Hes a democrat from california and he represents much of Silicon Valley. Our guest report is Emily Birnbaum of protocol. Thank you both for being on the communicators this week. Thank you for having us. Host representative khanna, as the representative of Silicon Valley how would you describe the reputation of some of the Member Companies in your district in washington . Guest on one hand there is a lot of positives. If you look at the polling, the Tech Companies pull above 6070 for their approval. Theres a sense these are companies some of them working on vaccines, the bioTech Companies working on antivirals. They are allowing for zoom for remote work, for remote calls. That they are engaged in allowing us to have communication, allowing us to get our groceries or information. That said, there are other ethical issues. Theres a sense are so essential workers being paid a partly . Are these platforms thing that the combat hate speech and Voter Suppression . Are they doing enough to pay workers a living wage . So its a complex narrative. Host and theres been talk on capitol hill of regulating the Tech Companies, the Communications Companies more than they are now. Are you in favor of that . Guest i am as long as it is wellcrafted regulation. If its regulation that we came up with the internet bill of rights that regulation to protect privacy, to foster competition such as being able to move your data here if your friends on facebook you should be able to take them to a different platform so they can encourage competition. If its regulation to make sure that we have the wages being paid properly for independent contractors. Im for a lot of good regulation but i dont think it should be a sledgehammer that hurts innovation or hurts consumers of job creation. Host lets bring Emily Birnbaum of protocol into this conversation. Thanks for having me. Good to you. Good to see if your we are coming on an unprecedented hearing, so jeff bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, tim cook are going to appear before congress appeared before the House Judiciary Committee which of course youre not on what a wanted to ask you, this is happening, the antitrust committee will be asking them about their market dominance in their power. What do you hope lawmakers will ask during that hearing and what are you looking for from the companies . Guest what im looking for is to see what theyre going to make sure company should be able to use their own platforms to suppress competition. I think the question is how do we have a nuanced conversation about that thats not just break up a company, break up apple or google but what we do to make sure other companies can compete, that they are not charging too much for the use of their own platforms, that they are not hurting competition . And how do have a nuanced antitrust conversation about the framework . Are you in favor of our current antitrust laws . Guest i am. What with that look like . What is that nuanced regulation . Guest i think we have to in terms of updating antitrust law i think look at more than consumer welfare. We have to look at the impact on jobs, look at the impact on suppressing competition. We have to look at the impact on communities. If there are large mergers i think they would have to be looked at with great scrutiny. In retrospect we shouldnt have approved the Facebook Instagram merger or Facebook Whatsapp merger and the should be much higher bar on future mergers being approved. I also think in terms of tech in particular we ought to look at what these companies are doing in terms of getting access to their platforms, other prioritizing their own products or their own search . Making sure theyre not doing that. On the topic of mergers come mergers are top of mind during a pandemic in which we saw these top tech copies become larger as a lot of startups have people said to be a real windfall and with similar acquisitions. Uber announced they are going to be a quite housemates and a couple of antitrust talks have said this raises some concerns about monopoly in the food delivery business. Do you share those concerns . Guest i do. I do. For similar reasons i had a concern with amazon merging with whole foods. These companies are so powerful, so large, having them expand the footprint is problematic. It puts pressure on the labor markets where workers then dont have as Many Employers to go to. So you could see a decline in wages. It puts pressure on companies in those fields, in those new sectors, very hard for them to compete. I really think these Tech Companies should limit themselves to more or less organic growth and should not be trying to expand their footprin footprint. Just to switch topics that to focus on one of the companies, so facebook is facing this historic advertiser boycott in which hundreds of companies have said im just a advertising of facebook on instagram your twitter has become a part of it. Have you spoken to the executives at facebook since the boycott began . If so, what kind of advice are you giving them . Do you think theyre doing enough . Guest let me i dont member when i last communicated before after the boycott but these issues have been salient. My view is wept wrapped of a vy thoughtful view of the speech here even under the brandenburg standard which is the United States standard, the view is that you can have speech as long as its not promoting unlawful conduct. Thats similar to International Human rights law in covenant 19 which says you cannot have speech that is an incitement to violence, incitement to hostility and discrimination. So what i would say to facebook is you cant just have view that any speech goes. Thats not the First Amendment doctrine, and we have to look at his speech suppressing the vote . Is speech leading to violence . Is speech making it harder for others to have the quality on the platform . And