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Axios on HBO: Incoming Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth on technology’s role in the spread of misinformation

Longtime Facebook veteran Andrew Bosworth insists that political and COVID-19 misinformation are societal problems rather than issues that have been magnified by social networks.

Why it matters: Critics say Facebook and other social networks have played a significant role in vaccine hesitancy and the spread of political misinformation.

"Individual humans are the ones who choose to believe or not believe a thing. They are the ones who choose to share or not share a thing," Bosworth said in an interview with "Axios on HBO." 

"I don't feel comfortable at all saying they don't have a voice because I don't like what they said."

Bosworth has been leading Facebook's hardware efforts, including those in virtual and augmented reality. Next year he will become CTO for Meta, Facebook's parent company.

Between the lines: Asked whether vaccine hesitancy would be the same with or without social media, Bosworth defended Facebook's role in combatting COVID, noting that the company ran one of the largest information campaigns in the world to spread authoritative information. 

He said that individuals make the choice whether to listen to that information or to rely on less reputable information spread by friends and family.

"That's their choice. They are allowed to do that. You have an issue with those people. You don't have an issue with Facebook. You can't put that on me."

The big picture: Pressed on whether Facebook and others are amplifying those views, Bosworth characterized it as a demand problem rather than one caused by the amount of misinformation on social media.

"People want that information," Bosworth said. "I don't believe that the answer is 'I will deny these people the information they seek and I will enforce my will upon them.' "

"At some point the onus is, and should be in any meaningful democracy, on the individual."

Facebook exec blames society for COVID misinformation

"You don't have an issue with Facebook. You can't put that on me."

Facebook

Big Tech

Misinformation

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Axios on HBO

Axios Closer

Retailers are fighting online anonymity to stop stolen goods from being resold on the internet.

Driving the news: CEOs of nearly two dozen retail companies threw their weight today behind legislation aimed at marketplaces like Amazon and eBay in a letter to congressional leaders.

The INFORM Consumers Act would require online giants to verify sellers and enable buyers to verify sellers and to see contact information.

Why it matters: Organized retail crime has spread as the pace of online shopping reached record levels throughout the pandemic. 

That fever pitch, experts and retailers say, has amplified incentives for reselling stolen goods. 

“It's become a low-risk crime,” says Brian Dodge, president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association. 

Catch up quick: Retailers see $45 billion in annual losses, up from $30 billion a decade ago, according to the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, a retail loss prevention and law enforcement trade group.

Flash mobs have targeted retail chains ranging from CVS, Home Depot and Target to Nordstrom, Burberry and Louis Vuitton.

Everything from furniture and electronics to beauty products and over-the-counter drugs has shown up on large platforms like Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp and Amazon, according to local reports around the country.

If passed, the INFORM Act could make theft harder, says Dodge. 

Today, those thieves can sell products to unsuspecting customers, he adds, “hiding behind fake usernames and untraceable email addresses rather than legitimate kinds of business information that any other operating business would have to provide — like a name.”

What they’re saying: Amazon has said it supports the House version of the bill, while also saying it opposes legislation that has goals of favoring "large brick-and-mortar retailers at the expense of small businesses that sell online."

Facebook declined to comment on the bills.

Be smart: Where the House and Senate bills differ — the Senate version would require sellers with high volume to be verified, which could make compliance more difficult.

Retailers push for new rules stopping online sale of stolen goods

Organized retail crime has spread as the pace of online shopping reached record levels throughout the pandemic.

Illustration of the US Capitol building made of a barcode.

Retail

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo made waves in Washington when she criticized Europe's planned regulations of tech companies, despite the White House's interests in reining in the sector at home.

Why it matters: The incident reveals the balancing act the Biden administration performs as it weighs talking tough on Big Tech while standing up for U.S. firms abroad.

Driving the news: In a speech Wednesday, Raimondo said she's worried about two major pieces of legislation currently being considered in the EU, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. 

"The EU wants to use these pieces of legislation to create a fair, transparent and safe digital space," Raimondo said. The acts aim to bolster competition and enforce content moderation in the EU.

"But we have serious concerns that these proposals will disproportionately impact U.S.-based tech firms and their ability to adequately serve EU customers and uphold security and privacy standards."

She called for EU officials to "continue listening to concerns by stakeholders before finalizing their legislation."

The intrigue: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), an outspoken critic of Big Tech, called Raimondo out in a tweet for seemingly going off-message from the administration.

