Cat Zakrzewski

President Trump's social media summit was a spectacle. Here are the real takeaways for Big Tech.

Beyond the circus-like atmosphere of the White House social media summit, the conference had serious implications for Silicon Valley. It highlighted how President Donald Trump's attacks on Big Tech are creating more political jeopardy for the tech companies in Washington:

Facebook leaders say antitrust focus obscures the real tech threat: China

As Facebook prepares for increased competition scrutiny in the US and Europe, its top brass is repeatedly warning lawmakers and regulators that antitrust action could be a distraction from a much bigger threat: China.

Republicans make alleged conservative bias top priority at election security hearing

Google, Facebook, and Twitter executives came to Capitol Hill to testify about election security. Instead, they faced a grilling about whether their platforms are biased against conservatives. A string of Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee skipped questions about how the companies were tackling disinformation campaigns or preventing Russians from purchasing political ads on their platforms in the run-up to the 2020 election.

Sen Sanders, Kobuchar criticize FCC's green light on T-Mobile-Sprint merger

Sens Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) are criticizing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's decision to greenlight the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint -- the latest sign that antitrust issues are core to many of their 2020 platforms. Sens Sanders and Klobuchar say a merger of the telecommunications giants would leave consumers with fewer choices. Sen Klobuchar, who is expected to publish a book on antitrust issues later in 2019, said the deal could harm competition.

Sen Cruz's playbook to crack down on Big Tech for alleged anti-conservative bias

Accusing Twitter and Facebook of suppressing conservative voices, Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) floated an overhaul to a key law that protects Internet platforms from legal liability for content posts on their sites, breaking up the companies, or even charging them with fraud. His three-part playbook: 

Local news is the next battleground as Congress eyes Big Tech's power

House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA) reintroduced The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, making the case that the legislation is needed to level the playing field between tech giants and local news publishers. "It grows out of a recognition that we need to do something to give local media, local news publishers the ability to survive," Chairman Cicilline said. He argues that as ad revenue shifts from news publishers to Facebook and Google, it's time for Congress to intervene.

2020 Presidential candidate Sen Klobuchar wants to tax big tech companies' on data use

As privacy scandals mount at firms such as Facebook, Presidential candidate Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is positioning her data tax as a way to make technology companies think twice about how they share and profit from users’ data. But implementing such an idea might be difficult, experts noted. Taxing data means you have to know what such information is worth, for instance. Former Facebook employee Antonio García Martínez says data is often compared to oil, but that's a poor analogy because unlike oil that has a clear price, the ultimate value of data is unknown.

Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO) emerges as one of toughest Republican critics of Big Tech

Freshman Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), 39, (the country's youngest senator) is swiftly emerging as one of the Repulican Party's toughest critics of Big Tech. At a March 12 privacy hearing, he slammed Google for collecting people's location data on Android phones -- even after they try to disable the tracking function. Sen Hawley wants Google to give consumers a clear way to opt out of invasive location tracking. He says many members of the committee — including Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) — told him they were not aware that Google tracks people at this level.

Democrats hope 'Save the Internet' will reap political dividends

The Save the Internet Act, a measure from congressional Democrats to restore Obama-era network neutrality rules, is most likely dead on arrival. Though the bill has a strong chance of passing a Democratic-controlled House, it’s not a priority in a Republican-led Senate. It’s even less likely that President Donald Trump would sign a law reversing his administration’s decision.

Critics say FTC's fine against app now known as TikTok doesn't go far enough

Some Federal Trade Commission officials are calling the agency's $5.7 million fine against Musical.ly (now known as TikTok) for children’s privacy violations a “big win.” But critics say it highlights how Washington regulators aren’t doing enough to keep kids safe online. “While this fine may be a historic high for a [Children's Online Privcacy Protection Act (COPPA)] violation, it is not high enough for the harm that is done to children and to deter violations of the law in the future by other companies,” Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) said.

Is the FTC powerful enough to be an effective privacy cop? New report raises questions

The Federal Trade Commission is supposed to be the US government’s top Internet privacy cop. But a new Government Accountability Office report report raises questions about whether the agency has the resources and authority it needs to protect consumers. In the past decade, the FTC has filed just 101 enforcement actions regarding Internet privacy. While nearly all of the actions resulted in settlements that required companies to take action, in most cases the FTC didn’t have the authority to issue fines.

Facebook is having trouble keeping its fact-checking partners

Snopes, one of Facebook's high-profile fact-checking partners, and the Associated Press are not renewing its contract with the social network -- dealing a blow to a program Facebook executives have said is a key line of defense in their fight against disinformation. It was no longer practical for Snopes to participate in the partnership, said Snopes Vice President of Operations Vinny Green, because having such a high-profile deal with one company prevented Snopes from doing fact-checking work around the rest of the Internet.

Congressional Black Caucus Statement on Russian Attempts to Suppress African American Turnout in 2016 Election

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) – led by Chairman L. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), and Congressional Black Caucus Diversity Task Force Co-Chairs, Reps Barbara Lee (D-CA) and GK Butterfield (D-NC) – issued the following joint statement in response to a new report prepared for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which reveals Russia targeted African American voters in attempts to suppress the vote in the 2016 election:

More than 200 companies are calling for a national privacy law. Here's an inside look at their proposal.

A broad coalition of more than 200 retailers, banks and technology companies is releasing new recommendations for national privacy legislation in a clear push to get out in front of lawmakers promising to rein in their data collection practices in the next Congress. The Business Roundtable’s consumer privacy legislation framework calls on the United States to adopt a national privacy law that calls on companies to give consumers more control of their data and form a national standard for breach notification. Recommendations to lawmakers include: 

Amazon is now at the center of a debate over public safety versus privacy

A New Hampshire judge’s attempt to compel Amazon to share recordings from an Echo device at the scene of an alleged double murder is putting a fine point on law enforcement’s growing demand for data from Internet of Things devices. Prosecutors are seeking two days of recordings from the smart speaker in a Farmington (NH) home where two women were found dead in Jan 2017.

There is more phony political news on social media now than in 2016, report says

There’s even more phony or misleading political news circulating on social media than there was in 2016, according to a new University of Oxford report that casts doubt on tech companies’ attempts to crack down on disinformation ahead of the midterms. The report also found that social media users were more apt to share “junk news” than what researchers considered “professional content,” which includes news from established media outlets and information from the government, academics or political candidates.

President Trump's refusal to give up his iPhone sets dangerous precedent

President Donald Trump’s reported refusal to give up his personal iPhone demonstrates the complications of keeping government officials secure at a time when they are increasingly tied to their phones by the time they take office.

Tech executives voice support for national privacy law during hearing

Executives from major technology companies including Apple and Google expressed broad support for a national consumer privacy law in a hearing Sept 26, but offered few concrete specifics for how such a law might be best crafted. Lawmakers are no longer questioning whether technology companies should be regulated -- the conversation on Capitol Hill has shifted to how they can design a consumer privacy law that would span a broad swath of US tech and telecommunications companies with divergent data-collection practices.

Google draws conservatives' ire after a leaked 2016 video on Breitbart shows company executives consoling employees after Trump victory

A leaked video of Google executives trying to console employees who were upset after the election of President Trump has infuriated conservatives, who say the remarks illustrate the search giant's political bias and should prompt regulators to take a close look at the company.