Your unfiltered view of government. Created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. This week on the communicators, a democratic member of the federal trade commission, rebecca slaughter. Our guest reporter is leah nylund who covers technology for politico. Hasissioner slaughter, what this pandemic been like for you when it comes to your work . You soaughter thank much for having me. It is a pleasure to be here today. As you can see from my special guest here, what this pandemic has involved for me in part is a lot of time with a brandnew baby and juggling those responsibilities, which is not a common occurrence for commissioners in a pandemic or not in a pandemic, so i have been muddling through that. In terms of the work of the agency, its been an important and fascinating time. We switched to all telework quickly, relatively seamlessly, in march, which i was very impressed by. Even though the technological work got up and running quickly, for me personally, i found it incredibly challenging to be juggling the responsibilities of the job and fulltime parenting. Fourth, soere is my i needed fulltime attention and a job that needed fulltime attention, and even with an incredibly supportive partner, that was challenging. My first reaction to your question is to think about the logistics, and i know that was true for me. Whether people have small children in their house or elderly relatives they are caring for or sick family members, or they are dealing with being lonely and isolated, i think we cant discount the human toll this pandemic has taken even as we try to proceed with our important work. Host how has the agenda for the ftc changed since march . Comm. Slaughter that is a great question. I would say a couple things. We had and continue to have an incredibly full docket of important casework that we cannot and will not let split. That includes ongoing merger and acquisition reviews. That includes ongoing general Consumer Protection cases. Antitrust conduct investigations. Those dont go away because the pandemic appeared, but with the pandemic came more additional work, including an onslaught of corona coronavirus related scams and frauds. Everything from fraud related to loans, and people peddling for years fake cures, selling ppe and not delivering, those were all issues the agency has taken up, which is new to the pandemic. In the antitrust arena, i am particularly concerned of the potential for and the possibility we are seeing of an uptick in acquisitions that are competitively concerning. People basically taking advantage of the pandemic. That is a huge amount of work that is a result of the Economic Uncertainty that we are facing. It is one that we have to rise to meet. Peter lets bring politico into this conversation to explore those issues you mentioned. Leah i am sure that you are aware that President Trump signed an executive order in may saying the fcc considered taking action with public representation. Your thoughts on the executive order and you think that the fcc should take action . Comm. Slaughter it is difficult to see what action we could take consistent with our legal mandate and responsibilities under the order. We are not political speech police, nor should we be. I found the order kind of confounding from a legal basis, and not really one that would give rise to action i would find myself supporting. Leah your fellow democrat had proposed a study on how targeted advertising incentive incentivizes policies implemented in the state. You think you could support such a study . Comm. Slaughter yes, i think that is a good idea. I also talked about how we would do a study on targeted advertising. I think there is an enormously opaque black box into which our data goes that is turned around and used, targets content towards us. Whether political, commercial, some might be manipulative, some fraudulent, and better understanding that ecosystem is a normatively important enormously important. Leah there might be three of you who support that. Comm. Slaughter i think you might be the first to observe that at least three of us think it would be a great idea. Leah i want to move on to a slightly pandemic related issue. The beginning of the school year has been different. So many schools are moving to virtual learning, either parttime or fulltime. What advice do you have her parents who have concerns about their kids privacy online . Comm. Slaughter the first thing i have is sympathy. I am right there with them. I have two Elementary School age kids and had to transition to an all Digital Learning environment with the suite of new technologies that we as parents cannot choose. Even if we wanted to, and even if we had the time to do the digging to figure out what is using whos data in what way, it would be too high to even contemplate. I say that from the position of somebody who has a job in this economy, and one that is fortunate enough to do my job at home and be available to my children, and has the most i can wish for in terms of resources of devices and Internet Connection and other things that are needed to make Digital Learning possible. One of the things i am concerned about right now is the way that the Digital Divide is exacerbating not only these issues but privacy issues as well and children. We should talk about general divide issues for people who have Broadband Access and have to sit in parking lots of libraries and stores in order to get online for school. I am also worried about the ways in which the Digital Divide exacerbates ivc gaps where privacy gaps where wealthy children can pay for Protection Services and more access to things and low income children have to pay with their privacy. That is a problem that has preceded pandemic, but has been exacerbated. That is not just school programs, but whenever your kids are doing during the day, which includes a lot more screen time and prepandemic. Peter you referred he told the Commerce Committee you told the Commerce Committee that these are equity and civil rights issues. What did you mean by that . Comm. Slaughter we cant the questions of how data is used and abused from the question of how that is done differentially across different demographic groups. In other words, it is not even if it is primarily economically correlated, we also know it is racially correlated how different groups have different access to data and higherpaying services, and that structural inequity persists into questions of privacy. We have to be particularly careful and i think communities of color have to be particularly sensitive in the ways in which data is used, problem not problematically for communities in color. There is Academic Work on this including issues like algorithmic and surveillance technology. I do not pretend to have the answers, but i am very concerned about the dynamic. Peter does the ftc have a role in solving those issues that you describe . Comm. Slaughter to the extent that our job across our mission area is to protect