• YouTube is blocking President Donald Trump’s channel from uploading new content or hosting live streams for at least the next week after a recent video violated its policies against inciting violence, with the platform also disabling new comments on his channel’s existing content. YouTube was the only remaining mainstream social media site that hadn’t barred Trump’s account on its platform in some fashion after Twitter Inc. instituted a permanent suspension late Friday and Facebook Inc. “indefinitely” suspended his account through at least Inauguration Day. (CNN)

• Labor union Service Employees International Union filed a lawsuit with a group of ride-hailing drivers that seeks to overturn California’s Proposition 22, a ballot initiative voted into law in November that made it so ride-hailing drivers could continue to be considered independent contractors, alleging that the law is unconstitutional and excludes drivers from various state-afforded worker protections. The plaintiffs argue that the new measure limits state legislators’ ability to implement a system of workers’ compensation and defines what an amendment to the measure can look like, while the Protect App-Based Drivers and Services coalition, which represents Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., issued in a statement through a gig driver that “meritless lawsuits” against the democratic will of California voters “do not stand up to scrutiny in the courts.” (The Washington Post)

• A new investigation tracking GPS metadata linked to videos posted to Parler suggests that several users of the Twitter alternative were posting to the platform from inside the U.S. Capitol building on the day of the deadly attack. The data, which was legally obtained by a computer hacker before Parler went dark, includes hundreds of posts published on Jan. 6 near the Capitol during the event, indicating that insurgents had been posting live updates throughout the attacks on the app, which has since been removed from app stores and booted off its web servers. (Gizmodo)

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it has received more than 100,000 pieces of digital evidence from the public since requesting any information that could help identify those who participated in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, though it’s unclear how much of the evidence is unique. (The Verge)

Trump says Big Tech is dividing the country, after his supporters attack Congress
Nandita Bose and Steve Holland, Reuters

President Donald Trump blamed Big Tech companies on Tuesday for dividing the country days after Twitter and Facebook banned him on their platforms for encouraging the attack on the U.S. Capitol building “I think that Big Tech is doing a horrible thing for our country and to our country, and I believe it’s going to be a catastrophic mistake for them. They’re dividing and divisive,” Trump told reporters at the start of a trip to Texas.

Uber, Lyft Push Biden Team for Role in Covid-19 Vaccine Rollout
Emily Glazer and Sarah Krouse, The Wall Street Journal

Ride-sharing giants Lyft Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc. are lobbying the incoming Biden administration for a role in the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, offering to help get more Americans inoculated while seeking early access to doses for drivers. Lyft executives met with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team in December, making the case for the incoming administration to allocate federal funds for vaccine-related transportation, said Megan Callahan, who leads Lyft’s health-care business, a large provider of nonemergency medical transportation.

Silicon Valley’s pro-Trump VCs and founders once donated millions to Trump. They’ve gone quiet after last week’s insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Berber Jin and Candy Cheng, Business Insider Premium

They donated millions of dollars, hosted fundraisers in their mansions, and advised the Trump transition team. Now, they’ve all gone quiet. In the aftermath of the rioters who stormed the Capitol on June 6, Silicon Valley’s most conservative Republican backers are now nowhere to be found — and some VCs are upset about it.

White House establishes national artificial intelligence office
Maggie Miller, The Hill

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on Tuesday announced the establishment of a National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office as part of an effort by the Trump administration to prioritize AI. The office will be in charge of implementing the nation’s AI strategy and overseeing and coordinating work on research between the federal government and the private sector.

Google vows to pay for 500 DACA applications in call for immigration reform
Richard Nieva, CNET

Google on Wednesday said it will pay for the application fees of more than 500 people applying to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, as the future of the Obama-era program comes into question. Last month, a coalition of nine states challenged the legality of the program before a federal judge in Texas. The case brings uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of people relying on the program, called “dreamers.”

