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June 4, 2020
Tech companies and the people who lead them have said many words about the killing of George Floyd and the protests that have followed. Some of them have backed that talk with the promise of money for groups fighting against racial injustice.
While the contributions don't solve tech's own diversity problems, they are one of the five actions that Black Tech for Black Lives — a coalition of Black founders, advocates and investors — has asked "allies" to take in order to help.
What follows is a list of companies and prominent individuals in the tech community who have pledged money and to whom. It is not a comprehensive list; if we've missed your company's pledge, please email us at hello@protocol.com to let us know, and we'll continue to add to this list.
23andme
Matching employee donations to Black Lives Matter, Equal Justice Initiative and Black Girls Code.
A16z
Set up a Talent x Opportunity Fund with an initial $2.2 million "for entrepreneurs who have the talent, drive and ideas to build great businesses but lack the typical background and resources to do so."
Airbnb
Pledged $500,000 and to match employee contributions to the NAACP and Black Lives Matter.
Amazon
Pledged $10 million to the ACLU Foundation, the Brennan Center for Justice, the Equal Justice Initiative, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the NAACP, the National Bar Association, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Urban League, Thurgood Marshall College Fund, UNCF (United Negro College Fund), and Year Up, In addition, the company said its Black Employee Network "will receive a grant to fund local organizations that support education and racial equality initiatives in communities across the country where our employees live and work."
Apple
Launched $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative with a focus on "education, economic equality and criminal justice reform." Pledged to donate to a number of groups including the Equal Justice Initiative — and to match 2:1 all employee contributions in the month of June.
Away
Pledged to donate to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, SPLC Action Fund and The Bail Project. Away CEO Jen Rubio is making additional contributions with her husband, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield (see below).
Box
CEO Aaron Levie, together with his wife, Paradigm CEO Joelle Emerson, pledged $500,000 to "support organizations that are doing work in this space."
Bravado
Matching employee donations to NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Equal Justice Initiative, Black Girls Code, Black Lives Matter, Minnesota Freedom Fund, Survived and Punished, National Bail Fund Network and BYP100. CEO Sahil Mansuri also personally pledged to donate $10,000 to various groups and to match employee donations 3:1.
Cisco
Pledged $5 million to the Equal Justice Initiative, NAACP, Color of Change and Black Lives Matter. Cisco will also donate to its own fund for fighting racism.
DocuSign
Pledged $500,000 to support the NAACP and social justice causes, and to triple-match employee contributions to those causes.
DoorDash
Pledged $500,000 to Black Lives Matter and $500,000 for the creation of a fund to be directed by the Black@DoorDash ERG toward state and local organizations.
Drizly
Pledged to make a donation to Color of Change.
Dropbox
Co-founder and CEO Drew Houston pledged $500,000 to the Black Lives Matter Foundation, and to match employee donations to the Black Lives Matter Foundation, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the National Urban League throughout the month of June.
Duolingo
Matching employee donations to "organizations working to change the system."
Eaze
Pledged $25,000 to the California NAACP.
Etsy
Pledged $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative and $500,000 to Borealis Philanthropy's Black-Led Movement Fund. Also matching employee donations.
Pledged $10 million to "organizations locally and nationally that could most effectively use this right now."
Flexport
Pledged up to $180,000 ($100 per employee) to match employee donations to social justice causes of each employee's choice in June.
Gatsby
Matching community and team members' donations up to $25,000 (total) to ACLU-MN, Black Visions Collective, Fair Fight Action, North Star Health Collective, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Pledged to give $12 million in funding to organizations working to address racial inequities, starting with the Center for Policing Equity and the Equal Justice Initiative. Also pledging "Ad Grants to help organizations fighting racial injustice provide critical information."
GoFundMe
Pledged $500,000 to start its new Justice & Equality Fund, which will initially focus on bail, racial justice and law enforcement reform.
Greylock Partners
Sarah Guo pledged to match $20,000 in donations made to the NCAA Legal Defense Fund, the Equal Justice Initiative, the Minnesota Freedom Fund and The Center For Policing Equity.
Grove Collaborative
Pledged $10,000 to charities and organizations fighting racism. And pledged to increase purchases from minority‑owned businesses by at least $250,000 through 2021.
Grubhub
Pledged $1 million to the Equal Justice Initiative.
HashiCorp
Pledged a donation to Southern Poverty Law Center and Minnesota Freedom Fund. CEO Dave McJannet and co-founders Mitchell Hashimoto and Armon Dadgar also pledged $60,000 toward the same groups.
Help Scout
Matching employee donations up to $300,000 to various organizations.
