Mediagazer: DNS provider Dyn is investigating and mitigating a third wave of DDoS attacks causing widespread outages across many popular sites in the US and Europe (William Turton/Gizmodo)

8:40 PM ET, October 21, 2016

Top News:

William Turton / Gizmodo:

DNS provider Dyn is investigating and mitigating a third wave of DDoS attacks causing widespread outages across many popular sites in the US and Europe — Twitter, Spotify and Reddit, and a huge swath of other websites were down or screwed up this morning.

Discussion: Dyn, Inc. Status, CNBC, TechCrunch, New York Times, Krebs on Security, The Atlantic, downdetector.com, Motherboard, Politico, @briankrebs, Gizmodo, Washington Post, USA Today, Wired, Reuters, Fast Company, Esquire, Forbes, The Next Web, Mediaite, Krebs on Security, Mashable, CNNMoney, RT, @swiftonsecurity, electionlawblog.org, @dangillmor, Malwarebytes Labs, Business Insider, @lorenzofb, @spacekatgal, GeekWire, Mother Jones, Bloomberg, Engadget, Adweek, Motherboard, Fast Company, The Daily Caller, Variety, ZDNet, NPR, Mashable, VentureBeat, MovieWeb News, NBC News, Fierce Telecom, The Verge, ChannelE2E, Apteligent, The Wrap, CBS Sacramento, @nordic_news, @nordic_news, @briankrebs, CBS Chicago, Techdirt, LostRemote, Refinery29, VentureBeat, @techcrunch, @el33th4xor, @yayitsrob, NetNewsCheck Latest, @thisisjendoll, Boing Boing, Variety, The Hill, New York Magazine, ZDNet, Guardian, The Huffington Post, Mediaite, CBS Los Angeles, Softpedia News, Consumerist, Deadline, Fortune, Pocket-lint, The FADER, The Awl - Medium, Joe.My.God., WCMH-TV and The Week

Jessica Toonkel / Reuters:

Sources: AT&T reaches agreement in principle to buy Time Warner for about $85B — AT&T Inc (T.N) has reached an agreement in principle to buy Time Warner Inc (TWX.N) for about $85 billion, sources said on Friday, paving the way for a blockbuster deal that would give the telecom company control …

Peter Kafka / Recode:

Why AT&T would want to buy Time Warner: content packaged with data connections, a shrinking DirecTV business, and competition with Verizon, Facebook, and Google — AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is busy, so we'll answer for him. — More than 16 years ago, AOL bought Time Warner for $160 billion …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, VentureBeat, Fortune, Telegraph, @pkafka, TechCrunch, MacRumors and Stocks to Watch

CNBC:

Time Warner stock surges 8.2%, breaking 15-year high; sources say AT&T could pay “north of $90” a share for the company — The deal could be ‘well north’ of $90 a share, sources say — Kara Swisher, Recode Executive Editor, discusses the news that AT&T is in advanced talks to buy Time Warner.

Discussion: Deadline, The Wrap, Engadget, Bloomberg, Fortune and Vanity Fair

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook plans to show more images and stories with graphic content, including violence and nudity, if they're “newsworthy, significant or of public interest” — Facebook will soon display more graphic content including violence and nudity that would normally violate its policies …

Deepa Seetharaman / Wall Street Journal:

Sources: Facebook staff wanted to block some Trump posts as hate speech, like one on banning Muslim immigrants; Zuckerberg chose to keep them — Ruling by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to keep presidential candidate's posts spurred heated internal debates — Some of Republican presidential candidate …

Discussion: Guardian, USA Today, Engadget, New York Magazine, @mikeisaac, Gizmodo, @owlese, @kashhill, AOL, The Week, Mashable and Business Insider

TechCrunch:

Facebook announces that Instant Articles can now include immersive 360 videos and photos; USA Today and Bild are first to showcase the feature — Oct 20, 2016, 2:09 pmOct 20, 2016, 3:51 pm — Facebook's Instant Articles — the format that displays publishers' content in a faster-loading …

Discussion: Digiday, Editor & Publisher, Facebook Media, Recode, USA Today, VentureBeat and The Next Web

Julia Angwin / ProPublica:

Google updated its privacy policy this summer, letting Google combine personal info from Gmail and other tools with DoubleClick browsing data to target ads — When Google bought the advertising network DoubleClick in 2007, Google founder Sergey Brin said that privacy would be the company's …

Discussion: Guardian, @garybernhardt, New York Magazine, @pqpmendigo, Beyond Search and Daring Fireball

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

Internal memo: WSJ offers buyouts to all news employees globally in order to reduce layoffs — Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker sent out the following announcement to the staff on Friday:

Discussion: Politico, Wall Street Journal, Quartz, @mathewi, @mathewi, @rafat, @dylanbyers, The Huffington Post, The Daily Caller, Gizmodo, @kelseymsutton, Business Insider, CNNMoney, @joepompeo, @joepompeo and Media Nation

Susan Krashinsky / Globe and Mail:

Canada's Postmedia announces 20% savings target on salary costs through buyouts and layoffs as its print ad sales fall over 20% in fourth quarter — In the past year, Postmedia Network Canada Corp. has shed the equivalent of 800 full-time jobs. On Thursday, the company said the job losses will deepen …

Discussion: Reuters, @mathewi, Guardian and Rehak/Stuebing Mostly Media

Kurt Wilms / YouTube Blog:

Third US presidential debate drew 1.7M peak concurrent views on YouTube, four times higher than 2012 debate — This year, more news organizations live streamed the U.S. presidential debates on YouTube than ever before, and we saw record-breaking interest from the YouTube community.

Discussion: TechCrunch, SocialTimes, Tubefilter, The Huffington Post and SocialTimes

Jake Kanter / Business Insider:

News UK terminates the employment of Mazher Mahmood after his arrest, will defend any civil claims in relation to his previous work — Just two weeks ago, News UK was refusing to comment on the employment status of investigative journalist Mazher Mahmood. — But now the so-called …

Telegraph:
Former News of the World reporter Mazher Mahmood sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for tampering with evidence in collapsed Tulisa Contostavlos drugs trial

Benjamin Mullin / Poynter:

UNC study finds 33%+ of US papers have changed ownership since 2004, local news is beholden to investors, and a trend toward corporate consolidation — Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst and E. W. Scripps are out. Digital First Media, GateHouse and Civitas are in.

Discussion: @poynter and @apradhan1968

Paul Sawers / VentureBeat:

Time Out to pay up to $2.94M for Yplan, the London-based event ticketing startup that had raised $37.5M — Event ticketing startup YPlan has been acquired by travel publication Time Out in a deal worth £1.6 million ($1.96 million), a figure that will rise to £2.4 million …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Business Insider, Telegraph, VatorNews and Business Insider

John Murawski / Raleigh News & Observer:

After awarding $1.5M in libel verdict against Raleigh News & Observer, jury adds $7.5M in punitive damages for forensic firearms story; paper will appeal — A day after awarding a $1.5 million libel verdict against The News & Observer and reporter Mandy Locke, a Wake County jury came …

Discussion: @davidgreene, @katherineblunt, @coreyhutchins and @melroselaw