Craig Timberg

Biden’s tech agenda gets a reality check as Elon Musk buys Twitter

The Biden administration arrived in Washington with an ambitious agenda for taming Big Tech, which it portrayed as concentrating too much power in the hands of a few billionaires — the moguls of a new, digital Gilded Age. Elon Musk’s $44 billion deal to buy Twitter has put that critique into sharp relief, underscoring how badly Biden’s tech agenda has stalled in the 15 months since taking the White House.

Pentagon ends mysterious program, Defense Department retakes control of 175 million IP addresses

Pentagon program that delegated management of a huge swath of the Internet to a Florida company in January 2021 — just minutes before President Trump left office — has ended as mysteriously as it began, with the Defense Department retaking control of 175 million IP addresses. At its peak, the company, Global Resource Systems, controlled almost 6 percent of a section of the Internet called IPv4.

Misinformation dropped dramatically the week after Twitter banned Trump and some allies

San Francisco-based analytics firm Zignal Labs has found that online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies.

Federal investigators find evidence of previously unknown tactics used to penetrate government networks

Federal investigators reported on evidence of previously unknown tactics for penetrating government computer networks, a development that underscores the disastrous reach of Russia’s recent intrusions and the logistical nightmare facing federal officials trying to purge intruders from key systems. While many details remained unclear, the revelation about new modes of attack raises fresh questions about the access that Russian hackers were able to gain in government and corporate systems worldwide. 

Zuckerberg once wanted to sanction Trump. Then Facebook wrote rules that accommodated him.

Hours after President Trump’s incendiary post about sending the military to the Minnesota protests, he called Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The post put the company in a difficult position, Zuckerberg told President Donald Trump. The same message was hidden by Twitter, the strongest action ever taken against a presidential post.

Biden campaign assails Facebook for 'haggling’ with Trump over his online posts

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign demanded that Facebook prevent misuse of its platform by President Donald Trump to spread “hateful content” and misleading claims about mail-in voting ahead of the November election. The letter, signed by Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, raised particular concern about revelations in a 

Your Internet is working. Thank these Cold War-era pioneers who designed it to handle almost anything

Despite some problems, the Internet overall is handling unprecedented surges of demand as it keeps a fractured world connected at a time of global catastrophe. The Internet, born as a Pentagon project during the chillier years of the Cold War, has taken such a central role in 21st Century civilian society, culture and business that few pause any longer to appreciate its wonders — except perhaps, as in the past few weeks, when it becomes even more central to our lives. “Resiliency and redundancy are very much a part of the Internet design,” explained Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf, whose passi

YouTube under federal investigation over allegations it violates children’s privacy

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission is in the late stages of an investigation into YouTube for allegedly violating children’s privacy, in a probe that threatens the company with a potential fine and already has prompted the tech giant to reevaluate some of its business practices. The FTC launched its investigation after numerous complaints from consumer groups and privacy advocates.

Where 20 years of child online protection law went wrong

Two decades after Congress tried to wall off the worst of the Internet in hopes of protecting the privacy and innocence of children, the ramparts lie in ruins. Many popular online offerings maintain they are “not directed” at children. But the services also don’t ask users how old they are. This tactic, lawyers say, helps the companies sidestep the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a 1998 law that restricts the tracking and targeting of those younger than 13 but requires “actual knowledge” of a user’s age as a key trigger to enforcement.

Through email leaks and propaganda, Russians sought to elect Trump, Mueller finds

In what will stand as among the most definitive public accounts of the Kremlin’s attack on the American political system, the report of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation laid out in precise, chronological detail how “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” The Russians’ goal, Mueller emphasized at several points, was to assist Donald Trump’s run for the White House and to damage Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

Facebook is investigating the political pages and ads of another group backed by Reid Hoffman

Facebook said it is investigating whether an organization backed by Internet billionaire and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman violated the social media giant’s policies when it set up several misleading news pages in a bid to target US voters with left-leaning political messages. The probe focuses on News for Democracy, whose Facebook ads and affiliated pages about sports, religion, the American flag and other topics were viewed millions of times during the 2018 midterm elections, according to an analysis of the company ad archive conducted by New York University.