Intel
Pledged $1 million "in support of efforts to address social injustice and anti-racism across various nonprofits and communities." Encouraged employees to donate to Black Lives Matter Foundation, the Center for Policing Equity and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, all of which are eligible for Intel's donation-matching program.
Kleiner Perkins
Mamoon Hamid pledged $100,000 in donations and to match another $100,000 in contributions made by others.
Lyft
Pledged $500,000 in ride credit to National Urban League, NAACP, National Action Network, Black Women's Roundtable and National Bail Fund Network; and LyftUp ride credit to Lake Street Council.
Niantic
Pledged a minimum of $5 million to fund new projects from black gaming and AR creators that can live on the Niantic platform and to U.S. nonprofit organizations that are helping local communities rebuild, $100,000 to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, and an employee match of up to $50,000.
PayPal
Pledged $530 million to support Black and minority-owned businesses and communities in the U.S.
Peloton
Pledged $500,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Pledged 25,000 shares of stock, $250,000 in investments, and $750,000 in paid media to organizations that support racial justice.
The Pokémon Company International
Pledged to donate $100,000 to NAACP and $100,000 to Black Lives Matter.
Co-founder and former board member Alexis Ohanian pledged $1 million to Colin Kaepernick's organization, Know Your Rights Camp.
Riot Games
Through its Social Impact Fund, pledged $1 million in the areas of "justice reform, investing in minority owned businesses, creating opportunities for minorities in our industry, continued education, and addressing bias and discrimination in the workforce," starting with an initial contribution to The Innocence Project and the ACLU.
RobinHood
Pledged $500,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Salesforce
Pledged $1 million to the NAACP. In April, partnered with BET and United Way on their relief fund, donating $500,000 to help Black American families most affected by the crisis.
Sequoia Capital
Pledged to contribute $2 for every dollar donated by employees.
Shopify
Pledged $1 million to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund ($500,000), Black Health Alliance ($250,000) and Campaign Zero ($250,000).
Slack
CEO Stewart Butterfield and his partner, Away CEO Jen Rubio, pledged to make a $700,000 donation plus match $300,000 to Black Lives Matter, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Bail Project, the Equal Justice Initiative, the Center for Policing Equity, Campaign Zero, Project Nia, Color of Change, Until Freedom and The Loveland Foundation.
Snap
In a staff memo, CEO Evan Spiegel wrote: "Some of you have asked about whether Snap will contribute to organizations that support equality and justice. The answer is yes. But in my experience, philanthropy is simply unable to make more than a dent in the grave injustices we face."
SoFi
Pledged $1 million to organizations "chosen by the SoFi employee resource group So(ul)Fi, which empowers black employees, members and allies."
SoftBank
Set up a $100 million investment fund, called the Opportunity Growth Fund, for minority-owned businesses.
Stitch Fix
Pledged $100,000 to Black Lives Matter, and will match an additional $100,000 of employee donations to the organization. Founder and CEO Katrina Lake will commit $100,000 to "organizations promoting justice and equality for the black community." And Stitchfix will donate at least $500,000 per year over the next five years "to provide sustained financial support to organizations advancing social justice."
Stripe
Pledged $100,000 each to "five organizations working on reforming U.S. policing practices or the criminal justice system."
The Wing
Pledged $200,000 to Color of Change, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund.
TikTok
Pledged $3 million to nonprofits that help the black community and $1 million to fight racial injustice and inequality in the U.S.
Tinder
Pledged a donation to Black Lives Matter.
As part of the Start Small Grants he created in response to the pandemic, CEO Jack Dorsey is pledging $3 million to Colin Kaepernick's organization, Know Your Rights Camp.
Uber
Pledged $1 million to the Equal Justice Initiative and the Center for Policing Equity.
Ubisoft
Pledged $100,000 to the NAACP and Black Lives Matter.
Verizon
Pledged $10 million to aid organizations dedicated to equality and social justice.
Warby Parker
Pledged $1 million to organizations and initiatives focused on combating systemic racism.
WeWork
Pledged $2 million in grants to "Black-owned WeWork member businesses."
YouTube
Pledged $1 million to the Center for Policing Equity. Announced a $100 million fund dedicated to "amplifying and developing the voices of Black creators and artists and their stories."
Updated June 12, 2020.
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Sofie Kodner
Sofie Kodner (@KodSof) is a former newsletter producer at Protocol, based in San Francisco. Previously, she was a reporter with Bay Area public radio station KALW. Send her an email at sofie@protocol.com.
People
The future of the cell phone, according to the man who invented it
Martin Cooper comes on the Source Code Podcast.
Martin Cooper with his original DynaTAC cell phone.
