Tech News Today for July 19, 2016

Tech News for July 19, 2016

Today a judge blocked the Facebook-owned messaging tool WhatsApp for the third time in the past eight months. This block, the judge claims, was going to be indefinite. However, as of 6:01 PM Rio Di Janero time, the President of the Brazilian Supreme Court lifted the ban saying it was disproportionate. Read more at globo.com

In other government requests for data news, Google released its transparency report and Devindra Hardiwar over at Engadget says government and court demands for our data are at an all-time high and do not appear to be slowing down. The report cites 40,677 worldwide requests to Google for our data in the second half of 2015. However, Google is handing over less and less information. Read more at engadget.com.

Comedian Leslie Jones, who plays Patty in the new Ghostbusters movie has left Twitter after relentlessly being attacked by racists, then trying to expose those racists, and then apparently not getting help from the abuse team at Twitter. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey reached out to Jones, but it looks like it might have been too late. Read more at polygon.com

Microsoft released Q4 earnings today that were well above expectations, due in no small part to the customer momentum and interest in the cloud, says CEO Satya Nadella. Read more at theverge.com.

Jason Howell is out today, but Megan Morrone will be joined by Lauren Hockenson from The Nothing Matters podcast. They'll be talking with Ian Kar from Quartz about Bitmoji, which has officially come to Snapchat. Tech News Today streams live at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. You can subscribe to the show and get it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.