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yesEmily BirnbaumNone
July 7, 2020
The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee is criticizing Democrats for allowing only a handful of lawmakers to participate in the upcoming hearing with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai.
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan in a letter on Tuesday accused the Democrats of keeping Republicans out of negotiations with Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google and urged his Democratic counterpart — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler — to allow the whole committee to interrogate the country's top tech executives.
Right now, only the antitrust subcommittee — which is made up of 13 members and is chaired by Democratic Rep. David Cicilline — is slated to question the CEOs.
"Although Republicans look forward to this hearing, we were surprised to learn it would not occur at the full committee — the venue that makes the most sense given the scope of the committee's investigation, the broad interest from members of both parties who do not serve on the subcommittee, and the significance of the witnesses who will testify," Jordan wrote in the letter.
A Democratic aide accused Jordan of looking for a spectacle. "It's clear Mr. Jordan is confused," the aide said. "This is a serious hearing, not Diamond and Silk 2.0."
A source familiar with the negotiations told Protocol that the Democrats had originally asked for the executives to testify in front of the full committee, which includes dozens of members, but the companies requested that the hearing be held by only the subcommittee. "Democrats wouldn't use all the tools viable to them to compel the companies to come on their original terms," the source said.
Spokespeople for Nadler and Cicilline did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the letter.
In the letter, Jordan alleged that Democratic staffers held calls with lawyers representing the companies without including Republicans. He said during those calls, Democrats "misrepresented" Republicans' views.
"We hope that this incident was simply a misunderstanding and not an intentional Democrat effort to exclude Republicans and then misrepresent our views to the companies," Jordan wrote. "We nonetheless remain committed to conducting this investigation in a bipartisan manner and we are optimistic that you will be open to our ideas."
The hearing is set for July 27. It will happen in person with an option for lawmakers and the executives to appear virtually due to COVID-19. It's the first time Bezos, Zuckerberg, Cook and Pichai are scheduled to testify before Congress all together.
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Emily Birnbaum
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.
People
Expensify CEO David Barrett: ‘Most CEOs are not bad people, they're just cowards’
"Remember that one time when we almost had civil war? What did you do about it?"
Expensify CEO David Barrett has thoughts on what it means for tech CEOs to claim they act apolitically.
Photo: Expensify
January 19, 2021
Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Signal at (510)731-8429.
January 19, 2021
The Trump presidency ends tomorrow. It's a political change in which Expensify founder and CEO David Barrett played a brief, but explosive role.
Barrett became famous last fall — or infamous, depending on whom you ask — for sending an email to the fintech startup's clients, urging them to reject Trump and support President-elect Joe Biden.
<p>"Anything less than a vote for Biden is a vote against democracy," Barrett said in the email.</p><p>It was an unprecedented political maneuver by a CEO-founder in Silicon Valley, and one that drew praise from a preeminent historian of the region.</p><p>"This was a moment that utterly transcended politics as usual, and his statement utterly transcended politics as usual," futurist and historian Paul Saffo told Protocol. "I'm sure investors got a little bit of a case of indigestion over this. It was a bold move and I would say it was made with considerable character."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>And it wasn't a one-off: Barrett sent another email to Expensify customers over the weekend, telling its users about its plans to spend $3 million on fighting inequality, while also railing against the "domestic terrorists" who invaded the Capitol earlier this month.</p><p>Barrett talked to Protocol last Friday, before the latest email, about the coming transition, which he reflected on in a celebratory mood even as he looked back on the controversial episode. "We just survived Trump. This is going to be an amazing year," he said. "The economy's coming back. The vaccines are rolling out. Travel is going to restart. We got a new administration that's going to make reasonable decisions. We avoided a civil war. Everything's on the up and up."</p><p><em>The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.</em></p><p><strong>You sent that email taking a position on the election. I've talked to a lot of CEOs in Silicon Valley who'd rather stay in the middle. They're not going to say what they think or even who they voted for because it's safer.</strong></p><p>My opinion is a little bit different. I think this idea of "Oh, we're apolitical," I think that's kind of bullshit. I think there's no such thing in a democracy as being apolitical. Every action you take is your position. I think that a large number of these tech companies, by saying, "Oh, we're apolitical," that's a very convenient way of saying, "No, I'm voting for the status quo. I support the current administration, and I'm not going to take actions to do anything about it because it's actually good for business." I think it's actually pretty cynical.