DC attorney general sues Facebook over alleged privacy violations from Cambridge Analytica scandal

The attorney general for the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against Facebook for allowing Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy, to gain access to the names, "likes" and other personal data about tens of millions of the social site's users without their permission. The lawsuit filed by Karl Racine marks the first major effort by regulators in the US to penalize the tech giant for its entanglement with the firm. It could presage even tougher fines and other punishments still to come for Facebook as additional state and federal investigations continue.

New report on Russian disinformation, prepared for the Senate, shows the operation’s scale and sweep

A report prepared for the Senate that provides the most sweeping analysis yet of Russia’s disinformation campaign around the 2016 election found the operation used every major social media platform to deliver words, images and videos tailored to voters’ interests to help elect President Donald Trump — and worked even harder to support him while in office. The report is the first to study the millions of posts provided by major technology firms to the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), its chairman, and Sen. Mark Warner (VA), its ranking Democrat.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai Faces Privacy and Bias Questions in Congress

Google’s chief executive, in perhaps the most public display of lawmakers’ unease with his company’s influence, was grilled about everything from search result bias and the data Google collects about its users to plans for a censored service in China. Sundar Pichai, an engineer who rose through Google’s ranks to become its leader three years ago, faced more than three hours of questions from the House Judiciary Committee. Republicans expressed concerns about unfair treatment of conservatives, and lawmakers in both parties zeroed in on privacy issues.

Marriott discloses massive data breach affecting up to 500 million guests

Marriott International, one of the largest hotel chains in the world, revealed that its Starwood reservations database had been hacked and that the personal information of up to 500 million guests could have been stolen. An unauthorized party had accessed the database since 2014.

Facebook used people’s data as a bargaining chip, emails and court filings suggest

Facebook executives in recent years appeared to discuss giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile ad business, according to internal emails quoted in newly-unredacted court filings. In an ongoing federal court case against Facebook, the plaintiffs claim that the social media giant doled out people’s data secretly and selectively in exchange for advertising purchases or other concessions, even as others were cut off, ruining their businesses.

Forget the Russians. On this Election Day, it’s Americans peddling disinformation and hate speech.

 Even as Silicon Valley has become more aggressive in battling foreign efforts to influence US politics, it is losing innumerable cat-and-mouse games with Americans who are eagerly deploying the same techniques used by the Russians in 2016. “Everyone’s witnessed the playbook playing out,” said former FBI agent Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “Now they don’t need Russia so much.

Alex Jones banned from Facebook? His videos are still there — and so are his followers

Infowars is gone from Facebook after a high-profile showdown over the summer between Silicon Valley and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. But another Facebook page he controls, NewsWars, has taken its place — and Jones’s many fans have followed. In the three months since Facebook removed four of Jones’s pages over allegations of hate speech, his NewsWars page has remained intact and surged in posts and page views.

From Silicon Valley elite to social media hate: The radicalization that led to Gab

Gab has become the most visible of a collection of services catering to people mainstream companies such as Twitter and Facebook have rejected as too hateful, extreme or threatening in their posts as part of a crackdown on extremism.

Facebook suspends ‘inauthentic’ Iranian accounts that criticized President Trump and spread divisive political messages

Facebook announced that it had suspended 82 pages, groups and accounts that originated in Iran for engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behavior" and sharing divisive political messages, including opposition to President Donald Trump. The accounts -- some of which also had been removed from Facebook’s photo-sharing site, Instagram -- do not appear to have clear "ties to the Iranian government,” but Facebook could not say for certain who was behind them.

Facebook’s former security chief warns of tech’s ‘negative impacts’ — and has a plan to help solve them

For two years, Alex Stamos was the Facebook executive tasked with defending the company’s systems against Russian interference and other critical threats. Now the former chief security officer, who left the social network in Aug, says Facebook — and the entire technology industry — needs a systems of checks and balances to help it weigh the complex decisions Silicon Valley companies are making in areas including security and democratic expression.