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yesIssie LapowskyNone
January 13, 2021
One day after Twitter banned President Trump and Google and Apple kicked the far-right social network Parler out of their app stores, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik dashed off a tweet: "If you think the American people will quietly accept #BigTechTyranny, You. Are. Wrong."
One detail Stefanik left out: She took $30,000 from corporate PACs linked to Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Intel in the last year alone, according to campaign finance records. During her tenure in Congress, she's raised nearly twice that much from those companies. And now, she's getting cut off.
Stefanik and the 146 other Republicans who voted against certifying election results last week — including fellow tech critics House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Reps. Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan — are among the many members of Congress who will soon lose financial backing from top tech PACs that are either scaling back or completely halting their corporate PACs' campaign contributions, following last week's siege on the Capitol.
For all of their efforts to secure the election, tech giants ended up contributing an awful lot to members of Congress who tried to overturn the election anyway. Of the more than $7 million that Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Intel's PACs spent in the 2020 election cycle, Protocol found that around $700,000 of it went to members who voted to contest the results. That includes $35,000 that went to McCarthy, $14,000 that went to Jordan and $10,000 that went to Nunes, all of whom have lashed out at tech companies over alleged censorship. Now, those same companies are putting a hold on that spending while they reevaluate.
And yet, as many have pointed out, some efforts to pull back from political donations may wind up hurting those members who voted to certify the election results more than those who didn't. Facebook, Google and Microsoft have announced that they will be cutting off all PAC contributions for the foreseeable future, a decision that earned the companies criticism for punishing both sides of the aisle for a Republican-driven insurrection.
The numbers bear that out. While Microsoft spent $1.87 million on all PAC donations during the 2020 election cycle, only $167,000 of that went to members who objected to the election results. Google made some $1.86 million in contributions last year, but just $174,000 went to objectors, including McCarthy, Nunes, Stefanik and Jordan. Facebook spent less than either of those companies, with just $523,000 in overall PAC contributions in 2020, but just over $33,000 of that funded objectors. These three companies alone, in other words, could wind up withholding millions of dollars in support from members of Congress who voted to uphold the results, just to avoid singling out the ones who didn't.
Amazon, Airbnb and Intel, for their part, have said they will only be stopping contributions to members who objected to certification, leaving the vast majority of their contributions intact for now.
The companies set different timelines for themselves to reconsider their political giving. Facebook's pause will last "for at least the current quarter." Google said its PAC is on hiatus while "we review and reassess its policies following last week's deeply troubling events." Amazon said it will discuss the decision with affected members and "evaluate their responses as we consider future PAC contributions."
It's possible that any of these companies could return to business as usual in the second quarter when the memory of the riot isn't quite so fresh. But if they stick to their commitments in the long run, these companies could leave a significant hole in some Congressional coffers.
Here's a look at where top tech companies spent their money on Capitol Hill before the last election, who stands to lose their support for trying to overturn the results of that election and who's getting caught in the crossfire.
Methodology: This data comes from OpenSecrets. These figures apply only to PAC contributions, not lobbying spending or contributions made by individuals. Twitter and Apple don't have corporate PACs, so they're not reflected here. Airbnb also pledged to withhold contributions to election objectors, but in 2020, the company spent only about $5,000 on these members, so it was excluded from our list.