Photo: Ted Soqui/Getty Images
January 21, 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 21, 2021
Martin Cooper helped invent one of the most consequential and successful products in history: the cell phone. And almost five decades after he made the first public cell phone call, on a 2-pound brick of a device called the DynaTAC, he's written a book about his career called "Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone has Transformed Humanity." In it he tells the story of the cell phone's invention, and looks at how it has changed the world and will continue to do so.
Cooper came on the Source Code Podcast to talk about his time at Motorola, the process of designing the first-ever cell phone, whether today's tech giants are monopolies, and why he's bullish on the future of AI.
<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe frameborder="no" height="200px" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/21947943-bc81-43d9-9eb3-f18341a6c8b6?dark=true" width="100%"></iframe></div><p><em>The following excerpts from our conversation have been edited for length and clarity.</em><br></p><p><strong>I want to get to the phones, but before we do I want to talk about pagers, because I have this deep obsession with pagers. I think pagers are a much better example of the direct predecessor to the cell phone than landlines. Even though you couldn't make phone calls, it seems like spiritually, pagers were cell phones before they were cell phones. You made pagers, and they were huge. And I guess my big question is, why didn't pagers get their due? We kind of skip over them, but it feels like they were a big thing.</strong></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Well they were, at the time we did it. In the U.S. there were at the peak over 50 million pagers. And the principle is freedom. Our biggest customers were people like doctors, who were trapped next to their patients because they have to be available. And the pager set them free! They could go play a game of golf and know that they could get a beep and be at the hospital at 10 minutes. So the concept of freedom, I don't want to beat it to death, is really the essence of what portability is. </p><p>And since you brought the subject up, one of the battles that I'm engaged in today has to do with education and the need for broadband for education. And the solution that the FCC is proposing is wired broadband. Cable! We're going through the same thing all over again. And I am trying to persuade them that if you want to solve the digital divide in education, it's going to have to be with wireless broadband.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p><strong>I agree. And one of the other things you're involved in right now is 5G stuff, right? I spend all of my time talking to people in tech who are, let's say, overzealous about the potential of 5G. Everybody has spent five years telling me that 5G is going to change everything, that it's the panacea of technology, and I'm not sure that I see it. Tell me what you think about 5G: Is it as big of a change in how all of this stuff works as some people like to make it out to be?</strong></p><p>Not really. I think you put your finger on it: 5G is an incremental change. It introduces a couple of new capabilities to what existed in 4G. One of them is the use of millimeter-wave where there is a much bigger bandwidth, but a big handicap is the fact that the millimeter waves don't travel very far. There are other things that are done that reduce latency. </p><p>So it turns out that those two characteristics — very high speeds and low latency — are very useful in things like running a robot. If you've got a factory and you want to run robots, you're going to need those kinds of things. Unfortunately, for people like you and me, 5G does essentially nothing. You have to understand, I think 5G is a wonderful thing, and we have to keep progressing. But I don't appreciate being deluded. And the carriers have done that: They talk about having remote operations and autonomous cars and things of that nature. And guess who's paying for the 5G? It's you and me.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p><strong>OK, let's go back and talk about the DynaTAC stuff. My favorite scene in the book was when you're at a restaurant in Chicago, and a bunch of people have brought you prototypes of this cell phone. And nobody has any idea what a cell phone is supposed to look like. What's that day like?</strong></p><p>Well, you have to start at the beginning of that, because two weeks previously, I approached Rudy Krolopp. Now, Rudy didn't work for me. He ran the Industrial Design Group for this division. But he was a visionary. I told him where we were going to build a cell phone, and he said, "What's a cell phone?" And I described what a portable phone was like, and he reassigned all the people in his group to come up with their concept of what this portable phone might look like. And so I felt I had to reward them in some way. And that's why I invited them to dinner. </p><p>Each of these guys got up and presented what his vision was, of what a portable phone would look like. And they all ended up being a vision of what actually happened. There was a slide phone, there was a flip phone, and there was what they call a capsule phone. These guys were just remarkable. </p><p>We ended up picking what we called the shoe phone — for obvious reasons — because it was simple.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p><strong>You say you picked the shoe phone because it was simple, but it doesn't seem like it would necessarily be obvious that it was simple, because again, nobody had ever done this before. Most of the parts that were required didn't really exist yet. What's your criteria for thinking, "this is the one we can do?"</strong></p><p>It was mechanically simple. It was just the box. Anytime you put hinges and sliders, things of that nature, they're going to break. We actually ended up all agreeing that this was the way to go. And I wanted to make sure that I appreciated the efforts of these other guys. So even though I picked this one, we selected this as a group. Everybody agreed that this is the way to go. </p><p><strong>I guess it makes sense to say, "we have to invent 1,000 things just to make this work. Why invent 1,001 that we don't have to?"</strong></p><p>That's exactly right. [Pulls an original DynaTAC model out.] Calling this "simple" … the insides of this phone are incredibly complex, much more so than a modern phone. A modern phone has a million times the power of this box that we're looking at now. But the complexity, the number of parts — there are like 10 times more parts in the old phone, and they were all hand-soldered together. It's close to a miracle that we got one to work. And they actually got two to work!</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p><strong>The timing of all this is interesting to me, because you're in the middle of this fight against AT&T. It seems like there was something about that fight, and that moment, that made this whole project go. And I was wondering, if Motorola had been super successful, doing fine, under no real threat from AT&T and the FCC, does a project like this happen? Or does it take this kind of existential threat to push something like the phone forward?