Hey and welcome again to Citizen Tech, InformationWeek’s month-to-month coverage roundup. On this version, we’re taking a look at Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter; the following steps for Biden’s semiconductor coverage; latest developments in cybersecurity; Starlink broadband entry in Ukraine; a lobbying scandal uncovered on the European Parliament; how trendy expertise is like magic and our geopolitics just like the Lord of the Rings, per Bruno Maçães; an antitrust vote within the Home of Representatives; and extra.
Subsequent Phrase for The Hen
Nicely, he did it. Because the New York Occasions introduced on the finish of the month, Elon Musk has acquired Twitter, at a value of $44 billion and months of negotiations with Twitter and the SEC. One in every of his first strikes was to fireside 4 main officers, together with the CEO and common counsel. Now Musk’s job is to defend his empire from the huge debt he took on to accumulate it. In keeping with the Occasions, it would take $1 billion per 12 months simply to maintain up with the curiosity. Musk has well-heeled mates at companies like Andreesen Horowitz (a16z) and others which have introduced their willingness to assist maintain the brand new Twitter afloat.
This latter level has political significance. The plain political battle, which Musk evidently gained, was considered one of content material moderation. The Biden administration and different main governments (the Von der Leyen Fee in Brussels, notably) have made misinformation and disinformation a central focus for tech coverage. Twitter, pre-acquisition, had assisted in that effort, flagging, or suppressing what it judged to be misinformation. Naturally, this got here with issues, there being no goal measure for each assertion — or worse, each opinion — expressed on this public discussion board; conservatives specifically had lengthy complained that “misinformation” was a conveniently malleable cost, and the decision-making deliberately opaque. Musk, nonetheless, calls himself a “free speech absolutist.” That’s excellent news for dissenters, however it additionally implies that every kind of noxious speech can seep into your timeline earlier than you’d like: calls to homicide or genocide, sexually or ethnically charged abuse, outright lies from overseas propaganda machines. The Democrats specifically are in a panic. One celebration bigwig instructed POLITICO that the brand new administration had “big and horrible ramifications.” One in every of these, after all, might be Donald Trump’s triumphant return from Twitter exile, whether or not or not he’s critical about operating in 2024.
Brussels is watching this with disapproval as properly. When Musk introduced that “the chicken is free,” the EU’s inside market commissioner Thierry Breton shot again that “in Europe, the chicken will fly by our guidelines.” Pity the American civil servants, most of them Democrats, who could finally discover themselves defending Musk in commerce and communications conferences with the European Fee.
Musk did announce that he was forming a content material oversight council for the brand new Twitter, and that he wouldn’t change moderation requirements earlier than that council met. However Musk’s open alliance with a16z, amongst others, and his proposal to cost $8 (initially $20) monthly for a blue examine, counsel that speech could also be freer on Twitter the extra money you care to spend for it.
Subsequent Steps for CHIPS
The White Home is just not able to tackle the problem of on-line speech and has launched no statements on the topic; it’s busy getting ready for the midterms and recovering from the grueling work of passing the CHIPS invoice. A who’s who of Federal tech management met on October 7 as a part of the steering committee that may oversee the brand new semiconductor coverage, together with NSA’s Jake Sullivan, secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, commerce secretary Gina Raimondo, and a brigade of assistant secretaries and chief advisors. No trade leaders had been invited. The group mentioned Secretary Raimondo’s manufacturing incentive roadmap, in addition to the diplomatic and navy implications of the brand new laws (provide chains, protection programs, and so forth.).
The White Home Talks Cybersecurity
On the eleventh, the White Home launched a sort of biggest hits tape of its cybersecurity triumphs thus far, from new cybersecurity protocols at TSA (the reminiscence of the Colonial Pipeline assault hovering between the strains like a ghost) to $185 billion in grants to state and native cybersecurity efforts in FY2022. To be clear, that is election season propaganda, however the victories they selected to have a good time are fascinating. The Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Know-how (NIST) is creating new post-quantum encryption requirements, which needs to be prepared by the following presidential election. The White Home additionally boasted of its ban on various cryptocurrency mixers, regularly used to launder ransom cash. There’s no love misplaced between Biden and the crypto sector, and apparently nobody thinks a rapprochement would get any extra Democrats elected.
Later within the month, nationwide cyber director Chris Inglis hosted various senior civil servants from throughout departments and trade leaders to debate the cybersecurity implications of a brand new electrical car ecosystem. This was primarily a discussion board for dialogue, and thus not terribly thrilling, however critical cash is in play: $7.5 billion in electrical car charging infrastructure alone, plus “billions extra” in investments and incentives for the sector. The conclusions the assembly drew have but to be introduced.
