Stop FCCing around
This week in Technical Difficulties… Senate Republicans are rushing to confirm Trump’s FCC nominee, but not because he wants to be the speech police. President Trump still clearly doesn’t understand what Section 230 is, but says he’ll block defense funding unless the bill repeals it. And Facebook says it’s getting out of the anti-vaxx game after years as the kingpin. Sad! (Just kidding, this is a very good thing.)
WHY SENATE REPUBLICANS ARE FCCing AROUND
With the pandemic raging to new heights, Americans desperate for relief, and time running out for the 116th United States Congress, Senate Republicans are rushing to finish the important work of… installing Trump’s ‘anti-bias’ errand boy to the FCC.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted Wednesday to approve the nomination of Nathan Simington, whose chief qualification is advancing Trump’s futile crusade against Big Tech. In his current role at NTIA, Simington helped draft the petition for the FCC to reinterpret Section 230, even making direct appeals to Fox News personalities to ratchet up the pressure.
To be clear, the effort to gut Section 230 via the FCC is doomed – but the rush to confirm Simington is nefarious for another reason. As the Commission’s Republican Chairman Brendan Carr openly argued, the real motivation here is to deadlock the FCC at 2-2 and “forestall” the incoming administration’s agenda.
Kneecapping Biden’s FCC would have devastating consequences. The FCC has critical tasks ahead of it, from restoring net neutrality and data privacy protections, to expanding rural broadband and closing the digital divide. If students are going to be learning remotely, they should at least have a reliable internet connection, regardless of their zip code…
The Verge: Trump’s bias hawk FCC nominee is one step closer to confirmation
Axios: The fight over Trump’s FCC pick
Daily Dot: Republican FCC commissioner admits he wants agency deadlocked for Biden
Salon: FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, foe of net neutrality, resigns his post early
Vox: Ajit Pai, Trump’s FCC chair who repealed net neutrality, is leaving on January 20 | Pai’s business-loving, regulation-undoing legacy will likely last for years to come
DEFUNDING THE MILITARY TO OWN THE LIBS
Speaking of President Trump’s crusade against Section 230… This week, he escalated it, describing Section 230 as “a serious threat to our National Security & Election Integrity” – and threatening to veto the must-pass defense funding bill if Section 230 isn’t “completely terminated.”
Needless to say, this makes very little sense. For starters, defunding the military would seem to pose a greater national security threat than the Internet’s liability shield. Moreover, while thoughtful reforms to Section 230 are long overdue, fully repealing it would lead to far more social media censorship as companies scurried to protect themselves from lawsuits over content on their platforms.
No matter how much President Trump and his allies in Congress try to make it so, Section 230 has nothing to do with political neutrality, and the major social media platforms certainly don’t exhibit anti-conservative bias.
Techcrunch: Trump’s odd new attack on Section 230 is probably doomed
Wired: On Section 230, It’s Trump vs. Trump
NPR: Trump Vows To Veto Defense Bill Unless Shield For Big Tech Is Scrapped
Politico: How Trump’s fury at Silicon Valley fixated on the little-known Section 230
FACEBOOK GETTING OUT OF THE ANTI-VAXX GAME?
This week, Facebook announced it will begin removing misinformation about the forthcoming COVID-19 vaccines when it clearly contradicts guidance from leading health institutions. While the actual enforcement of such policies is always where things get dicey, this is a genuinely encouraging announcement.
Facebook – and in particular, Facebook Groups – has played a key role in accelerating the growth of the global anti-vaxx movement, and previous policies they’ve touted to limit vaccine misinformation have proven to be toothless. If they get serious about cracking down on false claims about coronavirus vaccines, it will be a major boon to our pandemic response.
We’ll be eager to see how they follow through on this ambitious promise…
Washington Post: Facebook steps up campaign to ban false information about coronavirus vaccines
The Verge: Facebook will remove COVID-19 vaccine misinformation | The updated policy may be too late
AP: Facebook to remove COVID-19 vaccine-related misinformation
USA Today: Facebook plans to remove false posts about COVID-19 vaccines
POTPOURRI
Bloomberg’s Fully Charged: Blocked on Facebook With Nowhere to Turn
Washington Post: Facebook to start policing anti-Black hate speech more aggressively, than anti-White comments, documents show
New York Times: Google Researcher Says She Was Fired Over Paper Highlighting Bias in A.I.
Techcrunch: Salesforce buys Slack in a $27.7 billion megadeal
Politico: McMorris Rodgers will make history as first woman at top of Energy and Commerce
New York Times: ‘Tokenized’: Inside Black Workers’ Struggles at the King of Crypto Start-Ups
Politico: How Biden could galvanize the world against Huawei
Twitter says it will prohibit language that dehumanizes individuals based on their race, ethnicity or national origin.