Politics

Tech is shrugging off the Section 230 veto threat

Even as Trump intensifies his threats to veto the NDAA, tech lobbyists are confident the industry will emerge scot-free.

Tech is shrugging off the Section 230 veto threat

The tech industry is largely shrugging off the prospect that President Trump will strongarm Congress into repealing Section 230 in the NDAA.

Photo: Oliver Contreras/Getty Images

The tech industry is largely shrugging off the prospect that President Trump will strongarm Congress into repealing Section 230 in the National Defense Authorization Act, even as Trump intensifies his threat to veto the legislation unless it repeals the foundational law of the internet.

On Tuesday, the White House officially notified lawmakers that Trump intends to veto the NDAA because it "fails to make any meaningful changes" to Section 230 as written.

"Section 230 facilitates the spread of disinformation online and is a serious threat to our national security and election integrity," said the message from the Office of Management and Budget. "It should be repealed."

Key lawmakers on both sides of the aisle remain bullish on the NDAA, insisting it will become law even if Congress has to override a veto from Trump. The House approved the NDAA 335-78 on Tuesday night, though House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he wouldn't vote to override Trump's veto and it's yet to be seen what will happen in the Senate.

Tech trade groups have been holding meetings with members of Congress and Hill aides over the past week to educate them about Section 230, particularly focusing on the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, which oversee the NDAA but do not have jurisdiction over Section 230. And lobbyists for the companies have kept their finger on the pulse of the debate.

But sources in the tech industry told Protocol they're mostly taking a hands-off approach as they remain optimistic that the NDAA will not include a provision to repeal Section 230 and Congress can muster up the votes to override any Trump veto.

"The fact that there are some concerns being raised in the House is disheartening, but it's not necessarily a death knell," said Carl Szabo, the vice president of tech trade group NetChoice, which represents companies including Facebook, Google, Twitter and TikTok. "NDAA is going to pass."

One tech industry source said trade groups and companies have been expressing concern on Capitol Hill about the eleventh-hour effort, but they remain confident about their prospects.

At the end of the day, tech industry representatives are mostly outsiders looking in as members fight and negotiate amongst themselves over pushing through the must-pass defense bill, which includes hundreds of billions of dollars in appropriations and follows months of bipartisan, bicameral talks. Two congressional aides said the companies were clearly tracking the action in Congress but have not flooded the zone with lobbying efforts, as Republicans and Democrats made clear there's no appetite to push Section 230 reform through the NDAA. Senate Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe told Trump that the bill could not move if it included Section 230-related provisions, prompting the president to call him out by name on Twitter.

Steve Haro, a principal with lobbying firm Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, said most members of Congress already know where the tech industry stands on Section 230 after years of outreach. (Haro's firm represents companies including ByteDance, Indeed and the Information Technology Industry Council.)

"Companies, executives and advocates are resources for them," Haro said. "We have been providing information as needed. But because of the nature of how this has come up, it has not led to … a full-court press. Because it's not a serious effort."

He added: "Even if folks [on the Armed Services Committee] weren't aware of 230 before, they're saying, 'Well, this is not germane to this bill. This is not something we should be taking up in the NDAA.'"

It's possible that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could refuse to bring the legislation to the floor, but he is facing a delicate set of dynamics, as he's working hard to ensure Republicans win a pair of runoff elections in Georgia, a state where support for the military runs deep. And there's still room for Trump to back off the veto threat.

"I still find it hard to believe that this president would take hostage support for our troops because he's dissatisfied with social media moderation," said Matt Schruers, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which counts Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest as members. "But even if he does, I don't see Congress standing by and letting pay raises for servicemen and [service]women be an innocent bystander in political sniping."

However, while Schruers said it's possible to shrug off this latest threat as mere posturing, he believes it's illustrative of a broader misunderstanding of Section 230 in Congress, where there's bipartisan interest in reforming the law during the next session.

Update: This article was updated at 7:11 p.m. ET to reflect the House vote.

Fintech

Judge Zia Faruqui is trying to teach you crypto, one ‘SNL’ reference at a time

His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. Strangelove." That’s because he wants you — yes, you — to read them.

