Get in the KNOW
on LA Startups & Tech
XThe Lithium Race Takes Shape in the Salton Sea
David Shultz
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
Located roughly a hundred miles east of San Diego, the Salton Sea is California’s largest landlocked body of water, for now.
Measuring 5 miles across and 35 miles long in its current form, the lake was created by diverting water from the Colorado River into the region for agricultural purposes. Once a vacation destination renowned for its wildlife and wetlands, a series of environmental mishaps and mismanagement have left the lake toxically salty, shrinking and often malodorous. Conditions have gotten so bad that Palm Springs Life Magazine called the region’s transformation “the biggest environmental disaster in California history” in March of 2020.
But against this unlikely backdrop, new life—or at least new industry—is scrambling to set up shop in the region. The Salton Sea, it turns out, is rich with lithium, an element that has taken center stage in the world’s transition to clean energy and its ever-growing demand for batteries. From smartphones to electric vehicles, there’s a pretty good chance that the last battery you used had lithium ions inside. Prices for the metal reached an all time high in September, and futures are up more than 400% since the start of 2021. With Biden’s new economic policy outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act, there are strong financial incentives to move battery production back to North America.
If that’s going to happen the Salton Sea could very well become the lithium capital of North America, or to paraphrase Governor Gavin Newsom, the region could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” and the players are already starting to assemble.
Currently, there are three companies attempting to set up plants in the Salton Sea for direct lithium extraction: EnergySource Minerals, Controlled Thermal Resources and BHE Renewables, a branch of Berkshire Hathaway. All three companies have similar business strategies from a high level, all of which involve geothermal power plants. These plants, which are common in many parts of the world, draw hot, salty water from deep in the ground to create steam which drives a turbine to produce electricity. What makes the Salton Sea so special is that its geothermal brines just happen to contain lithium.
In a 2017 study, researchers from the U.S. DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy analyzed more than 2,000 samples of geothermal fluid from U.S. sources and found that only 1% had significant lithium concentration. This rare confluence of geothermal activity and lithium presence provides an opportunity for companies to generate electricity and mine lithium simultaneously.
Beyond their marriage of geothermal energy and lithium extraction, the three companies begin to diverge.
According to former dot.LA engagement editor Luis Gomez — whose newsletter Lithium Valle, is essential reading on this topic — EnergySource seems to be out in front early.
“They claim to have the technology that’s patented, they claim to have done the research, they claim to have the funding, and they claim they're ready to go and start production,” says Gomez. “They are kind of considered the canary in the coal mine.”
According to a report from the United States Department of Energy, EnergySource plans to eventually scale production up to over 20,000 metric tons of lithium hydroxide per year using its proprietary Integrated Lithium Adsorption Desorption technology.
Construction on the plant was slated to start earlier this year, but has been delayed. EnergySource has said publicly that lithium production might begin in the second quarter of 2024, but it’s unclear whether this date will also be pushed back. The company has a long history of operating in the region, having run the John L. Featherstone geothermal plant since 2012. The new venture into lithium would leverage that same plant, but without more details about how their proprietary technology works, there’s not much to do but wait and see.
One potential problem facing all three lithium extraction companies is that the Salton Sea geothermal brines are not the same as the brines in evaporation ponds similar to those in Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, where more than half of the world’s lithium is produced. Specifically, the deep geothermal brines in the Salton Sea contain more silica and transition elements, which may complicate the chemistry of purifying the lithium. Still, many researchers are extremely bullish on the prospect of tapping into these reserves. Alex Grant, The Principal at Jade Cove, a research organization focusing on direct lithium extraction technologies, says that much of the skepticism surrounding the technology can be attributed to competing financial interests that are trying to squash the nascent tech’s potential in favor of an established method.
Lithium Mines in the Atacama Salt Flats, Chile from an altitude of 15km via Google Earth. The facility is about 10km wide.
Google Earth
For its part, BHE Renewables, operating as CalEnergy, runs a fleet of 10 geothermal plants in the Imperial Valley. The company had previously announced its intent to set up a direct lithium extraction demonstration plant sometime before the end of 2022 to assess the viability of lithium extraction. If that pilot program goes well, the company could build a commercial-scale facility as early as 2026 with a projected annual capacity of 90,000 metric tons of lithium.
Obviously, having the backing of Berkshire Hathaway comes with advantages and capital. Add into the equation another $15 million in DoE grant money obtained last winter, and BHE appears to be well positioned as a major player in the long term.
