move, known as a “legal hold,” follows intense media, legal and regulatory scrutiny over the social network’s …

Yahoo Finance reports: U.S. holiday sales could rise over 10% this year, a trade body said on Wednesday, as major consumer goods makers and retailers work to prevent supply chain disruptions from leaving shelves empty of in-demand toys and games. The National Retail Federation (NRF) forecast sales to increase between 8.5% and 10.5%, to between $843.4 billion and $859 billion, …

CNBC reports: A federal judge in Texas denied Southwest Airlines pilots union’s request to temporarily block a vaccine mandate for employees, which is a requirement under new government rules. Dallas-based Southwest Airlines must require staff to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by Dec. 8 unless they receive a religious or medical exemption, according to rules for federal contractors that the …

The Hill reports: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk ripped the Democratic proposal for an annual tax on billionaires’ investment gains on Monday, as lawmakers consider the tax as a way to fund the party’s multi-trillion dollar reconciliation package. Musk, who as of Monday had the highest net worth on Forbes’ list of billionaires, replied to a tweet featuring a …

The Hill reports: Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin on Monday announced plans to build a commercial space station for business and travel in low-Earth orbit. Blue Origin said it is working with Boeing and Sierra Space on a commercially developed, owned and operated space station known as “Orbital Reef.” The company said the space station will be operated as …