The ways Zia Faruqui (right) has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster.

Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

“Cryptocurrency and related software analytics tools are ‘The wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic.’”

That’s not a quote from "The Big Lebowski" — at least, not directly. It’s a quote from a Washington, D.C., district court memorandum opinion on the role cryptocurrency analytics tools can play in government investigations. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui.

Keep ReadingShow less
Veronica Irwin

Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.

The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance. Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more.

Keep ReadingShow less
FTA
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) represents industry leaders shaping the future of finance. We champion the power of technology-centered financial services and advocate for the modernization of financial regulation to support inclusion and responsible innovation.
Enterprise

AWS CEO: The cloud isn’t just about technology

As AWS preps for its annual re:Invent conference, Adam Selipsky talks product strategy, support for hybrid environments, and the value of the cloud in uncertain economic times.

Photo: Noah Berger/Getty Images for Amazon Web Services

AWS is gearing up for re:Invent, its annual cloud computing conference where announcements this year are expected to focus on its end-to-end data strategy and delivering new industry-specific services.

It will be the second re:Invent with CEO Adam Selipsky as leader of the industry’s largest cloud provider after his return last year to AWS from data visualization company Tableau Software.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donna Goodison

Donna Goodison (@dgoodison) is Protocol's senior reporter focusing on enterprise infrastructure technology, from the 'Big 3' cloud computing providers to data centers. She previously covered the public cloud at CRN after 15 years as a business reporter for the Boston Herald. Based in Massachusetts, she also has worked as a Boston Globe freelancer, business reporter at the Boston Business Journal and real estate reporter at Banker & Tradesman after toiling at weekly newspapers.

Image: Protocol

We launched Protocol in February 2020 to cover the evolving power center of tech. It is with deep sadness that just under three years later, we are winding down the publication.

As of today, we will not publish any more stories. All of our newsletters, apart from our flagship, Source Code, will no longer be sent. Source Code will be published and sent for the next few weeks, but it will also close down in December.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bennett Richardson

Bennett Richardson ( @bennettrich) is the president of Protocol. Prior to joining Protocol in 2019, Bennett was executive director of global strategic partnerships at POLITICO, where he led strategic growth efforts including POLITICO's European expansion in Brussels and POLITICO's creative agency POLITICO Focus during his six years with the company. Prior to POLITICO, Bennett was co-founder and CMO of Hinge, the mobile dating company recently acquired by Match Group. Bennett began his career in digital and social brand marketing working with major brands across tech, energy, and health care at leading marketing and communications agencies including Edelman and GMMB. Bennett is originally from Portland, Maine, and received his bachelor's degree from Colgate University.

Enterprise

Why large enterprises struggle to find suitable platforms for MLops

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, and as larger enterprises go from deploying hundreds of models to thousands and even millions of models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

As companies expand their use of AI beyond running just a few machine learning models, ML practitioners say that they have yet to find what they need from prepackaged MLops systems.

Photo: artpartner-images via Getty Images

On any given day, Lily AI runs hundreds of machine learning models using computer vision and natural language processing that are customized for its retail and ecommerce clients to make website product recommendations, forecast demand, and plan merchandising. But this spring when the company was in the market for a machine learning operations platform to manage its expanding model roster, it wasn’t easy to find a suitable off-the-shelf system that could handle such a large number of models in deployment while also meeting other criteria.

Some MLops platforms are not well-suited for maintaining even more than 10 machine learning models when it comes to keeping track of data, navigating their user interfaces, or reporting capabilities, Matthew Nokleby, machine learning manager for Lily AI’s product intelligence team, told Protocol earlier this year. “The duct tape starts to show,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kate Kaye

Kate Kaye is an award-winning multimedia reporter digging deep and telling print, digital and audio stories. She covers AI and data for Protocol. Her reporting on AI and tech ethics issues has been published in OneZero, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review, CityLab, Ad Age and Digiday and heard on NPR. Kate is the creator of RedTailMedia.org and is the author of "Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media," a book about how the 2008 presidential campaigns used digital media and data.

Latest Stories
Bulletins