consumers then we should absolutely be protecting the most vulnerable consumers and though much of our statute and mandates do not explicitly contemplate racial inequality, does contemplate other issues that directly reflect racial inequality in america today. I think that is part of the conversation that we are having and should be having and continue to have. Leah last year, the comments on whether to update the roles which was one of the laws that the ftc enforces related to childrens privacy. Can you give us an update on where that stands right now . Comm. Slaughter sure, thanks. I think one of the best things about the law is that it does give Rulemaking Authority that allows us to review and update the requirements around the law to make sure that we are keeping cases that involve technology. Technology is evolving so rapidly, and we have not appreciated that or than we have in the last year, i think. The last time it was updated was about eight or so years ago and that is eight lifetimes in terms of children technology. I am all for periodically reviewing rules, making sure they are working, seeing if there are better ways for them to work, and making sure we understand the technological ecosystem with which we are dealing. The second instance is that rulemaking is the only way to get that understanding is not the only way to get that understanding, particularly with respect to the ad tech domain, and how that affects children is also something we should be doing and would be valuable for us to have before any rulemaking is finalized. I do not want to be too prescriptive, and keeping an open mind about what it should look like, but it is extremely important to me that it be fully informed and we really understand what we are dealing with so that the rules we prescribe work well because there is no point in having them if they are not going to work well. Leah has the pandemic affected your thinking on this . Comm. Slaughter the pandemic has certainly affected the ecosystem in which we are dealing with in terms of childrens technology. I think it would be shortsighted to not take a breath and take into account the new technologies that have emerged, the way children are interacting with elegy, with technology and what implications that has. Leah i want to talk about antitrust, my favorite topic. There were a series of hearings on the state of antitrust at the beginning of the trip administration. The House Judiciary Committee has also had hearings on the same topic, and they might propose changes to antitrust laws based on their findings. What advice do you have for members of congress as they consider that . Comm. Slaughter i love talking about antitrust. It is really exciting to me in the first instance that this has become a topic of focus of Public Interest and congressional interest. I think certainly in the time that i have been working in congress, i never saw even a fraction of this amount of attention to antitrust and it is an important topic that affects the entire structure of our economy. I am excited to see the interest and see the attention, particularly because i think a lot of enforcement efforts have been hamstrung or setback by bad Court Decisions that limited private enforcement and that Congress Really needs to attack. I think that, first of all, folks in congress doing this work are doing it very thoughtfully and carefully and not need need to tell them how to do it, but i am confident that among the things they are looking at our court cases are court cases that have limited enforcement and how those might be changed, and also some of the structural burdens and structural barriers that enforces face. I hope they will also take a close look at Resource Management too. I have been concerned and continue to be that we are under resourced compared to the mandate in front of us, especially on the antitrust side. We do not decide how many mergers and visions get filed. That is work that comes mergers and acquisitions yet filed. That is work that comes to us. I am concerned that we see an increase in volume of work without a measured increase in resources. That means we cannot do the work as well. Notwithstanding any of that, i do not think the agency should be waiting for congress to do our own examination of what we can be doing differently and better. I said it was good to revisit the rule to see that it is working, i think we should be applying that same lens to our antitrust enforcement and figure out what we could be doing differently to make our enforcement more effective, where it is possible. I think we need to be a bit more skeptical of mergers, more aggressive on enforcement. You can think about remedies carefully, and i think we need to be taking stepping back and taking a big picture look on our priorities and how we can hone and improve them. Commissioner slaughter, there have been investigations of big pack when it comes to antitrust. What are your views on that big tech when it comes to antitrust. What are your views on that . Comm. Slaughter i will not make any comment on decisions. But i will echo that when you have these companies, you are likely to find antitrust problems. Of course you should be investigating them, and in an area where there has been allowed continuous, not politically, but out of academia and practitioners and participants in markets, to take a look at questions about anticompetitive conduct. Of course we should be looking at that stuff and follow the law and not be afraid to pursue violations when we find them. The last hearing they had, the ceos of apple, amazon, google, and facebook were questioned by members of congress. I wonder if you tuned into that and had any thought . Comm. Slaughter i thought it was interesting. I think it is great to see congressional investigations running even as Law Enforcement investigations are happening because they can play different roles and purposes. I just said, Law Enforcement investigations we cannot talk about what is happening, they do not theyre not particularly transparent. That is for good reason and i understand that. I think it is also understood important for the public to understand what is happening in these cases and for companies to be accountable to the public just as they are to lawenforcement. The hearing served at goal really well that goal really well and i was impressed by their ability to pull that off the middle of a pandemic with everybody scattered everywhere and everything on congresss plate. About a week ago, you had an interesting post on twitter about using antitrust to promote racial equity. Can you talk about your thoughts on that and how would that work in your view . Comm. Slaughter the reason i thought this was important to talk about is as i mentioned, at the beginning of the summer, a time when nationwide protests were springing up, i wasnt doing a lot of public speaking or engaging in public debate because i think it is important for parents to feel to take a step away from