The UK election didn't deliver the increased majority that PM Theresa May was seeking, but it wasn't for lack of trying: the UK Conservative party spent £1.2m on social media smear ads that painted Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a terrorist sympathiser, a useful idiot for Scottish separatism, and an incompetent.

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Bloomberg, via @Cabel:

Reynolds founded and led the Baltimore studio known as Zynga East, which produced the game “FrontierVille.” Prior to Zynga, he earned acclaim as the lead designer of Sid Meier’s “Civilization II,” a strategy game developed by MicroProse Software Inc. Reynolds didn’t respond to requests for comment. Zynga shares declined 8.5 percent to $2.60 at the close in New York.

Previously. Read the rest

Josh Constine at TechCrunch:

Possibly trying to hide the grim news by announcing it during Apple’s event, we’ve just independently confirmed that Zynga has shut down its Boston office and laid off 2/3s of the employees in its Austin office

The staff had 2 hours to vacate their desks; it must have been tempting to vacate on their desks. Read the rest

Farhad Manjoo writes that Zynga, no longer shielded by its early success, is now in a death spiral fueled by universal contempt: "If you’re looking for this generation’s Pets.com, Zynga is pretty much it." Read the rest

Even with internal dicta such as “Steal someone else’s game. Change its name", Zynga will be a slippery target in court. At The Kernel, George Osborn sees Electronic Art's copyright lawsuit as a red herring that hides both the real victim and a better solution: The fraternal, collaborative, highly sociable culture of indie gaming—ruthlessly exploited by Zynga, yet capable of forcing it to change. Read the rest