• Twitter Inc. co-founder and former Chief Executive Jack Dorsey is set to be deposed today as part of the company’s lawsuit against Elon Musk, according to court filings, and will be questioned by attorneys on both sides of the dispute via Zoom. Dorsey was an enthusiastic supporter of Musk’s $44 billion deal to purchase the social media platform, which is now suing the Tesla Inc. CEO after he sought to withdraw his offer in July. (Bloomberg)
• A group of 46 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Guam, asked a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reinstate a 2020 antitrust lawsuit against Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, arguing that the platform has continued to harm both the economy and competition since the suit was thrown out. The states also contended that it was wrong to put a time limit on states’ lawsuits because states should not be treated like class action. (Reuters)
• The Biden administration has named a team of senior advisers to oversee the $52.7 billion in government funding for semiconductor research and manufacturing that was earmarked in the CHIPS and Science Act signed into law last month. The team will be led by Commerce Department Chief Economist Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji, who will serve as White House coordinator for CHIPS Implementation at the National Economic Council. (Reuters)
• Uber Technologies Inc. said that last week’s cyberattack, which caused the ride-hailing platform to shut down internal communications systems, was perpetrated by a hacker linked to the Lapsus$ hacking group. The hacker, who accessed a company contractor’s Uber account via a two-factor login approval request, did not obtain user accounts or the databases that store sensitive information such as credit card numbers, Uber said. (Reuters)

Worth keeping an eye on today (all times local):

• Starting at 9 a.m. Fast Company’s Innovation Festival, featuring a one-on-one discussion with U.S. Secretary of Labor Martin Walsh at 12:30 p.m.
• Starting at 9 a.m. CSO50 Conference and Awards, featuring Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly discussing the role of government in private-sector security, future threats and other topics.
• Starting at 10:15 a.m. Wall Street Journal CIO Network Summit, featuring CISA Executive Director Brandon Wales speaking at 12:20 p.m. about defending the United States from cyberattacks.
• 3 p.m. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, are testifying at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights hearing titled “Oversight of Federal Enforcement of the Antitrust Laws.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s $71 Billion Wealth Wipeout Puts Focus on Meta’s Woes

Bloomberg

An Anti-E.S.G. Activist Takes on Apple and Disney

Andrew Ross Sorkin et al., The New York Times

A conservative investor, with backing from Peter Thiel and Bill Ackman, has two new targets in his anti-E.S.G. campaign. Yesterday, Vivek Ramaswamy sent letters to the C.E.O.s of Apple and Disney, urging them to refrain from making political statements on behalf of their companies, or hiring decisions based on race, sex or political beliefs.

Amazon, Pfizer Among Companies Pledging to Hire 20,000 Refugees

Jessica Donati, The Wall Street Journal

Major U.S. companies pledged to hire more than 20,000 refugees over the next three years, a number that refugee advocates say will help integrate the wave of Afghans and Ukrainians who arrived over the last year.

Treasury and Justice reports tackle crypto crime

Crystal Kim, Axios

The Treasury and Justice departments intend to act as nail and hammer to the dark side of the crypto industry — one working to identify cyber criminals and their exploits and the other, prosecuting and bringing those baddies to account.

Gmail launches pilot to keep campaign emails out of spam

Ashley Gold, Axios

Google is launching a pilot program to keep emails from political campaigns from going to users’ spam folders this week, the company told Axios.

Apple to raise App Store prices in some countries in Europe, Asia

Reuters

Apple Inc said on Tuesday it will raise prices of apps and in-app purchases on its App Store from next month in all of the euro zone and some countries in Asia and South America.

Meta’s privacy obligations may be added to German antitrust probe, court adviser says

Foo Yun Chee, Reuters

Antitrust authorities may assess whether companies comply with EU data protection rules during their investigations, an adviser to Europe’s top court said on Tuesday, dealing a possible blow to Meta Platforms in its fight against the German competition agency.

DeepMind Says It Had Nothing to Do With Research Paper Saying AI Could End Humanity

Jordan Pearson, Motherboard

After a researcher with a position at DeepMind—the machine intelligence firm owned by Google parent Alphabet—co-authored a paper claiming that AI could feasibly wipe out humanity one day, DeepMind is distancing itself from the work. 

