Facebook changes course to ban Holocaust denial

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Quick Fix

— Deleting Holocaust denial: In a major departure from Mark Zuckerberg’s past approach to Holocaust denial on Facebook, the company said Monday that it would ban such content and make related changes in the coming weeks.

— FCC slot, up for grabs: A lot is at stake if the Senate doesn’t fill the GOP FCC seat now belonging to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly before the end of the year. With time running out, Senate Republicans face pressure to quickly confirm his replacement.

— Digital tax consensus? Don’t hold your breath: Global negotiations over a digital services tax have been further delayed by political wrangling, pushing a potential final deal back to the middle of next year as the threat of a trade war looms.

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Tech of the Town

FACEBOOK BANS HOLOCAUST DENIAL — Nearly two-thirds of young Americans aren’t aware that six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, and roughly half have seen Holocaust denial or misleading claims about the genocide on social media and elsewhere online, according to a September survey from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Against that backdrop, Facebook announced Monday that it would ban any content that “denies or distorts” the Holocaust. It’s a dramatic reversal of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s previous handling of Holocaust denial. And it comes after the pandemic and a tumultuous election cycle have forced the social network to rethink — and in some cases, reverse — other content policies, including around political ads.

Below, a compare-and-contrast on the Holocaust policy.

— That was then (2018): “I’m Jewish, and there’s a set of people who deny that the Holocaust happened,” Zuck said in an interview two-plus years ago. “I find that deeply offensive. But at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong. I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong. … I just don’t think that it is the right thing to say, ‘We’re going to take someone off the platform if they get things wrong, even multiple times.’ What we will do is we’ll say, ‘Okay, you have your page, and if you’re not trying to organize harm against someone, or attacking someone, then you can put up that content on your page, even if people might disagree with it or find it offensive.’”

— This is now (2020): “I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust,” Zuck said Monday, as the tech giant announced its new ban. “My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech. Drawing the right lines between what is and isn’t acceptable speech isn’t straightforward, but with the current state of the world, I believe this is the right balance.”

— It’s about time: That was the reaction of the Anti-Defamation League, an organizer of the recent Facebook ad boycott that protested the platform’s handling of hate speech. CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said Monday that the organization had been pressuring Facebook to change its policies around Holocaust denial for almost a decade. He applauded the move in an email but questioned why Facebook “stubbornly had held onto this outrageous platform policy, even in the face of the undeniable threat of growing antisemitism and antisemitic violence around the world,” adding: “Decisions of this nature are only as good as the companies’ enforcement.”

— And more time is needed: Facebook’s vice president of content policy, Monika Bickert, stressed Monday that “enforcement of these policies cannot happen overnight” and that “it will take some time” for the Facebook personnel and AI working on detection of this violating material to get up to speed. In the meantime, Facebook users who search on the platform for terms or information related to Holocaust denial will soon be directed off the site to authoritative resources.

BROADBAND LAND: SENATE GOP FEELING THE SQUEEZE OVER FCC NOMINEE — A fast-rising pressure campaign is emerging to push the Senate to speedily confirm — by December’s end — Commerce Department adviser Nathan Simington to fill the Republican FCC seat now belonging to Commissioner Mike O’Rielly. (O’Rielly will have to depart by year’s end.) That timeline is lightning-fast for the Senate, considering President Donald Trump only nominated Simington about a month ago.

— High stakes: If the Senate doesn’t fill the GOP seat this year, Republicans would be disadvantaged going into 2021 and potentially give a Biden-era FCC a Democratic majority sooner. And Trump allies see Simington as a potential necessary vote to move forward with a rulemaking to narrow Silicon Valley’s liability protections (although O’Rielly dismissed that prospect, Simington helped draft the Commerce Department petition asking the FCC to take action).

— The issue is top-of-mind for Trump: “Republicans need to get smart and confirm Nate Simington to the FCC ASAP!” the president tweeted last week. Meanwhile, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a Trump favorite, accused Senate Republicans of “sitting on his nomination” because they would prefer to wait to nominate a GOP commissioner under a potential Biden administration. (In that scenario, the White House would probably defer to Hill Republicans’ favored choice.) “If you’re worried about the unchallenged power of Big Tech, and you should be, you ought to support Simington’s appointment,” Carlson said on Fox.

— What’s next: The Senate Commerce Committee is now eyeing potential nominations hearing dates for Simington and two others, a panel aide to Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told John. Wicker has found himself facing a wave of social media pressure featuring the hashtag #ConfirmSimington and from Twitter accounts urging calls to Wicker’s office. Senate Commerce must also vote to send the nomination to the floor.

