Top Stories

  • Christopher Krebs, the head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has told his associates that he expects to fired, according to three sources familiar with the matter, following the 2020 elections in which the agency worked to protect votes from hackers and pushed efforts to fact-check disinformation about the elections, which drew scrutiny from the White House. Bryan Ware, CISA’s assistant director for cybersecurity, also said he submitted his resignation, and a U.S. official familiar with the matter said Ware’s resignation came at the White House’s request. (Reuters
  • Amid reports of potential staff changes at CISA, the agency said in a statement that there is no evidence that “any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised” during last week’s elections, and that the 2020 elections were the “most secure in American history.” (The Verge)
  • The Commerce Department said it will not enforce an order set to go into effect yesterday that would have barred companies from providing internet-hosting or content-delivery services to TikTok, citing a preliminary injunction issued against the app’s shutdown last month and “pending further legal developments.” The U.S. government also filed an appeal to the injunction yesterday. (The Wall Street Journal)
  • Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons said during a speech at an American Bar Association Conference that regulators need to be on alert for dominant companies purchasing smaller competitors, saying that “it may be easier and more effective to buy the nascent threat, only if to keep it out of the hands of others.” Simon’s remarks come as the agency reportedly wraps up its antitrust investigation into Facebook Inc., which has been accused of buying emerging competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp to squash potential threats to its market dominance. (Bloomberg)

Chart Review

Events Calendar (All Times Local)

11/16/2020
Bloomberg’s 2020 New Economy Forum – virtual
11/17/2020
Senate Judiciary hearing with Facebook, Twitter CEOs — Exact time TBA
Bloomberg’s 2020 New Economy Forum – virtual
Brooking Institution’s virtual event on the future of artificial intelligence 9:30 am
2020 Forbes CMO Summit Virtual Series – Episode 3 1:00 pm
Software & Information Industry Association’s webinar on the challenges posed by and solutions to address the spread of inauthentic content online and deepfakes 1:00 pm
11/18/2020
Bloomberg’s 2020 New Economy Forum – virtual
FedScoop’s FedTalks 2020 7:30 am
FCC November Open Commission Meeting 10:30 am
FT’s Women at the Top USA digital conference 12:00 pm
2020 Forbes CIO Next Virtual Series – Episode 2 2:00 pm
View full calendar

New White Paper – The Effect of the 2020 Election on the Economy in 2021

Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, the 2020 U.S. election will be key in shaping economic outcomes throughout 2021.

Our new white paper draws on Morning Consult Political Intelligence and Economic Intelligence data to assess the likely impact of the election on the economy, both in terms of the fundamental drivers of economic growth and Americans’ expectations of the future. Download here.

General

As Election Misinformation Spreads On Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg Told Employees That Biden Won
Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News

As false claims declaring that Joe Biden isn’t the president-elect flourish on his platform, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday that the Democratic nominee “is going to be our next president.”

Outgoing Trump administration bans investments in Chinese companies it says support China’s military
Jeanne Whalen and David J. Lynch, The Washington Post

The White House on Thursday issued an executive order banning U.S. investment in a few dozen Chinese companies that it said have ties to the People’s Liberation Army, underscoring the administration’s drive to continue severing China links before President Trump’s term ends in January.

Fired Amazon worker sues over pandemic working conditions
Brian Fung, CNN

Fired Amazon worker Christian Smalls filed a class-action lawsuit against the e-commerce giant on Thursday, alleging that Amazon violated federal civil rights law by terminating his employment and by allegedly putting thousands of other minority Amazon workers at risk during the pandemic.

Amazon sues influencer over alleged Instagram counterfeit scheme
Russell Brandom, The Verge

Today, Amazon filed suit against an influencer and a range of online businesses over an alleged counterfeiting scheme conducted across Instagram and Amazon’s Marketplace platform. According to the complaint filed in federal court in Washington state earlier today, the influencers advertised counterfeit luxury items on their Instagram page to be sold under dummy listings to Amazon Marketplace.

The mood inside Facebook is mostly relieved after the election passes without major mishap
Salvador Rodriguez, CNBC

The feeling inside Facebook is mostly relieved as the company got through the 2020 U.S. election without any claims of foreign interference or rampant misinformation, two employees told CNBC. A third person who worked closely on the election characterized the mood as guarded, with continued vigilance necessary against posts that would encourage civil unrest.

Tencent Pledges Cooperation as China Scrutinizes Competition on Internet Platforms
Yifan Wang, The Wall Street Journal

Tencent Holdings Ltd. expressed willingness to cooperate with authorities and played down the potential effect of China’s toughening regulatory environment as a boom in videogaming triggered by pandemic lockdowns continued to power the tech company’s performance in the latest quarter.

Elon Musk says he’s tested positive and negative for COVID-19
Thomas Ricker, The Verge

Elon Musk took to Twitter Thursday night to say that he has received mixed results after being tested for COVID-19 and is currently experiencing symptoms of a common cold. Musk says he was tested four times using a rapid antigen test: two tests came back positive and two came back negative. He’s also awaiting the results from two PCR tests but the results won’t be known for 24 hours.

Intellectual Property and Antitrust

U.S. senator urges FTC to interview Facebook ex-officials
Diane Bartz, Reuters

Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican and a tough critic of the big tech companies, urged the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday to interview some former employees of Facebook Inc as part of its probe of the social media giant. Both the FTC and groups of state attorneys general are widely believed to be planning litigation against Facebook for breaking antitrust law.

