Wired

As the tech industry has grown in power and influence, its politics have moved to the left. When people want to understand Silicon Valley’s political leanings, they often look to CA’s 17th Congressional District. Apple and Intel are headquartered there, as is Tesla’s manufacturing plant. In 2016, the voters of the 17th elected Ro Khanna, a former deputy assistant secretary in Obama’s Commerce Department, to represent them. Based on his 2017 legislative record, GovTrack ranked Rep Khanna the 14th-most-liberal representative in the House.

A host of companies believe, rather than fiber optic cables, the better way to connect the estimated half of Earth’s population that’s still offline is to launch “constellations” of smaller satellites into low Earth orbit, around 100 to 1,250 miles above our planet. Facebook is officially one of them.  Emails between the company and the Federal Communications Commission show that Facebook wants to launch Athena, its very own internet satellite, in early 2019.

Congress is finally turning its attention to Silicon Valley, but to tackle these issues, congressfolk will first have to understand them. Which means it’s time to reboot the Office of Technology Assessment. The OTA was staffed with several hundred nonpartisan propellerheads who studied emerging science and tech. Every year they’d write numerous clear, detailed reports and they were on call to help any congressperson. It worked admirably. Its reports helped save money and lives. With a budget of only $20 million a year, the little agency had an outsize impact.

YouTube has announced a slew of new features it hopes will help makes news on the platform more reliable and less susceptible to manipulation. The company is also investing $25 million in grants to news organizations looking to expand their video operations as part of a larger $300 million program sponsored by YouTube's sister company, Google.

There once was a legendary troll, and from its hideout beneath an overpass of the information superhighway, it prodded into existence the internet we know, love, and increasingly loathe. That troll, Ken ZZ03, struck in 1995. But to make sense of the profound aftereffects—and why Big Tech is finally reckoning with this part of its history—you have to look back even further. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, states that platforms are not liable for the content they host—even when, like Good Samaritans, they try to intervene. Ken ZZ03 would be its first test.