Amazon
Action taken: Suspended contributions to any member of Congress who voted to override the election results
Total PAC contributions in 2020 cycle: more than $1.94 million
Total PAC contributions to federal candidates in 2020 cycle: more than $1.26 million
Total PAC contributions to members who objected to election results in 2020: $238,500
Objectors who raised the most:
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), $10,000
Sam Graves (R-MO), $10,000
Richard Hudson (R-NC), $10,000
Elise Stefanik (R-NY), $10,000
Morgan Griffith (R-VA), $10,000
Microsoft
Action taken: Will not make any political donations until after it "assesses the implications" of the riot
Total PAC contributions in 2020 cycle: more than $1.87 million
Total PAC contributions to federal candidates in 2020 cycle: more than $820,000
Total PAC contributions to members who objected to election results in 2020: $167,000
Objectors who raised the most:
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), $10,000
Steve Scalise (R-LA), $10,000
Non-objectors who raised the most:
Chris Coons (D-DE), $10,000
Steven Daines (R-MT), $10,000
Lindsey Graham (R-SC), $10,000
Mitch McConnell (R-KY), $10,000
Gary Peters (D-MI), $10,000
Ben Sasse (R-NE), $10,000
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), $10,000
Tina Smith (D-MN), $10,000
Dan Sullivan (R-AK), $10,000
Thom Tillis (R-NC), $10,000
Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), $10,000
Kevin Brady (R-TX), $10,000
James Clyburn (D-SC), $10,000
Steny Hoyer (D-MD), $10,000
Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), $10,000
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), $10,000
Adam Smith (D-WA), $10,000
Google
Action taken: Froze all political contributions
Total PAC contributions in 2020 cycle: more than $1.86 million
Total PAC contributions to federal candidates in 2020 cycle: $1.05 million
Total PAC contributions to members who objected to election results in 2020: $174,000
Objectors who raised the most:
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), $10,000
Steve Scalise, (R-LA) $10,000
Elise Stefanik (R-NY), $10,000
Jim Jordan (R-OH), $10,000
Jeff Duncan (R-SC), $10,000
Steve Chabot (R-OH), $10,000
Non-objectors who raised the most:
Susan Collins (R-ME), $10,000
Chris Coons (D-DE), $10,000
Joni Ernst (R-IA), $10,000
Martha McSally (R-AZ), $10,000
Kevin Brady (R-TX), $10,000
John Curtis (R-UT), $10,000
Rodney Davis (R-IL), $10,000
Tom Emmer (R-MN), $10,000
Anna Eshoo (D-CA), $10,000
Drew Ferguson (R-GA), $10,000
Steny Hoyer (D-MD), $10,000
Darin LaHood (R-IL), $10,000
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), $10,000
Michael McCaul (R-TX), $10,000
Patrick McHenry (R-NC), $10,000
Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), $10,000
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), $10,000
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), $10,000
Intel
Action taken: Will not contribute to members of Congress who voted against certification of the Electoral College results
Total PAC contributions in 2020 cycle: more than $977,000
Total PAC contributions to federal candidates in 2020 cycle: more than $560,000
Total PAC contributions to members who objected to election results in 2020: $100,500
Objectors who raised the most:
Andy Biggs (R-AZ), $10,000
Roger Williams (R-TX), $10,000
Action taken: Pausing all PAC contributions for at least the current quarter
Total PAC contributions in 2020 cycle: more than $523,000
Total PAC contributions to federal candidates in 2020 cycle: more than $303,000
Total PAC contributions to members who objected to election results in 2020: $33,500
Objectors who raised the most:
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), $5,000
Steve Scalise (R-LA), $5,000
Michael Burgess (R-TX), $5,000
Non-objectors who raised the most:
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), $10,000
Richard E. Neal (D-MA), $10,000
Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), $10,000
Adam Schiff (D-CA), $10,000
Disclosure: Reporter Issie Lapowsky is married to an Amazon employee.
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Issie Lapowsky
Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
Twitter’s future is newsletters and podcasts, not tweets
With Revue and a slew of other new products, Twitter is trying hard to move past texting.
We started with 140 characters. What now?
Image: Liv Iko/Protocol
January 26, 2021
David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
January 26, 2021
Twitter was once a home for 140-character missives about your lunch. Now, it's something like the real-time nerve center of the internet. But as for what Twitter wants to be going forward? It's slightly more complicated.
In just the last few months, Twitter has rolled out Fleets, a Stories-like feature; started testing an audio-only experience called Spaces; and acquired the podcast app Breaker and the video chat app Squad. And on Tuesday, Twitter announced it was acquiring Revue, a newsletter platform. The whole 140-characters thing (which is now 280 characters, by the way) is certainly not Twitter's organizing principle anymore. So what is?
