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Biden goes after Big Tech in antitrust push

President Biden this week urged Congress to strengthen antitrust enforcement in an effort to crack down on tech giants, a move seen as a win by advocates.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and U.K. governments announced joint sanctions against seven individuals associated with a Russia-based cybercrime gang that reportedly targeted medical facilities at the height of the pandemic.

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Biden's push for antitrust reform welcomed

President Biden's boost for an antitrust reform proposal targeting tech giants during his State of the Union address was embraced as a win for supporters backing the bill to limit dominant tech companies from preferencing their own products and services.

During the roughly one hour and 13 minute speech, the president urged Congress to strengthen antitrust enforcement and "prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage."

The president's support, though, may do little to move the needle on the issue — especially in a politically divided Congress — as powerful tech groups continue to push back.
Biden's comment was seemingly a nod to the bipartisan American Innovation and Choice Online Act. The legislation aims to block dominant companies from giving preference to their own goods or discriminating against rival products. In practice, that could mean that Amazon would not be able to place its own products at the top of search results or that Google would be prevented from highlighting its own services in its search engine results.

The proposal advanced last Congress out of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, but failed to make it into law last year after tech groups spent millions on lobbying efforts and ad campaigns to kill the bill.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a lead sponsor of the bill, called Biden's comments on antitrust a sign of "momentum."

Read more here.

US, UK sanction Russian hackers

The Treasury Department and the United Kingdom on Thursday announced joint sanctions against seven individuals tied to a Russia-based cybercrime gang known as Trickbot.

First identified in 2016, Trickbot reportedly targeted hospitals and health care centers with ransomware attacks at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The Treasury Department noted an incident where the group launched ransomware against three Minnesota medical facilities, which disrupted "their computer networks and telephones, causing a diversion of ambulances."

"Cyber criminals, particularly those based in Russia, seek to attack critical infrastructure, target U.S. businesses, and exploit the international financial system," said Treasury Under Secretary Brian E. Nelson in a statement.

Read more here.

LGBTQ REPORTS SURGE IN ABUSE ON TWITTER

LGBTQ activists and organizations say hateful and abusive speech has surged on Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social media platform, according to a new survey.

A majority of LGBTQ activists and organizations say they have encountered more hateful and abusive speech on Twitter since Musk's acquisition of the social media giant, according to a survey from Amnesty International USA, GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, putting in the spotlight what civil rights organizations say is the company's inability to protect the LGBTQ community from harassment.

The survey of 11 LGBTQ organizations and nine high-profile LGBTQ individuals found that 60 percent of respondents have seen an increase in such abuse and the other 40 percent have seen the same level of treatment since Musk took over in October 2022. None of the respondents reported a decrease in the abuse.

The angst over the treatment of LGBTQ people on the platform comes as Musk has implemented an upheaval of the company's structure. He fired Twitter's Global Human Rights Team and much of the infrastructure of Twitter's Trust and Safety team has been gutted

Read more here.

CHINA ACCUSES U.S. OF 'INFORMATION WARFARE'

The Chinese government says the U.S. accusations that its recently downed balloon was intended to conduct surveillance on the United States is "information warfare."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning reiterated Beijing's claims that the object was a weather balloon that wind blew off course and China it did not intend to violate any country's sovereignty.

She said the U.S.'s rejection of China's explanation and conclusion that the balloon was intended for surveillance is "irresponsible" and "may be part of the U.S. side's information warfare against China."

Mao's comments came before the Biden administration said on Thursday that it believes China's military is responsible for a wide-ranging surveillance program that has spanned five continents and targeted more than 40 countries.

Read more here.

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: How dangerous is AI? Regulate it before it's too late

Notable links from around the web:

Are we racing toward AI catastrophe? (Vox / Kelsey Piper)

Extremist influencers are generating millions for Twitter, report says (The Washington Post / Taylor Lorenz)

Free Speech vs. Disinformation Comes to a Head (The New York Times / Steven Lee Myers)

ONE MORE THING

Twitter suffers widespread outage

Twitter was experiencing widespread outages Wednesday evening, with thousands of users encountering error messages as they tried to access key features on the site.

Users reported receiving error messages saying they had exceeded the social media site's daily limit for tweets, which company rules set at 2,400 separate tweets per day.

Users also reported seeing error messages when trying to use direct messages. "TwitterDown," "TwitterDMs" and "Did Twitter" were trending in the United States as of Wednesday night.

"Twitter may not be working as expected for some of you. Sorry for the trouble. We're aware and working to get this fixed," Twitter Support tweeted.

Read more here.

That's it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill's Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We'll see you tomorrow.