Joining us cat zakrzewski the Washington Post john hendel of politico and ilhan omar of axios. Mr. Dalewood would start with you what you think is going to be one of the major issues that the incoming byte Administration May face . Guest one thing that the byte Administration Early on is going to have to figure out what to do is they are inheriting a google transit from the doj and there is speculation about how politically motivated it may have been but never asked about the text of this thing. Its fairly narrow in fairly focused on issues that democrats have raised as well about the market power of google so they have to decide okay almost certainly they will continue to litigate this but do we want to expand this, do we want to try and look at some as state attorneys general who are also investigating google. It has the support of a group of bayji is that there are republicans and democrats looking at the stuff to sell how expansive do we want to go on antitrust . Host do you think it will be more expansive than under a Trump Administration . Thats the expectation. Its sort of over the last couple of years rigorous interest and prosecuting antitrust cases against huge Tech Companies. We have gone from purely a left issue from the Democratic Party to the house judiciary and subcommittee put out a big report making the case of okay heres white google is on apple in facebook has ads on apple as well. Theres certainly energy coming from at this point sort of the center of the party. A lot of folks that seem to be either informally spoke at the campaign or were officially working on it or are part of the transition, they are sort of part of that world of a came from the obama will white house and spent a little time in tech and their not coming back. People are reading into that biden is going to go easy. Im not so sure thats the case. The connection that they still have his more i work for biden and i work for the white house but the center of gravity has changed. Host cat zakrzewski of the Washington Post was the issue that you see . I think i was spot on. I think antitrust is a keyssue especially looking at the transition of teams that biden released yesterday looking at some of the names on that list people like Gene Kimmelman who has been out there talking about these issues front a center so i think iill be huge but the other big issue that im watching is how a Biden Admistration might try to regulate social media companies. Obviously the 2020 election has been a major test of the Election Integrity policies that these companies have adopted over theast few years. I think we are really starting to see a lot of discussion in washington about where to go from there on that issue. Biden during his candidacy did call to revoke section 230 the internet law that provides these mpanies immunity from turner content moderation decisions that figure will be interesng to watch especially with the balae of the senateooks like next year and how the by demonstration tries to push forward on that issue. Will there be a change from the Tramp Administration becse President Trump was often cricizing section 230. That is exactly right. Trump is called for an outright repeal of section 230 but for dairy very Different Reasons from the biden sign you have they are allowing disinformation to flow freely on their services were as the conservative argument is more on these bias ainst some of these companies about going too farn moderating conservative voices. I think the challenge will be wh does an actual reform section 230 look like in a world where we have a divided congres because obviously there is a momentum on both sides regulating companies but what does that legislation look like when you have two very different forces driving that push. Host john hendel from politico yr turn. Guesttheres a lot of urgency around broadband in large part due the pandemic producing lawmakers in and the white house go back and forth as youre trying to get a bigger relief bill and that hasnt happened. When we lk at the biden team noon the incoming byte administration ty have definitely put broadband as a top priority and the pandemic youve seen after the electn president elect biden putting together a task force looking t the coronavirus thinking about how best to help people there and a lot of people who talked about help they point to broadband and they point to the people who can do reme learning and they point to people who struggle to have connectivity at homwhen they need to be home to be safe sometimes. I think thats gng to be huge thing to watch in him weeks and months ahead. The bidecampaign is talked about 20 billion going to rural rock band and certainly we have seen docratic lawmakers talk about other ways to help, giving different stopgap relief to help with consumer billing and things like that. I think youll see se action there and its also notable one of the biggest circuits for President Biden is congressman jim clyburn. Hes been leadi the taos for some of the lawmakers that provided the senate bill on capitol hill. We have had leadership in the house. I think its hard to say its not gog to be front and cenr in 2021 and you have a democratic led ftc who will probably look into using their subsies in different ways to focus on helng students and other different folks out there. Host i want to ask all three of