France’s hopes lift as US freezes tariffs over tech tax
The Associated Press

France’s government breathed a sigh of relief Friday after the U.S. indefinitely delayed tariffs on French cosmetics and other goods designed as retaliation for a French tax on technology giants. The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said in a statement Thursday that it suspended the tariffs targeting France, which had been scheduled to enter in force this week, because it is investigating similar tech taxes from a growing number of other countries, too.

After riot, major corporations suspend donations to the Republican Attorneys General Association
Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information

The violent riot at the United States Capitol last week did not magically appear. First, millions of people had to be whipped into a frenzy over bogus charges of voter fraud. Then, a critical mass of them had to be directed to the Capitol building at the same time. The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) was involved in both activities. 

Elon Musk Loves China, and China Loves Him Back—for Now
Matthew Campbell et al., Bloomberg Businessweek

Tesla’s unprecedented success in China has helped Musk become the world’s richest man. How long can the good times last?

U.S. FTC’s antitrust case against Facebook gets new judge
Diane Bartz, Reuters

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust lawsuit against Facebook was transferred to another judge on Tuesday so the same person will hear that case and a similar one filed by state attorneys general, according to a court filing on Tuesday. Both the FTC and a large group of state attorneys general, led by New York, filed lawsuits against Facebook in December before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging violations of antitrust law. 

Amazon Tells Court Booting Parler After Riot Was Justified
Joel Rosenblatt, Bloomberg

Amazon.com Inc. urged a judge not to order the company to restore web-hosting service to Parler LLC, saying the conservative social media platform failed to police violent content before and after the Capitol riot. Amazon Web Services suspended service for Parler after it was used by supporters of President Donald Trump to organize the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week.

Visa abandons takeover of Plaid after DOJ raises antitrust concerns
Jessica Bursztynsky, CNBC

Visa has ended its takeover efforts of Silicon Valley start-up Plaid about two months after the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit on grounds that it would limit competition in the payments industry. The company said the decision to end the merger was mutual.

Google admits to running ‘experiments’ which remove some media sites from its search results
Paul Karp, The Guardian

Google has been hiding some Australian news sites from search results, in a move media outlets say is a show of “extraordinary power” as the tech company bargains with the Australian government over financial payment for content. The Australian government is attempting to impose a new code on Google and Facebook that would force them to negotiate a fair price for displaying local news content.

House Democrats ask AT&T, Comcast to share data about home Internet shutoffs as lawmakers eye new stimulus aid
Tony Romm, The Washington Post

Democratic lawmakers are asking the country’s top telecom carriers to share more information about Americans who are falling behind on their Internet bills, setting the stage for Congress to consider billions of dollars in new broadband stimulus aid as part of the next coronavirus relief package.

AT&T to Seek $14 Billion Loan From Banks for 5G Airwaves
Paula Seligson and Scott Moritz, Bloomberg

AT&T Inc. is in early discussions with a group of banks to raise $14 billion to help buy more 5G airwaves, according to people with knowledge of the matter. It will be structured as a 364-day delayed-draw term loan with commitments due on Jan. 27, the people said, asking not to be named discussing a private transaction. 

The billionaires’ brawl over satellite broadband
Margaret Harding McGill, Axios

Elon Musk is under siege by fellow billionaires at Amazon and Dish as he tries to get his fledgling space-based broadband service off the ground, with clashes involving airwave overload and the threat of satellite collisions. Why it matters: Musk’s Starlink service could extend broadband to unconnected customers in hard-to-reach rural areas.

QAnon falsehoods move to text message chains
Ben Collins, NBC News

As social networks and app stores crack down on disinformation purveyors and calls for violence, QAnon-based lies and conspiracy theories have found a new way to go viral: forwarded text messages. It’s not clear just how many people have sent or received the texts, as person-to-person messaging services are difficult for researchers to track.

GOP digital operatives aim to avoid “deplatforming”
Lachlan Markay, Axios

Republican digital operatives are worrying about themselves and their clients after major technology companies cracked down on prominent conservative websites and organizations. Why it matters: Amazon’s decision to remove the popular conservative social media site Parler from its hosting services, and Twitter’s suspensions of President Trump and tens of thousands of his supporters, have segments of the online right fearing they will be “deplatformed” themselves.