<p>Twitter was always just about speed. The initial 140-character limit that became associated with the platform was a technical limitation — required to fit everything into a text message, then the quickest way to reach people — not a statement about brevity being the soul of anything. Many of the moves Twitter has made over the years have been in service of making Twitter even faster: faster to show users good stuff with algorithms, faster to publish with Fleets, faster to spread information with RTs and quote tweets. Even when Twitter decides not to do something, the reasons usually come back to speed. Take the much-desired edit button: One reason Jack Dorsey has given <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/jack-dorsey-wont-get-edit-tweet-button/" target="_blank">for not including one</a> is that it "means we'd have to delay sending that tweet out … we'll probably never do it."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Rather than think of Twitter as a social network or a 140-character writing tool, it's helpful to think of Twitter the way Dorsey does. "At its core Twitter is public messaging," he <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/684496529621557248" target="_blank">said in 2016</a>. "A simple way to say something, to anyone, that everyone in the world can see instantly." </p><p>That tweet came in part in response to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/1/5/11588480/twitter-considering-10000-character-limit-for-tweets" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a Recode story</a> that claimed Twitter was considering expanding its text limit to 10,000 characters. Dorsey didn't quite acknowledge the plan, but he didn't shoot the report down, either. He also explained why longer-form text might be a powerful part of Twitter. "We've spent a lot of time observing what people are doing on Twitter, and we see them taking screenshots of text and tweeting it," he tweeted (in a Notes app screenshot, of course). "Instead, what if that text … was actually text? Text that could be searched. Text that could be highlighted. That's more utility and power." </p><p>Increasingly, Twitter is also thinking about what Twitter looks like outside of its own apps. With Project Bluesky, the company is investigating turning Twitter into a protocol rather than a platform, so the Twitter that users know today would be just one way to tap into the social graph and content flowing through it. And with Revue, Twitter is heading into users' email inboxes. Revue appears to be a good fit at Twitter, actually: Its platform has always focused on curation, making it easy for newsletter writers to grab a bunch of links, add commentary and send it to subscribers. Which sounds an awful lot like Twitter — only longer.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>The Revue acquisition, and some of Twitter's other recent moves, also make clear where the company is headed as a business. It's leaning into working with creators, trying to help people build audiences and make money on the platform so that they'll keep spending time there. Twitter is way behind on this front. Twitter is, for most creators, a marketing vehicle, a public way to send fans to the Instagram/Twitch/TikTok/Substacks that make them actual money. </p><p>By acquiring a newsletter provider, Twitter brings at least one part of that in-house. "Revue will accelerate our work to help people stay informed about their interests while giving all types of writers a way to monetize their audience," Twitter's Kayvon Beykpour and Mike Park wrote in <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/making-twitter-a-better-home-for-writers.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the blog post</a> announcing the acquisition. The same could soon be true for Breaker with podcasts, and Spaces with audio events. If 280-character Twitter can continue to be a powerful marketing engine, but all that marketing can drive toward Twitter's other, higher-fidelity messaging tools, Twitter stands to be a useful home for lots of creators. And, of course, if creators stay, so do users.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>When Dorsey said last year that Twitter was thinking about what <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/23/tech/twitter-subscription-earnings/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a subscription model for Twitter</a> might look like, these are almost certainly the products he was thinking about. "$9.99 a month for the really good tweets" is a tricky line to walk for an ad-based business, and it's not in line with the way Dorsey has always thought about Twitter. (After all, is there anything slower than a paywall?) But paid newsletters, paid podcasts, ticketed Spaces events and all manner of other similar products could add new revenue streams. Twitter could also be trying to make money from creators themselves, too: It has at least <a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-is-considering-these-premium-features-in-a-subscription-model/376287/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">run surveys</a> asking how users would feel about paying to upload longer videos, get better analytics, or add custom badges to their profile. </p><p>There's no guarantee any of this will work. Twitter's history with integrating new products is spotty, and many creators are still wary of the company after it was so quick to kill Vine. But this is what Twitter wants to be: the internet's universal communication tool, with all the new features that requires.</p>
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David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
The Capitol riots scrambled FCC Republicans’ Section 230 plans. What now?
The FCC's top tech agitators have been almost silent about Big Tech's Trump bans.
The commissioners will gingerly walk a line of condemning the tech platforms without seeming like they are condoning the rhetoric that led to Trump's suspensions or the takedown of Parler.
Photo: Jonathan Newton-Pool/Getty Images
January 22, 2021
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
January 22, 2021
Brendan Carr, one of the Federal Communications Commission's two Republicans, spent the better part of 2020 blasting Big Tech platforms for allegedly censoring conservative speech, appearing on Fox News and right-wing podcasts to claim that social media companies exhibited bias against President Trump and the GOP more broadly.
But in the weeks since Twitter, Facebook and YouTube suspended former President Trump and removed large swaths of his supporters in the wake of the violent riot on Capitol Hill, Carr has remained largely silent about the deplatforming, except to condemn the violence. "Political violence is completely unacceptable," Carr told reporters days after the riot. "It's clear to me President Trump bears responsibility."