regulate that speech, at least d amplifying that speech in terms of the promotion of it. Host right now it seems only on the conservative side that speech is been limited. Is that a fair statement . Guest no, i dont think thats true at all. I think if you look at facebook or twitter, that theyve taken down things on the left as well if they found that speech was harassing or if it was inciting violence or if it was unlawful. I do think there is a balance. When you some like donald trump, like totally disagree with, i dont think it makes sense to set okay, were going to ban donald trump from the social media platforms. He is still the president of the United States and to me that would just be further inciting his supporters and his base. But do i think that donald trump, if he has an inflammatory tweet that is inciting violence, that tweet should be amplified . No. So i think there are ways when we can allow for speech but not cathing in ways that amplified violence or hate in making others uncomfortable or participating. Look, these are complex issues. The Supreme Court has been grappling with them for generations. The bigger issue is, we cant trust zuckerberg or dorsey to come up with the right formulation of what is truth and what is the proper deliberation and democracy. What i hope is the really consult a broad range of experts, and think through what theyre obligation should look like. Host but at the same time these are private companies and they dont have to put any speech on there if they dont want to, do they . Guest they dont and youre absolutely right, but technically of course they dont have to be covered by First Amendment principles and the could be making their own decisions. But you really want that, especially if youre a liberal and you dont live in citizens united, you dont leave corporation should have that kind of power, do you want facebook with 2. 6 billion users to have the power to determine our speech and a democracy . My sense is you probably dont want that. My hope is that these companies will take their responsibilities seriously and at the very least maybe one idea i had is edited content like an code. Right on top they have here the facts of the day or something you need to know. Why not have some content for your fox, msnbc, wall street journal, Washington Post on board and you 30 minutes the clips pictures of the news of the day the cousin of you wednesday. Thats just one idea but i do think they have to grapple with their responsibilities especially because if they dont its not like you can and social Media Companies. Thats an argument for competition. Imagine if you just had one Walter Cronkite doing all of the news. I know Walter Cronkite was the most trusted, but in my view its better that we have multiplicity of channels and so then the question is how do we create standards with a multiplicity of perspectives . So today, facebook has heated some of what youre saying and they have brought on some civil rights experts to audit the company over issues like hate speech and some of what they said today in a very long report was that facebook it take a mishandled post from donald trump. As you were saying before, if donald trump is inciting or people inciting violence, then they shouldnt be allowed to be on facebook. In particular facebook got a lot of criticism over the past couple of weeks for a string of donald trump that twitter took action against one of the miss it was inciting violence, talking about protesters in front of the white house. A couple were about the election, about voter fraud which ultimately experts said was not true. Do you think facebook mishandled Donald Trumps hosts in a in ay Pivotal Moment . Guest i wouldve handled carefully. I think jack dorsey handled it better but i dont think thats the main issue. The reality is jack dorsey said Donald Trumps misleading about voter ballots, doing that didnt probably led to more people reading the tweet. Do i think dorsey took a better approach . Yes, but i think the question for facebook is like on civil rights is that how are the handling donald trump tweets. Its more broad. How are the handling speech that is giving people false information about how to vote . How are the handling speech that is intentionally designed to target young africanamerican voters and suppress their vote . How are they targeting speech that could be harassing or intimidating and making women in particular uncomfortable . The u. N. Had report how women faced 2030 times the harassment and theres an excellent book by a professor who talks about harassment that people face. My view is donald trump stuff gets the headline but the our pharma systemic issues with social media and how do you balance the right to Free Expression with the right to equal participation. These are difficult questions. All i would say is i dont think im qualified to make the decision. I dont think Mark Zuckerberg should be making the decision. The more he can get people like the professor and people who spend their life studying this on some board to help them make those decisions, the better. So youre talking about these issues are systemic and wired. Most industries right now are undergoing some form of racial reckoning specifically about their workforce. They are responding to the reinvigorate a black lives matter movement. Tech is no exception. Doing some soulsearching about the homogeneity of the workforce which is predominately white and male still just after they pledged to make change on this. Why do you think tech has struggled so much to improve racial diversity in its workforce . Are the legislative pathways to dealing with it . Guest there has to be legislative pathways. I think its a huge issue. Black americans are mostly underrepresented on Venture Capital, less than 1 , less thaa entrepreneurs. Representative clyburn and i announced a partnership