Axios

Mobile phone apps are evolving in ways that can stop rather than simply document deadly police encounters with people of color — including notifying family and lawyers about potential violations in real time.

Why it matters: As states and cities face pressure to reform excessive force policies, apps that monitor police are becoming more interactive, gathering evidence against rogue officers as well as posting social media videos to shame the agencies.

The White House is again giving TikTok's Chinese parent company more to satisfy national security concerns, rather than initiating legal action, a source familiar with the situation tells Axios.

The state of play: China's ByteDance had until Friday to resolve issues raised by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), which is chaired by Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin. This was the company's third deadline, with CFIUS having provided two earlier extensions.

Misinformation is proliferating on Facebook about January's Senate election in Georgia despite the company's stated plans to keep conspiracy theories and falsehoods around the runoffs at bay, a new report from nonprofit human-rights group Avaaz finds.

Why it matters: The Georgia runoffs are a huge test for the fact-checking and labeling abilities of Facebook and other social media companies, as President Trump and his allies continue to spread false theories about voter fraud.

As the pandemic forces students out of school, broadband deployment programs aren't going to move fast enough to help families in immediate need of better internet access. But Democrats at the Federal Communications Commission say the incoming Biden administration could put a dent in that digital divide with one fast policy change.

State of play: An existing FCC program known as E-rate provides up to $4 billion for broadband at schools, but Republican FCC chairman Ajit Pai has resisted modifying the program during the pandemic to provide help connecting students at home.

A proposed executive order that could keep American cloud computing companies out of certain foreign countries is being circulated within the Trump administration and to tech industry players, Axios has learned, disconcerting the firms that could be affected.

Why it matters: The proposal would likely represent a chance to plant another tough-on-China flag before the president leaves office. The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to prove that it will stand up to countries that it believes want to supplant or infiltrate American tech.