Mark Zuckerberg visits Washington

• Following several meetings with policymakers on Capitol Hill, Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg spoke with President Donald Trump on Thursday in a meeting that, according to a person familiar with the matter, was also attended by Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and Dan Scavino, the president’s social media director. A Facebook spokesperson said the event was constructive, and in a tweet, Trump called it a “nice meeting.”

• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told reporters that he challenged Zuckberberg to sell off photo-sharing app Instagram and encrypted messaging app WhatsApp in his first meeting with the executive Thursday in Washington. Zuckerberg declined to take questions following his meetings with several lawmakers, but Hawley said the Facebook founder was “not receptive to those suggestions.”

Antitrust and big tech

• Last year, Amazon.com Inc. adjusted the algorithm it uses to rank products in search results to prioritize those that are more profitable for the company, rather than those that are most relevant or bestsellers, according to people who worked on the project. One proposal for the change was initially denied by Amazon’s lawyers because they worried it would spark interest from antitrust regulators, one person said, though an Amazon spokesperson denied the company had made changes to the “criteria we use to rank search results to include profitability.”

• Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates said in an interview that he doesn’t believe breaking up big technology companies is a good idea, adding that it’s better to ban behavior “if there’s a way the company’s behaving that you want to get rid of.” Gates, who led the company during its antitrust battle with the Justice Department in the 1990s, added that he thinks a breakup is the appropriate solution for  “a pretty narrow set of things.”

• During a Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee hearing on enforcing competition law, Makan Delrahim, head of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, said the agency could turn to either “law enforcement or policy options as solutions” when it concludes its investigations into major technology companies like Google. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said he was concerned about the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission “divvying up parts of a monopolization investigation of the same tech company,” alluding to reports that the agencies are pursuing the same businesses.

Election security

• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voiced his support for a plan to give states an additional $250 million for election security through a spending bill covering financial services and general government operations. The remarks are a sharp pivot for McConnell, who gained the nickname “Moscow Mitch” from critics for blocking several legislative efforts to prevent future Russian interference in U.S. elections.

• Colorado has become the first state to ban QR codes as a means of counting votes and will no longer certify vote-counting machines with QR codes or barcodes starting in 2021. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold cited cybersecurity concerns as the main reason, noting that an encrypted code cannot be verified by a voter.

Tech industry and climate

• Amazon’s Jeff Bezos announced at an event in Washington that his company has committed to being carbon neutral by 2040 and using 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 — the day before a planned walkout by thousands of Amazon employees to protest the company’s environmental practices as a part of the worldwide Global Climate Strike event. Amazon also said it would launch a website to track its progress on the pledges, which also included a plan to invest $100 million in global reforestation projects.

Social media content moderation policies

• Facebook unveiled the charter for its new independent oversight board, which will be responsible for making the final rulings on contentious content moderation decisions and will start hearing cases early next year. Under the charter, the board of at least 11 people will be made up of members who have a “broad range of knowledge, competencies, diversity and expertise” and have “no actual or perceived” conflicts of interest, and the company won’t be able to override its decisions.

• House lawmakers are creating a bill to establish a “national commission” inside the Department of Homeland Security that would study the ways social media platforms are weaponized, according to a draft seen by The Washington Post, with the commission wielding the power to hold hearings and issue subpoenas to study how companies moderate online content. The bill is expected to be introduced and considered this week.

• Facebook widened its definition for terrorist organizations to include all people and groups that either participate in or proclaim violent acts intended to cause offline harm. The company also said it would expand a tool that redirects users searching for extremist content to resources aimed at helping people leave hate groups and will deploy artificial intelligence to flag and block live videos of shooters.

Chinese telecommunications companies

• Huawei Technologies Co. confirmed its new Mate 30 smartphone series will not include include key Google apps preloaded on the device as a result of Huawei’s placement on a United States trade blacklist. The phones will have access to Google’s Android operating system, which is open source, but will not have the Google Play Store or other apps, such as YouTube, Gmail or Google Maps, already installed.

• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked the Federal Communications Commission in a letter with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) Monday to review the licenses of two major Chinese telecommunications companies — China Telecom and China Unicom — regarding national security concerns, according to the text of the letter. The lawmakers will also argue that the companies could use their access to American business to “target” communications.

European regulators

• Representatives from the Libra Association, the Facebook-owned digital currency, met with officials from 26 central banks, including those from the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, according to officials. Benoît Coeuré, a member of the European Central Bank, will lead the meeting in Basel, Switzerland, which is expected to focus on the planned currency’s scope and design, amid concerns about the threat Libra poses to financial systems.

• Apple Inc. argued in a legal challenge that the European Union’s 2016 order for the company to pay 13 billion euros ($14 billion) in back taxes to Ireland “defies reality and common sense.” The European Commission alleges that Apple profited from illegal state aid after two Irish tax rules artificially reduced the company’s tax burden for more than 20 years.

2020 presidential elections

• Former Sun Microsystems Chief Executive Scott McNealy hosted a fundraiser for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign at his Palo Alto home, according to a person familiar with the matter, marking the president’s first Silicon Valley-based fundraiser since the 2016 elections. Tickets for the event cost up to $100,000 per couple, and attendees were told to arrive at a satellite location first so they could be shuttled to the event site, which was not announced ahead of the event.

• The House and Senate are in session.

• The Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee will hold a hearing on Tuesday examining competition in the tech industry, specifically focused on assessments of “acquisitions of nascent or potential competitors by dominant digital platforms.” Witnesses include Bruce Hoffman, director of the bureau of competition at the Federal Trade Commission; Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute; John Yun, director of economic education at the Global Antitrust Institute; and Patricia Nakache, general partner at Trinity Ventures. 

• The House Science Committee is holding a hearing Thursday focused on online imposters and disinformation. Witnesses are Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley; Siwei Lyu, professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York; and Camille Francois, the chief innovation officer at Graphika.

• The FCC’s next open commission meeting is Thursday. Agenda items include a vote on 3.5 GHz auction procedures and the allocation of $950 million to expand and improve networks in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

1) Amazon Changed Search Algorithm in Ways That Boost Its Own Products
Dana Mattioli, The Wall Street Journal

2) Mark Zuckerberg returning to Capitol Hill
Mike Allen, Axios

3) Facebook CEO Zuckerberg dines with senators in DC
David Shepardson, Reuters

4) US Facebook users are getting older
Hanna Kozlowska, Quartz

5) Senators Urge F.C.C. to Review Licenses of 2 Chinese Telecom Companies
David McCabe, The New York Times

6) Facebook Releases Rules for Its Independent Content Board
Sarah Frier and Kurt Wagner, Bloomberg

7) GOP Activists Just Formed a Dark Money Group to Go to War With Big Tech
Liz Landers, Motherboard

8) Facebook, Google and Twitter face fresh heat from Congress on harmful online content
Tony Romm and Drew Harwell, The Washington Post

9) Bill Gates Says Big Tech Companies Shouldn’t Be Broken Up
Molly Schuetz and Erik Schatzker, Bloomberg 

10) In Washington, Cracking Down on Big Tech Is Popular. In the Rest of U.S., Not So Much
Sam Sabin, Morning Consult