• In his first public comments about the decision to ban President Donald Trump’s personal account, Twitter Inc. Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said he believes this “was the right decision for Twitter” due to the risk to public safety, but recognized that in the long term the decision “will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet.” Dorsey also said that having to make that decision constituted a “failure” for a service that aims to sustain civil discourse. (The Washington Post)

• A Snapchat spokesperson said the app will permanently ban Trump’s account on Jan. 20 “in the interest of public safety” as a result of the president’s efforts “to spread misinformation, hate speech and incite violence.” Snapchat follows Twitter and e-commerce platform Shopify Inc. in completely banning the president following the storming of the U.S. Capitol. (Axios)

• Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. are part of a new coalition of tech companies, health organizations and nonprofits working to establish technology standards for health passport apps, where consumers can obtain and share their immunization records. Dr. Brad Perkins, the chief medical officer at the Commons Project Foundation, a Geneva-based nonprofit participating in the partnership, said the technology will be helpful for demonstrating negative COVID-19 test results or vaccination status, which will be needed “for some period of time.” (The New York Times)

• Intel Corp. named company alum Pat Gelsinger as its new chief executive, replacing Bob Swan after just over two years and a number of setbacks that have hindered the chipmaker’s dominance. Gelsinger, currently the head of infrastructure software group VMware, previously worked for Intel for 30 years, including a stint as chief technology officer. (Financial Times)

The Local Politics of Airbnb’s Ban on DC Rentals
Aarian Marshall, Wired

On January 9—three days after supporters of President Trump started a riot at the US Capitol—Sean Evans decided it was time for action. Evans had seen a post on Nextdoor about neighbors running into hostile Trump supporters the night of the riot, leading to a verbal altercation that had left residents of his corner of Northwest DC on edge. Now, rumors flew online that the upcoming inauguration of president-elect Joe Biden would bring more protesters and more armed violence to the streets of his city.

Facebook Turned on Trump After Warnings That ‘Business as Usual Isn’t Working’
Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal

As footage of a pro-Trump mob ransacking the U.S. Capitol streamed from Washington, D.C., last Wednesday, Facebook Inc.’s data scientists and executives saw warning signs of further trouble. User reports of violent content jumped more than 10-fold from the morning, according to documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Trump administration shelves planned investment ban on Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu: sources
Alexandra Alper and Humeyra Pamuk, Reuters

The Trump administration has scrapped plans to blacklist Chinese tech giants Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, four people familiar with the matter said, providing a brief reprieve to Beijing’s top corporates amid a broader crackdown by Washington. Washington nonetheless plans to move forward this week with a bid to add as many as nine other Chinese companies to the list, one of the people said.

Google to pause political ads again ahead of Biden inauguration
Megan Graham, CNBC

Google is suspending political ads and any reference to “impeachment, inauguration or protests at the U.S. Capitol,” beginning Thursday. “We regularly pause ads over unpredictable, ‘sensitive’ events when ads can be used to exploit the event or amplify misleading information,” Google said in a statement Wednesday.

One of Donald Trump’s biggest Silicon Valley backers is renouncing his support
Theodore Schleifer, Recode

One of Donald Trump’s biggest backers in Silicon Valley is renouncing his support for the president in the wake of last week’s riot at the Capitol, Recode has learned. Doug Leone, a billionaire investor who donated big money to Trump and even served on a White House task force, is making his first public comments to date about his years-long support for Trump. 

Facebook’s top Democrat leaves lobbying post
Alex Gangitano, The Hill

The top Democrat on Facebook’s policy team, who is a former chief of staff to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), has left the social media company. Catlin O’Neill left her post as director of public policy, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed. She had worked at the company since May 2013 after serving as chief of staff in Pelosi’s personal office. 

Parler is a Microsoft Office 365 user, and Microsoft employees are discussing the ethics of having the far-right social app as a customer
Ashley Stewart, Business Insider Premium

Parler, the social-media app favored by supporters of President Donald Trump, was removed from Apple’s and Google’s app stores on Friday in the wake of last week’s deadly riot at the US Capitol. Not long afterward, many of Parler’s service providers — most prominently, Amazon Web Services — cut ties as well, leaving the app offline and in limbo as it searches for a new web host.

Behind Big Tech’s Crackdown on The Right is a Fight Over Biden Antitrust Policy
Ryan Grim, The Intercept

Big Tech, staring down the barrel of the one gun it has always feared — federal antitrust enforcement — pinned its hopes throughout 2020 on the possibility a new administration would take a gentler approach. Early signs were good, like when Democratic nominee Joe Biden named Apple’s top lobbyist to his four-person committee in charge of vetting and recommending the vice presidential nominee.

Tech Scrutiny to Continue Under Biden, DOJ Antitrust Chief Says
David McLaughlin, Bloomberg

The Trump administration’s outgoing competition chief expects the Biden administration to continue the federal government’s antitrust investigations of U.S. technology companies. Makan Delrahim, the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, said scrutiny of the tech industry by enforcers is important for protecting competition in digital markets.

U.S. judge in Facebook antitrust lawsuits sets March, April deadlines for responses
Diane Bartz, Reuters

The judge overseeing separate lawsuits against Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission and a big group of states set a March deadline for the social media company to respond, according to a court filing on Wednesday. The regulator and state attorneys general sued Facebook in December with allegations that the company broke the law to disadvantage smaller rivals.

Republican FCC commissioner​ says Trump ‘bears responsibility’ for riots
Emily Birnbaum, Protocol

Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who has been one of President Trump’s most outspoken allies on Big Tech issues, on Wednesday said he believes the president “bears responsibility” for the riots that engulfed Capitol Hill last week. “Political violence is completely unacceptable,” Carr told reporters.

