Google stokes GOP allegations of tech bias – Politico

With help from Cristiano Lima and John Hendel

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GOP vs. Google: Googles dominance of online advertising is already under Justice Department scrutiny. Now, Republicans are pointing to Googles move to cut off ad revenue to a right-wing blog as proof of alleged anti-conservative bias and reason to roll back Section 230.

Facebook and the election: Facebook is launching a sweeping get-out-the-vote effort as critics accuse the company of not doing enough to address potentially dangerous or misleading content on the platform.

MT scoop: More than 100 leading civil rights and civil liberties groups are demanding House leaders cut off federal funding for law enforcement surveillance technologies that are antithetical to the First and Fourth Amendment.

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GOP VS. GOOGLE Googles decision to block right-wing website ZeroHedge from using the Google Ad platform (and its threat to do the same for The Federalist) has added fuel to GOP calls to roll back Section 230 protections for tech giants for alleged anti-conservative bias and at a time when theyre already feeling emboldened by President Donald Trumps recent social media executive order. Google said Tuesday that the comments sections on those sites contained derogatory, racially fueled content, and our policies do not allow ads to run against dangerous or derogatory content, which includes comments on sites.

Republicans react: The House Judiciary Committees top Republican, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, raised alarm on Twitter about tech companies taking action against conservative sites during an election year. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who alleged on Twitter that activist journalists at NBC (which had earlier reported the story) pressured Google into censoring The Federalists website, adding: When will Big News and Big Tech #StopTheBias?! And FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who has thrown his weight behind the presidents executive order targeting Section 230, said Tuesday evening that Google makes one of the strongest arguments yet for Section 230 reform.

Whats next: Googles dominance over online ads is already raising eyebrows at the Justice Department, as Leah has reported. But Googles decision to penalize websites based on their comments sections could spark another big debate: That kind of content is protected by the First Amendment, while Googles right to take down that content is protected by the so-called good samaritan clause of Section 230, which states the company can make good faith attempts to crack down on objectionable material without opening itself up to liability. Watch for these concerns to potentially come up today during an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation webinar with FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks on the agencys role in reforming Section 230.

AHEAD OF ELECTION, FACEBOOK PLEDGES MAJOR VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE Facebook aims to help 4 million people register to vote in the months leading up to November's presidential election, a major get-out-the-vote drive that comes as critics assert the social network has not done enough to stamp out misleading posts that undermine the democratic process, Steven reports.

Pre-empting the critics: In a USA Today op-ed Tuesday evening, Zuckerberg acknowledged that these new actions wont satisfy everyone. "Everyone wants to see politicians held accountable for what they say and I know many people want us to moderate and remove more of their content," he wrote in the editorial. "But accountability only works if we can see what those seeking our votes are saying, even if we viscerally dislike what they say."

Critics have accused Zuckerberg of abdicating responsibility on content moderation, particularly in its recent decision not to take down inflammatory and potentially dangerous posts from Trump. (Backlash against that decision prompted Zuckerberg to announce the social media giant would re-examine its policies against violent threats and voter suppression.)

FIRST IN MT: GROUPS URGE CONGRESS TO DROP SURVEILLANCE TECH FUNDS More than 100 civil rights and civil liberties groups today are calling on House leaders to cease federal funding for the surveillance technologies that are being used to militarize our communities and criminalize dissent. In a letter going out today to top lawmakers in the House and its Judiciary Committee, the groups say law enforcement use of cutting-edge tools to monitor protests against the killing of George Floyd has chilled activists' free expression rights.

What theyre pushing for: The groups which include the ACLU, Color of Change, Free Press and the Center for Democracy & Technology also call for dramatic changes to our surveillance infrastructure, which has also contributed to increased militarization and policing abuses. They urged legislators to stop agencies from using their intelligence assets for general policing, including surveillance of protests.

The background: The push comes as Democratic lawmakers have increasingly sounded the alarm on law enforcement surveillance, including the use of emerging technologies like facial recognition software and drones, at the recent wave of racial justice protests.

Where talks stand on the Hill: The bicameral Democratic police reform package included some narrow checks on such tools, including banning warrantless federal law enforcement use of facial recognition software on body-cam footage. But the incoming Senate GOP policing package includes no mentions of facial recognition software, biometric identification or surveillance more broadly, according to bill text obtained by POLITICOs Marianne LeVine signaling daylight on the issue between the two sides.

