Congress
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US lawmakers ask Jeff Bezos to testify about Amazon's alleged data abuse
Following a recent Wall Street Journal report on Amazon's use of third-party seller data, the House Judiciary Committee has called on Jeff Bezos to testify before Congress. In a letter signed by a bipartisan group made up of four Democrats and three Republicans, the committee says it believes Amazon may have committed a crime by misleading the government about its practices. The Wall Street Journal report the letter references was published earlier this month.
Congresswoman calls on YouTube to stop promoting climate misinformation
Congresswoman Kathy Castor (D-Florida) is calling on YouTube to stop including climate change misinformation in its recommendation algorithm and to demonetize videos that deny climate change. In a letter addressed to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Castor references a report by Avaaz, which claims that YouTube is sending millions of users to climate change misinformation videos every day.
Boeing employees called designers of flawed Max 737 jets 'clowns'
In October of 2018, a Boeing 737 Max jet crashed into the Java Sea, killing everyone on board. Five months later, another crashed in Ethiopia, taking the lives of all passengers and crew. The tragedies caused aviation authorities across the globe to ground all 737 Max jets, and both Congress and the Federal Aviation Administration began investigations into how these accidents occurred. The Washington Post and The New York Times obtained over 100 pages of email and chat transcripts that were handed over to Congress as part of its investigation. The documents show that employees mocked the planes' designers, calling them "clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys," and had major concerns over the safety of the planes. Even before the first crash, one employee asked, "Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft?" "No," a colleague replied.
Bipartisan bill would give parents more power to protect their kids online
House lawmakers have introduced new legislation that attempts to modernize the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Dubbed the "Preventing Real Online Threats Endangering Children Today," or PROTECT Kids act for short, Representatives Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) sponsored the bipartisan bill.
Congress worries sale of .org could harm non-profits
Control over the .org internet domain is close to changing hands, and American politicians aren't happy. Senators Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden have joined Rep. Anna Eshoo in sending a letter demanding answers over the Internet Society's sale of .org and the Public Interest Registry (which manages the domain) to a private equity firm, Ethos Capital. The congresspeople want everyone involved to both outline how transparent they'll be as well as assurances that they'll keep the domain accessible, neutral and safe for non-profits.
Congress approves the TRACED Act to fight robocalls
Today, Senate approved the TRACED Act, or Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement Act. The legislation could give the government new powers to prosecute robocallers, The Washington Post says. It would also require carriers that authenticate and block spam callers to share those services with customers for free.
Congress is raising the minimum smoking and vaping age to 21
Congress just raised the legal age to smoke or vape to 21, BuzzFeed News reports. The law will go into effect sometime next year, and it will cover all nicotine products.
Democrats want to study FOSTA-SESTA's impact on sex workers online
If you're concerned that FOSTA-SESTA seems built more to kick sex workers offline than to fight sex trafficking, you're not alone. House representatives and senators have introduced the Safe Sex Workers Study Act, a bill that would analyze the impact of FOSTA-SESTA on the health and safety of sex workers and help Congress make "informed" decisions. The politicians are concerned that banning sites from the "promotion of prostitution" only served to hurt the consensual sex industry by shutting down resources where workers could screen customers, set limits and discuss issues with their peers. This not only increased the chances for violence and health issues, but may have thwarted the very purpose of FOSTA-SESTA by pushing sex traffickers further underground.
House panel asks Apple, Google if app makers must reveal foreign ties
The US is growing increasingly suspicious of foreign-made apps. House national security subcommittee chairman Rep. Stephen Lynch has sent letters to Apple and Google asking whether or not they require app developers to disclose "potential overseas affiliations" before software shows up in their respective stores. The congressman is worried about claims that apps like TikTok, Grindr and FaceApp may be providing sensitive data to the governments of China and Russia.
Twitter is bringing back candidate labels for the 2020 US elections
Ahead of the US elections next year, Twitter says it's bringing back election labels, a feature the company introduced during the 2018 midterms to help increase the visibility of political tweets.
Twitter bans House candidate who suggested Ilhan Omar should be hanged
Twitter may be reluctant to crack down on politicians' tweets, but it still has its limits -- and one political candidate may have crossed the line. The social media giant has permanently banned Republican House candidate Danielle Stella's personal and campaign accounts for "repeated violations" of Twitter's policies. While it didn't elaborate on what those violations were, Stella's campaign suggested that her potential rival, incumbent representative Ilhan Omar, should be "tried for #treason and hanged" if she was found to have passed sensitive info to Iran through Qatar. That claim is unsupported by evidence. The posts may have violated Twitter policies forbidding the promotion of violence or threats.
