Eli Rosenberg

President-elect Joe Biden is set to have a very different relationship with the tech industry from when he served as vice president. Tech companies have grown more powerful over the past four years — and more perilous. They have continued to amass data and wealth. But they have been used as tools for election interference and disinformation, contributing to the divide in the nation.

Left-leaning political activists accused Facebook of suppressing free speech when the social media giant removed an event listing that it said was part of a new disinformation campaign with ties to Russia.Facebook said it had to act quickly to disclose that inauthentic operators were behind an upcoming event in Washington (DC) to counter a white supremacist rally inspired by Charlottesville.

In December 2017, the White House took down the popular “We the People” petitions website with the promise that it would be restored by “late January.” Now petitions.whitehouse.gov has relaunched. A number of petitions have signature totals that surpass the 100,000 threshold used during the Obama years to initiate a formal response, but the White House has not responded to a petition since President Donald Trump took office.

The White House took down the popular “We The People” petitions website, started by Barack Obama’s administration, in December, with the promise that the site would be restored by “late January.” As of 3 p.m. on Jan. 31, the site, which allows citizens to post petitions that require a White House response when they meet a certain number of signatures, is still down.

Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, blasted Twitter for what he said was a push to “discriminate” against conservatives. He  accused Twitter of hypocrisy for its criticism of the FCC's plan to repeal the Obama-era regulation. “When it comes to a free and open Internet, Twitter is part of the problem,” Chairman Pai said.