with sue where theyre going to be partnering with hbcus in South Carolina to hire people, out of that program to provide fellowships. I dont think we can live it just to private initiative. We have to take action. There are a few things i would suggest. Look at californias law in regarding a percentage of women on the board. Lets make that national and have a requirement of underrepresented groups of black and white necks as well. Lets tie federal contracts for softer Software Company stepping more diversity on executive teams. Lets provide hiring tax credits like they did in quebec, people trying folks or hiring underrepresented groups. You are very concrete policy steps we can take to deal with the inequities. All of the city show in the longterm having more diversity leads to increase profitability, having more women, or black and brown people on executive teams and boards. The problem is the start of culture is so much focus in just making it and surviving that they dont take the longer term view. We need a legislative incentive to a people take that longerterm view. Final point that i feel very passionate on, manufacturing is left our country in many ways, and we still need to fight for manufacturing but it has led to the increase in the wealth gap. The racial wealth gap in structures increase over the last three decades and manufacturing leading. Leaving. The reason it is increasing, one of the recent is the inequity of the innovation sector, that the black community has not benefit from the ipos and the wealth generation. We have to fix that. Host when you say fix that, as emily mitch in the legislative response, what specifically would you do at this point . Guest i mentioned a few of the suggestions, requiring board representation and diversity, requiring that a contract to be to the executive teams, requiring tax incentives to hire underrepresented groups like they did in quebec. One other great ideas top of foundation for our universities to have a tax incentive to invest their Pension Funds or endowments with funds that are investing in black or latin acts or women on tumors and maybe would help give 1 of the Venture Capital into black communities, latinx communities, women entrepreneurs. I think we need legislative structural change. We seen this in some other countries where they have those kind of laws and it is like to more equity trade what i apologize come should ask this a different way. Would you see these as standalone bills . Would you include in an infrastructure bill that funds more broadband . How would you do that . Guest jim clyburn has a bill thats so powerful on getting everyone hooked up to highspeed internet. I dont know why that is controversial. 80 billion. It would help lack americans as much as it would help americans. One book talks with exclusion of jobs in urban black communities and another book talks about the exclusion of jobs towards white world working class and how that is like to greater disparity. My guess view is this should ba Broad Coalition of republicans and democrats that satan cant we get universal broadband . Cant we get incentives to get Venture Capital . Think about this. In manufacturing in this country in the 60s and 70s were only in five cities the if we had big Manufacturing Centers in San Francisco or it was only in detroit and cleveland, manufacturing wasnt spread out we would never have a robust that the situation we have for the innovation economy. Its been concentrated. It has excluded large group geographically, racially, gender wise. The do monsters edition of the economy is one of the big challenges. Host could use social Media Companies and broadband companies, Telecommunication Companies being considered as utilities and regulated as such . Guest thats a a step too far. The reason is i wouldnt trust the federal regulators to understand the innovation thats required to make the next iphone. I think steve jobs would probably roll over in his grave if he thought people i was going to a point of going to be in charge of victory over the next iphone should be what the next innovation should be. But i do think we need smart regulation or the other thing with utility, its a guaranteed rate of profit. There may be some entrepreneur out there was a better social Media Network that is coming up. I am for competition. I am for innovation and entrepreneurship, but not in an unregulated way. Right now we have led, let the Tech Companies basically, weve let technology in this country developed with the invisible hand is not really think about the issues of equity in the back its having on our democracy. So right now there is some regulation coming down the pike that Tech Companies per unanimously had said that they are not comfortable with. They think it goes too far and thats the earn it act which is moving to the Senate Judiciary committee. It was just past and an altered form to the committee. They shifted the language to make it similar to allow that i know you have long opposed. Do you have concerns about the earn it act . Guest i do. I had to look at it in more detail but i think where to look at unintended consequences when you start to regulate types of activity or speech on why, or conduct that was sex work as the consequence of that is a lot of sex workers felt they could no longer practice what theyre doing safely online. They were forced onto the streets and that led to increased violence. We have to be careful that these solutions dont end up hurting vulnerable individuals. So the mission of the earn it act is really to ensure there is less child pornography, child sex abuse material strictly online. We know this is an issue. We know that are millions of images. Is it any smart legislative fix to that problem . Guest yes, i do think so. I think, look, child pornography is not protected by the First Amendment. It should not be protected