— In favor: Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) wants to fill the GOP seat ASAP and expects to back the nominee, his office told John, adding that the No. 2 Republican spoke by phone with Simington about 5G and potential updates to tech’s online liability protections. Simington has been making the rounds with various committee Republicans lately, including with Wicker (and a Zoom call with Sen. Mike Lee of Utah).

— Potential opposition: Sources on and off the Hill tell John of possible GOP concerns bubbling up, however. Some attention centers on Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who previously blocked FCC nominees over his broader ire at the agency. Although Sullivan hadn’t met with Simington as of mid-last week, “the senator does have longstanding frustrations with the FCC’s lack of support for critical telecommunications programs in rural areas across our nation,” his spokesperson Amanda Coyne said.

WHAT’S AT STAKE WITH NO CONSENSUS ON DIGITAL TAXES? — “You could get a trade war” if countries proceed with their own unilateral digital services taxes, the OECD’s secretary general, Angel Gurria, told an online audience Monday. “Trade war is always bad.” His comments come as the OECD published an update on the global talks to reach a digital tax agreement — and it’s not looking good, my colleague Mark Scott reports.

— New timeline: Negotiations are stalled on several issues, and that’s pushed the agreement back another six months, with a final deal now expected by mid-2021. Major sticking points — notably, demands from Washington that the whole system be voluntary — still need to be ironed out. But governments that have (or will soon have) digital tax legislation on the books are likely to postpone collecting money from the likes of Amazon and Google to give the OECD process more time to play out. That could calm nerves in the U.S., where potential retaliatory tariffs (against France, and possibly other countries) could still be in the cards if a deal is not reached.

GOOGLE MOVES ON MENTAL HEALTH — As the pandemic continues to take a toll on veterans’ health and with military suicides on the rise as a result, Google is launching Serving Veterans, a new online hub offering authoritative resources to veterans (and their friends and family) who are contending with mental health issues. The site, which the search giant unveiled this morning, pulls into one place and amplifies reliable information and relevant support tools for post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and other issues. Google worked with veterans at the company, and nonprofits and veterans groups outside its ranks, to build the virtual forum.

Transitions

Marcela Martin, former senior vice president and chief financial officer of Booking.com, is joining Squarespace in November as chief financial officer. … Axel Rodriguez, after serving as a supervisor in the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology lab since 2013, was named field director of the commission. … Elena R. Hernandez, former press secretary at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is now director of strategic communications and senior adviser to the chief technology officer. … Lisa Bari, former health IT and interoperability lead at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Innovation Center, was named interim CEO for the board of the Strategic Health Information Exchange Collaborative. … The first class of NYC[x] Innovation Fellows, a fellowship launched this summer for technologists to support New York City’s pandemic response and related diversity and inclusion efforts, completed the inaugural program; the next cohort will run from November to January.

Silicon Valley Must-Reads

ICYMI: “Justice Department and state prosecutors investigating Google for alleged antitrust violations are considering whether to force the company to sell its dominant Chrome browser and parts of its lucrative advertising business,” Leah reports.

Facebook ad tracker: “Joe Biden’s campaign is dialing up a familiar face in the closing weeks of the election: former President Barack Obama,” POLITICO reports.

Opinion: Facebook’s pre- and post- election political ads ban won’t stop the spread of misinformation and hate, but shutting down the platform’s algorithmic amplification of posts — ”cutting off [its] data-driven rage machine” — will, Evan Greer of Fight for the Future writes in WIRED.

Quick Downloads

For your radar: Uber and Lyft return today to the California Court of Appeals for oral arguments in their ongoing battle over the state’s AB 5 labor law.

And the Nobel goes to...: The Nobel Prize in economic sciences was awarded to Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, the first to design the way the FCC auctions spectrum. More here from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Book launch: James Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense — an advocacy group focused on children and tech — is out today with “WHICH SIDE OF HISTORY? How Technology is Reshaping Democracy and Our Lives.”

Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King ([email protected], @bkingdc), Heidi Vogt ([email protected], @HeidiVogt), Nancy Scola ([email protected], @nancyscola), Steven Overly ([email protected], @stevenoverly), John Hendel ([email protected], @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima ([email protected], @viaCristiano), Alexandra S. Levine ([email protected],@Ali_Lev), and Leah Nylen ([email protected], @leah_nylen).

TTYL.