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p><strong>There's going to be a change, and there will be new issues. It's probably not going to be as intense as Trump, but there will be issues. How do you navigate them? It can be a slippery slope when you start to take positions.</strong></p><p>I think the litmus test is: What is the real-world potential impact of this? I don't anticipate to weigh in on the normal issues. It sounded bombastic back then when I wrote the newsletter: "Hey, I am genuinely concerned that we're going to have a true civil war, and that's going to be really bad for business. My business is great. We're profitable. We're growing. We're surviving the pandemic. So long as we don't descend into civil war, we'll be fine. But Trump is saying he's not going to leave office, and is anyone reading this crazy shit? We should take it seriously." </p><p>This is not normal politics. This is not taxes or health care or whatever. This is like the destruction of our nation up for discussion. The only reason I felt it was important as a CEO to weigh in was that the stakes are too high to be neutral here. </p><p>Even right now. The guy's still not out of office, by the way. The FBI's warning that we're going to have attacks on every state Capitol. Never has that happened in the history of the nation before. This is so wild, what we're talking about. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>I feel that we need to keep reminding ourselves just how beyond the pale this is. As business leaders, it's just shameful to just sit out this entire thing. It's like, "Oh, remember that one time when we almost had civil war? What did you do about it? Oh, fucking nothing? Oh, good job."</p><p><strong>What was the reaction to the email like? Did any of it give you pause?</strong></p><p>Expensify is not a product you adopt overnight. You also don't leave it overnight. We just didn't know what the reaction was going to be. We saw this thing just go so much bigger than we expected. We were like, "Oh, fuck. OK. That's exciting."</p><p>Most people ignored it, or agreed with it, or vented about it or whatever. The vast majority of people, they're too busy. And in this Twitter news cycle, sustaining anger for more than like 10 seconds is hard. It's like, "Fuck Trump! Oh, such a cute puppy!" It's so hard to do anything.</p><p><strong>Where does that come from, that belief in taking a position? Can you talk a bit about your background?</strong></p><p>My background has always been in hard engineering. Never been in finance. Never been in politics or any of that stuff. I think what you're getting at [is]: Why are you so outspoken? I'm in a lucky position to do that. I run a very profitable business that has a very distributed customer base. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>I think most CEOs, it's not that they're bad people, they're just cowards. They're like, "Yeah, I would like to take a stand, but I can't because of investors, customers and things like this." It basically comes down to, "I care more about hitting the next quarter results than preventing a civil war," which is so fucked up. They're more afraid of their investors than they are of militants. I'm in a lucky position where I don't have to be afraid of my investors. I'm super profitable. I can't get fired. There's no majority on the board that can fire me. So I think that I am in a position [where] I can take these stands much more than others. </p><p>I've heard from a lot of other CEOs [about speaking up, and they say]: "I can't. I wish I could. I feel bad. I feel ashamed. But I kind of can't." I feel I can give an example of, like, "Guys, speak up. The water's fine." Defending democracy is not actually a bold choice because most people agree with it.</p><p>Sure, we got a lot of shit on Twitter, or whatever. Those people weren't our customers anyway. It had no negative impact on revenue. If anything, I think we're gonna look back and this is going to be an incredible brand building event. We didn't expect this to go as viral as it did. It's like, "Shocker! Getting massive coverage for defending democracy is good for business, actually."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>I think that CEOs need to have the courage to actually step up for things that matter, and be less sort of afraid of the impact on their businesses. Because most customers, especially the people who are actually buying the software, they care about stability, they care about democracy.</p><p><strong>Would you consider politics after your business career?</strong></p><p>No, that sounds like a huge pain in the ass. Plus that assumes that there is an "after my business career." I just made this giant profitable business, and it's fucking awesome. I want to work here forever. My goal is just to stay here forever.</p>
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Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Signal at (510)731-8429.
People
Amazon’s head of Alexa Trust on how Big Tech should talk about data
Anne Toth, Amazon's director of Alexa Trust, explains what it takes to get people to feel comfortable using your product — and why that is work worth doing.
Anne Toth, Amazon's director of Alexa Trust, has been working on tech privacy for decades.
Photo: Amazon
January 18, 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 18, 2021
Anne Toth has had a long career in the tech industry, thinking about privacy and security at companies like Yahoo, Google and Slack, working with the World Economic Forum and advising companies around Silicon Valley.