"This is wrong - and contradicts the President's July announcement that a 'small number of dominant internet platforms' are undermining our economy and must be held accountable," she tweeted.

A video clip of Raimondo's speech was praised by a Big Tech funded-group, causing consternation by some in the White House that want to see regulation of the industry.

What they're saying: A White House spokesperson tells Axios Raimondo was referring to the "standard practice" of representing American interests to foreign governments.

"We would all agree that is not in contradiction with our strong pro-competition approach and the actions we will continue to take," the spokesperson said, noting the president's competition executive order from July.

The other side: "In our system, the people who are the objects of the legislation are not part of making the legislation," EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager told reporters Thursday when asked if U.S. companies had a seat at the table when crafting the DMA and DSA.

"They are part of the hearing processes, they are part of the discussion, but it's for our legislature to make the decisions about what way to go," she said. 

Go deeper: The world regulates Big Tech while U.S. dithers

Europe triples down on tough rules for tech

The Biden administration's tightrope act on tech

The incident reveals the balancing act the Biden administration performs.

Photo illustration of a blurry President Biden with the EU stars in the background

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Tech giants including Instagram are calling for Congress' help in figuring out just how old their users actually are.

Why it matters: In order to create child-friendly experiences, online platforms need to identify which users are actually children.

Driving the news: Instagram head Adam Mosseri became the latest industry leader to highlight the challenges of verifying the ages of users at a hearing before the Senate Commerce consumer protection subcommittee on Wednesday.

Children under 13 aren't allowed on Instagram, but Mosseri told lawmakers it is very difficult to verify ages on the internet, especially given many teens don't have government-issued IDs.

The company uses "classifiers" to try to predict age and asks users who appear too young to prove their age, Mosseri said.

"It's not perfect, which is why I believe there are better, industry-wide ways to solve age verification because it really is an industry challenge," Mosseri said.

Catch up quick: A federal law, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, requires online services to obtain parental consent before collecting data and personal information about users under 13.

Many online services use an age gate — asking a user to enter their birthdate — to determine age, but there are obvious limitations to that approach.

The intrigue: Mosseri pitched lawmakers on age verification at the phone-level. 

"Have a parent who gives their 14-year-old a device tell the phone that their child is 14, as opposed to having every app — and there's millions of apps out there —trying to verify the age on their own," Mosseri said.

He also called for "an industry body" that will determine best practices on how to verify the age of users, how to build age-appropriate experiences and how to build parental controls.

Meanwhile, TikTok also has highlighted the limitations of the age-verification work it does, and has pushed for legislation from Congress to address the issue. 

Michael Beckerman, vice president and head of U.S. public policy for TikTok, said an update to COPPA should include "a better way to verify age across the internet, across apps rather than the system that is in place now," during a Senate hearing in October.

Reality check: Some legislators and advocates find it hard to believe the platforms can't determine the ages of their users, given the information they collect.

"If a platform has information that allows them to serve up advertising and for them to offer advertisers age brackets below what is supposed to be available on their site, I think it demonstrates they have the capacity to protect those same individuals," Amina Fazlullah, director of equity policy for Common Sense Media, told Axios.

"If they really want to do age verification, they could have done it well before now," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D- Conn.) said at a press conference following today's hearing.

"They have the data," Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said at the press conference about Instagram's age verification claims. "This is something they have the capability to do and we would like to see them implement this sooner rather than later."

The big picture: Lawmakers of both parties are outraged over social media's potential to harm kids, and have promised regulation to better protect children online.

But they showed little interest in Instagram's struggles with age verification or Mosseri's pitch for an industry body to tackle the issue at the hearing.

"They want Congress to give them a political out and say do the age gating and all the problems are gone versus regulating the business model, " Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, told Axios. 

Social platforms say it's hard to tell which users are kids

To create child-friendly experiences, online platforms need to know which users are children.

Illustration of two children facing a giant ominous computer.

Instagram

Instagram head Adam Mosseri testified before Senate lawmakers Wednesday and was pressed on the app's impacts on young children and teens.

Why it matters: Legislation to protect kids online is one area Congress has shown it's willing to regulate, as Axios previously reported. Wednesday's back-and-forth gave momentum to lawmakers eager to make more rules for social media platforms and how children and teens can use them.

Details: Lawmakers questioned Mosseri on internal research from Meta, Instagram's parent company, tried to get him to support bills and brought up ways their staff was able to find harmful content on the app that is supposed to be banned.