House Democrats Dems Press Merrick Garland to Drop Net Neutrality Suit
John Eggerton, Multichannel News

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and a baker’s dozen Democratic members of the California congressional delegation have called on attorney general nominee Merrick Garland to make net neutrality one of his first orders of business in the new post.

Twitter says a new video from Trump doesn’t break the rules
Sean Hollister, The Verge

On January 8th, Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump, and proceeded to play whack-a-mole as he attempted to dodge that ban by using different Twitter accounts, each of which Twitter suspended in turn. And yet less than a week later, a Trump video has been posted on the official @WhiteHouse account delivering a new video speech. 

Facebook Sees Increase in Users Promoting Violent Events
Kurt Wagner, Bloomberg

Facebook Inc. said an increasing number of users are posting fliers and images using violent or incendiary language to promote gatherings across the country over the next week, echoing warnings from law enforcement that there could be another attack similar to last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol. A Facebook spokeswoman said the social network is tracking “dozens” of fliers promoting events on Jan. 17, Jan. 18 and Jan. 20, the date of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Parler CEO says social media app, favored by Trump supporters, may not return
Elizabeth Culliford and Jeffrey Dastin, Reuters

Social media platform Parler, which has gone dark after being cut off by major service providers that accused the app of failing to police violent content, may never get back online, said its CEO John Matze. As a procession of business vendors severed ties with the two-year-old site following the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week, Matze said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday that he does not know when or if it will return.

Trump Pondered ‘Person X’ Parler Handle Before Site Shut-Down
Joe Schneider, Bloomberg

President Donald Trump considered signing onto the Twitter alternative Parler, using the pseudonym “Person X,” before it was shut down, according to the conservative social media platform’s chief executive officer. Parler shut down on Sunday after Amazon.com Inc.’s web services division cut it off, claiming the social network failed to crack down on posts promoting violence. Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and YouTube all suspended Trump’s accounts following last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Facebook Has Been Showing Military Gear Ads Next To Insurrection Posts
Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News

Facebook has been running ads for body armor, gun holsters, and other military equipment next to content promoting election misinformation and news about the attempted coup at the US Capitol, despite internal warnings from concerned employees. In the aftermath of an attempted insurrection by President Donald Trump’s supporters last week at the US Capitol building, Facebook has served up ads for defense products to accounts that follow extremist content, according to the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit watchdog group.

Nextdoor moderators scramble to address QAnon after Capitol attack
Makena Kelly, The Verge

For months, Nextdoor moderators have struggled with the challenge of addressing QAnon content on its neighborhood sites — but after last week’s deadly attack on the Capitol, the pressure between moderators and the company’s policy team may have reached a breaking point.

Telegram Finally Takes Down Neo-Nazi Channels
Ali Breland, Mother Jones

As mainstream internet companies like Facebook and Google have gradually limited white nationalist and neo-Nazi access to their platforms, more and more have turned to Telegram, an encrypted messaging app with very lax moderation policies. On the app, neo-Nazis openly talked about threatening minorities, carrying out violence, and made frequent allusions to “Day of The Rope”—their fantasied reckoning when race traitors will be murdered en masse.

Biden team taps NSA Cybersecurity Director Anne Neuberger for NSC
Shannon Vavra, CyberScoop

Anne Neuberger, the National Security Agency’s cybersecurity director, will be joining the Biden administration as deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, the Biden transition team announced Wednesday. Neuberger has been serving in her role as the director of the year-old Cybersecurity Directorate at the Pentagon’s foreign signals intelligence agency for just over a year, but she has a track record of leadership at the NSA.

Period tracking app settles charges it lied to users about privacy
Zoe Schiffer, The Verge

A popular period and fertility tracking app has settled with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it lied to users about sharing private health information with third-party firms, including Facebook and Google. Flo, a period and ovulation tracking app, has more than 100 million users.

A Facebook case in Belgium could open the floodgates for GDPR privacy suits
David Meyer, Fortune

Although Europe’s tough General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in place for nearly three years now, it was only a few weeks ago that its main enforcer for most big U.S. tech firms—the Irish privacy watchdog—issued its first big fine to one of them: a paltry $548,000 that Twitter has to pay over a 2019 data breach.

How Facebook Incubated the Insurrection
Stuart A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel, The New York Times

Dominick McGee didn’t enter the Capitol during the siege on Jan. 6. He was on the grounds when the mob of Donald Trump supporters broke past police barricades and began smashing windows. But he turned around, heading back to his hotel. Property destruction wasn’t part of his plan.

The Promise and Peril of Facial Recognition
Floyd Abrams and Lee Wolosky, The Wall Street Journal

Federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies are using facial-recognition technology to identify the members of the mob that assaulted the U.S. Capitol last week. Elsewhere, facial recognition and artificial intelligence are increasingly being used for nefarious purposes—including by China to persecute minorities and to identify Hong Kong dissidents.

How Social Media’s Obsession with Scale Supercharged Disinformation
Joan Donovan, Harvard Business Review

Over the last four years, disinformation has become a global watchword. After Russian meddling on social networks during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, experts expressed concerns that social media would continue to be weaponized — warnings that were often dismissed as hyperbolic.

Monopoly Myths: Are Superstar Firms Stifling Competition or Just Beating It?
Joe Kennedy, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Antitrust advocates allege market-leading “superstar” firms—particularly in digital industries—succeed through anticompetitive conduct. But evidence shows they outperform competitors by investing in innovative technologies and global operations that create more value.