Finally, there’s Controlled Thermal Resources. As the only company not already operating a geothermal business in the region, CTR is something of an outsider and dark horse. By 2024, the company hopes to build both a geothermal energy plant and a direct lithium extraction plant to operate in parallel, projecting a capacity to extract 300,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent annually by 2030. As dot.LA previously reported, Controlled Thermal Resources has partnered with Statevolt, a company that intends to build a $4 billion gigafactory nearby that will run on power from CTR’s geothermal plant and make batteries from the lithium it extracts. It’s a beautiful closed-loop business model. But again, all of this relies on the direct lithium extraction technology, and details are scant.
According to Gomez, despite the typically cut-throat nature of the energy industry, the relationship between the three upstarts in the Salton Sea is often surprisingly cooperative at the moment.
“They want the others to succeed because it kind of gives them the confidence that their technology is also eventually going to succeed,” he says. “It gives confidence to investors.”
Which is all to say, there may well be space for all three companies if the technology is as solid as they claim. If that’s the case, the Salton Sea and its surrounding region may have yet another miraculous transformation up its sleeve.
From Your Site Articles
- EV Battery Maker Statevolt Is Embracing a 'Buy Local' Ethos - dot.LA ›
- EV Battery Maker's Plans Gigafactory in Imperial Valley - dot.LA ›
- Statevolt Joins Lithium Race In Salton Sea - dot.LA ›
- The US Needs A lot More Lithium Before The Switch to EVs - dot.LA ›
- Why Are Lithium Prices Falling? - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
David Shultz
David Shultz reports on clean technology and electric vehicles, among other industries, for dot.LA. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside, Nautilus and many other publications.
TikTok Timeline Update: The Rise and Pause of a Social Video Giant
03:07 PM | July 08, 2022
TikTok | Solen Feyissa | Flickr
See our timeline below for key developments TikTok's story over the last 10 years, starting with the founding of ByteDance and moving through the app's rise to popularity and the mounting concerns about data privacy and security.
March 2012: Internet entrepreneur Zhang Yiming founds ByteDance in Beijing.
August 2012: ByteDance launches its first product, Toutiao, an AI-powered news aggregator.
July 2014: Alex Zhu launches Musical.ly, an app that enables users to create short-form lipsync music videos; Musical.ly is headquartered in Shanghai with an office in Santa Monica.
July 2015: Musical.ly hits #1 in Apple app store.
September 2016: ByteDance launches Douyin, an app with similar functionality as Musical.ly; within a year, the Chinese app achieves 100 million users and 1 billion views per day.
September 2017: ByteDance brings Douyin outside of China's Great Firewall under the name of TikTok; the app does well in numerous Asian markets.
November 2017: ByteDance acquires Musical.ly for $1 billion; the company starts operating Musical.ly in the US, Douyin in China and TikTok in other markets.
August 2018: ByteDance merges Musical.ly with TikTok and migrates all user profiles to TikTok; Alex Zhu becomes TikTok senior vice president, saying, "Combining Musical.ly and TikTok is a natural fit given the shared mission of both experiences – to create a community where everyone can be a creator."
October 2018: ByteDance achieves a record $75 billion valuation, making it the world's biggest privately backed startup.
February 2019: Lil Nas X releases "Old Town Road" on TikTok, catalyzing a viral sensation that ultimately reaches #1 on Billboard's charts.
February 2019: TikTok is fined $5.7 million for child data privacy violations.
September 2019:Washington Post reports that TikTok may be censoring protests in Hong Kong.
September 2019: Leaked documents show TikTok instructs its moderators to censor videos that mention various subjects deemed offensive by the Chinese government and Communist Party, The Guardian reports.
October 2019: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio calls on the U.S. government to investigate the national security implications of ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly, citing concerns over the Chinese government and Communist Party's use of TikTok to censor content and silence open discussion.
October 2019: U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton ask U.S. Acting Director of National Intelligence to assess the national security risks from TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps, and request a congressional briefing on the findings.
October 2019: Alex Zhu begins reporting directly to ByteDance head Zhang Yiming; he had previously reported to the head of Douyin.
November 2019: The U.S. government launches an investigation into ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly on the grounds that ByteDance did not seek clearance when it acquired Musical.ly.
TikTok reportedly has 26.5 million monthly active users in the U.S. at this time.
December 2019: The U.S. Defense Department's Defense Information Systems Agency issues a recommendation that military personnel delete TikTok from all smartphones.
