The Expertise 202: Main tech firms are taking a stand in opposition to proposed voting restrictions
The statement ran as a full-page advertisement in major newspapers, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. The statement is the largest ever demonstration by corporate opposition to the restrictive new electoral laws that seek to respond to former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of electoral fraud in the last election. Civil rights activists have warned of a recent law passed in Georgia – and bills being considered in state houses across the country – could make it difficult for minorities to cast their vote.
(Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, owns The Post.)
The tech companies claim their push is impartial, but their move threatens to exacerbate tensions with Republican lawmakers.
The story continues under the advertisement
Big tech companies tried to partner with the GOP when the party controlled the White House and Congress, but some of their post-2020 election moderation decisions, including Trump’s ban, weighed on their relationship. Signing the pledge could only make matters worse.
“Big companies that go to bed with the left, the corporate media and big tech … these executives have no backbone, they don’t want to be criticized by the company’s partisan media – they give in, they signal virtue in one direction”, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at an RNC meeting.
The story continues under the advertisement
“They have these bright companies working with all of these people,” he continued. “We have to stand up for ourselves, we have to fight back.”
This rhetoric could fuel efforts to regulate tech giants in GOP-controlled state houses, as well as affect how Republicans in Washington deal with technology regulation.
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley (R) also attacked large corporations when he was newly introduced trust-breaking legislationThis would have a significant impact on large tech companies. Hawley’s proposal would revise existing antitrust laws, including banning all mergers and acquisitions by companies with a market capitalization of more than $ 100 billion. This would effectively prevent Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Microsoft from buying up smaller competitors.
The story continues under the advertisement
However, because of their checkered history on the subject, tech companies are facing unique pressures to speak out against the suppression of votes.
The issue is particularly sensitive for large social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as there are concerns that the spread of misinformation on their platforms has resulted in voter suppression, especially among minority communities. Russian disinformation efforts on social media during the 2016 election were particularly targeted at African-American voters and sought to curb their turnout. My colleagues reported.
This increases the commitment for big tech giants to join forces with the rest of the corporate world to take a public stand on restrictive laws, especially in the face of a democratically controlled Congress and the White House looking to regulate them.
The story continues under the advertisement
The companies’ proclamation suggests they will continue to have a political voice after Trump.
Before Trump, tech companies rarely addressed political issues and laws unless it had a direct impact on their business. But corporations have expanded their political roles over the past five years, particularly since the deadly Unite the Right rally in 2017 in Charlottesville.
It remains to be seen how far companies will go to block the passage of new electoral laws. Reid Hoffman, co-founder and former chairman of Linkedin, told my colleagues he expected the business world to continue struggling.
“My hope would be a willingness to go all the way on this matter,” he said.
Our top tabs
Republican lawmakers want the Biden government to restrict sales of chip-making software to China.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) Wrote a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo calling for new guard rails less than a week after our colleagues took office reported about Chinese military systems with American technology. The Biden administration quickly placed The companies under US export control, but Republicans say that’s not enough.
The story continues under the advertisement
Legislators are urging the Department of Commerce to take more decisive steps, such as expanding its export control regulations to require US companies that make the software to obtain licenses to export products to China “to US companies as well as those from Ensuring partners and allies Countries are not allowed to sell the Communists the rope they will use to hang us all up. ”
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Proposes a ban on the sale of American data to “unfriendly” foreign governments.
The sweeping proposal would join a number of federal privacy proposals that would also restrict the sale of Americans’ personal information, reports Drew Harwell. According to a copy of the Washington Post-reviewed bill, trafficking in personal information would be governed under export control laws.
The story continues under the advertisement
Wyden forwarded the bill to lawmakers for discussion today.
“Our country’s intelligence leaders have made it clear that putting Americans’ sensitive information in the hands of unfriendly foreign governments poses a major national security risk,” Wyden said in a statement. The new legislation, he said, would “ensure that countries that cannot be trusted with Americans’ private information do not get it.”
Ireland opened an investigation into a leak in Facebook user data.
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) investigation comes less than two weeks later 533 million Facebook user recordsthat included personal information such as dates of birth and biographical details were shared online. The DPC said in a statement Believing that data laws “may have been and / or will be violated”, it noted that the investigation opened after Facebook Ireland responded to its questions.
The story continues under the advertisement
Facebook told The Associated Press said it “fully cooperated” with the investigation and that “these features are common to many apps and we look forward to explaining them and the safeguards we have put in place”.
Personal information such as phone numbers of well-known Facebook users such as CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Transport Minister Pete Buttigieg and EU Data Protection Officer Didier Reynders were reportedly included in the leak.
Bettors
Investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who helped create the Real Facebook Oversight Board, which criticizes the social media giant:
According to David Carroll, associate professor of media design at the New School, Facebook is in a league of its own:
Within the branch
Microsoft says it will temporarily offer free technology to US government agencies to track their network activity following criticism from lawmakers.
The company will offer all customers in the federal government who use their government cloud software a one-year free trial of its advanced software called Advanced Audit, which will allow them to closely track activities with Microsoft software, Microsoft Federal President Rick Wagner said in one blog entry. The move comes after heavy criticism from lawmakers like Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) For doing so required The government should stop giving government contracts to companies like Microsoft that: a massive Chinese hacking operation earlier this year.
The story continues under the advertisement
When Microsoft President Brad urged the federal government to pay additional fees for the technology Smith previously said Rep. Jim Langevin (DR.I.) that “we are a for profit company” and “everything we do is designed to generate a return on it, except for our philanthropic work.”
Competition watch
trend
Set bookmarks
Mentions
- Richard Garriott, founder of the video game company Portalarium, has been elected President of the Explorers Club, a professional society that promotes science and exploration, while Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has been named Honorary Chairman. (Bezos owns the Washington Post.)
diary
- It is. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) And Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) speak at a Brookings Institution event on infrastructure today at 2 p.m.
- Kevin Walsh, director of IT and cybersecurity for the Government Accountability Office, and two chief information officers from government agencies testify on the IT acquisition before a panel of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Friday at 9 a.m.
- Cecilia Munoz, the director of former President Barack Obama Domestic Policy Council, speaks at a New America CA event about gig workers on April 19 at 1 p.m.
- The House Agriculture Committee holds a hearing on rural broadband access on April 20th at 10am
Comments are closed.