Last August she took on a new job as the director of Alexa Trust, leading a big team tackling a big question: How do you make people feel good using a product like Alexa, which is designed to be deeply ingrained in their lives? "Alexa in your home is probably the closest sort of consumer experience or manifestation of AI in your life," she said. That comes with data questions, privacy questions, ethical questions and lots more.
<p>During CES week, when Toth was also on a popular panel about the future of privacy, she hopped on a Chime call to talk about her team, her career and what it takes to get users to trust Big Tech. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p><em>This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.</em></p><p><strong>How does the Trust team work? That's what it's called, right?</strong></p><p>Yeah. I work on the Alexa Trust org, it's part of the Alexa organization overall. The team that I work on is responsible for building all the privacy features, all the privacy controls and settings, and thinking about privacy across Alexa, as well as accessibility. So the aging teams, the accessibility teams, Alexa for Everyone, all reside within this organization. And we're thinking about content issues and the whole gamut. So really all of the all of the policy dimensions and how they manifest in consumer-accessible controls and features is what this team thinks about.</p><p><strong>Why is that one team? You just named a bunch of different, equally important things. What is the tie that binds all of those things?</strong></p><p>Well … I think it's trust, right? It's, how do we develop trustworthy experiences? We are very much a horizontal organization that works throughout the Alexa org. </p><p>And the Alexa org actually is much larger than I even anticipated. When I first was interviewing with the organization, I was really surprised at how big and how quickly it's grown. So it's truly a horizontal effort to think about the customer experience, and all of these areas where there are potential trust issues, and try to deal with them very proactively. </p><p><strong>That's a much bigger definition of trust than I would have guessed. I feel like we talk about trust a lot as sort of synonymous with privacy, and so "what do you do with my data" is the core question. But then when you put things like accessibility and ethics in there, it broadens the definition of what you're looking at in this really interesting way.</strong></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Yeah, it's a very expansive view. I have worked on privacy for most of my career. It often presents as a defensive issue for companies, right? And even the word "privacy" brings up a sort of connotation that makes you think about all the things you don't want people to know. </p><p>But I think of it really as an opportunity to innovate and to try to create more positive experiences, rather than to think of it as a defensive posture. How are we enabling the usage of data to help create better experiences for customers? Because that's really, ultimately what customers want: for you to use data to make this better for me. And I'm totally good with that. The concern is when I'm not sure what I'm getting out of you using my data, and you have it, and why do you have it? That's the area that's problematic. And what I see, and what we're trying to do, is to be very transparent, and to demonstrate time and again how your data is actually benefiting you in this product experience.</p><p><strong>That's actually one of the things I wanted to talk about. You said in another interview that so much of privacy and security is basically just, like, don't screw up. There's no positive experience, it's just there until you ruin it. It's interesting to think about it the other way: to say, "What does it look like to be more proactive about privacy and data security?" What does that look like for you, in terms of how to actually put it in front of people in a way that feels useful, instead of just having pop-ups that say, "Don't worry, we're not using your data for bad things?"</strong><br></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Designing for privacy, or designing for trust more specifically, is about baby steps. It's like developing a relationship with a person, right? You have to earn the trust. And you have to do things in the beginning that over time become less important. So the wake word: We rely very heavily on the wake word. You have to invoke Alexa. But the use of the wake word, and the training around that, is in order to make people comfortable with the fact that we are only streaming your requests to the cloud once the wake word has been invoked. </p><p>That is about interjecting some conscious friction, to create a trusted experience so that later when we have more advanced features, more advanced conversational-type elements, you'll be in a place where you're comfortable with that experience. It moved you along that learning curve, and got to that place where you trust us to do that for you effectively. </p><p>I think it was on Twitter or on LinkedIn, I saw that there was an article that had gone viral. There was a security organization that did a breakdown of an Echo device because there was a theory the mic-off button was in fact just cosmetic. So they did a whole breakdown and sort of mapped out the electronics to prove, in fact, if the red light is on, the wiring to the mic is disabled. The red light and the mic cannot both be on at the same time and vice versa. That was a design choice. There are a lot of choices that are about getting people comfortable with the device, and feeling that degree of trust so that later down the road, we can introduce more features that people will be more likely to use. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p><strong>But it's telling even that those sort of conspiracy theories exist, right? People think the same thing about Facebook turning on their microphone. Does it feel like there is this perception hole that every big tech company is in right now? That you, as Alexa, have to go out of your way to convince people that you're doing the right thing, as opposed to even starting in a neutral place? It just feels like we're in this place where people are learning to be suspicious about things that they don't understand.