Q4 2019: TikTok becomes the most downloaded app in the world and second in the U.S.
January 2020: Several U.S. military branches ban TikTok on government-issued smartphones.
March 2020: U.S. officials reach out to TikTok to discuss political disinformation.
April 2020: TikTok surpasses 2 billion downloads and sets the record for quarterly downloads.
May 2020: Various child privacy groups file a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that TikTok is violating the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and flouting terms agreed to following its February 2019 settlement.
A TikTok spokesperson says the company "takes the issue of safety seriously for all our users, and we continue to further strengthen our safeguards and introduce new measures to protect young people on the app."
May 2020: ByteDance hires former Disney executive Kevin Mayer as chief operating officer and TikTok chief executive officer.
June 2020: Teens organize on TikTok to fool Trump administration into anticipating high attendance for the President's Tulsa, Oklahoma campaign rally.
June 2020: India bans 59 Chinese apps including TikTok, citing national security and data privacy concerns; the move comes amid ongoing skirmishes between the two countries on the China-India border.
July 2020: Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison launches an investigation into TikTok surrounding data concerns.
July 2020: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirms the U.S. is looking into banning TikTok over concerns the app is sharing data with China; the next day, President Trump says he is considering a ban, framing it as a potential retaliation tactic against China for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Aug. 2, 2020: Microsoft issues a blog post citing a conversation between chief executive Satya Nadella and President Trump around the company's potential acquisition of TikTok.
Aug. 4, 2020: Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrisson says there is not sufficient evidence to suggest a TikTok ban is necessary.
Aug. 6, 2020: President Trump issues an executive order banning American companies from transacting with ByteDance or its subsidiaries, namely TikTok; the U.S. Secretary of Commerce is to identify specific prohibited "transactions" 45 days after the order is issued.
Aug. 14, 2020: Trump issues another executive order demanding ByteDance "divest all interests and rights" in its assets and property that enable TikTok's U.S. operations, and data collected via TikTok in the U.S., within 90 days. The order says the U.S. investigation into ByteDance's acquisition of Musical.ly presented "credible evidence" that ByteDance "might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States."
Aug. 17, 2020: Oracle enters the discussion as a reported TikTok suitor.
Aug. 18, 2020: President Trump says he would support Oracle buying TikTok. Oracle's cofounder and CTO Larry Ellison had previously said he supports Trump and had fundraised for him in February 2020.
Aug. 24, 2020: TikTok announces it is suing the Trump administration over the ban for failure to protect due process. Separately, a U.S.-based TikTok employee also sues the administration, stating, "I am a patriot"
Aug. 26, 2020:Kevin Mayer steps down from ByteDance and TikTok, citing a diminished role in a letter to colleagues. Rumors swirl that he was left out of ByteDance's negotiations with potential acquirers
Aug. 27, 2020: Walmart issues a statement that it is interested in partnering with Microsoft to acquire TikTok.
Aug. 28, 2020: L.A.-based Triller, a TikTok upstart competitor, is reported to have issued a bid for TikTok along with investment firm Centricus.
Aug. 29, 2020:The Chinese government issues new export rules that complicate the exportation of TikTok's underlying technology – namely its "For You" algorithm – to any foreign buyer.
Aug. 31, 2020:CNBC reports TikTok has chosen a buyer, with an expected sale price of $20 billion - $30 billion.
Sept. 3, 2020: With uncertainty over whether a buyer will be able to acquire TikTok's algorithm, and debate mounting over how that affects the value of the company, numerous outlets negotiations are likely to slow as the Chinese government increases its involvement.
Sept. 13, 2020: Microsoft says in a blog post that "ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok's US operations to Microsoft." The company says it would have made "significant changes" to ensure security, privacy, online safety and combatting disinformation.
Sept. 14, 2020: Oracle confirms that it has been selected by ByteDance to become a "trusted technology provider" with TikTok. The company says the proposal was submitted by ByteDance to the Treasury Department over the weekend. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says on CNBC that the proposal includes making TikTok-global a U.S. headquartered company with 20,000 new jobs.
Mnuchin adds that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is reviewing the proposal this week for national security implications, and will make a recommendation to the president, who will then review the proposal.
Sept. 19, 2020: President Trump tells reporters he approved the deal in concept between Oracle and TikTok's parent company ByteDance, in which Oracle and Walmart would partner with the app in the U.S. The U.S. government postpones a planned ban on TikTok for one week.