Apple says it's lost money on repairs over the last decade
The right to repair movement is mad as hell as companies work to prevent owners from doing basic repairs to their own devices. One of the biggest targets for the public's ire is Apple, which is accused of going out of its way to make user repairs as difficult as possible. That, coupled with the seemingly-increased failure rate of these devices has caused enough of a fuss that Congress is demanding answers.
Facebook releases Zuckerberg’s upcoming testimony in defense of Libra
Tomorrow, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will appear before the Financial Services Committee, where he's expected to be grilled about Facebook's planned cryptocurrency Libra and digital wallet Calibra. Ahead of tomorrow's inquisition, Facebook has shared Zuckerberg's prepared statement. In it, Zuckerberg admits that Facebook is "not the ideal messenger right now" and promises that Facebook will not move forward with Libra anywhere in the world until US regulators approve.
Congress is asking vape manufacturers if they used social media bots
Congress wants to know if the largest vaping companies used bot-generated social-media messages to market their products. The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Massachusetts attorney general have asked each of the five largest manufacturers if they've relied on automated, bot-posted campaigns, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Google, Reddit execs to speak at House hearing on internet moderation
American politicians have been questioning whether internet companies should be held liable for the content they allow, and two of those companies will soon address those concerns directly. Two House subcommittees are holding a joint online content moderation hearing on October 16th where Google IP policy head Katherine Oyama and Reddit CEO Steve Huffman (above) will speak as witnesses. The hearing will both explore existing practices and help determine if customers are "adequately protected under current laws," including the Communications Decency Act's Section 230 safe harbor protections.
Tech giants to face House committee hearings over effects on small business
Internet heavyweights are facing yet more congressional scrutiny over their competitive practices. The House Small Business Committee intends to question Amazon, Facebook and Google over their possible harm to competition for small businesses. Committee chair Nydia Velàzquez (above) intends to hold a hearing in late October or early November to explore the health of smaller companies in the face of "dominance" by large tech firms in spaces "ranging from e-commerce to internet traffic," a spokeswoman told Bloomberg. Notably, Velàzquez wants to know if small outlets are stymied when they either compete directly with internet giants or try to promote themselves on those giants' sites.
Google faces scrutiny from Congress, DOJ over plans to encrypt DNS
Google's bid to encrypt domain name requests appears to be raising hackles among American officials. The Wall Street Journal has learned that the House Judiciary Committee is investigating Google's plans to implement DNS over HTTPS in Chrome, while the Justice Department has "recently received complaints" about the practice. While Google says it's pushing for adoption of the technology to prevent spying and spoofing, House investigators are worried this would give the internet giant an unfair advantage by denying access to users' data.
Congress plans to investigate how social media giants are fighting hate
House lawmakers plan to unveil legislation to study the ways social media can be weaponized, The Washington Post reports. They want to better understand social media-fueled violence and to determine if tech giants are doing enough to effectively protect users from harmful content. Congress isn't just looking at what tech giants say they'll do to fight online hate and extremism. Lawmakers want to know if those efforts are effective or not.
US asks Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon for docs in antitrust probe
The federal government is ramping up its antitrust investigation into big tech. On Friday, lawmakers from the House Judiciary Committee asked Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google parent company Alphabet to share sensitive documents, including confidential communications between top-level executives, that detail their internal operations. All four companies have until October 14th to fulfill the request. The House Judiciary Committee hasn't made any legal demands of the companies yet. However, Representative David Cicilline (D-RI), the chair of the antitrust subcommittee, said the request marks an "important milestone in this investigation..."
51 companies tell Congress it's time to tackle data privacy
The corporate world isn't waiting around for Congress to get started on tougher data privacy laws. A group of 51 CEOs from the Business Roundtable advocacy group, including tech companies like Amazon, AT&T, IBM, Motorola and Qualcomm, have sent an open letter to House and Senate leaders asking them to pass a "comprehensive consumer data privacy law." They claim that state privacy laws vary too widely, leading to confusion for customers and potentially threatening the US' competitiveness. A federal law would reportedly bolster trust and create a "stable policy environment" where companies can craft products knowing exactly where the boundaries are.
