With help from John Hendel, Alexandra S. Levine, Cristiano Lima and Leah Nylen
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— Target acquired: FCC commissioners will take on China’s hardware giants today at their monthly meeting.
— Weighing their options: Some House Republicans are bucking their caucus’ leaders to support Democrats’ antitrust proposals.
— One year in: Advocacy groups behind the Stop Hate for Profit campaign say Facebook has failed to enact structural changes needed to combat violent rhetoric online.
HAPPY THURSDAY! MORNING TECH IS CHECKING OUT EARLY. I’m your host, Benjamin Din. Did you know that the king of Belgium has a “working” palace and a WFH palace? I guess I’m not that surprised, but apparently security there is pretty crazy.
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TODAY: FCC EYES EXPANDING HUAWEI CLAMPDOWN — FCC commissioners will vote this morning on a plan to broaden the agency’s crackdown on insecure telecom gear (read: from China) using its equipment authorization and auction rules. The vote would begin the rulemaking process on regulations that would further restrict U.S. operations of Chinese telecom companies like Huawei and ZTE. (The FCC has already dubbed them threats, a label they dispute.)
— Expect consensus: Democrats and Republicans alike are fans of this approach. GOP Commissioner Brendan Carr floated this idea of updating equipment authorization rules months ago, saying that the agency’s existing limits on its telecom subsidies failed to adequately curb Huawei’s presence in the U.S. market. Bipartisan, bicameral legislation has emerged to target this so-called “Huawei loophole” to FCC restrictions. Both acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel and Carr lauded a House measure along these lines Tuesday, with Rosenworcel saying the bill is “consistent” with her draft item getting a vote today and that “having this policy written into the law will send a strong, bipartisan signal that the United States is committed to developing a market for secure 5G alternatives.”
— Huawei says no way: The Chinese telecom giant sees the move as “misguided and unnecessarily punitive,” spokesperson Glenn Schloss said, accusing the U.S. of restricting choice for U.S. consumers and customers globally. “Huawei products are renowned and loved around the world,” he added. “Until the Trump Administration cut our access to Google and semiconductors last year, our smartphones were #1 and #2 in shipments.”
— Meanwhile: Tech industry interests are cheering on another FCC vote aimed at making it easier to import and market telecom equipment, which the Consumer Tech Association says will be a boon for the 5G marketplace.
A GOP REBELLION ON ANTITRUST? — Next week’s House Judiciary markup will reveal how wide the split now emerging among GOP members over the Big Tech antitrust package really is. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and the House Judiciary Committee’s top Republican, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, are opposed to the bills, all led by Democrats. But of the nine lawmakers who spoke at a Wednesday news conference on the legislation, four were Republicans.
And those GOP members spent about as much time pressing potentially recalcitrant colleagues for support as they did talking about the bills. “For my conservative friends concerned about Big Tech’s power over information and speech, the only way to stop this power is through antitrust reform,” said Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado. (Buck — ranking GOP member on the House Judiciary antitrust panel — is one of three Republicans, along with Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and Rep. Lance Gooden of Texas, to sponsor all five bills in the package.)
At Wednesday’s news conference, Utah’s Burgess Owens stuck to talking about his support for H.R. 3849 (117), which would require platforms to make it easier for users to transfer their data elsewhere. But Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Victoria Spartz of Indiana also warned their colleagues against letting the tech crackdown succumb to inertia. “If you do nothing, you don’t have enemies,” Spartz said. “You start doing something, and someone doesn’t like you. We have to be brave and strong and serve the people.”
SWING AT THE FTC: DEMOCRATS REVIVE CALL FOR ‘DATA PROTECTION AGENCY’ — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) this morning reintroduced a bill from last Congress that would form an independent federal body tasked with safeguarding Americans’ privacy and data — now with fresh provisions focused explicitly on civil rights issues like algorithmic discrimination, which have become a bigger part of the privacy debate over the last year. “The U.S. needs a new approach to privacy and data protection,” Gillibrand said.
— The fine print: The revamped Data Protection Act of 2021 would create a civil rights office within the new agency to address discriminatory data practices, and it would better empower the agency to take action against companies whose collection of sensitive personal information has had social or economic consequences for consumers. (The director of the agency would need to have civil rights expertise.) The updated legislation would also give the agency new say in tech mergers through which the data of 50,000 or more people would change hands.