</strong></p><p>How could I ever have persuaded my management to start investing? They ended up pretty much betting the company, between 1969 when the Bell System announced their desire to continue their monopoly on cellular, and 1983 when we actually have service. This battle that we engaged in lasted 13 to 14 years, and the company spent $100 million of 1970 dollars. So how would I ever have persuaded them, if we didn't have an enemy? If we didn't have to bet our whole company against them, because they would have put us out of business?</p><p><strong>You really don't think you could have pulled it off by yourself? You had a lot of power and trust and autonomy at Motorola.</strong></p><p>We would have come up with a phone, but getting the FCC to move really took a huge amount of effort. The Bell System had 200 lobbyists calling on the FCC alone. They had two guys assigned to each of the nine commissioners. At that time, our total lobbyists force in Washington was three guys, who called on the FCC, the Congress, and all the government agencies. So it really took that kind of challenge to make this thing happen. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="6">
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</div></p><p><strong>So let's talk about monopolies. You've truly been in the center of fighting against one, and now we're having these same arguments again, about Google and Amazon and Apple and Facebook. What do you make about the antitrust fight happening right now? Does it rhyme with history to you, as you see all this stuff happening?</strong></p><p>It's a different problem. But it's still a problem.</p><p>There's no question in my mind that some of the practices that Google and Amazon exercise are anti-competitive. And so we've got to do something about it. But there's a difference between that and a regulated monopoly where the government decides what the price is going to be and the monopoly just makes all the decisions, and they have no competitive pressures. That's what Bell Systems did. </p><p>The whole process was different. Bell Labs — which by the way, was an extraordinary organization — had all the funding that they wanted, because they had a monopoly supporting them. And they would invent something, and they would think, "Oh, this is interesting, let's make a product." And they would turn the product over to Western Electric, which was part of the monopoly, and they would make them all and then they would turn that over to the operating companies. And the operating companies would come to you and say, "David, this is what you want, right?" </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="7">
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</div></p><p>That's exactly backwards from what we do today. Marketers today look at what people need and want, what problems they solve, and they work backwards through that process. The research guys work on, hopefully, what are going to solve human problems.</p><p><strong>But then on the flip side, then come questions about how power works differently. And especially as we get to privacy and data collection and all this stuff. Bell Systems <em>felt</em> like a monopoly: You could just look at it and be like, "this is clearly a monopoly." It feels messier now, but maybe not any less consequential.</strong> </p><p>I think the real problem is not Google and Facebook and Amazon. It's the people that think they're getting something for nothing. They're not getting anything free, they're giving up their information, which has value, and they're getting less value in return. When people start realizing that and that they have alternatives, the problem is going to get solved. So once again, it sounds like I'm being overly optimistic. And it may be that the government has to intervene in the process, but the real solution there is education.</p><p><strong>Speaking of the privacy and society side of all of this, when you were in the early days of the cell phone, were you thinking about "what does it mean for society when everyone has a phone like this?" You wrote the book that you imagined that when everybody was born, they'd be given a phone number. And were you guys asking this sort of philosophical question?</strong> </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="8">
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</div></p><p>No.</p><p>You know, it's one thing to be a visionary. And I really think that we were visionaries. We stuck our necks out on that thing. But when people asked me what I was thinking of when we made the first public call, it was, "I hope this thing works." </p><p><strong>Before I let you go, I want to talk about AI. Because I think that's another place we have a lot of optimists and a lot of pessimists, and the way you seem to think about where artificial intelligence and humanity meet is about as optimistic a take as I think I've heard. So convince me that the future of AI is mostly good news.</strong></p><p><strong></strong>When I look at a product, I define the usefulness of a product, or at least the interface, as bad, good and optimum. A bad interface is one where you need an instruction manual to work something. If you have a device or a service that is intuitive — you look at it, and you could figure out what to do without looking at an instruction manual — that's pretty good technology. The optimum technology is invisible. It's there, it works for you, it solves your problem. You don't even have to think about it. Well, if you're going to do that, something has to be behind the scenes, making decisions for you. And that's artificial intelligence.<br></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="9">
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</div></p><p>There are people that are very optimistic about how quickly that's going to happen. And it turns out that there are some things that the brain does that we haven't even figured out how to copy. It doesn't compute very well, it doesn't remember very well. But other things? It can abstract in ways that machines cannot. And so I think it's going to be a slow process, where the machines are little by little going to take over more and more of the routine things in our lives, are going to make us more efficient. </p><p>Society is much more resilient than people think. People are more resilient. People keep saying, "Oh, no, we are going down the tubes, because the kids aren't talking to each other anymore." Yes, I do see lots of cases where kids sit around the table all looking at their cell phones, but most of them are texting each other. And it takes time for society to embrace and understand new things. </p><p>These things are all new, it's going to take a generation for us to accommodate them. But human minds are very flexible. The brain is amazing. It's going to be many generations before artificial intelligences take over. And when they do take over, we won't even notice it.</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.