their work when they have new babies. I have been thinking about these issues and the National Conversation we are having an out of that to me is doing a lot of introspective work about how i can be part of the solution to some real profound, structural problems. Structural racism in this country. One thing that has struck me as bizarre about antitrust, even before this conversation, is the world of antitrust practitioners has really seen itself as valueneutral. That has been a principal that has been espoused principle that has been espoused. But this idea that it should be anti a political and valueneutral, i have never understood. It has never made a lot of sense to me. Let explain that a little bit. In every other area of Law Enforcement, we are perfectly comfortable with law enforcers setting policy priorities consistent with Public Policy values. A criminal prosecutor, who by the ways putting people in jail an enormously high stakes deal, saying im going to prioritize Violent Crime or indicate as this administration, immigration crime. We can agree or disagree with the priorities but we dont disagree with them setting those priorities. I dont understand why antitrust is the only area of Law Enforcement we dont think like that or we are not comfortable saying we think like that. At the end of the day, i dont think enforcement is ever value neutral. Just like i dont think we can ever live in a functionally race lined society. Sorry my lamp just fell down. I was saying that i think being race blind is one of those things that sounds like an aspirational goal but in reality, it lays out it plays out only to advance the dominant race or white people. I think being reportedly value neutral on antitrust reinforces social inequities. And in terms of specifically what i mean about antitrust being antiracist, i mean we should be conscious of the effects hour of force meant our enforcement should have on our system and prioritize enforcement that makes our Economic System more equitable rather than less. For example, we already Prioritize Health care enforcement. We have a whole division devoted to Health Care Enforcement and i think that is great and really important. Not just because health care is something where ordinary people feel the pinch of concentration and health care, but because health care is an area with enormous disparities among racial lives. Prioritizing including improving quality of health care to consumers and paying attention to transparency or the outcomes for patients of color an important thing. It is entirely consistent with our mandate and close to how we are functioning. Find that blend in other areas is important. Leah thank you. You have been in the minority at the ftc since you joined in 2018, but if the former Vice President wins in november, democrats will be in change of agency. Should joe biden win, what would you like to see as a priority . Comm. Slaughter in the last several years, as long as ive been doing this, theres been a lot of unity in the Democratic Caucus and even among president ial candidates about what we should be doing with the authority we have, and most of that includes more and better. More targeted enforcement in some of the ways ive talked about, and making our enforcement more effective. Which means making sure the cases we bring we resolve in ways that help the most consumers. For me, that often means having a really powerful deterrent effect. For example, i was concerned about our facebook settlement because i did not think it would adequately deter future bad behavior. I want to make sure when we bring cases we resolve them in ways we dont have to bring the same case again. I focused on some of those things. I think the ftc has a lot of Rulemaking Authority that has not been adequately explored, including on the Consumer Protection side and unfair methods of competition on the antitrust side. My colleague has written a very good law review article raising that issue. They deserve a lot of credit for servicing and authority that had been broadly discounted at the ftc for a long time. I think those things are important and also restoring some alilance to some of the back case law weve encountered, and helping bring resources up to speed with what our mission requires would be really important things we can work with congress on. Peter at the beginning of this interview, you mentioned the ftc are not political speech police. In your view, is a section 230 a key to the success of the internet and is there going to be any effect of a change to 230 on that neutrality . Comm. Slaughter so, first on Net Neutrality, that has been and i think should be, an fcc issue. Its a pretty powerful legislative issue. I think theres some sense that antitrust could achieve what fcc can achieve and it just doesnt. I put Net Neutrality in the fcc bucket as an extremely important priority. In terms of 230, i think the dialogue is very messy. People dont even theres not even widespread agreement about what section 230 is of people say is of. People say it is from the Communications Decency act. It is the communications act. What the law actually does is important for thriving internet businesses to an extent. Just like with antitrust im concerned about that there have been Court Decisions that misinterpret the intent of our statute and i think that is the same with section 232. 230 has been used as a shield for otherwise applicable civil liability. I think that is an important area to consider reform, but not the same as saying section 230 requires companies to be viewpoint neutral and if they arent, they should have liability. That doesnt have any basis in the law that i understand. I think let me answer in a short way. I think the debate is muddled. It is important to be precise about what the law does and doesnt do, and it does some important things today but it could be modified in important ways so it is not misused and abused to be a get out of jail free card for otherwise illegal behavior. Peter leah, time for a final question. Leah i was going to go back to Net Neutrality. One of the things that has impacted the ftc was the repeal of Net Neutrality. Do you think those rules should do you think those rules should be reinstated under Vice President biden as a title to service . Comm. Slaughter yes. Easy answer. [laughter] peter could you put an explanation on that . Comm. Slaughter i am happy to. Can, with ourwe existing Consumer Protection and antitrust laws provide the same meaningful protections for Broadband Access that the fcc could under title ii is incorrect, in my view. Our Consumer Protection authority rests largely on notice and consent, which i modelis a pretty broken for enforcement and im happy to i amore about that, but noticing consent as being adequately protective for consumers and it is hard for me to see the competition angle to provide those same protections and to do the kinds of things the fcc could do under Net Neutrality including with respect to privacy