Tech platforms need to think beyond ‘election cycles,’ think tank argues

But it’s an ethos that hasn’t fully translated in Silicon Valley, where company leaders often don’t significantly ramp up platform integrity efforts until just weeks before ballots are cast.

Now a group of former social media staffers is urging companies to shift gears and adopt a more “always on” approach to safeguarding U.S. elections, citing the ongoing wave of attacks on the electoral process.

A new report by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a D.C.-based think tank made up of industry veterans, calls on digital platforms to be more proactive in coordinating with local officials to combat misinformation and disinformation about the voting process. It urges companies to roll out resources and policy changes earlier, and to keep them in place longer, to head off threats.

“Elections are not always over on election night, a lesson that was brought home in 2020 when escalating disinformation about the election spiraled out of control, leading to the January 6 attack … Tech companies’ election efforts cannot end on election night, either,” the group wrote.

The report urges companies to engage directly with government officials even years before elections to address concerns earlier in the process, including during primary races and other campaign landmarks.

“It’s a lot easier to be able to prevent a fire than trying to put it out after it’s happened,” said Collier Fernekesa research analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

The report was developed with input from local election officials and tech industry leaders, who participated in a joint exercise gaming out potential digital threats, its authors said.

While many tech companies say they stay in close contact with election officials, historically they have largely dialed up plans in the run-up to national elections.

Twitter announced earlier this month — less than 90 days out from the Nov. 8 midterms — that it would begin enforcing its election integrity rules in the context of this year’s elections. In January, Twitter confirmed to me that it had stopped enforcing those same policies “on content related to the outcome of the now-concluded 2020 U.S. election.”

The moves highlight how some major platforms have closely linked their integrity efforts with the homestretch of national elections.

Companies in the past have also surged resources in the weeks before Election Day.

In 2018, Facebook grabbed headlines for standing up a dedicated election “war room” two months out from the last U.S. midterm elections. But the company quietly wound down the push a few weeks after the election, as Bloomberg News reported at the time.

Facebook has also faced criticism for rolling back “dozens of election-season measures that it had used to suppress hateful, deceptive content” after the 2020 election and before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as my colleagues reported. (Facebook said at the time that the “responsibility” for the violence lies with the rioters and that it took steps to limit content seeking to delegitimize the election outcome.)

While major tech companies have the capacity to quickly deploy resources just weeks before votes are cast, election officials don’t have the same luxury, the group said.

“Unfortunately, there can be a mismatch between the high-speed development cycles of tech companies and the realities of the elections calendar,” they wrote in the report. “Often, tech road maps are created only about six months to a year out, which is too late to do the in-depth resource building that safeguards election integrity.”

Those “mismatched” timetables make it harder for local officials to coordinate with tech companies, said Katie Harbatha member of the center and former Facebook policy staffer. And that’s limited the impact of joint initiatives in the past, including a push by companies in 2020 to get more volunteers to sign up to be poll workers, she said.

“Some of the companies put up alerts and labels [saying]‘Hey, go sign up to be a poll worker in your jurisdiction,’” she said. “However, a lot of election officials said that … it backfired because they ended up not having enough space for everybody that was interested.”

Top lawmakers investigate Twitter whistleblower complaint

Democratic and Republican lawmakers appeared united in their responses to a whistleblower complaint filed by former Twitter security chief Peiter “Mudge” Zatkowith the policymakers saying the disclosures raised important national security and privacy issues, Cat Zakrzewski reports. Zatko spoke with three congressional committees Tuesday, Zatko’s attorney John Tye said at a Twitter Spaces event hosted by The Post. And the leaders of three key congressional committees said they’re reviewing Zatko’s disclosures.

• Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who leads the Commerce panel focused on consumer protection, called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Zatko’s claims and bring “enforcement actions” like fines against the company where appropriate.
• Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said the disclosures show that the FTC “absolutely needs more resources.”
• The political fallout could intensify amid concerns by Republicans that Twitter has unfairly suppressed their tweets. “Twitter has a long track record of making really bad decisions on everything from censorship to security practices,” said Sen. blond framethe top Republican on the Intelligence Committee. “That’s a huge concern given the company’s ability to influence the national discourse and global events.”

The complaint could also inject new urgency into talks over privacy and other technology-related legislation. Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), the top lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said that if Zatko’s allegations are true, they “reaffirm” the need for Congress to protect Americans’ data by passing privacy legislation.

Twitter has pushed back on Zatko’s complaint, with spokeswoman Anna Hughes saying that it appeared to have “inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.” Security and privacy are “companywide priorities” at Twitter, Hughes said. “Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders,” she said.

A major crypto firm is defying U.S. sanctions on Tornado Cash

Tether, which issues the world’s largest token pegged to the dollar, isn’t blacklisting accounts associated with Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency anonymization service called a “mixer” that the Treasury Department sanctioned this month, Tory Newmyer and Jeremy B. Merrill report. Cybercriminals including North Korean hackers have used Tornado Cash to obscure the proceeds of their crimes, Treasury said.

“Tether has not been contacted by U.S. officials or law enforcement with a request” to freeze Tornado Cash transactions, Tether Chief Technology Officer Paolo Ardoino said, noting that it “normally complies with requests from U.S. authorities.”

It’s not clear whether Tether has a legal obligation to comply with the sanctions. The company, which is based in Hong Kong, suggests it doesn’t because it “does not operate in the United States or onboard U.S. persons as customers,” Ardoino said. But he said the company does consider Treasury sanctions “as part of its world-class compliance program.”

Experts said the matter is debatable. But Tether’s move could be perilous. “It’s never a very good idea to test OFAC. Right now, it’s a particularly bad time for any crypto-related company to do that,” said a former senior official for the sanctions-enforcing Office of Foreign Assets Control. “It looks like that’s what they’re doing.”

Facebook settles lawsuit over location tracking

The company’s $37.5 million settlement resolves claims that it violated user privacy by tracking their movements, Reuters’s Jonathan Stamp reports.

“The users said that while they did not want to share their locations with Facebook, the company nevertheless inferred where they were from their IP (internet protocol) addresses, and used that information to send them targeted advertising,” Stempel writes. “Monday’s settlement covers people in the United States who used Facebook after Jan. 30, 2015.”

The company has denied wrongdoing and did not respond to Reuters’s requests for comment.

Zatko’s whistleblower disclosure about Twitter was hotly discussed on Twitter. It was also the subject of more lighthearted tweets. Our colleague, Joe Men:

Researcher and blogger Jane Manchun Wong:

Twitter reshuffles ‘health’ team amid spam bot debate (Reuters)

Facebook restricted a Planned Parenthood post telling people about abortion pills (Motherboard)

Snap agrees to $35 million settlement over privacy lawsuit (The Verge)

Meta learned via a tweet of FTC’s suit to block VR deal (Bloomberg)

People are demanding that Cloudflare drop Kiwi Farms (Motherboard)

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