you over the years the democrats and big tech have been very friendly but it seems enough last congress especially that the democrats were willing to take on big tax. Is that a correct interpretation . Yeah i think youve seen a massive shift for both partie over the last four years. I think after the 201elections a lot of frustrations with democrat in interference of big scandals like cambridge analytica. There was consensus on some o these big cpanies the biggest in t world so under the Obama Administration you can see very close retionships there but the biden team has been very open aut their concerns. Theyve been writing letters to facebook and talking about the dangerous trap on t network. Its t kind of rtoric that will make a much bigger challenge for Tech Companies and the Biden Administration is probably tryin to higher up a lobby around that. It will be one of the biggest stories over the next few months an they will position themselves dealing with members of both parties whether its senator josh hawley and Lindsey Graham or nancyelosi talking about whathey see as failing in these compani. Guest some of the people we are seeing inlved in the transition Gene Kimmelman being a great example coming from Public Knowledge the Public Interest group. He was part of the divisionf the doj at a time when they were lax about tech csolidation. Biden had some others who similarly came from the obama doj or the obama ftc a the sense that you get is that oka we are just going to see a total return to both norms ofllowed allow the merger first and expression later in more if we make a mistake lets apply a little more scrutiny here. Guest jumping off that pointing at the transition teams i thought it was telling that we didnt see bigtime lobbyists from google, from apple on that list and we did see a few people from amazon services. In general there was a lot of tech representation but typically it was from less controversial companies, the drop boxes and Smaller Companies that havent been as much of an antitrust in washington site think we are seeing a lot of representatives particularly after that congressional report came out recently about the runoff where they accused tech of this behavior that gives the democrats the advantage to push forward with aggressive antitrust action aimeat the industry. Host how important was social media durin this campaign and what changes do you think we will see Going Forward . I think it was critical given the fact that a lot of the traditional forms of campaigning could happen during the pandemic. Predicted on the democratic side not to hold rallies and not engage in the entire campaign and even doorknocking and traditional canvassing. To invest in social media and watch the selection play out and away that is much more extreme and apparent than in 2016. Go ahead kyle. Guest very much so. In 2016 it was a stage were certainly the Trump Campaign very effectively used targeted advertising and general Facebook Advertising and facebook content. It was still sort of although we were eight years removed from the first major social Media Election it was the one where i think arguably the engagement on social media actually potentially swung the election and so we sort of saw for one thing more political spending this cycle on the facebook and youtube than had ever been and more on line political spending acrosstheboard even though a number of platforms most notably twitter dropped political ads altogether. There was a major focus, i think more than the traditional electioneering advertising, the biggest factor, the biggest burst that social media had in the cycle was a repository for inflammatory ctent and misinformation frankly. And we are continuing toee that play ouobviously in the postelection period. Host john hendel its a interesting seeing people say how important this is during pandemic as well. Thats something that congresswoman ocasio corz brought up this past week when people were talking about what is the Democratic Party right w and instead of blaming the press is etoric and not doing so well in the house races the point she looked too was no, no we need to go digital. That sho were a lot of it different younger members are looking to. They realize its a party and you are seeg the effect of some who were abl to do digil outrage really well. Aoc is a member who has said big region sodas President Trump review see more and more memrs have that and you are seeing that in congress as well. The thing thats interesting tech ceos multiple times this ear testified before congress saying that different numbers and figure out how dwe package this as far as our socia media and senator ted cz doing essentially a trade group sparri with twitter ceo jack dors ahead of the hearing bear. Thats not inherently advertising but its a social media identi and presence to find new ways to do anytng really in washington. I think it can also make it more tricky because its even more theater and more swmanship and its hard to do sometimes add a hearing where you have seen people for years asking questions to get the sound bite th they want. Now its not just the sound bite but its how do we take that sound bite package at on socia media and to rely drive that home. Very often this to a specific audience and thats the other part of it too. We are able to target that audience and a whole