<p>The Jan. 6 riot, which the former president incited and which led to his indefinite suspension from social media, has scrambled the debate around content moderation within the FCC and left Carr, as well as the newly-confirmed Republican FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, in a bind as they carve out what Carr calls a "<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/conservative-path-forward-big-tech-opinion-1520375" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">conservative path forward on Big Tech</a>." Simington in particular had helped push forward Trump's agenda on Section 230 from his perch at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration before being confirmed at the FCC. Now, former FCC officials say he and Carr will have to gingerly walk a line of condemning the tech platforms without seeming like they are condoning the rhetoric that led to Trump's suspensions or the takedown of Parler, the social networking site that was used in part to organize the violence.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>"The reality is, these commissioners recognize that these events are a game-changer in the way people are talking about Section 230 and internet gatekeepers writ large," said one former FCC official. The official said the commissioners are staying mum for now because they are "cognizant of the fact that the conversation is so associated with that horrible attack." Capitalizing on it, the official said, would "[distract] from the core issue." </p><p>Last weekend, Simington was set to speak at a meetup in Las Vegas where right-wing speakers, including some on the party's fringe, discussed topics including "woke tech" and political censorship, but he <a href="https://www.protocol.com/conservatives-vegas-woke-tech" target="_self">backed out</a> at the last minute. "Despite initial plans to do so, I did not attend or otherwise participate in the Claremont event this weekend, and I did not prepare or submit remarks," he told Protocol. </p><p>Simington's spokesperson declined to comment for this story. </p><p>Experts who watch the FCC said it's unlikely that Simington or Carr will back off completely from talking about Section 230. "I don't think that this is going to go away," said Zach Graves, head of policy at the Lincoln Network, a right-leaning tech group. But he said they might strike a more conciliatory tone, particularly now that the Democrats will be in control. "What might happen is while [Republicans] are out of power, they might be more sophisticated in the kinds of policy recommendations they push for on tech," Graves said. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>In one of his final acts as FCC chair, Republican Ajit Pai <a href="https://www.protocol.com/ajit-pai-distancing-trump" target="_self">chose not to move forward</a> with a rule-making on Section 230, which was laid out in Trump's social media executive order. </p><p>Carr, meanwhile, said that he believes it is within the FCC's jurisdiction to review the law, and he told reporters earlier this month that he plans to "continue to advocate for Section 230 reform." "It's clear we're having failures in different directions," Carr said.<br></p><p>Conservatives in recent weeks have particularly homed in on Amazon Web Services' decision to cut off service for Parler, a massive display of power for the cloud company that typically functions more as neutral infrastructure than a platform with content moderation policies. The former FCC official predicted that will be the next turn in the conversation about internet freedom within the FCC. "I think [Simington and Carr] will be careful in the way they engage with that, trying to make sure they're not seen as defending Parler, but really talking about the future of internet freedom," the official said.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Another former FCC official told Protocol that they believe what AWS did to Parler "will become part of the net neutrality debate. I think conservatives are going to [say], 'OK, great, want to talk about net neutrality and free speech on the internet? Let's talk about cloud and web-hosting.'"</p><p>Democrats on the Commission, meanwhile, have made it clear that they do not believe the FCC should play a role in dictating the future of platform speech issues, including Section 230. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who Biden chose to serve as acting chair Thursday, <a href="https://www.protocol.com/jessica-rosenworcel-fcc-interview" target="_self">told Protocol</a> last year that it is "not a provision where Congress specifically asked us to enact rules, nor has the FCC had a history of acting in this area." </p><p>Mignon Clyburn, who worked with Carr during her tenure as an FCC commissioner in 2018 and remains close to the agency, said the events on Capitol Hill illustrated that social media platforms have "been used to weaponize hate" and "spread mis- and disinformation." But she doesn't think the FCC has the ability to take on Section 230.</p><p>"Does [Section 230] need a refresh?" Clyburn said. "Does it need modification? I think that it would be a prudent and worthy exercise to answer those questions — and that job, respectfully, is Congress'." </p>
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Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Politics
Facebook’s Oversight Board won’t save it from the Trump ban backlash
The Board's decision on whether to reinstate Trump could set a new precedent for Facebook. But does the average user care what the Board has to say?
A person holds a sign during a Free Speech Rally against tech companies, on Jan. 20 in California.