</strong></p><p>I'm kind of a hardened cynic. That's just my natural disposition on things. So yes, I think we are in a period of time right now where skepticism is at an all-time high. And I think deservedly so, in the world we're living in at the present moment.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>But what I'm often heartened by is that people have put this device into their homes, into their most sacred private spaces with their families with their loved ones. To do that is a big leap of faith and trust in Amazon and Alexa. So the mere fact that we're there is already a sign that people have extended to us the benefit of the doubt and have said "we trust you." </p><p>So it's not even so much about having to earn that trust in the first place as it is having to be worthy of that trust, right? Or be worthy of that privilege of being in that space. That's the goal for me: to make sure that we continue to be worthy of the trust they've already placed in us, which is not a hurdle everyone gets over. </p><p><strong>What about as you think about things like default settings versus giving people choice? You can give people all the options in the world, but we know for a fact that most people are never going to change anything. So I'm suspicious of the idea that that's a solution to these problems, but it's definitely part of the solution. How do you think about making good decisions for people versus letting people make decisions?</strong> </p><p>First of all, no two people have the exact same notions of privacy. It's different generations, different cultures, different backgrounds, different experiences, all driving different expectations. No matter where you set a default, it's not going to be right for everybody. So there has to be the ability to change it. And you have to make that easy to find. <br></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="6">
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</div></p><p>So in the Alexa context, voice-forward commands to try to make it as easy as possible to be able to say, "why did you do that," or "delete what I just said," or "delete everything I have ever said" — those kinds of interactions help reduce the friction in privacy, they make it easier for people to exercise those those options. </p><p>Your default settings generally represent your organizational bias, in one way or the other. And in this case, the default settings that we have reflect our ability to use data in a way that's going to improve the product and make it better for the customer. So that's where they are. And that's how they've been determined. But they're not immovable. And that's the most important part. </p><p><strong>Well, that education piece seems hard, though. We've seen Facebook, for instance, try to explain why it collects a lot of data. And it doesn't necessarily track for a lot of people. There was this big dustup with WhatsApp, people lost their minds. Is it harder than you're making it sound to help people understand what you're doing with their data?</strong></p><p>In some ways, I think that this product gives you a more immediate example of that data benefit than other products. I mean, I spent a lot of my career talking about the benefits of targeted advertising, and how if you're going to get an ad, better to get a targeted ad than one that's irrelevant. But the relative benefit to you as a customer, as an individual, for that use of your data doesn't really feel as meaningful as the types of experiences or improvements we're able to make. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="7">
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</div></p><p>And there's lots of data, particularly looking at introducing Alexa into new countries and languages and dialects, where the ability to use that voice data to dramatically improve our responses and our accuracy is something that is noticeable by people over time. I think people would recognize that, that trajectory.</p><p><strong>That's fair. And it does seem like most people, when you explain it to them, will understand pieces of it like that.</strong> </p><p>This is why I love "Alexa, why did you do that?" Because Alexa doesn't always get it right the first time, and to be able to actually ask and get a response about what that reasoning was, and you can see it in real time — you can't do that with a lot of other experiences. That's a cool one that I hope more people use. </p><p>But we are faced with some real challenges under regulation about explainable AI. These technologies are getting more and more sophisticated, and when they work really well, sometimes we're delighted, and sometimes we're creeped out. It's that balancing act of like, "Wait a minute, that was really useful … should I be worried?" Which is why trust is so important to develop, so that when you get to that moment, you can offer a customer benefit without it being intrusive, or invasive or feeling somehow uncomfortable. Devices should learn!</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="8">
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</div></p><p><strong>You're a privacy person, so I have a current events question for you: We're in the middle right now of this privacy versus transparency debate, where it's either better to let people use encrypted services because they can't be watched or becomes a problem because bad people can do bad stuff in those encrypted services and nobody can find them. And obviously, this shows up in lots of scary ways recently. Where do you fall on the debate?</strong></p><p>I will have to speak to this on a personal level, but all the messaging apps I use are end-to-end encrypted for primary messaging. I think it's important, and I think that there's a role that they play that is important. There are lots of people who think that people aren't really concerned about privacy in the world, and we've passed that moment where privacy is an issue. Just based on the number of people that I've seen crop up on Signal and Telegram in the last week, I can tell you that people really are paying attention. So I think that if that's the indicator that we should be looking at, then I would say privacy is not dead. People really do care. And it's something everybody should be paying attention to.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="9">
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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.