Far-right militias are using TikTok to organize and recruit new members
Olivia Little, Media Matters for America

Despite clear policies against using the platform to “threaten or incite violence, or to promote dangerous individuals or organizations,” TikTok continues to host numerous recruitment and other videos from the Three Percenters and the American Patriot Women militias. This content was circulating prior to the Capitol insurrection and remains on the platform after, even though members of both groups were present at the riot and some even used TikTok to share their videos of the event.

Signal’s Brian Acton talks about exploding growth, monetization and WhatsApp data-sharing outrage
Manish Singh, TechCrunch

Brian Acton is crossing paths again with Facebook. Over more than a decade of building and operating WhatsApp, the company’s co-founder first competed against and then sold his instant messaging app to the social juggernaut. Only a few years ago he parted ways with the company that made him a billionaire in a bitter split over messaging and privacy.

What Was Donald Trump’s Twitter?
John Herrman, The New York Times

Each of the big social platforms handled the challenges of the Trump presidency in its own unique way, scrambling to address or neutralize various urgent and contradictory concerns from users, advertisers, lawmakers and occasionally the president himself. But there was one idea that none of them could resist trying, no matter how little it had done for the last platform to use it: the informational label.

SolarWinds Discloses Earlier Evidence of Hack
Dave Sebastian, The Wall Street Journal

SolarWinds Corp. said a computer breach tied to Russia-linked hackers who accessed U.S. government systems and corporate networks after manipulating some of the software provider’s code began at least a month earlier than first disclosed. Hackers were accessing its systems in early September 2019, the network-management company said Tuesday, based on a continuing investigation.

Cyber Attackers Leaked Covid-19 Vaccine Data After EU Hack
Naomi Kresge and Daniele Lepido, Bloomberg

Hackers posted confidential documents regarding Covid-19 medicines and vaccines on the internet after a data breach late last year at the European Medicines Agency. Timelines related to evaluating and approving Covid medicines and vaccines haven’t been affected, the EMA said in a statement on Tuesday.

TikTok update will change privacy settings and defaults for users under 18
Sarah Perez, TechCrunch

TikTok announced today it’s making changes to its app to make the experience safer for younger users. The company will now set the accounts for users ages 13 to 15 to private by default, as well as tighten other controls for all users under 18, in terms of how they can interact with other users and TikTok content itself.

Biden to Restore Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Aides to Senior White House Posts
David E. Sanger, The New York Times

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., facing the rise of domestic terrorism and a crippling cyberattack from Russia, is elevating two White House posts that all but disappeared in the Trump administration: a homeland security adviser to manage matters as varied as extremism, pandemics and natural disasters, and the first deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology.

Facial Recognition Technology Isn’t Good Just Because It’s Used to Arrest Neo-Nazis
Joan Donovan and Chris Gilliard, Slate

In a recent New Yorker article about the Capitol siege, Ronan Farrow described how investigators used a bevy of online data and facial recognition technology to confirm the identity of Larry Rendall Brock Jr., an Air Force Academy graduate and combat veteran from Texas. Brock was photographed inside the Capitol carrying zip ties, presumably to be used to restrain someone. (He claimed to Farrow that he merely picked them up off the floor and forgot about them. Brock was arrested Sunday and charged with two counts.)

Now Social Media Grows a Conscience?
Greg Bensinger, The New York Times

Propelled by the nation’s stunned reaction to last week’s violent siege of the U.S. Capitol, social media companies have sought to separate themselves from President Trump and lawmakers who were complicit in the riots. Twitter banned Mr. Trump from its platform, while Facebook indefinitely suspended him and YouTube prevented new uploads for a week.

Fundamental Security Safeguards Were Not In Place to Adequately Protect the IT Systems Supporting the 2020 Census
Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Commerce

We found that fundamental security safeguards were not in place to adequately protect the Bureau’s IT systems supporting 2020 Census operations. Specifically, the Bureau’s inadequate risk management program left significant risks present in decennial IT systems, some of which were identified in our previous audit report.