Sept. 27, 2020: A federal judge in Washington temporarily blocks President Trump’s order banning TikTok, granting the social media firm a reprieve just hours before it was to be removed from mobile app stores. The judge says Trump’s order was “largely a unilateral decision with very little opportunity for plaintiffs to be heard,” according to the Washington Post.
Oct. 30, 2020: TikTok averts a U.S. ban again after a federal judge in Pennsylvania temporarily blocks restrictions set to take place on Nov. 12—the Trump administration's deadline for ByteDance to close a deal in the U.S.
Nov. 7, 2020: Democrat Joe Biden defeats President Trump in the presidential election, the Associated Press and other media outlets confirm. A few days later, an advisor to President-elect Biden says it is “too early to say” Biden’s thoughts on TikTok.
Nov. 11, 2020: TikTok asks a judge to extend the deadline for its sale by 30 days. The company says it hasn’t heard an update from the administration in weeks.
Nov. 12, 2020: The U.S. Commerce Department says it won’t enforce the sale deadline imposed by Trump’s order "pending further legal developments." The department cites the Pennsylvania ruling from October that found the TikTok crackdown exceeded the government’s power.
Nov. 13, 2020: The U.S. government extends its deadline by 15 days, giving TikTok until Nov. 27 to strike a deal that allays the government’s national security concerns.
Nov. 26, 2020: ByteDance gets another week to sell off TikTok’s U.S. business. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department tells CNBC that the government granted the extension until Dec. 4 “to allow time to review a revised submission” that it recently received.
Dec. 4, 2020: The latest deadline passes without an approved deal to sell TikTok. The Treasury Department says it won’t extend the deadline again, but there are “no plans to enforce anything,” a source tells The Washington Post.
Dec. 14, 2020: The Federal Trade Commission orders TikTok—along with Snap, YouTube, Twitter and other social media and streaming sites—to turn over information about how they collect and use information about users.
Feb. 10, 2021: Newly-inaugurated President Joe Biden slams the brakes on forcing a TikTok sale. In court papers, Biden administration lawyers file a motion to postpone the cases related to a potential ban of the popular social media app.
June 9, 2021: President Biden revokes Trump’s executive order that sought to ban TikTok and replaces it with one that calls for a broader review of foreign-controlled apps that may pose national security risks.
June 25, 2021: CNBC reports TikTok is tightly controlled by Chinese parent company ByteDance. Insiders tell the news outlet that ByteDance has access to TikTok’s American user data and is closely involved in the Culver City company’s decision-making.
July 20, 2021: Pakistan bans TikTok for the fourth time, citing “inappropriate content.” The country lifts the latest ban a few months later.
Sept 27, 2021: TikTok announces that it has surpassed 1 billion monthly active users as the app continues to rapidly rise in popularity.
Oct. 26, 2021: During a public hearing, U.S. lawmakers press Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, on whether TikTok’s Chinese ownership could expose consumer data to Beijing. Beckerman says “access controls for our data is done by our U.S. teams,” adding that the data that TikTok collects is “not of a national security importance,” according to the New York Times.
Dec. 17 2021: A Wall Street Journal investigation shows that TikTok’s recommendation algorithm is flooding teens’ video feeds with eating disorder content.
December 2021: TikTok overtakes Google as the most-visited website on the internet.
Feb. 8, 2022: Facing criticism over hosting harmful content, TikTok announces new rules aimed at preventing viral hoaxes, shielding the LGBTQ community from harassment and removing videos promoting unhealthy eating.
February 2022: As Russia invades Ukraine, TikTok is awash in raw footage from the battlefield and false and misleading clips. The war raises fresh concerns about TikTok’s handling of misinformation on its platform.
March 2, 2022: A bipartisan group of state attorneys general launch an investigation into TikTok, examining whether the social media giant is harming children and young adults through the content on its platform.
March 11, 2022:Reuters reports that TikTok is close to a deal to store all of the video-sharing app’s U.S. user data with American software giant Oracle. The partnership is aimed at resolving the U.S. government’s national security concerns.
March 15, 2022: California lawmakers unveil a first-of-its-kind bill to let parents sue social media platforms like TikTok for allegedly addicting children to their apps.
March 31, 2022: Attorneys general from 44 U.S. states and territories urge TikTok and Santa Monica-based Snap to strengthen parental controls on their platforms, telling the social media giants that they must do more to protect kids online.
