Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee signaled they want Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey back in the hot seat next year — along with executives from Google and Amazon. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
They called for greater regulatory action on Silicon Valley, as they escalated their criticism of tech giants and the myriad ways their power influences American society and politics, as Rachel Lerman and I reported.
“The bottom line is we want to make these platforms better,” said the committee’s chairman, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). “We want to continue to grow this part of our society responsibly, and right now without regulation or lawsuit, it’s becoming the Wild Wild West. ”
But the hearing crystallized familiar impediments to Washington’s years-long push to crack down on the tech industry.
The hearing reflected the broader partisan divisions in the nation following a contentious election during which Silicon Valley has been tested in unprecedented ways by President Trump’s use of social media as a megaphone for baseless claims of election fraud. Republicans used the hearing to charge tech companies with going too far in moderating content, accusing them of silencing conservative voices. Meanwhile, Democrats argued the companies haven’t gone far enough and questioned the efficacy of the companies’ recent interventions.
Lawmakers also traded barbs. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) blasted Democrats for not criticizing the unusual steps Facebook and Twitter took to limit the distribution of New York Post articles about alleged emails belonging to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) called her Republican colleagues’ accusations that Facebook is biased against conservatives “baseless.”
“This hearing is a transparent attempt by my Republican colleagues to work the refs,” Hirono said. “And unfortunately in my view it is working.”
Tuesday’s showdown was also more disorganized and unfocused than previous hearings likeit. Senators from both parties frequently exceeded the seven-minute limit they were given for questioning, and they jumped from election misinformation to antitrust issues to tech addiction.
Republicans and Democrats homed in on reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The decades-old law shields companies from lawsuits for posts, photos and comments that users share on their services. But it’s unclear how lawmakers would overhaul it to address the political parties’ polar-opposite criticisms of the tech giants.
Tech executives expressed openness to overhauling Section 230, with a focus on transparency. Zuckerberg recommended that any new regulations should require companies to issue transparency reports about the results and efficacy of their content moderation systems.
“That way, the people who are responsible for holding all of us accountable — whether it’s journalists, Congress, academics — could have an apples-to-apples comparison of how all the other companies are doing, and potentially as part of a law require companies maintain a certain level of effectiveness,” Zuckerberg said.
Dorsey reiterated previous suggestions, including giving people greater control over what algorithms are driving the flow of tweets they see in their feeds on the platform. Already, Twitter allows users to choose whether they want to see tweets in chronological order, or those that Twitter’s algorithms determine are most relevant to them.
Lawmakers circled around important issues about how tech companies handled misinformation during the election.
But they gained little new data about whether the many interventions deployed by such platforms were effective in stopping the spread of falsehoods and other inflammatory content.
In one of the most substantive exchanges, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) asked both Dorsey and Zuckerberg whether they had conducted a postmortem of their actions. Dorsey and Zuckerberg both said they have plans to do so and will allow some academics to have access to their companies’ information to do independent analyses.
“We have taken action on tweets from leaders all around the world, including the president,” Dorsey said in response to Republican questioning about fact-check labels.
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Apple is cutting its App Store fee in half for small developers.
The iPhone giant said developers that made $1 million or less from their apps in the last year will pay a 15 percent commission on those app sales starting next year, down from 30 percent, Jack Nicas reports for the New York Times. The change comes as Apple’s App Store fees have emerged as a major point of antitrust scrutiny.
The move is an abrupt shift from Apple’s strong public defense of the fees. It could help the company build goodwill among small developers and also improve its response to policymakers and journalists who have criticized the fees.
“We’re launching this program to help small-business owners write the next chapter of creativity and prosperity on the App Store, and to build the kind of quality apps our customers love,” Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, said in a news release. The smaller commission will help “developers fund their small businesses, take risks on new ideas, expand their teams, and continue to make apps that enrich people’s lives,” he said.
The change could impact about 98 percent of companies that pay Apple a commission, according to data analytics firm Sensor Tower. But those developers accounted for less than 5 percent of App Store revenues last year, Sensor Tower estimated.
Trump fired the nation’s top cybersecurity official for debunking claims of election fraud.
The director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Christopher Krebs, was fired “effective immediately,” President Trump tweeted last night, Ellen Nakashima and Nick Miroff report.
Trump alleged without evidence that Krebs’s recent declaration that the election was “the most secure in American history” was highly inaccurate. Trump, who refuses to concede his loss to Joe Biden, repeated his unfounded claims about voter fraud and technical election interference to favor Biden.
Krebs was the top official in charge of the government’s war room for monitoring election interference. After Election Day, he continued to fight disinformation, launching a Rumor Control page on CISA’s website and a #Protect2020 Twitter campaign. The agency frequently debunked claims of fraud touted by Trump, catching the president’s ire.
Krebs refuted in a tweet yesterday allegations that election systems were manipulated, saying that “59 election security experts all agree, ‘in every case of which we are aware, these claims either have been unsubstantiated or are technically incoherent.’ ”
Krebs’s firing drew condemnation from more than a dozen Democrats, as well as at least three Republicans. Krebs sought to be nonpartisan and was considered well respected by members of both parties.
Members of the tech and cybersecurity communities also expressed their respect for Krebs.
Facebook’s head of security policy:
Amazon debuted a new online pharmacy, shaking the stocks of rivals.
The debut of Amazon Pharmacy comes about two years after it acquired online pharmacy PillPack for $753 million, Jay Greene reports.
Amazon is looking to take advantage of an increase in consumer demand for shopping from home due to the coronavirus pandemic. The announcement caused stocks for competitors CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid to drop.
“As more and more people look to complete everyday errands from home, pharmacy is an important and needed addition to the Amazon online store,” Senior Vice President Doug Herrington said in a statement announcing the move.
The new retail arm, which offers free two-day shipping to Prime members, could add appeal to the increasingly expensive subscription. Prime members will also get a discount on medicine at in-person pharmacies including Rite Aid and Walgreens.
“Amazon Pharmacy offers yet another path to decrease churn while, at the same time, increase engagement among Prime members, ultimately resulting in further revenue upside over the next few years,” UBS analyst Eric Sheridan said in a note to clients.
Megadonor George Soros’s investment firm is divesting from Palantir.
“SFM made this investment at a time when the negative social consequences of big data were less understood,” the letter said. “SFM would not make an investment in Palantir today.”
The divestment is one of the most high-profile examples of an institutional investor separating itself from an American tech company over ethical concerns. Activist groups and human rights watchdogs have criticized the company’s track record of working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and countries with questionable human rights records.
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Twitter’s new disappearing tweets could pose new moderation headaches.
Unlike tweets, “fleets” are set to disappear in 24 hours and cannot be retweeted or liked, Twitter said in a blog post rolling out the feature. Users can still reply to them, but the reactions will appear as direct messages. Users can also share their permanent tweets as fleets. The feature is only available on Twitter’s Android and iOS apps.
All the same moderation rules that apply to tweets, including labeling, will also apply to fleets, Twitter spokesman Nick Pacillo confirmed in a tweet.
The ephemeral nature of the fleets and their inability to go viral could still make it harder for Twitter to react quickly enough to misleading or abusive content. Twitter investigations into abusive content sometimes take days — far longer than the fleet would exist.
Twitter users had mixed feelings about fleets:
One common refrain was that Twitter continues to ignore features users actually want.
Twitter also announced it will start rolling out an audio-only conversation tool similar to Silicon Valley favorite Clubhouse.
Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat already offer features for disappearing stories.
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