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
Silicon Valley is cracking down on Congress
Big Tech's pause on PAC contributions highlights how powerful it's become.
Democrats are particularly frustrated by Facebook, Google and Microsoft's decision to halt PAC contributions altogether, rather than targeting particular Republican lawmakers.
Photo: Tobias Hase/Getty Images
January 13, 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 12, 2021
Congress has failed to act on every opportunity it had to seriously rein in the power of Big Tech over the last several years. Negotiations over a federal privacy bill fell apart last year, antitrust reform hit partisan headwinds and every debate over content moderation since 2016 has devolved into a theatrical yelling match that left the parties more divided over solutions than ever.
And now, the bigger-than-ever Silicon Valley is flexing its muscles with impunity as companies cut off violent extremists and wield the power of their political donations, acting more like a government than the U.S. government itself. They're leaving Republicans and Democrats more frustrated and powerless than ever in their wake.
<p>"There's a cultural problem in Silicon Valley — they want to be the government," said one Democratic House aide. </p><p>Google, Facebook and Microsoft this week became the latest corporations to announce they are suspending contributions from their political action committees following last week's violent riots on Capitol Hill, which were incited in part by President Trump and a cadre of Republicans who spent weeks falsely claiming the presidential election had been stolen. Meanwhile, tech companies like Amazon, Airbnb and Intel said they are suspending campaign contributions specifically to the Republicans who voted against certifying the results of the U.S. election, making it clear that those lawmakers bear some responsibility for the chaos and violence. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>"Given the unacceptable attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process, the Amazon PAC has suspended contributions to any Member of Congress who voted to override the results of the U.S. presidential election," an Amazon spokesperson said on Monday. "We intend to discuss our concerns directly with those members we have previously supported and will evaluate their responses as we consider future PAC contributions."</p><p>It's an amazing display of power from an industry that has shied away from politics, and especially the appearance of partisanship, for years. The tech companies' PACs deliberately contribute to <a href="https://www.protocol.com/tech-company-pacs-2019-2020" target="_self">both Republicans and Democrats</a> equally, but the events of this past week have forced corporations to stake out stances that they never would have before, drawing out the limits of how far they will go in the name of neutrality. </p><p>"We've never seen anything like this," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, which advocates for campaign finance reform. "This is unique. It's the reaction to an effort to overturn an election and basically violate the fundamental rules of our democracy." He added: "We will see whether it's real or temporary."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>The companies are taking a gamble that could land them in hot water as Democrats assume control of the House, Senate and White House. Facebook, Google and Microsoft's approach in particular has rankled Democrats, who say they're being punished for Republicans' sins as companies temporarily pause all of their PAC spending, rather than contributions to the particular lawmakers.</p><p>"Instead of holding the guilty responsible, their decision to treat the guilty and innocent the same is the type of political calculus that led us here," Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky said in a statement. She saved her most pointed ire for Facebook, who she has sparred with as chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce consumer protection subcommittee: "Most cowardly and despicable is Facebook, who is unwilling and unable to confront their role in fostering the hatred that led to this action."</p><p>A number of corporations have temporarily suspended PAC contributions altogether, but aides told Protocol that Democrats have been particularly aggrieved by Big Tech's total pullback.</p><p>"It's like 'all lives matter,'" said the Democratic congressional aide. The aide said the blame lies with Republican lobbyists in the government affairs shops of the companies, most prominently Facebook. "I know the decisions at those companies were all made by people whose loyalty is to the GOP and not to the United States, nor their companies. That's been the case for a long time, this is just laying it bare for everyone to see." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>The companies that paused their donations this week made it clear that it's a temporary decision as they rethink and reconsider their previous political contribution tactics. Margaret O'Mara, a professor at the University of Washington who focuses on the history of Silicon Valley, said it's likely the companies will begin spending again within a few months — just as Democrats begin bearing down in their efforts to regulate the platforms.</p><p>"The large tech companies are among the biggest spenders in D.C. now," O'Mara said. "That's not going to go away. They're going to be working very hard to make sure that regulation is something that's going to work for them and work for their business." </p><p>Republicans and Democrats for years have made noise about the growing power of the tech companies. But now, in the absence of any regulation, they face a situation in which those companies are larger and more powerful than ever, with the ability to make decisions that affect millions of Americans and every member of Congress without any oversight. And it's yet to be seen if Congress will finally do something about it. </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
Trump wants to strike back at Big Tech. There’s not much he can do.
