Zuckerberg on the Hill Presented by Ericsson

With help from Cristiano Lima, Nancy Scola, Margaret Harding McGill and John Hendel

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Quick Fix

— Zuckerberg descends on D.C.: The Facebook CEO is making the rounds on Capitol Hill, but some congressional leaders aren’t on the agenda.

— A tech critic’s tech supporters: 2020 hopeful Andrew Yang says many of his donors are employed by the same internet companies he targets on the campaign trail.

— More AG action: Pennsylvania became the 18th state to join the lawsuit aiming to block the T-Mobile-Sprint mega-merger.

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Tech of the Town

ZUCKERBERG FACES HIS CAPITOL HILL CRITICS — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off a series of meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday — a rare D.C. swing that’s putting him face-to-face with some of his company’s staunchest congressional critics, as Cristiano reports. Here's a look at who is and isn’t expected to meet with the tech mogul this week, according to our count:

— Who's in: Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said she met with Zuckerberg on Wednesday; Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he was likely to do so Wednesday night; Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) helped organize a dinner meeting with Zuckerberg and a group of senators Wednesday night; Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) plans to meet him today; Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has a sit-down sometime this week; and Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said they were scheduling meetings. (The Wednesday dinner, organized at Facebook’s request, touched on issues including “what steps Congress should take to defend our elections, protect consumer data, and encourage competition in the social media space,” Warner spokesperson Rachel Cohen said. Meanwhile, Schatz said he plans to bring up Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — the online industry’s legal liability shield — during their eventual meeting, along with data privacy and Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans.) Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is also slated to huddle with Zuckerberg, according to The Hill.

— Who's out: Senate Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said late Wednesday he has no plans to meet with Zuckerberg, as did the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). (Wicker recently said he was "deeply disappointed" that the Facebook CEO declined to take part in a hearing on violent and extremist content online.)

YANG’S TECH GANG — In a visit to POLITICO’s newsroom, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang said that despite his relentless criticism of big tech — he has accused Amazon of not paying taxes and destroying job markets, for example — his top supporters are employees of those same companies. “The three top employers of donors to my campaign are number one, the U.S. Army; number two, Google; number three, Amazon,” he told POLITICO editors and reporters on Wednesday. Among the top five professions of donors to his campaign are software engineers, drivers, retail workers and warehouse fulfillment workers, “all people that are close to the reality I’m describing,” he said. “So the technology industry, I’m happy to say, is lining up behind me, even though I’m calling out their excesses and the externalities of a lot of their innovation.”

— Yang also talked about his support from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has donated to the campaign. “He and I are friendly,” Yang told POLITICO. “We speak and text, and he’s looking at hosting an event for me out West.”

PA JOINS THE T-MO FRAY — The attorney general of Pennsylvania, Democrat Josh Shapiro, has joined the multistate coalition suing to block the T-Mobile-Sprint merger. Shapiro is the 18th state AG to join the lawsuit, which is led by New York and California. At the federal level, the deal has the blessing of both FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Justice Department antitrust chief Makan Delrahim.

— ‘Driving up prices’: “The merger between T-Mobile and Sprint would severely undermine competition in the telecommunications sector, which would hurt Pennsylvanian consumers by driving up prices, limiting coverage, and diminishing quality,” Shapiro said in a statement. T-Mobile declined to comment.

WICKER WADES INTO NDAA AIRWAVES FIGHT — With the wireless industry and some lawmakers warning that a provision in must-pass defense legislation allows for a Pentagon power grab over 5G airwaves, Wicker says he’s aiming to hammer out a compromise. The Senate version of the bill contains language calling on the Defense Department set up test beds for sharing 5G airwaves — something that would normally fall under the Commerce Department’s NTIA, which oversees spectrum. “There are discussions about arriving at a mutually agreeable solution,” Wicker told John on Wednesday. The House and Senate are gearing up to try to reconcile their two versions of the legislation. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has called for axing the test bed section altogether.

DOYLE PREVIEWS BROADBAND MAPPING MARKUP — The House Energy and Commerce telecom subcommittee will soon move to mark up legislation to improve the government’s mapping of broadband data, which lawmakers have long complained is riddled with errors. And the panel will likely use the Broadband DATA Act, H.R. 4229, from Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa), as the base. “I think the Loebsack bill will be the vehicle it runs through,” subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) told reporters this week. “But I think we’re going to be taking bits and pieces of the other bills, too.”

— Taking out the ‘garbage’: “We can’t have a system at the FCC when it comes to mapping where it’s garbage in and garbage out, because that’s what it is,” Loebsack said. Ohio Rep. Bob Latta, the top Republican on Doyle’s panel and a backer of the Broadband DATA Act, said, “This is something we can get done.”

Transitions

The online employment marketplace ZipRecruiter is joining the Internet Association. … Steve Dowling, who ran Apple’s communications for the last five years, is leaving the company after 16 years. … Angela Moon, a former tech correspondent for Reuters, is joining Bloomberg as managing editor of breaking news. … Charlene Lake, AT&T’s senior vice president for corporate social responsibility and chief sustainability officer, on Wednesday became chair of the AT&T Foundation. … The Cities Today Institute, a global network for chief information and technology officers in local government, launched on Wednesday.

Silicon Valley Must Reads

ICYMI: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) urged Twitter to de-platform President Donald Trump after he retweeted a post falsely claiming that the congresswoman “partied” on the anniversary of 9/11, POLITICO reports.

Tech cozies up to journalism: Google is adjusting the way it ranks news stories while Facebook is negotiating how to pay outlets for the rights to publish their articles, “moves that some in the media industry see as an effort to pre-empt potential regulatory backlash,” The WSJ reports.

Big tech’s break from the Dems: “Inside the divorce rattling Silicon Valley and Democratic politics,” via NYMag’s The Intelligencer.

Odd man out: A group of California Republicans is pressing state Attorney General Xavier Becerra to join the (almost) countrywide antitrust investigations of Facebook and Google, Katy Murphy reports for Pros.

Quick Downloads

On the brink of breakup?: AT&T may part ways with DirecTV, WSJ reports.

In profile: WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann, via WSJ.

230 talk: Senate Commerce Chairman Wicker said ending or altering Section 230 would likely be “too big of a lift,” Cristiano reports for Pros.

Internet Accountability Project: “Amid the calls for new regulations on privacy, antitrust issues, and alleged political bias, two experienced conservative operatives have formed an advocacy group to challenge Big Tech,” VICE reports.

By the (big) numbers: Two-thirds of Americans want to break up companies like Amazon and Google, Vox reports.





Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Eric Engleman ([email protected], @ericengleman), Kyle Daly ([email protected], @dalykyle), Nancy Scola ([email protected], @nancyscola), Margaret Harding McGill ([email protected], @margarethmcgill), Steven Overly ([email protected], @stevenoverly), John Hendel ([email protected], @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima ([email protected], @viaCristiano) and Alexandra S. Levine ([email protected], @Ali_Lev).

TTYL.

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