Ford drivers could get alerts from nearby pedestrians’ phones

Jaclyn Trop, TechCrunch

Ford is working on a mobile app designed to alert drivers to pedestrians and bicyclists nearby. The app, scheduled to debut at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America’s World Congress in Los Angeles this week, uses Bluetooth Low Energy to send a location alert from a pedestrian or cyclist’s smartphone to passing Ford vehicles equipped with the latest infotainment system.

The Broadband Turf Wars Are Hurting Rural Communities

Lizzie O’Leary, Slate

East Carroll Parish, in Louisiana, is a small rural place, mostly agricultural, built on land that was once used for cotton plantations. About 7,200 people live there now. More than one-third of them below the poverty line, and more than half the households lack broadband internet access.

Musk says Starlink will seek exemption from Iranian sanctions

Reuters

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Monday that the company will ask for an exemption from sanctions against Iran to provide the firm’s Starlink satellite broadband service in the country.

Apple’s hidden redesign makes the iPhone 14 much easier to fix

Emma Roth, The Verge

A new iPhone 14 teardown video from iFixit shows a major repairability improvement: removable back glass. The video demonstrates how you can lift the rear glass panel with ease, using only a heating mat, a suction handle, and an opening pick — a huge deviation from the past few generations of iPhones that weren’t so repair-friendly.

Apple Plans Fix for Shaking iPhone 14 Pro Camera by Next Week

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg

Apple Inc. is working on a software update for the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max aimed at fixing a bug that makes the rear camera on the device physically shake when used with some third-party apps.

Kiwi Farms has been breached; assume passwords and emails have been leaked

Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

The head of Kiwi Farms, the Internet forum best known for organizing harassment campaigns against trans and non-binary people, said the site experienced a breach that allowed hackers to access his administrator account and possibly the accounts of all other users.

Meta Continues to Put Muscle Behind Reels With Debut of Facebook Reels API

David Cohen, Adweek

Meta’s emphasis on Reels continues with Monday’s introduction of the Facebook Reels API (application-programming interface), which enables enterprise creators, large publishers, media creation platforms and third-party social media management platforms to integrate a “Share to Reels” feature into their offerings, letting people share Reels from other apps directly to publicly available Facebook pages, including those using the new pages experience.

Twitter’s latest feature is a tool to make your feed more accessible

Mia Sato, The Verge

Twitter is expanding a feature that makes images on the platform more accessible to people who use screen readers, the company announced today. Alt text reminders were first announced in July but were only available to a small group of users. 

Twitch’s Biggest Streamers Are Asking the Platform to Get Rid of Gambling

Gita Jackson, Motherboard

Some of the biggest stars on Twitch, including Pokimane and Hasan Piker, are rallying behind the hashtag #TwitchStopGambling to ask the company to ban gambling from its platform after one of their fellow streamers revealed that he has a gambling addiction.

Dozens of TikTokers are quietly discussing forming a creator union, but legal experts say it would be difficult

Tanya Chen, Insider Premium

A group of 72 TikTokers is actively discussing unionizing in a private Discord chat, where the members have raised their concerns around issues like moderation standards, pay, and transparency.

Laid-off Snap employees describe ‘overwhelming’ recruiter outreach from Facebook, Netflix, and TikTok. Some former staffers say they got reachouts from over 70 companies.

Diamond Naga Siu, Insider Premium

While the recent layoffs at Snap came as a shock, former employees found themselves in high demand, describing the resulting volume of recruiter reachouts as “overwhelming.”

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is trying to fix a crumbling engineering culture with a secret unit that tackles ‘foundational pain points’ raised by the company’s frustrated developers

Eugene Kim, Insider Premium

Amazon software engineers are so frustrated by bureaucratic inefficiencies that the company has created a secret new team to address their concerns.

What’s needed to Make It In America? Public-private partnerships that cultivate a highly skilled workforce

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Randy Altschuler, The Hill

It’s a common refrain we hear from every corner of our economy: too many open positions and not enough skilled workers to fill them. It’s particularly pronounced in the one industry that is the foundation for our economy: manufacturing. 

Never mind Elon Musk: Twitter’s bots are actually good

Tim Fernholz, Quartz

With Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter hanging in the legal balance, bots—automated twitter accounts that, in Musk’s words, inspired him to purchase the platform and then, later, gave him an excuse to back out of the deal—have been at the center of attention.

Big Tech’s new ‘Big Lie’ to address: all elections are corrupt

Paul M. Barrett, The Hill

The ‘Big Lie’ has metastasized. From a backward-looking claim that Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 presidential election, it has spread to become a Republican article of faith that U.S. elections generally are corrupt.