Google breakup should ‘be on the table’ says Sen. Klobuchar, who is a possible Biden pick for attorney general
Lauren Feiner, CNBC

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., is not shy about discussing breakups when it comes to alleged tech monopolies. During a virtual keynote speech for the American Bar Association’s Fall Forum, Klobuchar praised the Justice Department for leaving open the option of so-called structural remedies in its recent antitrust lawsuit against Google.

Google apologises to Thierry Breton over plan to target EU commissioner
Javier Espinoza, Financial Times

Sundar Pichai says he was unaware of plan for ‘pushback’ against the regulator. 

China’s President Xi Jinping Personally Scuttled Jack Ma’s Ant IPO
Jing Yang and Lingling Wei, The Wall Street Journal

Chinese President Xi Jinping personally made the decision to halt the initial public offering of Ant Group, which would have been the world’s biggest, after controlling shareholder Jack Ma infuriated government leaders, according to Chinese officials with knowledge of the matter.

Telecom, Wireless and TV

AT&T Invests $10 Million in Closing Homework Gap
John Eggerton, Multichannel News

AT&T has teamed up with Connected Nation to commit $10 million to help students who lack “adequate internet access,” including the homeless, in foster care and with disabilities. Those students will get free internet as part of the investment.

The fight over Trump’s FCC pick
Margaret Harding McGill, Axios

President Trump is pushing the Senate to confirm his hand-picked nominee for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission, but people familiar with the state of play on Capitol Hill don’t expect him to get his wish. Why it matters: The FCC oversees broadband internet rules, media ownership regulation and other policies that hold special importance to the president.

How Biden’s FCC could fix America’s internet
Sara Morrison, Recode

When Joe Biden is inaugurated as president on January 20, he stands to oversee a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that could do remarkable things. Among other things, the new FCC could bridge the digital divide, ensuring all Americans have access to the internet. But even though Biden’s victory is assured, the future of the FCC hangs in the balance.

Teletherapy is helping Americans get through the pandemic. What happens afterward?
Allyson Chiu, The Washington Post

By June, Jessica Liu was feeling overwhelmed. The novel coronavirus pandemic that had cut short her senior year at Northwestern University was still raging. Protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd were erupting nationwide, and as one of the few people of color in her Pennsylvania community, Liu was participating in local organizing efforts.

Mobile Technology and Social Media

Twitter says it labeled 0.2% of all election-related tweets as disputed.
Kate Conger, The New York Times

Twitter said on Thursday that it had labeled as disputed 300,000 tweets related to the presidential election, or 0.2 percent of the total on the subject, even as some users continued sharing misleading information about the outcome.

Facebook ad ban scrambles Georgia Senate campaigns
Elena Schneider, Politico

Facebook’s post-election ban on political ads has forced the candidates and groups competing in Georgia’s Senate runoffs to rethink a big chunk of their campaign playbooks. Facebook and Google — which have made more than $3 billion on political ads in the last two and a half years — banned them after Election Day in an effort to limit the spread of misinformation about the results.

YouTube defends choice to leave up videos with false election claims
Nick Statt, The Verge

YouTube is pushing back against claims its platform is helping promote and spread misinformation surrounding the 2020 US election, saying its most popular videos related to the election are from “authoritative” sources. YouTube also claims it takes measures to stop the spread of videos containing false or misleading claims by not surfacing them in search results or through its recommendation engine.

Twitter’s Next Trump Problem
Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic

Trump is exempt from many of Twitter’s policies because of his status as a world leader. Come January, he could lose his favorite toy and most powerful weapon.

Cybersecurity and Privacy

Voting machine company denies Trump claims about software issues
Celine Castronuovo, The Hill

Dominion Voting Systems, a Denver-based company that supplies voting machines across the United States, on Thursday rejected President Trump’s claim that it had “deleted” millions of votes in favor of the president. Earlier in the day, the president said on Twitter that Dominion had struck a total of 2.7 million Trump votes from its machines, including 221,000 in Pennsylvania that he claims were instead tallied for now-President-elect Joe Biden.

Ex-national security officials warn of risks in Biden transition delay
Natasha Bertrand, Politico

A group of more than 150 former national security officials who served under President Donald Trump and other Republican and Democratic administrations is warning that the government’s delay in recognizing Joe Biden as president-elect poses a “serious risk to national security.” 

DOD picks Dave McKeown as new CISO
Jackson Barnett, FedScoop

The Department of Defense has tapped Dave McKeown to be its next chief information security officer, a DOD official confirmed to FedScoop. McKeown, a long-time government IT and security official, most recently at the Department of Justice, will start later in November.

Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives

Why Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both wrong about Section 230
Neil Chilson, Protocol 

In the course of the presidential race, Joe Biden and Donald Trump both advocated repealing Section 230, and politicians across the spectrum want to replace it with more detailed regulations designed to address the political influence of social media and technology platforms. I think that’s the wrong approach: Section 230 is exactly the kind of evolutionary regulation that we need to govern technology and its use.

A Good Deal for California Gig Companies Is Bad for Their Workers
Terri Gerstein, The New York Times

What happened in California? Despite the state’s liberal reputation, voters there last week approved Proposition 22, a ballot initiative exempting many gig companies from state workplace laws and stripping their workers of basic, essential protections.

Research Reports

Serving Silicon Valley: Tech Giants and their Service Workers in the COVID-19 Pandemic
Working Partnerships USA

As the spread of COVID-19 has forced layoffs and businesses closures in many sectors, Silicon Valley’s software engineers, programmers, and other white-collar tech employees have largely been spared. In Santa Clara County, nearly 100,000 jobs have been lost and not yet returned. Industries like restaurants and hotels have cut jobs by nearly 40%.

Morning Consult