Unriddled: "Alexa, Make a Donation," and More Tech News You Need

 Welcome one, welcome all to Wednesday -- the day that marks not just the week's halfway point, but another edition of "Unriddled": the HubSpot Marketing Blog's mid-week digest of the tech news you need to know.

This week, we continue to wade through the very crowded pool of tech news items to help you decrypt what's happening in this vast, often complex sector. And, get this: It's not all about Facebook.

It's our Wednesday tech news roundup, and we're breaking it down.

Unriddled: The Tech News You Need

1. An IRA Purge From Facebook

Yesterday afternoon, Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos issued a statement indicating that the company had removed 70 Facebook and 65 Instagram accounts, in addition to 138 Facebook Pages, that were controlled by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA). The announcement noted that many of these Pages ran ads that have also been removed from Facebook.

Roughly 95% of the Pages with content were in Russian, indicating that these pages were targeted toward Russia residents or people who speak the language in neighboring nations.

According to Stamos, the decision to remove these Pages had little to do with the content itself -- and everything to do with the fact that they were controlled by the IRA, which "has repeatedly used complex networks of inauthentic accounts to deceive and manipulate people who use Facebook, including before, during and after the 2016 U.S. presidential elections," he wrote. "It’s why we don’t want them on Facebook."

Users can expect a further explanation from Facebook in the coming weeks, Stamos said. The company is looking to update its Help Center so people can find out if they liked any of these Pages.

Source: Facebook

2. "Alexa, Make a Donation"

On Monday, it was revealed that Amazon Echo Users can now donate to 40 charities through Amazon Pay: a service, much like Apple Pay or Google Pay, that lets people use payment methods already associated stored in their Amazon accounts to purchase goods and services -- and now, to make donations.

To make donations through Alexa, users need to have such a valid payment method set up in their Amazon accounts, and have voice purchasing enabled. And in order to prevent others from making unwanted donations, users can set up a four-digit voice confirmation code, which can be done through the voice purchasing settings.

It's an interesting new feature for Amazon, and not the first that allows shoppers to use its technology to make charitable donations. In 2013, the company launched Amazon Smile, which lets users pick a charity that will receive 0.5% of what they pay for certain, eligible products.