Politics
'Woke tech' and 'the new slave power': Conservatives gather for Vegas summit
An agenda for the event, hosted by the Claremont Institute, listed speakers including U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The so-called "Digital Statecraft Summit" was organized by the Claremont Institute. The speakers include U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as a who's-who of far-right provocateurs.
Photo: David Vives/Unsplash
January 16, 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.
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 16, 2021
Conservative investors, political operatives, right-wing writers and Trump administration officials are quietly meeting in Las Vegas this weekend to discuss topics including China, "woke tech" and "the new slave power," according to four people who were invited to attend or speak at the event as well as a copy of the agenda obtained by Protocol.
The so-called "Digital Statecraft Summit" was organized by the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that says its mission is to "restore the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life." A list of speakers for the event includes a combination of past and current government officials as well as a who's who of far-right provocateurs. One speaker, conservative legal scholar John Eastman, rallied the president's supporters at a White House event before the Capitol Hill riot earlier this month. Some others have been associated with racist ideologies.
<p>Government officials listed on the agenda include United States Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is leading a multi-state antitrust lawsuit against Google and is currently <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/17/texas-ken-paxton-fbi/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">under federal investigation</a>. A source familiar with Kratsios' planned remarks said he intended to speak about artificial intelligence and China. Also on the agenda: Josh Steinman, the White House National Security Council's recently departed senior director for cyber, who now describes himself as the founder of a "stealth startup" on LinkedIn. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Newly confirmed FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington was also listed on the agenda, but he told Protocol he did not end up attending. "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," Simington said. </p><p>The event is happening as Las Vegas <a href="https://lasvegassun.com/news/2021/jan/13/las-vegas-hospital-capacity-crisis-covid-19-soar/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">experiences a spike in COVID cases</a>.</p><p>Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams refused to answer Protocol's questions about "the new slave power" panel, what COVID-19 safety protocols are in place during the in-person gathering or the range of speaker backgrounds on the agenda.</p><p>"The Claremont Institute has been a leading voice against political censorship by the Big Tech oligarchs, and we have no interest in commenting on an obvious hatchet job by a publication so clearly beholden to the pieties of Silicon Valley," Williams said in an email to Protocol. "Your questions are riddled with false premises, but we welcome the fire."</p><p>The list of speakers included several people with controversial pedigrees. One speaker, blogger Curtis Yarvin, otherwise known as Mencius Moldbug, has written that there is "no question that biological differences made Africans better slaves than indigenous Americans" because they were less susceptible to tropical diseases. He also once <a href="https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/11/why-i-am-not-white-nationalist/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wrote</a> in a blog post, "although I am not a white nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff." Yarvin was listed to speak on the panel about "the new slave power," along with Michael Anton, former deputy national security adviser under President Trump, who recently wrote an essay in Claremont's The American Mind publication suggesting that Democrats were "openly talking about staging a coup." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Another speaker on the agenda, Adam Candeub, is the current acting head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Previously, as a lawyer, he <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/05/trumps-commerce-department-just-hired-a-lawyer-with-ties-to-white-nationalists/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">represented</a> white nationalist Jared Taylor in a lawsuit against Twitter. Eastman recently retired from his position as a law professor at Chapman University amid an <a href="https://www.ocregister.com/2021/01/13/controversial-law-professor-john-eastman-retires-from-chapman-university/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">uproar</a> over a speech he gave alleging election fraud at the pro-Trump rally preceding the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.</p><p>One of the final speakers listed on the agenda, Soylent founder Rob Rhinehart, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/technology/politics-tech-start-ups-culture-war.html?" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">made waves earlier this summer</a> with a 5,300-word blog post about why he <a href="https://www.robrhinehart.com/why-i-am-voting-for-kanye-west/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">supported hip-hop artist Kanye West</a> for president. "I am so sick of politics. Politics are suddenly everywhere," he wrote, before jumping into a lengthy post about Joe Biden, why the media is "actually evil" and the importance of biofuels. </p><p>One attendee said they had not been given any information on who would be speaking as of midday Friday, hours before the event was set to kick off, and Claremont Institute did not appear to be promoting the event on social media Saturday as the first panels began. "Maybe they're trying to keep it under wraps," the attendee said. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>The attendee said they understood that the tenor of the weekend would be "very critical of tech, very pro some type of intervention."</p><p>"There's going to be some discrepancy and debate around what intervention looks like," the attendee said.</p><p>The other topics on the agenda include a panel on "restoring law" and a fireside chat titled, "What happened?" The summit takes place 10 days after a violent mob of Trump supporters breached the Capitol Hill complex, resulting in five deaths and forcing a reckoning within the Republican Party over its alignment with Trump and right-wing conspiracy theorists.</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.
