Social media

• After a mob of radical Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building as Congress moved to certify the 2020 presidential election results, Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that the company will be blocking President Donald Trump on its platforms through at least the end of his term on Jan. 20, stating that the risks of allowing him a platform during the transition of power are “simply too great.” Meanwhile, Twitter lifted its suspension of Trump’s account on its site, where the president shared a video saying he would support a peaceful transition, and Snap Inc. followed in Facebook’s footsteps by cutting off Trump’s access to Snapchat.

• Facebook, Twitter and YouTube also removed a video Trump posted that repeated unfounded allegations that the election was stolen, encouraged his supporters to go home and expressed love for them despite the violence.

• Facebook re-instituted its political advertising ban on Wednesday after temporarily lifting it for the Georgia Senate run-off elections on Tuesday. Political strategists warned that reinstituting the ban could make it more difficult for campaigns to share information about potential recounts or “ballot curing,” while Facebook encouraged its political advertising clients to pursue “organic” content on its site instead.

Trump administration

• State Department and Pentagon officials are weighing whether to add Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. to the list of Chinese companies barred from receiving U.S. investments due to their alleged ties to China’s military and security services, according to people familiar with the matter. The news came the same day the New York Stock Exchange said it would move forward with the delisting of three Chinese telecommunications companies under an executive order after initially ditching the plans.

• Trump signed an executive order banning U.S. transactions with eight Chinese apps — including Ant Group Co.’s Alipay, Tencent’s QQ, QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay, as well as lesser known apps CamScanner, SHAREIit, VMate, and WPS Office — over national security concerns, with the order set to go into effect in 45 days. If President-elect Joe Biden decides to enforce it, the Commerce Department will be charged with defining which transactions are barred under the order.

Biden transition

• Biden named Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo as his pick for commerce secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for labor secretary — two Cabinet positions that will be key players in the future of tech’s economic pursuits, gig workforce policies and the growing movement toward unionization in Silicon Valley. Biden also picked Isabel Guzman, an economic development official in California, to run the Small Business Administration, which administered the Paycheck Protection Program and provides loans for small businesses.

Federal Communications Commission

• FCC Chair Ajit Pai said he is no longer pursuing an order that would have revisited rule-making for Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, with spokeswoman Anne Veigle saying the chairman feels he doesn’t have enough time to complete it before leaving his post on Jan. 20. FCC Democrats will be under no obligation to take up the order during the Biden administration.

• The FCC’s C-band auction for 5G airwaves has already surpassed $76.5 billion since it started in December, shattering the previous auction record of almost $45 billion in 2015. Bidders include T-Mobile US Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Dish Network Corp., Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications Inc.

U.S. cyber attack

• In a joint statement, the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Russia was “likely” behind a series of cyberattacks targeting the U.S. government and private sector, despite Trump’s claims that the hacks could’ve been attributed to China. The national security agencies also said they have identified “fewer than 10” agencies so far that were hacked as the investigation into the matter continues.

• The Justice Department said that 3 percent of its Microsoft 365 email accounts were potentially affected by the cyberattack, although there is no indication that its classified systems were impacted. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts told federal judicial bodies that its nationwide case management system was also breached in the attack, meaning hackers could have accessed highly sensitive, sealed court documents.

Tech workforce

• A group of almost 280 Alphabet Inc. employees publicly announced their plans to form a union with the support of the Communications Workers of America, one of the most significant acts of tech worker activism in recent years. The union, which will have an elected board of directors and paid organizing staff, is not seeking federal ratification through the National Labor Relations Board, which means it won’t have collective bargaining rights.

Digital services taxes

• The office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in its findings for its Section 301 investigations into the impact of various global digital tax plans that new digital taxes adopted in India, Italy and Turkey are “unreasonable” and “inconsistent with principles of international taxation.” The office said that it didn’t plan to take specific actions in response at this time, but that it will “continue to evaluate all available options.”

• The USTR also said it is indefinitely pressing pause on plans to impose a new 25 percent tariff on several French goods, set to go into effect on Wednesday in response to France’s new digital services tax. The office said pausing the plan will allow the United States to instead pursue a coordinated response to similar taxes being imposed in other countries.

• The Senate and House are scheduled to be in state and district work sessions, though House Democrats are also reportedly considering a mid-week vote to move forward with articles of impeachment.

• The Consumer Technology Association’s annual CES conference will take place virtually Monday through Thursday. Featured speakers include Verizon Chief Executive Hans Vestberg, Reddit Inc. Chief Operating Officer Jen Wong and the chief privacy officers at Google and Twitter.

• The FCC’s next open commission meeting is Wednesday. This will be the last meeting with Ajit Pai as chairman and Nathan Simington’s first as a commissioner. Agenda items include a number of panel presentations on the commission’s accomplishments in the last four years, as well as the consideration of orders regarding the 2.5 GHz band auction and the Connected Care Pilot Program.

1) Tech legislation to watch in 2021
Emily Birnbaum, Protocol

2) Google workers launch unconventional union with help of Communications Workers of America
Nitasha Tiku, The Washington Post

3) Regulation is coming in 2021. Here’s how Big Tech is preparing for it.
Anna Kramer, Protocol

4) Democrats have won the Senate. Here’s what it means for tech.
Issie Lapowsky and Emily Birnbaum, Protocol

5) As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm
David E. Sanger et al., The New York Times

6) Biden transition team names White House tech officials
Jackson Barnett, FedScoop

7) 5G Airwave Bids Surge Past $76 Billion to Set Auction Record
Scott Moritz and Todd Shields, Bloomberg

8) U.S. FCC action to limit key social media protection increasingly unlikely
David Shepardson, Reuters

9) U.S. intelligence agencies say Russia likely behind hacking of government agencies
Joseph Menn, Reuters

10) NYSE Scraps Plans to Delist Chinese Telecom Stocks
Chong Koh Ping and Ben Otto, The Wall Street Journal