INDUSTRYS MIXED MESSAGING ON THE FIGHT AGAINST RACIAL INJUSTICE The Internet Association is out this morning with a statement stressing the industrys commitment to diversity and inclusion and sharing guidelines for lawmakers working to address racial injustice. The catch-22: Several of the trade groups member companies have been accused in recent weeks of projecting messages of racial solidarity and progressive values to the outside world that some employees say do not mirror the firms internal culture or business decisions.

Former workers from one member company that had declared solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, Pinterest, went public this week with stories about racism and gaslighting they said they endured under leadership there. Members Amazon and Microsoft were called out for expressing solidarity while also providing surveillance tools to law enforcement. (Theyve since bent to public pressure to take temporary timeouts from facial recognition.) Airbnb, also a member, on Monday announced Project Lighthouse, a joint effort with racial justice group Color of Change to identify bias (around first names or profile photos, for example) and measure discrimination when booking or hosting on the platform.

IA believes that Black Lives Matter, the trade association said today in what it described as a value statement. It stressed the sectors commitment to creating a more diverse and inclusive online community and workforce and outlined steps the industry is taking to get there. Those include IAs second annual survey examining existing diversity and inclusion efforts at member companies and a soon-to-launch job referral site, meant to be a centralized hub for diverse job applicants to apply to open positions at those firms. IA also called on Congress to reform accountability measures and transparency in policing; demilitarize law enforcement; and invest in alternatives to incarceration.

LIGADO FIGHT REDUX Tuesdays reconfirmation hearing for GOP FCC Commissioner Mike ORielly turned into another tussle over the agencys April order approving satellite company Ligado Networks 5G plans, which critics like the Pentagon say will disrupt GPS. Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) played ORielly off of two other nominees, for positions at the departments of Transportation and Commerce, who expressed alarm about Ligado.

Quote du jour: Im not sure my fellow colleague at the table is right to say NTIA has been uniformly opposed to the situation. My conversations with multiple people suggest that NTIA has had a different viewpoint over the time period, and it wasnt until the dismissal of an administrator that the position was as it is now. Translation: ORielly is saying the Trump administration was less hostile to Ligado prior to the resignation of former Administrator David Redl in May 2019.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, meanwhile, defended the Ligado decision in a letter to several Senate Commerce members.

MEANWHILE: WICKER PLANS BROADBAND LEGISLATION? During that hearing, the Commerce chairman revealed hes now focused on how to speed up the disbursement of rural broadband subsidies from the FCCs October Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction of $16 billion. Although he previously had expressed interest in speeding up when that auction begins, Wicker says hes turned his attention to how to fast-track getting the broadband subsidy money out the door to telecom providers after the first phase of that auction happens.

I may have a proposal, Wicker told ORielly. Once phase 1 auction occurs, I think we can help you with some extra funds and some incentive from the administration, on a bipartisan basis, to move this ahead.

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Cheryl Bruner, previously a longtime in-house lobbyist for IBM, is joining Red Hats Washington office as public policy director. Shes expected to focus on information technology and telecommunications issues as well as lobbying Congress.

Will tech CEOs testify?: The CEOs of Amazon, Facebook and Google have said they would testify before the Houses antitrust panel if all CEOs of those companies, and Apple, collectively agree to, POLITICO reports but Apple remains a holdout.

EU antitrust spotlight: Apple now has a target on its back, POLITICO reports, On Tuesday, the iPhone maker found itself on the wrong side of the law when the European Commission opened two antitrust investigations one into whether the company treated rivals like the music-streaming service Spotify unfairly in its popular app store; the other into how other competitors were treated in its mobile payments service.

Meanwhile: Apple faced harsh criticism on Tuesday from regulators and the companies behind some of the most popular apps in its App Store, including Tinder and Fortnite, a sign of the growing discontent with Apples grip on the mobile economy, WaPo reports.

Opinion: How Iran Became the New Battle Line Between Conservatives and Twitter, via POLITICO Magazine.

If I had $5 billion: Reed Hastings, the billionaire founder of Netflix, is quietly building a mysterious 2,100-acre luxury retreat ranch in Colorado for American public school teachers, Vox Recode reports.

Zynn, de-platformed: TikTok rival Zynn, which in recent weeks had been the top free iPhone app on Apples U.S. App Store, has been removed from both the iOS and Android app stores, Business Insider reports.

ICYMI: T-Mobile is laying off hundreds of Sprint employees, TechCrunch reports.

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TTYL.

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Google stokes GOP allegations of tech bias - Politico