• Nick Clegg, Meta Platforms Inc.’s president of global affairs, said at a Semafor Exchange event in Washington, D.C., that former President Donald Trump could be allowed back on Facebook once his account suspension expires next year. Clegg said the company feels compelled to “act against” content that it feels could “lead to real-world harm,” and plans to talk to experts and weigh the risks in making its decision. (Semafor)
• The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance a bill that would enable news organizations to join forces to negotiate for more revenue from platforms that host their content, such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook. (Reuters)
• The Senate voted 56-40 to confirm Dr. Arati Prabhakar as the first female director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, a Cabinet-level post, where she will serve as the president’s primary adviser on science and technology policy. (Nextgov)

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

• Starting at 10 a.m. Unfinished Live 2022, featuring a live podcast recording with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen at 3:30 p.m.

“Keys to the Kingdom” at Risk: Analyzing Exposed SSO Credentials of Public Companies

BitSight

Amazon’s Newest Training Exec Used to Be a Private Prison Manager

Jules Roscoe, Motherboard

An ex-private prison manager was recently promoted to be a director of some of Amazon’s worker training programs.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen launches nonprofit to make social media healthier

Lauren Feiner, CNBC

Former Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen on Thursday announced a new nonprofit with the goal of making social media healthier. The new group appears to build on the solutions she’s proposed to lawmakers and social media companies themselves about how to make platforms safer, based in part on her experience as a former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team.

Google Public Sector brings in new CEO Karen Dahut from Booz Allen Hamilton

Nihal Krishan, FedScoop

Google Cloud has appointed Karen Dahut as CEO of its government services arm Google Public Sector. The executive joins from federal contracting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, where she was previously president of the company’s global defense business.

Microsoft CEO Is Confident About Activision Deal Approval, Handling of Economy

Emily Chang and Dina Bass, Bloomberg

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said he’s confident the company can gain regulatory approval for its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard Inc. even in the face of an in-depth regulatory probe in the UK.

The US and EU are Teaming Up to Contain Big Tech

Jennifer Conrad, Wired

Late last week, Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s digital competition czar, arrived in New York on a high note. The day before, an EU Court upheld a decision by her office to fine Alphabet for using its Android operating system to hurt competition, setting the penalty at $4.1 billion.

DeepMind’s new chatbot uses Google searches plus humans to give better answers

Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review

The trick to making a good AI-powered chatbot might be to have humans tell it how to behave—and force the model to back up its claims using the internet, according to a new paper by Alphabet-owned AI lab DeepMind. 

Elon Musk Should Provide Internet in Iran, Lawmakers Urge Yellen

Daniel Flatley, Bloomberg

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen should give Elon Musk’s satellite Internet service Starlink clearance to operate in heavily sanctioned Iran as the country faces widespread protests, a bipartisan group of lawmakers said.

Chipmaker Qualcomm says automotive future business expands to $30 bln

Jane Lanhee Lee and Akash Sriram, Reuters

U.S. chip designer Qualcomm Inc on Thursday said its automotive business “pipeline” increased to $30 billion, up more than $10 billion since its third quarter results were announced in late July.

Google Sees Russia Coordinating With Hackers in Cyberattacks Tied to Ukraine War

Robert McMillan and Dustin Volz, The Wall Street Journal

A growing body of evidence suggests that pro-Russian hackers and online activists are working with the country’s military intelligence agency, according to researchers at Google.

Jamal Khashoggi’s wife to sue NSO Group over Pegasus spyware

Daniel Boffey, The Guardian

The wife of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is preparing a lawsuit in the US against the spyware maker NSO Group, claiming she was targeted with the Israeli company’s Pegasus software.

Senators propose open source software risk framework in new bill

Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

Lawmakers introduced a bill Thursday that would have the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency develop a risk framework to strengthen the security of open-source software.