— The cheerleaders: Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who introduced his own civil rights-oriented privacy bill last Congress, is a new cosponsor. And California Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren have made a similar pitch, although it could struggle to find support among moderate Democrats. Notably missing? Republicans, some of whom have said such an agency would be a nonstarter.
WHERE THINGS STAND ON ‘STOP HATE FOR PROFIT’ — A year ago today a coalition of racial justice and civil society groups launched a campaign calling on Facebook to curb hate speech on its services and kicked off a massive advertiser boycott of its platforms. A lot has happened since, including Facebook’s suspension of former President Donald Trump; the platform’s decision to leave up some of his incendiary remarks inspired the campaign.
But in a progress report out today evaluating social media companies’ response to their calls for action, organizers wrote that the campaign “succeeded in getting a number of incremental improvements from Facebook when nothing else had worked, but not the bold structural change that is needed.”
— Report card: Of the evaluated platforms, Facebook got the lowest marks. The report acknowledged Facebook has made “significant changes,” including limiting the reach of groups tied to violence. And it gave the company high marks for hiring two top officials with backgrounds in civil rights. But the report knocked the company for not meeting additional demands, including changing its policy against fact-checking politicians or permanently booting Trump.
In a statement, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone highlighted the company’s hiring of its first vice president of civil rights and its actions to crack down on militarized groups and QAnon conspiracy theorists as signs of progress. “We hold ourselves accountable through regular reports to the public on the progress we’re making and areas where we need to do more,” he said.
YouTube, Twitter and other platforms fared better. “Some of the biggest wins came not from Facebook, but from other social media platforms that were not targeted by the campaign — but clearly hoped to avoid such targeting,” the group wrote. A Twitter spokesperson said the company continues to look for ways to improve enforcement of its rules to make the platform a safe forum.
FIRST IN MT: GROWING CALLS FOR RIGHT-TO-REPAIR HEARINGS — In response to the FTC’s recent report on repair restrictions, advocacy groups are urging the Senate Commerce and House Energy and Commerce committees to hold hearings on the matter. “The time to act is now,” a diverse group of 21 consumer, digital rights and car repair organizations wrote in letters today, calling repair restrictions anticompetitive. “Americans need functioning smartphones and computers as they work and educate from home.”
Jen Howard will be FTC Chair Lina Khan’s chief of staff, after serving in the same role for FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra. … Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is now board chairman, succeeding John Thompson, who resumes his previous role of lead independent director. … Trey McKenzie is joining the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as an executive director of government affairs, focusing on transportation and technology policy. … The Senate Commerce Committee approved Carlos Monje‘s nomination to be Transportation undersecretary for policy. He is a senior adviser to Secretary Pete Buttigieg and a Twitter public policy alum. … Chuck Whitten joins Dell Technologies as co-COO. He was previously at Bain & Co.
Dell Technologies will help build out the infrastructure for DISH’s Open RAN-based 5G network. … Cisco is opening its Rural Broadband Innovation Center in North Carolina. … The University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security has launched the Pitt Disinformation Lab.
We’ll take it: “Not Being Amazon Is a Selling Point for These E-Commerce Players,” WSJ reports.
Eyes open: New upgrades from Apple and Google promise more privacy. But that comes at a cost, via Wired.
Not so easy: Apple wants to make health care a key focus, but it’s an uphill climb, per WSJ.
ICYMI: Biden World has a plan to combat disinformation, from hamburgers to election fraud. Natsha Korecki has more.
Here’s an idea: Congress should create an agency dedicated to advanced industry and technology, according to a report today from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
Game plan: “House Republicans zero in on Big Tech’s relationships with China,” CNBC reports.
Firing back: In response to a report that said Apple enabled censorship of LGBTQ+ apps, the company said that none of the apps cited as unavailable in China were removed by Apple. Protocol has more.
ICYMI: Apple CEO Tim Cook slammed the EU’s gatekeeper rules, Laura Kayali reports.
Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([email protected]), Heidi Vogt ([email protected]), John Hendel ([email protected]), Cristiano Lima ([email protected]), Alexandra S. Levine ([email protected]), Leah Nylen ([email protected]), Emily Birnbaum ([email protected]), and Benjamin Din ([email protected]). Got an event for our calendar? Send details to [email protected]. And don’t forget: Add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.
HAVE AN AWESOME WEEKEND!