US Vice President Kamala Harris is not yet the Democratic candidate in this year’s presidential election, but following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out and the flood of endorsements for Harris over the past day, she is set to become a contender.
Ms. Harris has extensive ties to the tech industry, not surprising for someone who served as a San Francisco prosecutor, California attorney general and senator. She attended the wedding of early Facebook executive Sean Parker and is close to LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs and venture capitalist John Doerr. “We are family,” she told Google employees while campaigning for the attorney general seat in 2010.
But what will her tech policy be? Her past statements offer some clues.
Antitrust and Privacy
While Harris has signaled an openness to breaking up industry giants, she has not openly called for the more drastic measures taken by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
“I think we need to seriously consider [a Facebook breakup]”Yes,” she said in 2019, when Facebook was in the spotlight over privacy and Harris and Warren were presidential candidates. “We have to recognize it for what it is: Facebook is essentially an unregulated public utility. And in my opinion, that has to stop.”
“I believe tech companies need to be regulated in a way that we can be assured and that American consumers can have confidence that their privacy will not be violated,” she said that year, calling privacy a “top priority.”
When she ran for California attorney general in 2010, Harris warned against “shortsighted” antitrust enforcement, arguing that “we cannot stand in the way of business growth and development.”
Online Safety
In 2010, Harris also spoke about the issue of child safety online, a hot topic that is now the subject of several congressional bills.
“Based on the research I’ve done, I suggest that the best way to address this issue is prevention – educating parents, teachers and the communities in which we raise our children so that they understand technology and can teach their children the same things that we teach our children when crossing the street,” she said.
Meanwhile, Harris launched the White House Task Force on Online Harassment and Abuse a few years ago. “There is still much work to be done to protect people from online harassment and abuse, which is why the work of this Task Force is so important,” Harris said at the time. “No one should have to fear that their private, personal data will be used by abusers or against them, and everyone has the right to use the internet without fear.”
artificial intelligence
Harris, Biden’s nominee for commissioner for AI regulation, is undoubtedly a supporter of AI regulation. “I suggest that any definition of AI safety requires that we consider and address the full range of AI risks – not just the threats to humanity as a whole, but also the threats to individuals, communities, institutions and those who are most vulnerable,” Harris said at a UK summit on the issue last year. “We need to manage all of these dangers to ensure that AI is truly safe.”
At the time, she described the AI sector’s voluntary initiative as a “first step” and called for “legislation that strengthens AI safety without stifling innovation.”
TikTok Ban
US legislation is currently in place that would force TikTok’s owner ByteDance to sell the popular platform or be banned in the country, but Harris insisted in March that she had no intention of banning TikTok.
“Social media is a source of income for many people and is extremely important in providing an environment where people can freely share and debate information,” she said.
This is actually roughly in line with former President Donald Trump, who previously supported a TikTok ban but changed his mind this year. Trump and his running mate have also voiced support for cryptocurrency, but Harris has yet to express a strong opinion on the subject.
To be sure, the election is unlikely to hinge on tech policy, but Trump’s endorsements of Silicon Valley heavyweights like Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen could mean those issues will play a role. And if Harris does indeed challenge Trump, the balance she strikes between pro-consumer and pro-industry positions could make her a tricky target on that front.
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David Meyer
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Newsworthy
CrowdStrike aftermath. CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company that caused the worst IT disaster in history last weekend with a faulty Windows computer update, has announced that a “significant number” of affected devices are working again, reports the BBC. Microsoft said 8.5 million computers crashed in the incident, or less than 1% of all Windows machines. The disaster hit the stock market, but the Nasdaq apparently recovered this morning. However, some companies are still struggling to restore their systems, and airlines such as Delta are cancelling flights today. The severe impact on electronic payments is also a good argument for campaigners against a cashless society, reports the Guardian.
Meta fined in Nigeria. According to Reuters, Nigeria’s antitrust regulator has fined Meta $220 million for various misconduct and ordered it to change its ways. In an order on Friday, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission said Meta must allow Nigerian users to revoke or limit consent to data processing and sharing “without losing functionality or deleting the application.” It must also halt WhatsApp and Facebook integrations in Nigeria and update its privacy policy “in an easy-to-understand format” to allow Nigerians to assert their privacy rights.
Cryptocurrency platform halts trading. WazirX, a huge Indian cryptocurrency platform, has halted trading activity after around $230 million was stolen from one of the wallets storing customer assets, TechCrunch reports. This represents almost half of the platform’s reserves, and WazirX may not be able to fully refund customers. Blockchain analysis experts believe that North Korea is likely behind the theft.
Our Feed
“There is a worrying discrepancy between the number of UK child abuse image crimes occurring on Apple’s services and the almost negligible number of abusive content reported by the company to authorities globally.”
—Richard Collard, head of children’s online safety at the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, has accused Apple of significantly underestimating the amount of child sexual abuse imagery stored and transmitted through its encrypted services. The NSPCC has compared information publicly available from Apple with UK police data.
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This Gen Z startup is the ‘anti-Facebook’ and has raised $41.5M, by Sasha Rogelberg
A seventh former eBay employee has been convicted of “unspeakable harassment” involving fetal pigs and live insects, according to the Associated Press.
US Leads in AI Startups, While China Ensures Chatbots Have ‘Core Socialist Values’, by Jason Ma
Squarespace CMO Oriana Rosa Royle said Gen Z job seekers should be willing to work long hours for free and have a “can do it all” attitude.
Before you leave
Screen scraping verdict. A Delaware jury unanimously found Booking.com violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by scraping data from the website of low-cost airline Ryanair. RTÉ reported that the travel booking platform used automated tools to find and resell Ryanair tickets. Ryanair’s colorful CEO Michael O’Leary said he hoped European regulators would now ban the practice, describing it as “internet piracy and overcharging.” Booking.com said it would appeal, arguing that “enabling customers to access and compare prices across the travel industry promotes consumer choice.”
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