With help from Rebecca Kern, Sam Sabin, Steven Overly and Samuel Stolton
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— On the Hill: Instagram head Adam Mosseri will testify before Congress today for the first time. He will highlight recently announced policy changes, but some lawmakers are already skeptical.
— Just visiting: The U.K.’s top digital official is in Washington. She’ll meet with top administration officials to discuss issues from the supply chain to tech cooperation.
— See you in court: Top tech companies are turning to the courts as they try to make headway on a myriad of cybersecurity issues.
IT’S WEDNESDAY, DEC. 8. WELCOME TO MORNING TECH! I’m your host, Benjamin Din. What’s one piece of advice you would tell a younger version of yourself?
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eMOSSERI MAKES CONGRESSIONAL DEBUT — Instagram’s chief will face tough questioning before the Senate Commerce consumer protection panel this afternoon at a hearing on protecting kids’ safety online. It’s the panel’s second hearing since whistleblower Frances Haugen testified about parent company Meta’s internal research, including on how the platform’s algorithms promote unhealthy body images to young users.
— The view from Instagram: Mosseri plans to discuss a series of teen safety tools launched Tuesday, including a feature that prompts users to step away from the app after 20 minutes of use. Instagram will also implement new parental control features early next year.
He also will highlight commitments to working with external researchers to improve Instagram, as well as the company’s support for updating safety regulations, including those that would address industry-wide problems like age verification on social media platforms, according to spokesperson Andy Stone.
— Not impressed: Chair Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called Tuesday’s announcements “baby steps.” He told Rebecca in an interview, “They are more a PR gambit than real action done within hours of the CEO testifying that are more to distract than really solve the problem.”
“We fully share the goal of protecting kids and teens online,” ranking member Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) will say, per her opening remarks. “What we aren’t sure about is how the half measures you’ve introduced are going to get us there.” She will add that the new safety measures are “too little, too late.”
— Familiar playbook: Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has a history of announcing policy changes right before Capitol Hill hearings. In September, for example, Instagram unexpectedly said it would pause development of an Instagram Kids app days before Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, was set to testify before the Senate panel about the leaked internal research that showed the impacts of using Instagram on teens’ mental health.
— Transparency push: Blumenthal said he plans to ask Mosseri for commitments to real steps on algorithmic transparency and additional efforts to stop driving disruptive content to children on the platform. He also said he will push the company to provide the subcommittee with additional documents that lawmakers have requested for weeks.
Blackburn plans to discuss the bipartisan desire to pass a national privacy bill, as well as a children’s online safety bill. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act has not seen an update since 1998, and proposed legislation would expand privacy protections for children up to 18 years old. (It currently applies to children up to age 13.)
SPEAKING OF PROTECTING KIDS ONLINE — Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Tuesday called on tech companies to be more transparent with their data and algorithmic processes, to help spur research on the relationship between technology and mental health in children. That research would help determine the effects tech can have on different groups of people, as well as which groups are most at risk of suffering harm, he said in an advisory on the youth mental health crisis. Companies should also prioritize children’s safety at every stage of the product development process.
EUROPEAN TECH LEADERS HEAD TO WASHINGTON — U.K. Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries is making her way across the pond for her first visit to the U.S. since she stepped into her role in September. She joins European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager, who is also making the rounds in Washington, as both sides of the Atlantic seek further inroads on tech and telecom issues.
— On the itinerary: Dorries will meet today with Eric Lander, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The U.S. and the U.K. have announced numerous partnerships in recent months, including commitments to work together on emerging tech issues like artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.
She will also meet with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, where topics of discussion are expected to include the global telecom supply chain and transatlantic data policy. In August, the U.K. said it would prioritize the U.S. in its new data agreements post-Brexit.
— Making commitments: Alongside her visit, Dorries announced that the U.K. will phase out its 2G and 3G mobile networks by 2033 as the country builds out its 5G networks. The British government will also invest £50 million (approximately $66 million) to support telecom research and development projects.
— Vestager on the move: She’s scheduled to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Lander. She’ll also chat with Senate Judiciary antitrust Chair Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) about their respective efforts on competition policy.
Vestager met Tuesday with FTC Chair Lina Khan and DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter as part of the first EU-U.S. Joint Technology Competition Policy Dialogue. Investigations into anticompetitive practices in the digital economy should focus more on the role of “massive amounts of data,” the two governments said in a joint statement following the meeting.