Mosseri did not commit to never pursuing an Instagram for Kids app in a back-and-forth with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.): "What I can commit to today, is that no child between the ages of 10 of 12, should we ever manage to build Instagram for 10- to 12-year-olds, will have access to that without their explicit parental consent," said Mosseri.

Senators managed to catch Mosseri off-guard a few times about Instagram policies: Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) pressed Mosseri on an interview he did with popular dancer and influencer JoJo Siwa, who said in a June interview she's been on Instagram since age 8, which is against the platform's rules. "That was a missed opportunity," to address underage kids using Instagram use, Mosseri said.

Mosseri also revealed during questioning by Blackburn that Instagram made accounts for those under the age of 16 on iOS and Android private by default, but had not done so on desktop.

3. Mosseri hesitated to say Instagram was addictive or bad for mental health: Lawmakers referenced a recent Surgeon General report that says certain kinds of online activity "likely do harm some young people." Mosseri said he does not believe research shows that social media drives a rise in suicides, and told Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) that he was selectively interpreting the Surgeon General report.

4. Instagram will soon let users go back to a chronological feed. Mosseri said Instagram is working on a content feed to let users sort their feeds chronologically, like Instagram used to be prior to 2016, and will roll it out early next year. 

Go deeper: Instagram's boss faces Congress' questions on harm to teens

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that Sen. Dan Sullivan represents Alaska, not Arkansas.

The four key moments from Instagram's Hill hearing

The Instagram head speaks into a microphone.

Adam Mosseri. Photo: Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Policymaking

Media

Apple won't have to implement changes to its App Store just yet after an appeals court granted the company a stay on the ruling from its case against Epic on Wednesday. 

Why it matters: Apple can breathe a sigh of relief while its lawyers argue the case in coming months, knowing it does not have to open iOS to alternative in-app payment methods, as the trial court judge had ordered, until the appeal is resolved, Axios' Scott Rosenberg writes.

The changes were scheduled to go into effect on Dec. 9 prior to the court's ruling. 

Background:  In September, a judge ruled that Apple was required to let Epic, and other developers, tell users about alternative payment mechanisms and to link out to their own transaction systems.

Apple had kicked Epic out of the app store after the gaming company added its own payment area to the Fortnite app. Epic then filed suit, arguing that Apple was abusing a monopoly over its store.

Although Apple was required to change its app store policies, the court sided with Apple on many of Epic's other claims. The gaming company said it would appeal the ruling.

What they're saying: Apple "demonstrated, at minimum, that its appeal raises serious questions on the merits of the district court’s determination," the appeals court wrote. 

Appeals court pauses changes to Apple's App Store

A judge previously ruled that the tech giant was required to let developers tell users about alternative payment mechanisms and to link out to their own transaction systems.

Epic Games logo is on a smartphone screen and Apple logo in the background. Photo: Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Apple

Gaming

The head of Instagram called for the creation of an industry body to develop best practices for protecting youngsters online during his first appearance before Congress, as Big Tech faces blowback from lawmakers over tech's harms to children.

Why it matters: Republicans and Democrats have found common ground in grilling tech companies on how their products harm children, especially after revelations in The Wall Street Journal about Instagram's potential harm to the mental health of teen girls.

Driving the news: In opening remarks before the Senate Commerce consumer protection subcommittee, Instagram head Adam Mosseri highlighted research that found more U.S. teens are using TikTok and YouTube than Instagram as he pressed for industry-wide solutions.

He suggested an "an industry body" that will determine best practices when it comes to  safety concerns including how to verify the age of users, how to build age-appropriate experiences and how to build parental controls. 

"This is an industry-wide challenge that requires industry-wide solutions and industry-wide standards," Mosseri told lawmakers.

Ahead of the hearing, Mosseri announced changes Instagram is making to better protect young users, including launching the Take a Break option for a user that's been scrolling for a certain amount of time and building a feature that will nudge teens toward different topics if they've been dwelling on one.

The company also announced that it plans a March launch for tools parents can use to see — and limit— how much time their kids spend on Instagram.

The other side: The Senate subcommittee, led by chairman Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and ranking member Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), has delved into how online platforms can harm kids' mental health as part of a series of hearings this fall.

Blumenthal dismissed the changes Mosseri announced, calling the parental controls the "bare minimum" and saying there are no effective warnings or notices to parents when their children are spiraling into eating disorders, bullying or self-harm. 

"Parents and children need more power, more effective tools to protect themselves on the platform," Blumenthal said at the hearing, promising legislative action.