different way. Host and looking down the road a little bit checking the political discourse that we have seen on social media in this election cycle are we coming to a point where the social media sites are going to be silent toward an opinion as some of the news channels are and this leads to the rise of parlay the new conservative site etc. That is sort of a waitndsee thing to republicans in particular as said earlier that the chief grvances we feel that we are being censored. There is anconservative bias and moderation decisions. The thing with facebook and twitter both are, you know, fairly allpurpose platforms. We use them to stay connected with friends and family and share cap videos and whatever news and is there anything more in in each market for something that is all screwy about politics all the time . We will see. It is an interesting time. There have bn various insurgents over the years that have not managed to catch on but maybe this time is different. I would just mention that think one of the things that make it hard for me to derstand if this is truly taking off independently or it is just a flash in the pan is the fac that a lot of the conservatives who are posting on this new sit still posting on facebook and twitternd they are crossposting to all these platforms and i havent seen us in the vacant shift where someone is totally blast facebook and twitter to go to these alternative so i think it istill really remains to be seen but i do think it will be interesting to watch next week when we a expecting the ceos of both facebk and twitter to testify how the talk about the rise of this n conservative alrnative because one of the questis we hear from the right a lot is perhaps these companies have too much power and point to these content moderation decisions as a talk about the antitrust issues and so the thing interesting will be easy to see how this comes up next during this hearing and whether or not the ceos of facebook and twitter point to this is a sign of competition in the industry. I totally agree with katz point there and i think the biggest side of that is President Trump himself is still actively treating everyday on twitter. He could delete his own account at any point but instead he really wants to be there and onset engagement and dies on that and, you know, even if he has some money grievances with the company he is not getting off there. Hes not seeking parlay or one of these other places out there on the internet pretty wants to be where he thanks the action is at. I think that is the broad reaching forums in this way so youll see him on their tweening but then you see him raging against the company and issuing an executive order to go after some of the Liability Protections and, you know, thats the ongoing battle that i think will still be the case but i ultimately think there will be activity on the other platforms, not surprisingly but i thi at the end of the day they will not see them turn away from the biggest platform. Go ahead, kyle. I was going to say as well they are politically useful dynamic. You know, posting whatever you want on it needs platforms only to your followers, you know, there i certainly a place for that but you know, where you can kind of setp this dialect where you can try to make the case that for instance, twitter in particular had read around the election aggressively about labeling a hiding trump tweets that were misleadingbout the electoral press. En you can make the case that okay, these are the mainstream masters of the universe and josh hawley calls them the new robber baron they are the elites and they are trying to stifle us. I thk that is a compelling narrative to a lot of rightcenter people in this untry that just obvious will not play on a wide open platfo platform. I want to talk about some of the Ballot Initiatives that were on in 2020 bird california, michigan, massachusetts all passed overwhelmingly Ballot Initiatives that deal with privacy and they all went on the side of more privacy. What should that telus . I think it will tell us there will be appetite for more negotiation on capitol hill. If you saw Industry Groups always been troubled by some of these data efforts and they immediately, you saw several Different Industries issue a stement saying we see whats happening in california and elsewhere so lets get folks on capitol hill of the federal level to come back and negotiate which is incredibly har we seen an attempt at that in the last two years and while begins and stracts, despite some real good faith conversations in good faith working groups, months of talks they come back to the same a few sticking points about whether federal law should be preempting any of theseules that come out and in some of these efforts. U are seen concern about whetheronsumers should have righ to sue some of these big tech cpanies and based on where we see things in the nate right now where it will be probably very tight margins and a little unclear wther republicans will hold the senate oremocrats might just barely get it but i think that will show it will still be hard and need to be bipartisan. That makes it one of the biggest objectives in the new congress but its hard to say whether th will have more luck than in the past two years,lthough i think the Biden Administration might be a bit more of an active partner on that. The Trump Administration srted to jump in on privacyut they retreated la year so they not been quite as vocal in some of those efforts. Host cat. Its unclear to me how much momentum thereill be. I think there is a lot of obviously the voters have spoken in these states and there is a lot of consumer demand for privacy legislation and we are seeing it o both sides but we have constantly seen, especially over the last two years even dating back a decade, s much gridlock on this issue of passing bipartisan privacy legislation. I think it might be a uphill battle, particularly in the early days of the Biden Administration. I just dont know how mh of a prioty it will be amid the other discussions aboutconomic relief in the conavirus pandemic. Host kyle dai, what you see happening at the fcc . So, you know, i think what john said is on point and that will be the top priority from the start and it will be, you know, universal broadband and particularly to address some of the inequalities that have been exposed or exacerbated by the pandemic. I think we will see a push to probably accelerate and expand some of the existing programs and you know, but the on that at this point the Net Neutrality fight is in the rearview but, you know, it was a Signature Initiative of the obama fcc and so even if its purely symbolic i dont think we will be too terribly surprised to see that brought back. We will continue to see, you know, businesses as usual at the fcc heard there are that will be too terribly politicized and will see spectrum of options and all that sort of, you know, wonky stuff that is normally the priorities of the fcc unless [inaudible] host Jessica Rosen senior democrat on the fcc, could you see her in line for chairmanship certainly. Yeah, its possibl john mtioned that jim clyburn is a close ally of bidens and his daughter Mignon Clyburn served onhe fcc to tms and was acting chairman or acting chairwoman rather during the Obama Administration and she has got a lot of friends in the biden camp and obviously, including her own father. I think what weve been hearing for a while now is that if she wants the job there is a pretty good chance she could get it but certainly Jessica Rosen is right at the top of theist as well. John. Commiioner also has a deep well of hill support and i think back to thebama years when you saw, i believe, it was7 senators pushing to make commissioner chairman at the time and that was you know a pu from her old boss senator rockefeller who led the Congress Committee for manyears and so i think that is probably mething she will also look t to try to you know, make sure she you know, is able to lead and i think shes been ready for a while and then pushing a pretty broad agenda and Different Things and she would want to taken if she were tapped as chair but like kyle said i think its an open question given people like former commissior clyburn and some of the other names the biden team mig be looking at and what they are hoping to accomplish. Ey are still a debate about what sort of different leaders they will elevate in a debate between prressive and more derate camps among democrats right now and that cld affect how the biden teamltimately decidepositions like this, i think. You have lots of different forces within the party jockeying for who should be leading and how aggressive some of the initiatives should be. Net neutrality is good example of tt whether it is will that come back as full rules along the lines of what we saw in the obama years were broadband is reclassified with the Telecom Service and iustry hates that and for years its been a question of where president elect biden fell on that too. One of his most allies for years is david whos executive at comcast. Hes emerg as a bungler for president elect biden i the past cycle and, you know, been a big par of that and verizons kathy is another person who has been helping raise money and i think there will be an active push to turn on anything tt joe biden, fcc simile does and i would look into who he nominates as part of that. Host cat of the washington po, in this discussion under view have brought uphe invitation of 5g. Thats a good pnt. I think that will be a major priority for the Biden Administration, especially as we see industry push Forward Companies like apple releasing their last 5g enabled phones we will see a greater demand from consumers for tt and you know, i wou defer to john and kyle in terms of the coverhis area much me closely than me and th have a better read on where they would see a Biden Administration going on that issue as compared to what we seen with trump. Host mrdaily. Sure, yeah, i think realistically we are probably going to see, you know, not too diimilar from what the actual noise aside and proposals that have been bandied about aside, similar to the trump appach of letting th industry but it will be a fun one to watch. I mean, one thing weeen in the Trump Administration is this push for through the pentagon launch a federally backed national wholele 5g network or basically there would b o company, wanting one big nationwide 5g network with oversight from the government and then som capacity we say capacity to other carriers which is, you know, is dramatic and the parts are from any model that we seen in this country and other countrie including mexico are similar approacs to 5g. That has been viewed as this longshot kind of, you know, trump thing but there could be a constituency for the Something Like that perhaps not exactly this pentagon proposal that weve seen butou know, something that resembles a public broadband option in the Democratic Party. Eric schmidt who is former ceo and chairman o google has been really pushing this hard and he has friends in t Democratic Party. Its a long shot but it is something very interesting to keep an eye on. Host final question to each of you and we will start with john hendel and then we will go to cap sikorsky and kyle daly. How much of a change on a scale of one to ten will be see from the Trump Administration to the incoming Biden Administration . When it comes to tech policy and communication. Yet, no, i think, i would say a solid a seven. I think it will be a lot of different tactics but similar objectives. I thank you will see a very different tone when itomes to, you know, things like perceived anti conservative bias in the platforms and how to deal wit that but ihink that when it comes to issues like topline issues like the size of the companies and when i comes to concern about how things are monitor rating i think there is consensus but there is also consensus abo wanting to get more money with things like broadband toake sure that there is enough spectrum for 5g and thate have an alternative to chinas whi weight which ll be a big part of the 5g that kyle was talkingbout so i think that whe it comes to being ahead on these issues from aia to 5g to y know, keeping tech learship in different ways there will be the sam sort of pushnd its just the ctics that will look different. The Tech Industry welcomes a greater steadiness of under the Biden Administration and these issues have been bipartisan and they just meant mor fiery on the last yr or two and has some pretty sticking points. Cat. I would give it an eight. I think similarly i see that there is this general consensus on what the top issues are but i think we will go from these fiery, very politicized arguments about content moderation and backs the nerdier talking points that we may be talking about more in the tech policy world prior to the Trump Administration. After the highprofile showdowns between the ceos and the administration will be happening now when he think of the things the Trump Administration is going to do or excuse me, Biden Administration plans to do during its first few days in Office Rolling back a lot of the Trump Administration exec to borders on immigration and these types of things will play really well and in some ways some of the biggest fiery issues that you see on the front page of the papers every day will be read or collaboration between industry in this administration but the continued scrutiny perhaps increased scrutiny on antitrust privacy and harmful content on social media. Kyle daily. Yeah, i think they both nailed it. Quantifying it sure, lets say a seven but john mentioned steadiness and thats exactly it. On the big toppling stuff we will see a similar orientation and it will be still one antitrust lawsuit and we are waiting at this point any day now potentially next week for the ftc to possibly deliver one against facebook and to see if not cases the continued scrutiny and continued scrutiny of do we need to review section 230 but its a matter of approach. I mean, its just going to be more productive all and it wont be sort of surprised bands of tiktok for instance just of strong on the industry and the people have to scramble to figure out what does this mean. There will be sort of a return to an even keel, even as, you know, a lot of these major existential issues in the industry continue to track forward. Thank you all for being on the communicators this week and looking forward. You are watching cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to today by your television provider. Tuesday twitter Ceo Jack Dorsey and Facebook Ceo Mark Zuckerberg testify about how allegations that the companies some sort and suppress the news leading up to the elections. Live coverage from the Senate Judiciary committee begins at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan3, live and ondemand at cspan. Org or listen live on the cspan radio app. Nasa space x crew is due to arrive at the International Space station tonight. Our live coverage starts at approximately 11 00 p. M. Eastern when they dock with the iss. That is followed by the onboard welcoming ceremony and a post docking news conference. Watch live on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen on the free cspan radio app. This up in court heard oral argument in a case dealing with lgbtq determination and foster care agencies. The group Catholic Social Services to the city of philadelphia alleging that free speech would be violated when the stopper train children to them because they wouldnt placed here in the care and homes of same sex couples. The Supreme Court has until june of next year to issue a ruling in the case. The honorable chief justice in the associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States all persons having business before the honorable, Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to give their attention for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable court. We ll
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