Facebook is looking to exploit the political network as well as its own social version as it tries to curry favour with the incoming Biden administration, according to our reporters in Washington and San Francisco.
Nick Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister who is now Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs, is seen as someone who can mend strained relations with the Democrats — he struck up a rapport with the president-elect when they were in parallel jobs nearly a decade ago.
One senior employee at the company said: “A lot of the Democrats simply hate Facebook right now. We know Nick Clegg is not going to save us from that, but at least he will help us get a hearing.”
Facebook’s charm offensive on its social network is expected to include incentivising users to share content related to the Paris climate agreement, which Joe Biden has promised to rejoin. It is also considering publishing a banner advertisement at the top of users’ news feeds encouraging them to have the coronavirus vaccine once it is approved.
The company is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys-general for violating competition laws, and could face being broken up. Meanwhile members of Congress continue to push for a national privacy law, tougher rules on misinformation and limits to Section 230, the law that guarantees social media platforms protection from being sued over content posted by their users.
Bill Russo, Mr Biden’s deputy communications director, posted a series of tweets recently that attacked the company for allowing disinformation to spread. Reuters’ Joe Menn reported today that Bruce Reed, the president-elect’s top technology adviser, helped craft California’s landmark online privacy law and recently condemned Section 230 as allowing social media companies to make money from harmful content.
Meanwhile, Twitter and Facebook said at the weekend they would transfer control of the @POTUS account, the official one for the US president, to the Biden administration on January 20. The current incumbent seems to prefer @realDonaldTrump and we’ve been looking at his media options once he leaves the White House, after a big fallout with Fox News.
The Internet of (Five) Things
1. Google’s ‘privacy sandbox’ attacked by marketers
Google’s plan to block companies from tracking people across the web, as it phases out cookies, would entrench its control of online advertising and damage competition, according to a complaint to the UK’s antitrust authorities.
2. Amazon’s drugs push won’t harm, say experts
Sad to say perhaps, but a healthcare analyst tells us that a trip to the pharmacy is a highlight of the week for some people. He’s one expert who thinks Amazon’s push into drugs with its new US discount card and ordering service will have little impact on incumbents in the near term.
3. Assault on batteries
Renewables such as wind and solar are becoming cheaper than fossil fuels in most parts of the world, but they need storage to be a viable, stable source of energy. The Big Read looks at the race to produce enough battery storage and the alternatives to lithium-ion being developed, from liquid air to vanadium.
4. Pandemic benefits men in tech jobs
The boost given by the pandemic to the digital, automation and technology industries is set to exacerbate gender inequality in the workplace, as the new jobs being created are being taken largely by men. Nearly 800,000 additional jobs have been created in computer programming and related services across the EU, the US, the UK, Japan and Australia so far this year.
5. MercadoLibre emerges as ecommerce titan
Latin America’s answer to China’s Alibaba is now worth $63bn on Nasdaq, more than doubling its value over the past year as it powered past old-economy Brazilian giants like Vale and Petrobras to become the region’s biggest winner from the coronavirus crisis.
Tech week ahead
It’s a quiet week in the US, with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, and there will be no #techFT this Thursday and Friday. Otherwise:
Tuesday: China is set to become the third country, after the US and Russia, to collect samples from the moon when its National Space Administration launches the Chang'e 5 lunar probe. Chinese phonemaker Xiaomi will report third-quarter earnings, a period when it passed Apple to become the world's number three smartphone maker. Printer and PC maker HP and its rival Dell, as well as software providers VMware and Autodesk report after the closing bell in New York.
Friday: The Black Friday online sales event is at its peak, and Cyber Monday is yet to come.
Tech tools — Snapchat’s Spotlight
This may do more than Strictly to get people working on their dance moves. Snapchat introduced a TikTok rival today, with Spotlight aimed at highlighting the most entertaining Snaps created by users, with the extra incentive of earning a share of more than $1m distributed to creators every day.
Engadget says the feature in the app looks similar to TikTok and Instagram’s Reels: “ It features auto-playing vertical videos, and you can swipe up or down to quickly move between clips. An algorithm will determine which clips appear in your feed, though you can also dive into specific topics.”
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November 24, 2020 at 02:03AM
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Facebook’s political network push - Financial Times
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