The chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter will face skeptical lawmakers again next month, when a Congressional committee asks them about the ways in which misinformation spreads across their platforms.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee said on Thursday that it would hold a hearing on March 25 with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sundar Pichai of Google and Jack Dorsey of Twitter.
The committee has been examining the future of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that protects platforms from lawsuits related to much of the content posted by its users. The January 6 attack on Capitol Hill, which included participants linked to QAnon and other conspiracy theories that spread widely online, renewed concerns that the law allows platforms to take a direct approach to extremist content.
“For a long time, Big Tech failed to recognize the role it played in nurturing and elevating blatantly false information to its online audience,” a group of the committee’s top Democrats said in a statement. “The industry’s self-regulation has failed.”
Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesman, said the company “believes it is time to update the Internet rules, and this hearing should be another important step in the process.”
The House Judiciary Committee announced its own set of hearings on the technology industry on Thursday. He said he would hold several hearings on how to update antitrust laws to deal with the power of technology giants. The committee questioned the chief executives before completing a lengthy investigation into the companies last year.
The Judiciary Committee’s first hearing will be on Wednesday.
Renault, the French automaker, reported a loss of 8 billion euros, or $ 9.7 billion, in 2020 with the pandemic destroying sales, but the company said it was profitable later in the year.
Most of the annual loss resulted from Renault’s stake in its troubled partner, Nissan. Losses with the Japanese automaker drained € 5 billion from financial results, Renault said. In addition, Renault car sales plunged 20% in the year, to almost three million vehicles.
“After a first half impacted by Covid-19, the group significantly changed its performance in the second half,” said Luca de Meo, Renault’s chief executive, in a statement, without giving figures. He said that 2021 was “defined as difficult, given the unknowns about the health crisis, as well as the shortage of supplies of electronic components”.
In 2021, the scarcity of semiconductors, a problem for almost all automakers, could reduce production by up to 100,000 vehicles, Renault said.
De Meo, who became Renault’s chief executive in July, last month announced a plan to return to profitability that includes cuts in production capacity, sales of fewer models and greater sharing of parts between vehicles to simplify manufacturing.
In California, forest fires and heat waves in recent years have forced utilities to turn off power to millions of homes and businesses. Texas is now learning that deadly winter storms and intense cold can do the same.
Bill Magness, president and chief executive of the Texas Electric Reliability Council, the state’s grid operator, said Thursday that Texas was “seconds and minutes” from a catastrophic blackout this week, as rotary outages were used to control the flow of electricity.
The country’s two largest states have taken very different approaches to managing their energy needs – Texas has aggressively deregulated, letting the free market flourish, while California has adopted environmental regulations. However, the two states are facing the same dire reality: they may be terribly unprepared for the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters caused by climate change.
Blackouts in Texas and California have revealed that power plants can be damaged and deactivated by the type of extremely cold and hot weather that climate scientists say will become more common as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere.
The problems in Texas and California highlight the challenge the Biden government will face in modernizing the electrical system to run entirely on wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and other zero-emission technologies by 2035 – a goal that President Biden set during the campaign 2020.
The federal government and energy companies may have to spend trillions of dollars to harden electricity networks against the threat posed by climate change and move away from the fossil fuels responsible for global warming in the first place. These are not new ideas. Scholars have long warned that American power grids, which are operated regionally, will be under increasing pressure and need major upgrades.
“We really need to change our paradigm, especially public services, because they are becoming much more vulnerable to disasters,” said Najmedin Meshkati, professor of engineering at the University of Southern California, about the blackouts in Texas and California. “They must always think literally about the worst case scenario, because the worst case scenario is going to happen.”
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transcription
Congressman calls Robinhood helpline and receives voicemail
After telling the House Financial Services Committee about the suicide of Robinhood user Alex Kearns, who died believing he lost $ 730,000 in the brokerage app, Representative Sean Casten called the helpline.
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June 2020, Alex Kearns, who was 20 at the time, from Naperville, Illinois, killed himself, largely thanks to a bug in the Robinhood system. The bug was that he activated the app, which said he owed $ 730,000 that he didn’t have, because of option positions that he thought were canceled but didn’t show up. He called the help line. The helpline, of course, was unmanned, as we discussed. He sent several emails in a panic – three, to be precise – without receiving a reply. In the end, there was a response from the emails saying that, in fact, their positions were covered. But by then, it was too late, because he had taken his own life. The – this is a 20 year old man. Under Illinois law, he was not allowed to buy beer, but he could take $ 730,000 in positions and exposures that he had no liquidity to cover. Your mission, Mr. Tenev, is to democratize finance. But the story of financial regulation is to protect people like Alex Kearns from the system. As the old joke goes, if you’re playing poker and can’t figure out who the fish is on the table, you should leave the table because you are probably the fish. And there is an innate tension in your business model between democratizing finance, which is a noble calling, and being a channel for feeding sharks with fish. I’m nervous. I think I got an exhibition. And I call your helpline now. Let’s call and hear in the time that we have left what I will hear on the other end of the line. Voicemail: “Thanks for calling Robinhood. Visit us at robinhood.com or our app for support. If you have an urgent need for negotiation, be sure to include details when contacting. Thank you have a great day. “
Chief executives of Robinhood, Reddit, Citadel and Melvin Capital Management were among the witnesses at a hearing on GameStop’s commercial frenzy held by the House’s Financial Services Committee on Thursday.
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Vlad Tenev, the chief executive of Robinhood, was the target of both Democrats and Republicans, answering more than half of legislators’ questions. “I love your company because, when managed properly, it offers investment opportunities for individuals who are currently excluded from the markets for one reason or another,” said Representative Anthony Gonzalez, Republican of Ohio. He added: “At the same time, however, I believe that a vulnerability has been clearly exposed in its business model.”
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Representative Sean Casten, an Illinois Democrat, crowned his stern questioning Tenev, in which he told the story of a 20-year-old college student who killed himself last summer believing he lost more than $ 700,000 by calling the Robinhood line help and allowing everyone to listen while a short message played and the call ended. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, said that Robinhood’s decisions “hurt customers” and accused her of passing on hidden costs to her customers.
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Keith Gill – known on YouTube as Roaring Kitty – testified that his interest in the company was based on his belief that the market was underestimating the value of the brick and mortar retailer. His testimony included references to winks – like rocking what looked like his red tiara often used in a picture of a kitten visible over his shoulder and the statement “I’m not a cat” – to the internet meme culture.
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Several tough questions were addressed to Kenneth C. Griffin, the head of the Citadel. Members of Congress asked skeptical questions about Citadel’s practice of paying to trade against customers at online brokers like Robinhood. Mr. Griffin tried to explain the complexities of the deal, but he was often stopped. “Our parents are tired of paying bail when you make a mistake and play with the retirement fund. And that is exactly what happens every moment, ”said Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan.