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Welcome! Follow the cyber team, Olivia Beavers (@olivia_beavers) and Jacqueline Thomsen (@jacq_thomsen), and the tech team, Harper Neidig (@hneidig) and Emily Birnbaum (@birnbaum_e).
THIS IS THE THREAT THAT NEVER ENDS: Secretary of State Mike PompeoMichael (Mike) Richard PompeoPompeo predicts Russia will be election threat for decades Pompeo defends US support for Saudis in Yemen as ‘in America’s best interest’ Pompeo says Maduro’s inner circle looking for exit strategy in Venezuela MORE said Monday he expects Russia will try to interfere in U.S. elections for decades to come, describing Moscow as having long presented a threat to American elections — not just in 2016.
Pompeo told The Hill’s editor-in-chief Bob Cusack that “of course” the Russians continue to represent a threat to U.S. elections. But he dismissed the notion that the threat is somehow new or more severe following Moscow’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election as detailed in special counsel Robert MuellerRobert (Bob) Swan MuellerSasse: US should applaud choice of Mueller to lead Russia probe MORE‘s report.
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Pompeo’s rationale: “It goes without saying they were a threat to our elections in 1974, they interfered in our elections in the ’80s,” Pompeo said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations hosted by The Hill’s Newsmaker Series.
“The fact that this town seemed shocked by the fact the Russians don’t care for us — in that case the Soviet Union — I find stunning,” Pompeo said, adding that books have recounted the Russian threat “over an extended period of time.”
“We should expect in 2050 the Russians will still be at it still,” Pompeo said at the event, which was sponsored by the Partnership for Open and Fair Skies.
Mueller’s redacted report detailed a two-pronged effort by Moscow to use hacked Democratic emails and social media to influence the 2016 vote in President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump hits Biden as he hits 2020 trail Trump blasts union chiefs after Biden gets key endorsement Grassley to Trump: Lift tariffs or new NAFTA deal is ‘dead’ MORE‘s favor. Mueller concluded his investigation at the end of March, finding no conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Moscow despite multiple Russian efforts to contact the campaign.
Read more here.
AN OPEN (FACE)BOOK: Facebook on Monday announced that it is opening up troves of its data to researchers studying the role of social media in elections, an unprecedented move by a generally secretive company.
The announcement comes a little over a year after Facebook first announced that it would be partnering with outside social science research centers to look into the effects of social media on democracies and elections.
The company in a blog post on Monday announced that its research institute partners, Social Science One and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), had officially chosen a group of more than 60 researchers who will “gain access to privacy-protected Facebook data.”
The research projects emerge as Facebook faces more scrutiny than ever over the manipulation and misuse of its platform during election cycles. The tech giant has been accused of not doing enough as foreign and domestic actors spread misinformation across its suite of services, including Instagram, during important world events.
Read more here.
MORE OPINIONS PLEASE: The Supreme Court is asking the Trump administration to weigh in on the landmark copyright battle between Google and Oracle.
The court invited the Department of Justice to offer its views on Oracle’s long-running lawsuit claiming that Google’s Android software infringed on its copyright.
Google is seeking to appeal a lower court’s ruling that it had unlawfully used Oracle’s code in its software. Oracle is seeking about $9 billion in damages.
Oracle first sued Google in 2010, and the case has been closely watched because of its implications for how copyright protection affects programming language.
Google’s response: “The outcome of this case will have a significant impact on the future of American innovation,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “We are asking the Supreme Court to hold that copyright law supports the kind of interoperability that has been critical to the progress of software development in the United States.”
Read more here.
THE MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION: Plenty of questions remain about the U.S. government’s potential landmark enforcement action against Facebook after the company revealed this week that it anticipates paying between $3 billion and $5 billion to settle a yearlong investigation into its privacy practices.
Facebook revealed to investors on Wednesday that it had set aside $3 billion toward a potential fine from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has been investigating whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent agreement with the agency.
Any fine in the billions of dollars would be several orders of magnitude larger than the FTC’s current record penalty: a $22.5 million fine against Google for violating its consent agreement.
But any sum in the range predicted by Facebook is essentially pocket change to a company that brought in nearly $56 billion in revenue last year.
The big question: The question that most observers have is whether Facebook will be forced to make changes to its business model in order to settle the government’s concerns.
“I would say the fine itself isn’t a big deal given how much cash Facebook has on hand. The question will be what rules are in place to protect consumers in the future. That we don’t know,” said Michael Nathanson, an analyst with the research firm MoffettNathanson.
How the markets are reacting: Wall Street has shrugged off the potential fine. After Facebook told investors about the range it expected it could pay, its shares jumped 7 percent. In other words, when the company admitted it might have to pay a $5 billion fine, it added about $30 billion to its market cap.
Critics worry the fine won’t be enough: For many of the tech giant’s critics, a fine — even a record, multibillion-dollar one — would be insufficient to hold Facebook accountable and to show the rest of Silicon Valley that the U.S. is serious about policing their privacy practices.
“This is a slap on the wrist–a fraction of the profits Facebook makes in a year,” Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann WarrenData dilemma: The challenge of separating the sound statistics from lies Young Turks host says Warren has a media ‘buzz problem’ Four 2020 Dems not yet qualified to participate in debates: report MORE (D-Mass.), a 2020 presidential candidate who has proposed breaking up Facebook, wrote in a tweet. “Facebook is a repeat offender & fines like this won’t stop them from breaking the law & violating our privacy again. It’s going to take big, structural change.”
Read more here.
HAUNTED AS HECK: The number of dead people on Facebook could outnumber the living within 50 years, according to analysis from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII).
Based on 2018 user levels, at least 1.4 billion members will die before 2100, the researchers said. Using that estimate, the dead could outnumber the living on the social media platform by 2070.
However, if the network continues to grow at current rates, researchers say deceased users could reach as high as 4.9 billion before the end of the century.
“These statistics give rise to new and difficult questions around who has the right to all this data, how should it be managed in the best interests of the families and friends of the deceased and its use by future historians to understand the past,” said lead author Carl Öhman, a doctoral candidate at the OII.
Read more here.
CAN I HAVE AN EXTENSION: T-Mobile and Sprint are again extending the deadline to complete their proposed merger, according to a Monday filing by T-Mobile with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The telecommunications giants now have until July 29 as they seek approval of their $26 billion deal from officials at the Justice Department (DOJ) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The previous deadline was this Monday.
It has been about a year since T-Mobile and Sprint announced their plan to merge.
Makan Delrahim, the top antitrust official at the DOJ, on Monday said he has not made up his mind yet about the merger between two of the nation’s four larger mobile carriers.
“I have not made up my mind,” Delrahim told CNBC. He said the DOJ is “continuing to investigate” the effects the merger could have on prices for consumers.
Read more here.
AN OP-ED TO CHEW ON: Cable ‘news’ punditry should come with warning labels.
A LIGHTER CLICK: As well as a fluffier one.
NOTABLE LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB:
Facebook accused of blocking wider efforts to study its ad platform. (TechCrunch)
What to expect from F8, Facebook’s annual developers conference, after the company’s very bad year. (Wired)
Retaliation at Google: Sharing stories from Google employees. (Medium)
Inside the room where Facebook decides what 2.3 billion people can and can’t say. (The Telegraph)
The terrifying potential of the 5G network. (The New Yorker)