The current state-of-the-art quantum computers are a tangle of wires. And that can't be the case in the future.
Photo: IBM Research
January 15, 2021
Dan Garisto is a freelance science journalist who specializes in the physical sciences, with an emphasis on particle physics. He has an undergraduate degree in physics and is based in New York.
January 15, 2021
The iconic image of quantum computing is the "Google chandelier," with its hundreds of intricately arranged copper wires descending like the tendrils of a metallic jellyfish. It's a grand and impressive device, but in that tangle of wires lurks a big problem.
"If you're thinking about the long-term prospects of quantum computing, that image should be just terrifying," Jim Clarke, the director of quantum hardware at Intel, told Protocol.
<p>The problem is scale. When your quantum computer is <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/noisy-intermediate-scale-nisq" target="_self">based on just a few dozen qubits</a>, it's fine to designate one or more wires to each qubit in order to send and receive signals. But quantum computers are growing, and they will need to reach <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/next-steps-advances-in-quantum-computing" target="_self">thousands, if not millions, of qubits to truly be useful</a> for <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/machine-learning-ai-quantum-computing-move-beyond-hype" target="_blank">companies and organizations</a> — at which point, using wires is going to become a literal knotty problem. </p><p>"It's no longer sufficient to just be able to make a qubit device and talk about the properties of a qubit," said David Reilly, a quantum researcher at Microsoft. "It's all about scale. And it's all about the infrastructure that you need to get there."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Multiple companies investing in quantum computers are now looking toward this future, and trying to develop better methods of controlling their qubits. These quantum control chips are similar to the silicon wafers produced using CMOS technology, with a few alterations to make them work at ultracold temperatures and with qubits. </p><p>In December, <a href="https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-debuts-2nd-gen-horse-ridge-cryogenic-quantum-control-chip/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Intel announced</a> its Horse Ridge 2 control chip, which builds off its predecessor to perform more specific applications, such as manipulating and reading qubits. Research <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.01299" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">soon to be published</a> in Nature Electronics looks at Microsoft's quantum control chip, which operates at the coldest temperatures yet: a tenth of a degree above absolute zero. But Microsoft and Intel aren't alone; other companies have also been developing quantum control chips. In 2019, Google debuted <a href="https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/02/on-path-to-cryogenic-control-of-quantum.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">its own</a>.</p><p>The goal is to help build the <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/next-steps-advances-in-quantum-computing" target="_self">infrastructure required for a future quantum computer</a> that has actual applications for corporations and research institutes, not just one that can <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/supremacy-google-debatable-milestone" target="_self">out-speed classical supercomputers in proof-of-principle tests</a>. </p><h3>Going wireless
</h3><p>Quantum computers rely on unsettling properties of the quantum world, such as superposition: the combination of states exemplified famously by Schrödinger's feline, which can be neither dead nor alive, but exists in some superposition of both states. Quantum effects like superposition are fragile, and tend to collapse out in our noisy, warm, macroscopic world. To preserve the qubits' delicate quantum states, they are kept extremely cold, usually below 1 Kelvin (about -457 degrees Fahrenheit)</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>To achieve those temperatures, qubits are kept in dilution fridges, which use liquid helium to keep their contents ultracold. Those devices have limited internal space and limited cooling power, both of which are hampered by a nest of wires. To explain the impetus for better quantum control, Clarke uses an analogy. </p><p>"Imagine that you are in charge of 100 dogs, and you have to take them for a walk," Clarke says. "Do you take them on 100 separate leashes? Or do you have one leash that fans out and do it more efficiently?" </p><p>In classical computers, control chips are small silicon wafers with some input and output pins that connect to billions of transistors. This CMOS technology is well-known, so it's tempting to slap a classical control chip onto a quantum computer, but it's not feasible. There are two main problems: First, quantum control chips have to operate at extremely low temperatures, so circuits must be designed to dissipate far less heat. Second, quantum control chips require alterations to interface with qubits, which are far more finicky than their classical counterparts. </p><p>Solving both problems entails reworking control chips: though hopefully not so much that they can't still be fabricated at scale, with traditional silicon manufacturing techniques.