He's already exhausted most of his options.
Trump wants to spend his final week as president getting back at Twitter and Facebook for suspending him.
Photo: Oliver Contreras/Getty Images
January 12, 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 11, 2021
President Trump has been telling anyone who will listen that he wants to do something to strike back at Big Tech in the final days of his presidency, promising a "big announcement" soon after Twitter permanently banned him last week.
In a statement that Twitter has taken down multiple times, Trump hammered usual targets — Section 230, the "Radical Left" controlling the world's largest tech platforms — and pledged he would not be "SILENCED." But at this point, as he faces a second impeachment and a Republican establishment revolting against him in the waning days of his presidency, there's likely very little that Trump can actually do that would inflict long-lasting damage on tech companies.
<p>With a little more than a week left in his presidency, and facing existential questions about the role that he played in inciting violence in the nation's capitol last week, Trump and top Republicans have every incentive to change the conversation to target Big Tech, their favorite bogeyman. But any efforts would likely amount to performative theatrics that do nothing to wear down the power of the tech platforms, and simply serve to distract from the conversation about whether the president should be immediately removed from office after helping to incite a riot. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>"I don't think he has any power," said one Republican technology adviser who is sympathetic to the president's efforts. "It's not like he has any friends right now."</p><p>Rachel Bovard, a Capitol Hill veteran and senior adviser for the right-wing Internet Accountability Project, said she would like to see the White House act aggressively against the tech companies, but she's unconvinced the president "can do anything at this point." President-elect Joe Biden could immediately reverse most moves from Trump after his inauguration, which is nine days away. </p><p>"Any executive order he puts out will be undone, there's no more regulatory road he can go down with the [Federal Communications Commission]," Bovard said. "I don't know what else can be done." </p><p>The Trump administration has already launched significant antitrust investigations and lawsuits into the major platforms, including Google and Facebook. The president signed a social media executive order that went largely ignored by the FCC, Federal Trade Commission and executive branch. (FCC Chairman Ajit Pai <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=pai+protocol.com&oq=pai+protocol.com&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60.8241j1j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">confirmed to Protocol</a> last week that he would not move forward with a rule-making on Section 230, one of the executive order's central requests.) And Trump lost his political clout on Capitol Hill virtually overnight last week: As Democrats took back the Senate, Republican senators <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/politics/trump-politicians-donations-degrees.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">condemned his involvement</a> in the riots on Capitol Hill, which resulted in five deaths. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Trump won't be able to push through a Section 230 repeal at the eleventh hour as his top allies in Congress are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/10/capitol-attack-republican-senators-josh-hawley-ted-cruz-face-resign" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">enduring their own controversies</a> over their refusal to certify the Electoral College vote. Though Trumpworld advisers, including Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale, are newly <a href="https://twitter.com/parscale/status/1347723758467997699?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">calling for antitrust reform</a> to beat back the unprecedented power of the platforms, serious efforts to reform the antitrust laws hit roadblocks from Republicans, including Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan, last year. </p><p>Trump is expected to make a public statement about Big Tech this week, two sources familiar with conversations at the White House told Protocol, though it's unclear what the medium or message would be. He's been suspended from Facebook, Twitter and many other social networks. (There's always <a href="https://twitter.com/Nash076/status/1348301387944370177" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">cable news</a>, though.) </p><p>There's a number of levers he could try to pull, experts said. After all, he is still the most powerful political leader in the world, with access to a range of unilateral executive powers that he's tapped throughout his presidency. </p><p>It's within his power to sign an executive order barring federal agencies from using Twitter and Facebook, for example, though agencies have <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273878/trump-executive-order-twitter-social-media-section-230-free-speech-implications" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">largely ignored</a> the last social media executive order's request to pull back their ad spending from major social media platforms. </p><p>"The main power at his disposal is still executive orders," said Daniel Castro, vice president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech-funded think tank. But any effort to pull federal agencies off of social media likely would prove a bigger headache for the government than for the platforms. "It would be disruptive, it would cause confusion, it would be trending on Twitter, but it wouldn't cause any permanent impact, especially because the Biden administration would probably ask them just to undo those changes," Castro said. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Trump could tap his Justice Department to bring a splashy lawsuit against Twitter or Facebook for censoring him. That would've been easier before former Trump loyalist Attorney General Bill Barr <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/politics/william-barr-out-as-attorney-general/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">resigned</a> amid escalating tensions with the White House last month. And a lawsuit against any of the tech platforms would immediately face the near-insurmountable roadblock of <a href="https://www.protocol.com/tag/section-230" target="_blank">Section 230</a>. </p><p>A lawsuit "wouldn't be quick," said Ellen Goodman, a professor at Rutgers University who specializes in information policy law. "And as long as they have 230 immunity, it won't succeed." </p><p>Trump could model a lawsuit against the platforms after PragerU's suit against YouTube, in which the conservative group <a href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/youtube-schools-prageru-lanham-act-censorship-case" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">claimed</a> that YouTube violated the Lanham Act, which protects against misleading advertising, when it filtered out PragerU's videos. That attempt was <a href="http://v" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">shot down by a judge</a> who said YouTube, a private company, isn't bound by the First Amendment and can therefore remove any content that its policies deem offensive. </p><p>There's a nuclear option that Trump could turn to, which some policymakers have been warning about for years: Under Section 706 of the Communications Act of 1934, the president is empowered to to shut down or take control of "any facility or station for wire communication" if he declares that there is a threat of war in the U.S.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>"They could claim Parler is being blocked from Google's service and that's a disruption," said Berin Szóka, president and founder of TechFreedom, a tech think tank. "It has not been used, so it's a little hard to know exactly how far the president could go."</p><p>But there is no indication that Trump or his advisers have considered that option, or any other aggressive move that could actually harm the tech platforms, especially beyond Jan. 20. </p><p>Trump has signaled that he's interested in setting up his own social media network to compete with the platforms that booted him this week. That long-shot effort would likely require enormous amounts of money, time and resources, especially given that he'd likely have to own every part of the internet stack that his network would rely on to ensure it isn't kicked offline. "Trump would have to have a cable company, his own web servers, his own DNS provider, his own version of Cloudflare," Goodman said. </p><p>Trump is the most powerful politician in the world, but ultimately, he may be no match for the tech platforms. </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.
We need Section 230 now more than ever
For those who want to see less of the kind of content that led to the storming of the Capitol, Section 230 may be unsatisfying, but it's the most the Constitution will permit.
Even if certain forms of awful speech could be made unlawful, requiring tech sites to clean it up would be even more constitutionally difficult.
Photo: Angel Xavier Viera-Vargas
January 11, 2021
Berin Szóka (@BerinSzoka) is president of TechFreedom (@TechFreedom), a technology policy think tank in Washington, DC.
January 11, 2021
Many conservatives are outraged that Twitter has banned President Trump, calling it "censorship" and solemnly invoking the First Amendment. In fact, the First Amendment gives Twitter an absolute right to ban Trump — just as it protects Simon & Schuster's right not to publish Sen. Josh Hawley's planned book, "The Tyranny of Big Tech."
The law here is clear. In 1974, the Supreme Court said newspapers can't be forced to carry specific content in the name of "fairness," despite the alleged consolidation of "the power to inform the American people and shape public opinion." The Court had upheld such Fairness Doctrine mandates for broadcasters in 1969 only because the government licenses use of publicly owned airwaves. But since 1997, the Court has held that digital media enjoys the same complete protection of the First Amendment as newspapers. "And whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia in 2011, "'the basic principles of freedom of speech and the press, like the First Amendment's command, do not vary' when a new and different medium for communication appears."