Researchers unearth hacking group that’s been active, yet undetected for years

AJ Vicens, CyberScoop

During a recent investigation of a series of cyber intrusions into an unnamed high-value target, threat intelligence researchers with SentinelOne’s SentinelLabs team discovered nearly 10 hacking groups associated with China and Iran.

Musk Can Use $7.8 Million Twitter Whistle-Blower Payment in His Counterclaims

Jef Feeley, Bloomberg

Elon Musk can use a $7.8 million severance payment to a Twitter Inc. whistle-blower to argue he was justified in walking away from his $44 billion buyout of the company, the latest turn in a bruising battle set for trial next month.

Study of large incel internet forum raises alarms about its growth

Taylor Lorenz, The Washington Post

The most prominent forum for men who consider themselves involuntarily celibate or “incels” has become significantly more radicalized over the past year and a half and is seeking to normalize child rape, a new report says.

WhatsApp says it is working to keep Iranians connected

Reuters

Meta Platforms Inc’s WhatsApp said on Thursday that it was working to keep users in Iran connected after the country restricted access to the app and social media platform Instagram. WhatsApp “will do anything” within its technical capacity to keep the service accessible and that it was not blocking Iranian phone numbers, the messaging service said in a tweet.

Convicted Twitter Spy Says US Hid Whistle-Blower Report

Peter Blumberg, Bloomberg

A former Twitter Inc. employee who was convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia by turning over personal information of platform users said he deserves a new trial because prosecutors didn’t tell him about a whistle-blower’s report on security lapses at the company.

Twitter allows more researchers to access platform data

Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch

Earlier this year, Twitter launched the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium (TMRC), a group of experts from across academia, civil society, nongovernmental organizations and journalism dedicated to studying Twitter’s platform governance issues. Previously, membership in the TMRC was limited to select trusted partners, but Twitter today began offering all researchers the chance to apply.

The Most Dominant Toxic Election Narratives Online

Cecilia Kang, The New York Times

Ballot mules. Poll watch parties. Groomers. These topics are now among the most dominant divisive and misleading narratives online about November’s midterm elections, according to researchers and data analytics companies.

Leaked email reveals that Amazon is walking back employees’ raises after an internal bug miscalculated their compensation

Katherine Long, Insider Premium

Many Amazon employees who just got promoted are finding that their raise packages actually won’t be as high as they thought because of a software error, according to an email seen by Insider that was sent to managers on Thursday.

Amazon Routinely Hired Dangerous Trucking Companies, With Deadly Consequences

Christopher Weaver, The Wall Street Journal

Amazon.com Inc. has rapidly built a sprawling network to move merchandise around the nation’s highways. Many of the trucking companies it hired for all that driving are more dangerous than their peers, sometimes fatally so.

US Lawmakers Push Tech Firms on Abortion Benefits for Gig Workers

Caitlin Harrington, Wired

When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, many technology companies assured employees that they would help those who needed to travel to another state to access abortion care. But at some companies, one major segment of their workforces remained shut out: gig workers.

The Supreme Court should tread carefully on internet speech

Editorial Board, The Washington Post

The Supreme Court might be poised to weigh in on a subject that, even more than other far-reaching topics in its purview, affects nearly every citizen nearly every day: the internet. In doing so, the justices have the opportunity to make a muddled area of governance less murky.

Jan. 6 Twitter witness: Failure to curb Trump spurred ‘terrifying’ choice

Drew Harwell, The Washington Post

In an explosive hearing in July, an unidentified former Twitter employee testified to the House Jan. 6 committee that the company had tolerated false and rule-breaking tweets from Donald Trump for years because executives knew their service was his “favorite and most-used … and enjoyed having that sort of power.” 

The Next Silicon Valley Will Be in the US Heartland

Steven Levy, Wired

You don’t meet many billionaires on buses. But that proletarian rolling stock became a favorite of Steve Case, the founder of AOL and survivor of the worst corporate merger in history, when he acquired Time Warner in 2001.