Karl Herchenroeder

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., plans to visit Silicon Valley and meet with companies to better understand their algorithms and operations, she told C-SPAN's The Communicators to have been televised Saturday. Her office declined to provide specifics when we asked Friday. Congress should protect important provisions in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for smaller companies and new entrants, she said, but the tech industry’s content liability shield deserves a review from Congress. Whether large platforms like Facebook and Google deserve to keep those protections should be part of the broader discussion, she said. Blackburn suggested ISPs would be “well-served” to scrutinize unmoderated platforms like 8chan and review the information originating from those outlets. The 50 state attorneys general investigating Google and nine states probing Facebook reflect the frustration from consumers and small businesses within their states, she said: “They feel as if they have the right to move forward, and indeed they do.” Competition is a topic the Senate Judiciary Committee Task Force, which the legislator leads, will address early next year, Blackburn said. She’s heard anecdotal evidence that smaller companies like Yelp are stifled by incumbents like Google. The task force learned there’s agreement Congress needs to get a privacy law with one set of rules and one regulator, she said. It’s important to establish a basic, simple standard for privacy, and Congress can add and amend as needed, she said: Consumers need to know their privacy rights are protected.

No matter how sophisticated technology for combating deep fakes and disinformation is, it’s useless without buy-in from large tech platforms, which profit from the rise of sensational content, the House Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee heard Thursday. The worry is companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are more focused on growth than oversight and user support functions, said Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va. Platforms disclaim responsibility for user content and have a disincentive to purge fake and bot accounts, she said. Wexton cited a July 2018 report on how Twitter’s stock dropped 8.5 percent after it purged 70 million suspicious accounts over two months. Twitter shares increased about 20 percent between January and December 2018.

FTC Chairman Joe Simons wants to double the size of his agency’s tech task force (see 1902280077), supplement privacy and enforcement efforts, and hire more technologists and economists, he told the House Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee Wednesday. The House’s FY 2020 budget bill includes $349.7 million for the FTC (see 1906260081 and 1906240061), up about $40 million from what Congress allocated in the FY 2019 spending bill passed in February. More than half of the additional $40 million might be needed to cover mandatory compensation increases and other agency operations, Simons said. The rest could fund the priorities he listed. Simons and Chopra didn't take questions after the hearing.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote to the FTC Tuesday asking it to release a complete version of its 2012 report on potential anti-competitive behavior at Google. Half the report was inadvertently released in 2015, but the remaining pages are important for knowing whether the platform deceived consumers, he said during a Senate Antitrust Subcommittee hearing Tuesday.

A 2018 anti-sex-trafficking law violates the First Amendment, so a lawsuit against the statute (see 1806290044) should proceed, advocates argued Friday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. DOJ countered that plaintiffs don’t have a reasonable fear of prosecution because the speech doesn’t promote illegal sex activity.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., will host a meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Friday, House Commerce Committee ranking member Greg Walden, R-Ore., told us Thursday. Zuckerberg had dinner Wednesday with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and other senators, and Thursday meetings with Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., among other visits. Walden told us he plans to attend the meeting with McCarthy and others, saying he favors Congress taking a hard look at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Tech platforms are in a difficult position being told not to act as editors and publishers and to moderate content, Walden said.

It’s unlikely Congress will pass legislation altering Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., told reporters Wednesday. “If I could wave a magic wand, I might make nuanced changes, but I think realistically you’re not going to see a statute passed changing that section anytime soon. Considering what it takes to get a bill passed and signed into law.”

The FTC and DOJ haven’t fully honored their clearance agreement while investigating big tech platforms for competition reasons, FTC Chairman Joe Simons said Tuesday. DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim said during the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee hearing he can’t deny instances where time has been “wasted” on such squabbles.

The FTC is drafting a guidance document for applying antitrust law to tech platforms, Chairman Joe Simons said Friday at Fordham University. Tuesday, Simons testifies with DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim before the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee.

Introducing a privacy bill bilaterally with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., separate from the Senate Commerce Committee working group, is a “thought,” Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., told reporters Thursday. After the group’s apparent fracturing, focus shifted (see 1908010043) to bilateral negotiations between Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. But Moran and Blumenthal are continuing their own talks, though Blumenthal claims the group is moving forward as one.