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</div></p><p>Republicans battled the Fairness Doctrine for decades, and for good reason: The Kennedy and Johnson administrations really <em>did </em><a href="https://www.cato.org/policy-report/march/april-2020/how-jfk-censored-right-wing-radio" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">weaponize</a> the FCC to keep conservatives off the airwaves. Republicans' <a href="https://prod-cdn-static.gop.com/media/documents/DRAFT_12_FINAL%5B1%5D-ben_1468872234.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2016 platform</a> (recycled for 2020) blasted the (by then, long-dead) Fairness Doctrine, demanding "free-market approaches to free speech unregulated by government." </p><p>Sadly, most elected Republicans have since abandoned those free market principles as they have increasingly come to see themselves as the victims of censorship by Big Tech. Even the removal of outright bigots like Richard Spencer and other neo-Nazis has been <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-let-google-get-away-with-censorship-11565132175" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">cited</a> in august outlets like The Wall Street Journal without <a href="https://twitter.com/BerinSzoka/status/1159114731258568704" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">considering</a> exactly <em>who</em> was banned and <em>why</em>. The storming of the Capitol should make clear once and for all <em>why</em> all major tech services ban hate speech, misinformation and talk of violence: Words can have serious consequences — in this case, five deaths (plus a Capitol officer's suicide days later).</p><p>MAGA Republicans initially struggled to reconcile their "Fairness Doctrine for the Internet" with conservatives' past hardline defense of the First Amendment. They quickly learned how to obfuscate their hypocrisy. </p><p>First, they've posed as the "real defenders of free speech" — as if the First Amendment gave every American the right to an audience on someone else's property. In reality, the First Amendment prohibits compelled speech and forced association — a point conservatives trumpeted when it was bakers refusing to make cakes for same-sex weddings.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Second, they claim that websites have no First Amendment right to block speech they find abhorrent because their centrality to public discourse makes them "public fora" just like town squares, where the First Amendment guarantees everyone a right to speak. But the Supreme Court, led by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, emphatically <a href="https://casetext.com/case/manhattan-community-access-corp-v-halleck?tab=keyword&jxs=us,1cirapp,2cirapp,3cirapp,4cirapp,5cirapp,6cirapp,7cirapp,8cirapp,9cirapp,10cirapp,11cirapp,dccirapp,fedcir&sort=relevance&type=case&resultsNav=false" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">rejected</a> an equivalent argument (in a case about public access cable channels) in 2019: "Merely hosting speech by others is not a traditional, exclusive public function and does not alone transform private entities into state actors subject to First Amendment constraints." In other words, the First Amendment remains a shield against government meddling in online speech, not a sword for the government to ensure "fairness."</p><p>Third, they blame Section 230 for online "censorship." Trump even cited Congress' refusal to repeal the 1996 law in his veto of defense spending (<a href="https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/house-overrides-trumps-section-230" target="_self">which Congress overrode</a>). But when sites are sued for banning users or removing content, Section 230 merely ensures that courts will quickly dismiss lawsuits that would have been dismissed anyway on First Amendment grounds — but with far less hassle, stress and expense. Multiply all those across the huge volume of online content, and websites could be deterred from trying to moderate content altogether. It's not just website operators that would suffer, it's their most <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21432987/trans-twitter-reddit-online-anonymity" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">vulnerable users</a> — and our overall discourse.</p><p>And that's <em>exactly </em>what MAGA Republicans are trying to do: force websites to broadcast their speech, no matter how noxious. That's why they've <a href="https://techfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Letter-Big-Tech-Hearing-on-230-10.28.20.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">proposed ending</a> 230's liability shield for moderation of hate speech, misinformation, conspiracy theories, voter suppression and most foreign election interference — all real threats to our democracy that the First Amendment bars the government from doing much, if anything, about. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>In 2012, the Supreme Court <a href="https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-alvarez" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ruled</a> that the First Amendment protects false speech, with only narrow exceptions. The Court hinted that it might be possible to curtail false claims about election procedures and results. But the Court isn't likely to reconsider the line it <a href="https://casetext.com/case/brandenburg-v-ohio" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">drew</a> in 1969: The <em>government </em>can punish a call for violence only when it "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." It's unclear whether Trump's speech encouraging his supporters to go to the Capitol actually met that very high bar. But, again, social media sites have a First Amendment right to take down such speech and ban him for it.</p><p>Even if certain forms of awful speech could be made unlawful, <em>requiring</em> tech sites to clean it up would be even more constitutionally difficult. It's one thing to do that with child sexual exploitation material, which is generally readily identifiable. It's quite another to make a website both judge and jury in cleaning up the speech of others. As an appeals court <a href="https://casetext.com/case/midwest-video-corp-v-f-c-c" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a> in 1978, an FCC regulation holding cable operators responsible for obscenity created by public access channel users would have "subjected the cable user's First Amendment rights to decision by an unqualified private citizen, whose personal interest in satisfying the Commission enlists him on the 'safe' side — the side of suppression." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>That's why Section 230 is so vital. It enables private website operators to do what the First Amendment says the government may not: at least <em>try</em> to clean up the internet. For those who want to see less of the kind of content that led to the storming of the Capitol, Section 230 may be unsatisfying, but it's the most the Constitution will permit. Yes, we should pressure websites to do more, but without Section 230, that won't work. Simply put, we need the law more than ever.</p>
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Berin Szóka (@BerinSzoka) is president of TechFreedom (@TechFreedom), a technology policy think tank in Washington, DC.
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