Photo: Valerie Macon/Getty Images
January 21, 2021
Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
January 21, 2021
Two weeks after Facebook suspended former President Donald Trump's account indefinitely, Facebook answered a chorus of calls and referred the case to its newly created Oversight Board for review. Now, the board has 90 days to make a call as to whether Trump stays or goes permanently. The board's decision — and more specifically, how and why it arrives at that decision — could have consequences not only for other global leaders on Facebook, but for the future of the Board itself.
Facebook created its Oversight Board for such a time as this — a time when it would face a controversial content moderation decision and might need a gut check. Or a fall guy. There could be no decision more controversial than the one Facebook made on Jan. 7, when it decided to muzzle one of the most powerful people in the world with weeks remaining in his presidency. It stands to reason, then, that Facebook would tap in its newly anointed refs on the Oversight Board both to earnestly review the call and to put a little distance between Facebook and the decision.
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</div></p><p>It also stands to reason that the Oversight Board would oblige. It was designed to be Facebook's Supreme Court analog, taking up cases that can set new, important precedents for Facebook and issuing decisions on those cases. Like the actual Supreme Court, what matters now is not just what decision the board reaches regarding Trump's account, but how narrowly or broadly it rules. A broad decision that takes into account not just what Trump said on Facebook, but the offline consequences of his words, could mean tougher treatment of all global leaders with a record of <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/facebook-philippines-dutertes-drug-war" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">exploiting Facebook to achieve violent ends</a>. A narrow one could risk creating a global double standard, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-01-15/facebook-social-media-bans-trump-capitol-riot" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">affirming fears</a> that Facebook is more concerned with violence on its own home turf than in other countries. </p><p>"I actually think this will be the Oversight Board's Marbury v Madison moment," Stanford Law professor Nate Persily <a href="https://twitter.com/persily/status/1352308920031666177?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wrote</a> on Twitter. "Meaning, even if they uphold the decision to suspend, the way they handle the case, decide on their jurisdiction, and consider the breadth of the issue presented will be important going forward."</p><p>But a broader question hangs over this entire experiment, and it is very much an experiment: Does the average Facebook user actually care what the Board has to say?</p><p>It's true that the Board's decisions will matter to Facebook, which means they will matter to its billions of users. The decisions it makes will be binding, according to bylaws agreed upon by Facebook, and will likely have domino effects on other content decisions down the line. But if there's a public relations aspect to all of this — that is, if Facebook is hoping to unload the burden of Trump's banishment and redirect some of the public backlash toward a third party — that effort seems doomed to fail. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Unlike the actual Supreme Court, the average American may very well have no idea that the Oversight Board exists. Even if they do, how many of them will take the time to understand the <a href="https://www.protocol.com/facebook-oversight-board-rules-of-the-internet" target="_self">tedious process</a> Facebook underwent to ensure the board is both bipartisan and independent? To the average Trump voter incensed about Facebook's decision to suspend Trump and so many other decisions before that, what is the Oversight Board, really, but an offshoot of the all-powerful tech giant they've believed to be shilling for Democrats all along?</p><p>That's what makes this moment so dicey for the Oversight Board. It's taking on one of its most consequential cases before it's even issued a single other decision. "On the one hand, it divests a huge amount of power from [Facebook] to give the Board authority over this. On the other hand, maybe the Board is too nascent to take on such an enormous question," Kate Klonick, an assistant professor at St. John's Law School, who has studied the Oversight Board extensively, <a href="https://twitter.com/Klonick/status/1352305708423929858?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeted</a> Thursday. "The Board can establish its seriousness and jurisdiction/power over [Facebook]. That could be good for the Board, but it also means that it's very risky for establishing legitimacy [...] Not sending it also would have also been a damning message — that the Board's authority was limited and that [Facebook] didn't really intend to give it any hard questions."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Now, just months after it came into existence, the Board already <a href="https://twitter.com/hijakamran/status/1352306226923790341?s=20" target="_blank">faces</a> an existential question: to err on the side of public safety or public perception. "Whatever they say will piss off 50-ish percent of Americans. Purely as game theory, I think they're best off reinstating. That shows independence [and] reassures American conservatives, who broadly pose a bigger threat to the Facebook Oversight Board than American liberals," <a href="https://twitter.com/daphnehk/status/1352304994695798784?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeted</a> Daphne Keller, who directs the program on platform regulation at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center. </p><p>Keller later <a href="https://twitter.com/daphnehk/status/1352306626947022853?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">added</a> that ruling based on those incentives "would be a dereliction of duty, in terms of what they are actually supposed to do."</p><p>But of course, those incentives do exist. The Board may be new, but the choice it's now facing is not. It's a choice between public safety and self-preservation — a choice that will determine the future of dictators and strongmen around the world and, as we've recently seen, have very real implications for the people they govern. It's a choice Facebook has made again and again throughout its history — a choice it's now asking the board to make instead.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
Big Tech gets a win from Biden’s sweeping immigration actions
Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai praised President Biden's immigration actions, which read like a tech industry wishlist.