April 3, 2022: “The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical” wins a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. It’s the first Grammy-winning album to originate on TikTok, solidifying the app’s growing influence over the music industry.
April 15, 2022: The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice launch probes into TikTok’s moderation of content depicting child sexual abuse, according to the Financial Times.
April 2022: TikTok is the most-downloaded app in the world during the first quarter of 2022, according to a study from digital analytics firm Sensor Tower.
May 12, 2022: The mother of a 10-year-old girl who died after allegedly trying a dangerous “Blackout Challenge” sues TikTok. The case is one of several to claim the app’s algorithm showed kids and teens videos of people choking themselves until they pass out.
June 17, 2022: BuzzFeed News publishes a bombshell report that TikTok’s data on U.S. users was repeatedly accessed in China by employees of parent company ByteDance. The report raises fresh privacy and security concerns about the Chinese-owned social media app.
The same day, TikTok announces that it migrated all of its U.S. user traffic to servers operated by American software giant Oracle, an effort to assuage concerns that American data could fall into the hands of the Chinese government.
June 28, 2022: In the wake of the BuzzFeed report, Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr urges Apple and Google to remove TikTok from its app stores. Nine Republican U.S. senators send a letter to TikTok with questions about the company’s handling of American data.
June 30, 2022: TikTok responds to Republican lawmakers by detailing its plans on keeping U.S. data out of the hands of Chinese parent company ByteDance. The company’s letter confirms that ByteDance employees in China can access TikTok data, but only when “subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls” and approvals overseen by its U.S.-based security team.
July 5, 2022: Leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether TikTok deceived the public about whether people in China could access American user data.July 29, 2022: Bloomberg reports the Chinese government requested TikTok host stealth, propaganda accounts—a move that TikTok executives denied due to their growing efforts to distance the platform from its Chinese origins.
August 5, 2022: The flood of information coming from within the organization leads TikTok to hire roles meant to prevent internal leaks.
August 11, 2022: A Forbes review of TikTok and ByteDance employees’ LinkedIn profiles reveals that 300 current employees previously worked for Chinese state media publications. Fifteen employees apparently were employed by both at the same time.
August 16, 2022: Oracle begins its audit of TikTok’s algorithm and content moderation process to determine if the Chinese government has interfered with the platform.
August 18, 2022: Developer Felix Krause finds that the app monitors all keyboard inputs and tags, which could record private data like passwords and credit card information. TikTok denies these claims.
September 14, 2022: TikTok Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Pappas appears before the Senate Homeland Security Committee and says its ongoing negotiations with the U.S. government “will satisfy all national security concerns.” Notably, Pappas would not fully commit to cutting off U.S. data flow to China.
September 21, 2022: Former TikTok executives claim they were instructed to follow directions from ByteDance and had limited power to make internal decisions as people question TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s influence.
September 24, 2022: British regulators from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) send TikTok a warning over how the company handles children’s data—a warning that could lead to a $29 million fine.
September 26, 2022: The Justice Department reaches a “preliminary agreement” with TikTok over national security concerns, though details are still being negotiated.
October 12, 2022: A BBC report finds that TikTok profited from refugees collecting donations via the app’s live streaming feature, with some claiming the platform took up to 70% of the profits.
October 20, 2022: A Forbes report reveals that ByteDance intended to use TikTok to monitor the location of American citizens as a method of surveillance. TikTok denies these claims.
October 27, 2022: Even as the government places increasing pressure on TikTok, the Biden administration invites eight TikTok stars to the White House in an effort to reach Gen Z voters.
That same day, A Philadelphia judge rules that TikTok is immune in a lawsuit claiming the app was responsible for the death of a child participating in the “blackout challenge.”
From Your Site Articles
- TikTok, Influencer Panic and the Celebrity Economy - dot.LA ›
- Biden Ends Ban on TikTok, WeChat - dot.LA ›
- TikTok is The Most Downloaded App - dot.LA ›
- TikTok’s Chinese Ownership Is Still Causing Concerns - dot.LA ›
- A Breakdown of the Data TikTok Collects on American Users - dot.LA ›
- A Breakdown of the Data TikTok Collects on American Users - dot.LA ›
- Report: TikTok Is Hiring to Help Crack Down on Leaks - dot.LA ›
- TikTok Keylogging Controversy and Update - dot.LA ›
- Top 10 TikTok Gadgets To Buy This Holiday Season - dot.LA ›
- What Happens When Every App Tries to Be TikTok? - dot.LA ›
- The Weird Wacky World of TikTok Sludge Content - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read moreShow less
LA Tech Updates: EV-Makers Rivian, Fisker, Karma Get Super-charged; Facebook issue crashes TikTok
03:13 PM | July 10, 2020
Here are the latest updates on news affecting Los Angeles' startup and tech communities. Sign up for our newsletter and follow dot.LA on Twitter for more.