</p><p>Intel claims its Horse Ridge series (named for Horse Ridge, one of the coldest places in Oregon) operates at 4 K — above the temperature of the qubits it can control — and seeks to build on the company's preexisting expertise with semiconductor technology. While Horse Ridge 1 was designed for a wide variety of qubits, the recently unveiled Horse Ridge 2 focuses on expanded applications for spin qubits, Intel's preferred choice in <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/nobody-agrees-on-how-to-build-quantum-computer" target="_self">the qubit wars</a>. The goal, according to Clarke, is to "customize these low-temperature control chips for different applications." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Google's control chip is similar, operating at 3 K, but is designed for yet another type of qubit, called a transmon. The chip has been tested on a few qubits, but not the 53-qubit Sycamore device that <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/quantum-computing/supremacy-google-debatable-milestone" target="_self">made headlines</a> in 2019. <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8865458" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Research from Google</a> has focused on reducing heat dissipation from the quantum control chip. Where a classical control chip outputs about one watt of heat, Google's dissipates less than two thousandths of a watt. "Getting power down is going to be very important for any of these approaches," Joseph Bardin, an engineering professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a researcher at Google, wrote in an email to Protocol. </p><p>Microsoft's quantum control chip relies on similar semiconductor technology, but it is designed to work with topological qubits, though it can be adapted for other qubit architectures. (Worth noting: Topological qubits are theoretical, and have not actually been demonstrated.) </p><p>Where it really departs from Intel's and Google's designs is temperature. Microsoft's quantum control chip can dissipate less than a millionth of a watt, allowing it to stay at a chilly 0.1 K, about the same temperature as the qubits themselves.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><h3>Is it hot in here?</h3><p>The companies insist on the advantages of their own approaches.</p><p>"What is really unique is that our signals are generated at low temperature," Intel's Clarke said. By putting its classical CPU — which sends signals to the control chip — with the control chip at these temperatures, Intel hopes to avoid the noisiness inherent to signals generated by CPUs at high temperatures. Microsoft's Reilly disputes this claim of uniqueness, and notes that Microsoft has generated its signals at temperatures as low as 1 K. </p><p>For Reilly, running the control chip at 3 or 4 K — as Google and Intel do — is much too hot: Though the difference between 0.1 K and 4 K may sound small, it's also the difference between the quantum world and the classical world. By operating the quantum control chip at the same temperature as the qubits, Reilly hopes to avoid the bottleneck between shuffling information from quantum to classical or vice versa. </p><p>"If their control system is at 4 Kelvin, then you still have this I/O bottleneck," Reilly said. "You still have a bird's nest of cables that run from four Kelvin to the millikelvin stage where the qubits are." One possible solution to that would be to bring the qubits up to 4 K — and there is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2170-7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">some progress</a> in that direction.</p><p>All three companies will be presenting updates at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, which will be <a href="http://isscc.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">held virtually</a> Feb. 13 through Feb. 22.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>For now, though, no one has remotely enough qubits to necessitate these quantum control chips, let alone determine which of those compromises is preferable. Testing is still done on a few qubits, or devices that model qubit behaviors — not even the full ensemble of dozens of qubits that make up the current cutting-edge of quantum computers.</p><p>At any rate, quantum computing is still in its heady early days, where firsts are being made, and — despite some corporate jousting about progress — demonstrating the possibility of the technology often takes precedence over long-term plans to make it practical. And at this stage, we don't even know what all those roadblocks might be.</p><p>"Wouldn't it be ironic if it turned out that making the qubits turned out to be a little bit of a challenge?" Reilly asked. "And the real roadblocks were in the systems integration and the construction of cryogenic control at scale?"</p>
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Dan Garisto is a freelance science journalist who specializes in the physical sciences, with an emphasis on particle physics. He has an undergraduate degree in physics and is based in New York.
Election 2020
Google says it’s fighting election lies, but its ads fund them
A new report finds that more than 1,600 brands, from Disney to Procter & Gamble, have advertisements running on sites that push pro-Trump conspiracy theories. The majority of those ads are served by Google.
Google is the most dominant player in programmatic advertising, but it has a spotty record enforcing rules for publishers.
Photo: Alex Tai/Getty Images
January 14, 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 14, 2021
Shortly after November's presidential election, a story appeared on the website of far-right personality Charlie Kirk, claiming that 10,000 dead people had returned mail-in ballots in Michigan. But after publishing, a correction appeared at the top of the story, completely debunking the misleading headline, which remains, months later, unchanged.