Newly-inaugurated President Joe Biden signed two immigration-related executive orders on Wednesday.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
January 21, 2021
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
January 20, 2021
Immediately after being sworn in as president Wednesday, Joe Biden signed two pro-immigration executive orders and delivered an immigration bill to Congress that reads like a tech industry wishlist. The move drew enthusiastic praise from tech leaders, including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.
President Biden nullified several of former-President Trump's most hawkish immigration policies. His executive orders reversed the so-called "Muslim ban" and instructed the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, which the Trump administration had sought to end. He also sent an expansive immigration reform bill to Congress that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented individuals and make it easier for foreign U.S. graduates with STEM degrees to stay in the United States, among other provisions.
<p>Biden's Day One moves suggest that immigration reform will be one of the key areas for allyship between Silicon Valley and the Biden administration over the next several years. The industry is sorely in need of common ground as Democrats pledge to use their power over Congress and the White House to crack down on Big Tech. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>"We welcome President Biden's commitment to pursuing comprehensive immigration reform that reflects the American values of justice, fairness and dignity," said Cook in a statement to Protocol. "This effort will strengthen American communities and the pathways to opportunity this country has long fostered." </p><p>Cook, who is the chair of Business Roundtable's immigration committee, said he looked forward to working with Democrats and Republicans on a "permanent solution for Dreamers that includes a path to citizenship."</p><p>"We applaud @POTUS's quick action on COVID relief, the Paris Climate Accord, and immigration reform," Pichai <a href="https://twitter.com/sundarpichai/status/1352021111479832576?s=21" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeted</a> Wednesday. "Google has supported action on these important issues & we look forward to working with the new administration to help the US recover from the pandemic + grow our economy."</p><p>An Uber spokesperson also affirmed the company's support for President Biden's actions. "At Uber, we have long supported positive immigration reform and an effective system that upholds core American values," the spokesperson said. "Uber will continue to support Dreamers, and we welcome the new Administration's effort to reform our nation's immigration system."</p><p>The tech industry, which relies heavily on foreign workers, has spent the last four years <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2017/08/31/tech-industry-prepares-new-trump-fight-over-daca-dreamer-protection-program/622897001/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">battling with the Trump administration</a> over efforts to shut down vital talent pipelines from countries including India, China and Iran. Over the last four years, tech giants have filed <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/dreamers-embody-apples-innovation-strategy-apple-ceo-tim/story?id=66030999" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">amicus briefs</a> in high-profile <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/1/16/21069827/twitter-microsoft-linkedin-public-charge-trump-immigration-tech-companies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">court cases</a> and lobbied in favor of opening up U.S. borders to high-skilled workers. Despite protestations from Silicon Valley leaders, the Trump administration continually added uncertainty to the H-1B visa application process, resulting in significant backlogs. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Biden's immigration bill would put money towards clearing visa backlogs, eliminate visa caps on certain countries and make it easier for people on temporary work visas to get green cards. Perhaps most significantly, it would immediately give the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. a pathway to become citizens. </p><p>The executive orders on DACA and the Muslim ban will immediately appease immigration advocates, including those inside the tech industry, but the toughest battle still lies ahead: rallying support in Congress for immigration reform, which has failed for years. Still, there may be some in the Republican party who are willing to work with the Biden administration on key pillars of the proposal. On Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was a leading player in immigration talks during the Obama years and a top Trump ally, told CBS he is open to creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.</p><p>"What we are really looking for is making sure there is congressional action and there is a legislative solution," said Karolina Filipiak, senior director of government affairs at the Information Technology Industry Council, a tech trade group. "We don't want to be in the same position four years from now or eight years from now [with] a new administration that could rescind the program." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Companies including Facebook and Google are hoping to work with lawmakers in Congress to create bipartisan support for reform, particularly as they face regulatory headwinds of their own. </p>
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Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Politics
This is the future of the FTC
President Joe Biden has named Becca Slaughter acting chair of the FTC. In conversation with Protocol, she laid out her priorities for the next four years.