Today:
- Tesla shares soar, Fisker rumored to go public, Karma gets $100m
- Facebook issues crash TikTok, Pinterest, Spotify
A Super-Charged Electric Vehicle Market: Rivian, Fisker and Karma Rake in Funds
Rivian Automotive is the maker of electric pickup trucks.
Tesla's success has super-charged investor interest in the electric vehicle market.
Exhibit A is the two Southern California-based electric car makers, Fisker and Karma, which secured millions in funding this week as they sought to ramp up production. Then came word Fisker, created by one-time Aston Martin designer Henrik Fisker, is now in talks to go public through a sale to a so-called blank-check acquisition company, Reuters reported on Thursday.
Today, Detroit-based Rivian Automotive, maker of electric pickup trucks that's backed in part by Ford Motor Co., announced that it secured $2.5 billion in funding from private investors.
The race to push out more electric vehicles comes as after Tesla supplanted Toyota as the most valuable car maker. Its shares have been soaring and it now has a market cap that stands at over $285 billion despite controversies and a much lower production volume.
Spartan Energy is bidding against other special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs as they are called, to bring Fisker public through a reverse merger, according to the report. Spartan is backed by Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm.
With a freshly secured $50 million in private funds, Fisker plans to sell the Fisker Ocean luxury electric SUV at a starting price of $37,500 in 2022. Fisker's previous venture Fisker Automotive fell into bankruptcy in 2013 and was bought by a Chinese group that rebranded it Karma. That company, which has been struggling after several layoff rounds and restructuring, is Karma and earlier this week secured $100 million from investors. It hopes to use that to raise a total of $300 million and roll out a line of electric vehicles.Facebook issue crashes Spotify, TikTok, Pinterest
farm5.staticflickr.comIf you were trying to use a handful of iOS apps including Spotify, TikTok and Pinterest Friday morning chances are you couldn't get in because of a Facebook log-in issue.
The hiccup came from Facebook's software development kit (SDK), which several apps rely on to operate. Developers use SDK for users who want to sign in with their Facebook account.
"Earlier today, a code change triggered crashes for some iOS apps using the Facebook SDK," Facebook's developer site announced. "We identified the issue quickly and resolved it. We apologize for any inconvenience."
The crash hit some of the biggest apps.
"Something's out of tune," Spotify's Status account said on Twitter in the early morning. "We're currently investigating, and we'll keep you posted here!"
It's the second time this year the Facebook interface has caused a crash.
Something's out of tune. We're currently investigating, and we'll keep you posted here!
— Spotify Status (@SpotifyStatus) July 10, 2020
From Your Site Articles
- Fisker to Go Public, Set to Produce Electric Cars by 2022 - dot.LA ›
- Karma Automotive Details Plans to Go Public - dot.LA ›
- Fisker Picks Up Manhattan Beach Headquarters - dot.LA ›
- Karma prices its electric car at $79,000 - dot.LA ›
- Electric Vehicles’ Rise Could End SoCal Car Dealerships - dot.LA ›
- Alpha Motors Opens Reservations For Wolf Electric Pickup - dot.LA ›
- LA Has Become a Magnet for EV Charging Station Startups. - dot.LA ›
- Fisker Wants Climate Neutral Car, Eyes Electric Pickup Truck - dot.LA ›
- Fisker Says Its Losses Are Shrinking As It Readies a New SUV - dot.LA ›
- Rivian, Based in Irvine, Files to Go Public - dot.LA ›
- Rivian IPO Filings Show Losses Before Going Public - dot.LA ›
- Feds Investigate Tesla Crash that Killed Retired California Couple - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read moreShow less
Rachel Uranga
Rachel Uranga is dot.LA's Managing Editor, News. She is a former Mexico-based market correspondent at Reuters and has worked for several Southern California news outlets, including the Los Angeles Business Journal and the Los Angeles Daily News. She has covered everything from IPOs to immigration. Uranga is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and California State University Northridge. A Los Angeles native, she lives with her husband, son and their felines.
https://twitter.com/racheluranga
rachel@dot.la
RELATEDTRENDING
LA TECH JOBS