"We are not aware of a single confirmed case showing that a ballot was actually cast on behalf of a deceased individual," the correction, which quoted Michigan election officials, read.
<p>The note was a clear bait-and-switch on a story that boldly pushed a false conspiracy theory about the election. But just as striking as the editor's note is what sits at the top of this story, and every story on Kirk's site: a Google ad.</p><p>Since the 2016 election, endless attention has been paid to the way election misinformation can spread through targeted ads on social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. But an equally insidious and less-discussed problem is how programmatic advertising, a field dominated by Google, has become the lifeblood of misinformation sites. With or without social platforms, these ads allow misinformation sites to exist and even thrive all on their own by providing a source of revenue, and companies like Google have a shoddy record of policing them. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>In a new <a href="https://www.newsguardtech.com/special-report-advertising-on-election-misinformation/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">report</a> released Thursday by the news rating company NewsGuard, researchers found ads for more than 1,600 mainstream brands, from Disney to Procter & Gamble, running on <a href="https://www.newsguardtech.com/election-misinformation-tracker/" target="_blank">160 sites</a> (including Kirk's) that have openly pushed election conspiracies. Google was responsible for ads on a whopping 80 percent of those sites. Another ad exchange, The Trade Desk, was running ads on roughly half.</p><p>Among the examples NewsGuard lists: ads for Harvard University appearing on One America News Network's website, ads for AARP appearing on sites like The Gateway Pundit and ZeroHedge, and Walmart ads appearing on NOQ Report, a site that recently argued Satan uses Democrats to do his bidding, including stealing the election.</p><p>In some cases, the ads create discordant messaging between publisher and advertiser. While reporting this story, Protocol found ads for Planned Parenthood on Kirk's site, despite Kirk's frequent <a href="https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1263209491581018114?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">calls</a> for Planned Parenthood to be defunded. Thanks to these ads, Planned Parenthood is effectively funding Kirk.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTQ1MDA1Mi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTY4MDEwOH0.qplQOYcTtVCBgeOXCbDihtGMd6uAjeg-XL39oaEr8Bw/img.png?width=980" id="f1e64" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="42c21c19889922502d0fba8fec366b71" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="2226" data-height="712">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">A Planned Parenthood fundraising ad appears on a story containing election misinformation at the top of Charlie Kirk's website.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Screenshot: Protocol</small></p><p><br></p><p>Google has <a href="https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/9335564?hl=en&visit_id=637461598271119369-2898334728&rd=1" target="_blank">policies</a> forbidding publishers who post demonstrably false election misinformation and other types of content from placing Google ads on their websites. "Claims that voter fraud was widespread or that the election was stolen are all prohibited by our policies. When we find content that violates our policies we remove its ability to monetize," a Google spokesperson said.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>The company demonetizes individual stories first, reserving site-wide demonetization for egregious, persistent offenders (The company recently demonetized a far-right militia site following the Capitol riot). In 2019, the company removed ads from 21 million individual pages, the Google spokesperson said. The problem: Google serves billions of ads every day. </p><p>It's not that the company is unaware it's serving ads on the sites NewsGuard noted in its report. In August, a group of philanthropists <a href="https://www.protocol.com/google-ads-charities-disinformation-sites" target="_self">wrote</a> to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai after reports showed that ads for groups like the Red Cross and Save the Children were appearing alongside COVID-19 misinformation on TheGatewayPundit and elsewhere. The philanthropists urged Google to institute a new model that "does not put [advertisers] into unwanted and damaging associations that undermine their good works and values." </p><p>Since then, the company has taken action on individual Gateway Pundit articles, but five months later, Google has yet to fully demonetize the site despite repeated violations, enabling it to continue growing and spreading misinformation. </p><p>The power programmatic advertising has in sustaining these sites is particularly relevant now as social media giants begin to more forcefully crack down on accounts, including the president's, that regularly post dangerous conspiracy theories or incitements to violence. For many of these companies, last week's riot in the U.S. Capitol was a wake-up call, showing them the disastrous real-world consequences of allowing people to believe lies about the election being stolen. But chasing the accounts that peddle those lies off of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is only part of the solution. As long as the people behind those accounts have a way to make money on their falsehoods, why would they ever stop?</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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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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January 15, 2021 13:45 EST
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