FTC commissioner Becca Slaughter may be President Biden's pick for FTC chair.
Photo: David Becker/Getty Images
January 21, 2021
Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
January 20, 2021
Becca Slaughter made a name for herself last year when, as a commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission, she breastfed her newborn baby during video testimony before the Senate, raising awareness about the plight of working parents during the pandemic.
But on Thursday, Slaughter's name began circulating for other reasons: She was just named as President Joe Biden's pick for acting chair of the FTC, an appointment that puts Slaughter at the head of antitrust investigations into tech giants, including Facebook.
<p>Just days before Biden announced his pick, Slaughter took some time to speak at <a href="https://youtu.be/UFksDi3ygyU" target="_blank">a Protocol event</a> about the FTC's Facebook case, how antitrust enforcement can be "anti-racist" and what she hopes to see the FTC prioritize these next four years. Now that she's in charge, those priorities matter more than ever.</p><p><em>This interview has been lightly edited.</em></p><p><strong>It's indisputable that in the last few weeks since the Capitol riot, we've seen tech giants from Facebook to Amazon taking more action on dangerous speech on their platforms than ever before. Everyone's talking about regulation, but obviously any government regulation having to do with speech is a really dicey area. What do you anticipate the Biden administration's approach will be to this, and what are the appropriate legislative and regulatory remedies here? </strong></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>I can't speak to the president's plans, but I do think what we're seeing is, on the one hand, eminently appropriate action being taken by the companies to stop violence. I am concerned as a citizen that that actually came too late, and it might have been much better taken much earlier. But at the same time, we're seeing really important questions surface about the fact that those decisions are lying in the hands of private companies with enormous market power. The decisions can be correct, while at the same time, we can take a step back and say: What does this tell us about the state of our markets that these really important conversations and decisions are governed entirely by individual companies with enormous market share?</p><p><strong>What are some ways the FTC, in particular, can respond to that?</strong></p><p>Within our mandate is antitrust law. One thing I've found really interesting is a lot of the voices that are decrying the actions of the platforms to remove some of this dangerous content are the same ones who resist government antitrust intervention. I think we have to be mindful of the fact that we have laws in place, and we need to be vigorously enforcing those laws that address outsized market share. The FTC has at least one big lawsuit pending on this topic. Colorado Attorney General <a href="https://www.protocol.com/Politics/google-phil-weiser-attorney-general" target="_self">Phil Weiser</a> is leading another one. We will continue to do investigations and bring cases that address misuse of market power under our antitrust laws.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p><strong><strong>Y</strong>ou mentioned the FTC case against Facebook. When you brought that suit, and a number of states brought a similar suit, Facebook <a href="https://www.protocol.com/facebook-antitrust-zuckerberg" target="_self">responded</a> by saying the FTC is looking at all of these past mergers and setting a standard where no company that had a merger settled in the past can be sure it will be permanent. What is your response to that criticism from Facebook?</strong></p><p>I don't find it particularly persuasive. That we've brought one lawsuit that seeks to address two, among many, mergers that happened as part of an ongoing course of conduct does not suggest all mergers in all industries for all companies are forever in legal uncertainty. That is beyond a stretch. </p><p>What we have to do, as enforcers, and what we do in this case, is look at the particular facts at issue and the particular conduct at issue. And it is the case under the law that when the FTC or the Department of Justice review mergers in advance, we don't clear mergers. We don't approve mergers in advance. What we have an opportunity to do is to say: At this moment, are we going to take effort to block the merger? And in fact, in the occasions where we do the investigations and decline to take effort, we don't say we will never take action. We say: Right now, we're not going to take action, but that does not mean if we later understand this conduct to have been illegal we are precluded from bringing a suit. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>So that should be a disincentive to companies to enter into conduct, whether it's mergers or other conduct, that's illegal. That's what we want to disincentivize, and the threat of future lawsuits is an important part of that incentive structure. </p><p><strong>Beyond the Facebook suit, what do you think the priority of this FTC ought to be, and are there any big mistakes over the last four years that need to be corrected?</strong></p><p>Well, I can tell you what my priorities are. First, I think we do need to be thinking, like everyone across the government is right now, about pandemic response. COVID touches on a lot of areas of the FTC's mandate. There are some obvious ones, like work we've done to stop scams and phony cures, but some that are less obvious, including thinking about the effects of market concentration on, for example, supply chain resiliency. I think we need to be thinking about how all of our lives have moved digitally and the implications that has for privacy and data issues. </p><p>The second thing I would say is a huge priority for me has been making sure that our enforcement efforts continue and sharpen in our long, arduous and very large national task of being anti-racist. So I want us to be, in our enforcement efforts on marginalized communities, focusing on cases where harm disproportionately falls on people of color, whether that is as workers or as consumers. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>The third, generally, is I think we need to focus on being really strategic with the resources that we have. That means bringing cases that have big effects and can create deterrence across markets, rather than counting how many cases we bring or how many dollars we get. I want us to think very carefully about how each federal dollar we spend can best effectuate deterrence so we don't have to spend more federal dollars bringing the same sort of cases. </p><p>To the extent that I think there are things we could have done better over the last four years, there are a number of cases where I had dissented, because I thought that our resolutions, while they were good enforcement resolutions, didn't go far enough on that deterrence front. I'm concerned that we're going to end up back at the table with the same companies with the same problems if we are not bringing cases and really fighting for the outcome that will best protect consumers from having the same problems again. </p><p><strong>I want to go back to what you said about the anti-racism work. Can you give us an example of that?</strong></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>We brought a really important case under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act last year involving auto financing for violations of fair lending rules and discriminatory behavior on financing. That's one kind of case. This is something we're very comfortable talking about in the consumer protection sphere. We are less comfortable talking about it as a general matter in the antitrust space. But for me, antitrust enforcement is fundamentally about market structure and making sure markets are fair. And one thing we know statistically is that our markets are currently structured in a way that is unfair and unequal for communities of color. So when we make decisions to do enforcement in certain places or not do enforcement in certain places, those decisions are never neutral. They will either help make our society less unequal or they will reinforce existing inequality. </p><p>So the first step for us, from my perspective, is just opening our eyes and understanding the effects of those decisions better. When we choose to bring a case — let's say, for example, a hospital enforcement case, because health care is an area where we know there are huge disparities in access and outcomes across races — we [should bring] cases that improve access, improve quality of care and reduce costs, particularly when the populations being served are communities of color. That's a big thing that we can do, and we already do, to help make our markets more anti-racist. </p><p>I would rather that we be honest and transparent about the effect our actions have and think about those decisions seriously, because we don't have the resources or the capacity to enforce all the violations of the law in all the markets. When we set priorities, for me, the priority has to include helping historically disadvantaged and marginalized communities where we need to equalize our society more effectively.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="6">
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</div></p><p><strong>Where do you see the role of the FTC when it comes to mitigating algorithmic bias?</strong></p><p><strong></strong>I think we do need a multi-stakeholder process. I think the FTC is one of the interested stakeholders that should be involved. I also think we need to be critically examining the toolbox we have and thinking creatively about how we can use all the tools in it to address this issue. This is something I spoke about and wrote about a year ago. For me, algorithmic bias is an economic justice issue. We see disparate outcomes coming out of algorithmic decision-making that disproportionately affect and harm Black and brown communities and affect their ability to participate equally in society. That's something we need to address, and we need to think about whether it fits under our unfairness framework, whether we might have rule-making authority that could apply to it or whether we use statutes like the Equal Credit Opportunity Act or the Fair Credit Reporting Act. But I think it's one of those things where really good, creative thinking needs to be applied. </p><p>The issue is new, and it is hard. But one thing I remind myself all the time: My older daughter, who is in Zoom school downstairs in my house right now and hates it, she was in kindergarten last year, and her teacher would say to her all the time, "Kindergarteners can do hard things." And I say to myself: "OK, well if kindergarteners can do hard things, the FTC can do hard things. Government can do hard things, and we have to start trying to tackle the big problems."<em></em></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="7">
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</div></p><p><em><strong>Update: </strong>This article was updated Jan. 21, 2021, to include that Slaughter was named acting chair.</em></p>
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Issie Lapowsky (@issielapowsky) is a senior reporter at Protocol, covering the intersection of technology, politics, and national affairs. Previously, she was a senior writer at Wired, where she covered the 2016 election and the Facebook beat in its aftermath. Prior to that, Issie worked as a staff writer for Inc. magazine, writing about small business and entrepreneurship. She has also worked as an on-air contributor for CBS News and taught a graduate-level course at New York University’s Center for Publishing on how tech giants have affected publishing. Email Issie.
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