under section 230 if there is knowing awareness of child pornography. And if its a narrowly crafted legislation, then i would be for it. But as long as its not impeding these sites to remove all conversations about sex or sexuality author platforms. Let me give you an example. One of the most common forms of litigation that Companies Face is with the me too movement, that individuals who bring legitimate complaints or concerns against someone who has sexually harassed them or engage in sexual violence, also women against men, men end up selling them for libel or suing the platform for libel. My point is these are comput specious. I dont want to create a framework that would make it harder to have me too stories online. At the same time we dont want to have child pornography. We just have to think about the whole complexity of the issue. And i think that the scent of those discussions is section 230, thats the law that many lawmakers are taking aim at right now saying thats the problem with speech online. Have there been any section 230 bills introduced, or considered that you would get behind . Guest so far i havent seen one that i would get behind because a lot of the conversation is coming from people like josh hawley and oh so i think what to do away with it. It doesnt mean there are modifications i would be open to and no law is perfect. If there were modifications that were necessary, of course i would consider them. Net of them have come across your desk yet . Guest none of them, no. We have seen anything. Some like anna eshoo whos the leader on the subcommittee of energy and commerce, jan schakowsky, if something came from them i would of course consider it very seriously. Host congressman khanna, california californias privacy law has just taken effect. Have you seen any changes . Guest i have seen some changes in companies trying to comply with it. Of course they had to comply with the gdpr. It was an act, heavy lift but its too early to say whether how much of an impact its going to have. I think its a step in the right direction. The big challenge is enforcement. Theres not a very strong enforcement mechanism. It requires private causes of action, limited the 750. Is there enough teeth in it from a state perspective . Thats why we need a National Standard with more enforcement. Host do you see the possibility in this congress of the National Standard being passed and signed into law . Guest i would hope so. No, not this congress pecos we run in an election year. We came up with a framework on the internet bill of rights, one basic protections that americans should have. That should be bipartisan. That really should be and i dont understand why its been so hard to get consensus on it. Host Emily Birnbaum, we have time for about one more question. Okay. Can you talk a little bit about how covid has changed conversations on capitol hill about broadband . Do you think new momentum, you know, that is coming from the pandemic could accelerate efforts to close the Digital Divide . Is her actual movement, or other going to get stuck on the same problems again . Guest there should be movement. Jim clyburn lizotte a lot of support. I would hope that the president support it. There are 12 million tech jobs right now. Thats about comparable to manufacturing. Microsoft has estimated theres going to be 129 million global tech jobs over the next ten years, and its going to matter to us access to those jobs, who has the credentials for those jobs. And that Tech Companies are fair in engaging in recruiting broadly and retaining people and having greater equity. We have a systemic problem in this country where the access to the innovation economy has been limited. Broadband is just the table stakes. We shouldve done that in the 1990s, and i think if 2016 wasnt a wakeup call for our country and around the world, but deindustrialization let people behind, left them with very little prospects, this has created faultlines of democracy, that i dont know what would be. What if the Big Questions for us is what comes next . Yes, we have to fight to bring advanced manufacturing back, but given that we have this extraordinary new sector which in gdp is already creating value in manufactured and it will only continue increase, we cant as a nation be unified or stitch our country back together or have equity if we dont expand access, and broadband is that for step. Host youve alluded to this a couple of times during the half hour that weve been talking. Do members of congress over all understand the issues that are involved with technology . Guest i think theres a long way to go. In candor, i think you dont understand or consequential technology is. If you look at the stock market, which is an indication come it has been carried by technology. If you look at four of the Largest Companies that are trillion dollars plus, they are technology companies. If you look at the future of jobs have most of the jobs that will not be automatic and a lot of those jobs are going to be technology jobs. There is not a sufficient recognition of how Transformational Technology is going to be in our economy and how unequal it is. And our challenge really is to figure out how to address the distribution of technology opportunity. I think thats a challenge for the country and doesnt get enough attention in the media and and i dont think it gets enough attention in congress. Host currently in his second term, congressman ro khanna represents much of Silicon Valley. Hes a democrat. Emily birnbaum is a tech policy reporter for protocol and what is protocol and working people read it . Protocol is the newly launched website focus on the people power and politics of the tech industry. You can find us at protocol. Com. Host thank you both for being on the communicators. Thanks so much. Guest thank you. 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