Massive Tech in Bother on the Home
On September 30 the Home of Representatives fired a warning shot at Massive Tech companies like Meta and Amazon, by the use of new antitrust rules (through AP). The invoice would hand federal prosecutors the flexibility to find out the place Massive Tech instances could also be litigated. Usually, Massive Tech attorneys attempt their greatest to have their instances heard by the northern Californian courts close to their very own headquarters; these judges are inclined to favor the native gentry. The invoice would additionally elevate courtroom charges for giant firms whereas decreasing charges for small and medium-sized firms. The Biden administration has smiled on this invoice, which each enrages Republican Congressmen and places them in a tough spot, defending the rights of the identical tech behemoths they contemplate their enemies within the data warfare. AP notes that the Democrats, too, must stroll a skinny line — social media platforms are such a fixture of their constituents’ lives that any pointless complication would possibly sway voters towards incumbent lawmakers. Nonetheless, the invoice handed by a large margin, 242 to 184, and now goes to the Senate.
Conflict Bulletin No. IX
The Russian offensive has misplaced momentum, and as troops pull again from the Kherson entrance and punitive shellings substitute bodily occupation, the Kremlin prays for a chilly winter. The European Fee has been scrambling to discover a approach to maintain folks from freezing over the following six months within the absence of Russian fuel. This month they proposed a plan referred to as REPowerEU, for the EU and neighbors like Ukraine and Kosovo, which might rush new contracts with vitality suppliers (together with firms within the US, Norway, and Algeria). The plan features a “fast roll out” of photo voltaic and wind tasks, and long-term objectives of vitality diversification by 2030.
Essentially the most thrilling a part of the plan, from a tech perspective, is a proposed hydrogen accelerator that may produce 10 million metric tons of renewable hydrogen in usable type. However that absolutely gained’t be operating earlier than 2025 or so. The REPowerEU plan roughly states that the brunt of this winter will fall on particular person households, who can pay dearly for heating and electrical energy.
Within the meantime, we should return to Elon Musk, who has variously supplied Starlink satellite tv for pc web (from SpaceX) to beleaguered Ukraine and cozied as much as the Kremlin over the previous few months. An odd tweet on October 15 appeared to announce that Musk would proceed funding Starlink providers “at no cost,” at monumental expense. He then (in keeping with reviews by CNN) requested the Pentagon for assist, saying that SpaceX couldn’t handle the associated fee alone. The value of free web service for the entire nation is astronomical, some $400 million over the course of a 12 months (not counting the top of 2022), in keeping with CNN. Musk claimed that SpaceX could not afford to ship extra broadband terminals, though CNN notes that connectivity, not precise terminals, is the most important expense. In any case, Musk’s late “pro-peace” stance, and his Twitter polls and exchanges with the likes of Russian senior minister Dmitri Medvedev, have enraged Kyiv. Starlink broadband was at all times going to be spotty, given the continuing warfare; it might go away altogether.
In Brussels: Biden and Information Safety
Since 2020, the European Courtroom of Justice has been involved with the extent to which American safety forces can pry into European knowledge flows. This 12 months, the European Fee and the White Home arrived at a compromise on how one can defend European knowledge, which Biden made official by government order on October 7. The order enacts a sophisticated new compliance framework, together with a evaluation courtroom for European residents who really feel their privateness rights, as established by GDPR, have been infringed on.
In Strasbourg: Massive Tech Lies to Parliament (perhaps)
Three members of the European Parliament accused eight Massive Tech companies together with Meta, Google, and Amazon of mendacity throughout hearings regarding upcoming digital market laws, in keeping with POLITICO. They allege that the businesses’ lobbyists claimed to be representing small and medium-sized enterprises, that are favored by the yet-to-be-enacted Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Providers Act (DSA). If that’s the case, the companies in query might face fines, and doubtlessly scare off any sympathetic MEPs.
Paul Tang (Netherlands, PvdA) instructed POLITICO that “That is foul play … It violates the whole thing of transparency on lobbying; you’ll want to establish your self, we have to know to know as MEPs or as different officers within the European Union who we take care of.”
Tech and Tolkien
Portuguese author and worldwide affairs grandee Bruno Maçães could have been born with a rugged, Northern European creativeness. Final time we reported on him he was evaluating semiconductors to the ring in Wagner’s opera cycle. This month he took to the New Statesman to check trendy expertise (and geopolitics) with the darkish magic of The Lord of the Rings.
“In a technological society, as we pursue our fantasies unimpeded by the bodily world, the human soul is all of the sudden answerable for our actions. Beneficiant and noble motives are magnified, however so too are our darkest fantasies of energy and cruelty… The world order is being designed and redesigned. Vladimir Putin speaks in these phrases…”
Maçães’ libretto could have to attend till he’s again from Mount Doom.
What to Learn Subsequent:
From Turmoil in Iran to Biden’s Massive Tech Deadlock
From Bother in Taiwan to Intrigue on the FTC
From Biden’s Chip Victory to Information Privateness Publish-Roe