She later told reporters she saw “huge potential” in the two governments working together on merger cases, which could involve the competition authorities jointly identifying potential problems and finding solutions that satisfy both regulators.
TECH TAKES MATTERS INTO ITS OWN HANDS — Google became the third major Silicon Valley company on Tuesday to head to the courts in the last two weeks to tackle sprawling cybersecurity issues. The latest litigation underscores the unique insight tech firms have into the current threat landscape.
Following Apple and Microsoft’s own cyber-related legal proceedings, Google sued the operators of the Glupteba botnet, who are believed to be based in Russia, for computer fraud and abuse, trademark infringement and other claims. The company said this was the first lawsuit against a blockchain-enabled botnet, which helped automate how various malware-infected, remotely accessed computers found new victims.
Google warned that the botnet had been targeting Windows computers worldwide, including in the United States, to steal users’ login credentials and use their PCs to mine cryptocurrencies. Hackers also distributed Glupteba through Google Docs, Google Ads, Google Cloud Projects and fake accounts.
— Not the only ones: Right before Thanksgiving, Apple sued spyware company NSO Group for allowing its customers to hack into iOS systems, and earlier this week, Microsoft got a federal court’s permission to seize websites belonging to Nickel, a Beijing-linked hacking group.
“Our goal is to bring awareness to these issues to protect our users and the broader ecosystem, and to prevent future malicious activity,” Google’s Royal Hansen and Halimah DeLaine Prado said in a blog post.
Each of the companies’ legal moves highlights what value they bring to the Biden administration, which continues to pursue private-public partnerships to combat global security threats. In Apple’s lawsuit against NSO, the firm is able to utilize its prior experience with NSO’s spyware to target the Israeli company in ways the Biden administration can’t. In Microsoft’s takedown of the Nickel hacking group, the tech company used its own fast-paced security tools to track down the group before the government managed to. And because the Glupteba operators used Google products, it’s possible Google was one of the first to notice this malware in action.
WHAT’S ON ROSENWORCEL’S CALENDAR? — FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel was reconfirmed Tuesday, 68-31, to another five-year term at the agency, but that success didn’t come from out of the blue. She’s been working the phones for a while now, John reports in a story for Pros this morning.
Immediately after Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Rosenworcel began making calls. She spoke to key Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Rep. Anna Eshoo of California. She also reached across the aisle to Republicans like Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who voted to confirm her on Tuesday. Her calendar records, obtained through a public records request, showed that Rosenworcel held more than 40 private conversations with lawmakers between the election and the end of April.
Oren Teich is joining Foursquare as SVP of product. He was previously director of product development at Google. … Katelyn Schultz is now a senior associate for corporate comms for the growth and strategy division at KPMG US. She previously was press secretary for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). … Brittany Caplin is joining the White House as an assistant press secretary after serving as the Commerce Department’s press secretary and deputy director of public affairs. She will focus on the administration’s economic portfolio, including broadband, data privacy and semiconductors.
Bruce McClelland and Charlie Vogt are joining the board of the Telecommunications Industry Association.
The Global Data Alliance announced 10 new members: Abbott Laboratories, Cognizant, EY, FedEx, General Motors, IKEA, Lumen Technologies, MetLife, NTT and RELX.
Google has launched 2021’s Year in Search. … The Google News Initiative is making a $500,000 contribution to the First Look Institute’s Press Freedom Defense Fund, which will help support journalists facing harassment and legal charges.
Making it work: “Facing Hostile Chinese Authorities, Apple CEO Signed $275 Billion Deal With Them,” via The Information.
Seeking recommendations: Researchers found Instagram is pushing drug content to teens, NBC reports.
Knocked down: An Amazon Web Services outage Tuesday brought down websites around the world. More from Data Center Dynamics.
Family dynamics: Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who has opposed the tech antitrust bills, has a daughter on Google’s in-house legal team, the New York Post reports.
Broken promises: “Media is the poster child for the failures of antitrust enforcement,” the Writers Guild of America West argues in a report examining the largest media and telecom mergers.
Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([email protected]), Heidi Vogt ([email protected]), Emily Birnbaum ([email protected]), John Hendel ([email protected]), Rebecca Kern ([email protected]), Alexandra S. Levine ([email protected]), Leah Nylen ([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.
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