The big picture: Protecting children online is the rare area where lawmakers have successfully passed legislation, albeit decades ago, through the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.

That law requires websites to get parents' consent before collecting data about users under 13 years old. Critics say the Federal Trade Commission has failed to aggressively enforce the requirements and argue the rules should apply to teens as well.

"COPPA is still the only commercial online privacy law the United States has," Jeff Chester, executive director of the  Center for Digital Democracy, told Axios. "Once you turn 13, in the United States you no longer have any protections."

Yes, but: Some tech companies argue that children are going to use their products anyway, so it's better if they offer services that are meant for children, such as the now-paused Instagram Kids idea.

YouTube, which faced an FTC fine for COPPA violations in 2019, has different services and products for younger users, including YouTube Kids, Made for Kids and Supervised Experiences.

Meanwhile, the Facebook research publicized by whistleblower Frances Haugen and real-world experience have demonstrated the limits of the COPPA rules.

The United Kingdom has developed its "Age Appropriate Design Code," a set of 15 standards online services must adhere to meant to protect the best interests of children online, such as setting the highest-privacy setting as default.

Lawmakers including Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who authored COPPA when he was in the House, have also introduced legislation to update the rules.  

Reality check: Observers aren't expecting big revelations from the hearing, but rather for it to add momentum to the push for new legislation.

"The fundamental issues that Instagram and Facebook face relate to their business model," Jim Steyer, founder and CEO of Common Sense, told Axios. "And Adam Mosseri is not going to get up in front of the Senate and promise to change the business model."

The bottom line: "So far Congress has shown they're all bark and no bite when it comes to regulating the online industry, even for kids," the Center for Digital Democracy's Chester told Axios.

"If there's one opportunity for bipartisan legislation, it should be protecting kids and teens online."

Editor’s note: This post has been updated with new details throughout.

Instagram's boss faces Congress' questions on harm to teens

Adam Mosseri's testimony comes after a mounting wave of criticism based on leaked reports.

Photo illustration of the US Capitol building shining a light in Adam Mosseri’s eyes.

Photo illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios. Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for WIRED

Axios Media Trends

Roku and Google have agreed to a multi-year extension for both YouTube and YouTube TV apps to be distributed on Roku.

Why it matters: Roku's deal with Google to distribute YouTube was set to expire this month. Without a deal, YouTube would've been removed from Roku's channel store, creating a big competitive disadvantage, especially during the holiday season. 

Details: "Roku and Google have agreed to a multi-year extension for both YouTube and YouTube TV," a Roku spokesperson said.

"This agreement represents a positive development for our shared customers, making both YouTube and YouTube TV available for all streamers on the Roku platform.”

Catch up quick: Roku first warned customers in April that YouTube TV, Google's live TV skinny bundle app, may be forced off its platform if the two companies couldn't come to an agreement. A few days later, the app was removed from the Roku store.

In October, Roku warned customers that it still not been able to strike a distribution agreement with Google for YouTube TV, which had been removed from Roku's store for five months.

It also said Google was threatening to make its regular YouTube app unavailable to new users on Roku if an agreement wasn't reached by December.

Be smart: At the heart of these conflicts were allegations from Roku that Google was making anti-competitive demands as a part of its distribution agreements, including preferential treatment of its YouTube TV and YouTube apps within the Roku system. 

Roku did not back down from these allegations for months, and Google publicly denied them. In October, CNBC reported it had seen an email showing that YouTube executives had made such demands in 2019. Axios had also seen that email and can confirm the contents.

Democratic members of Congress weighed in with support for Roku following the latest public clash in October.

The big picture: The long-term nature of the deal allows Roku to avoid having another messy spat with Google for a while, giving consumers more certainty at a time when these types of fights between streamers, programmers and app developers are becoming more frequent. 

Go deeper: TV battles spill into streaming

Roku, Google settle messy battle over YouTube distribution

Roku's deal with Google to distribute YouTube was set to expire this month.

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Google

Google LLC has filed a lawsuit against a botnet named Glupteba, believed to be operated from Russia. It's a network that the company says has been infecting Google services on Windows computers for years.

Why it matters: Tech companies are taking the reins in fighting back against computer hackers, not just relying on law enforcement to do it.

Companies like Google and Microsoft have huge teams working on preventing attacks and hacking, as botnets and other cyberattacks impact users.

Details: Google's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, alleges that the botnet, a network of devices infected with malware, engages in various criminal schemes on the devices it infiltrates.

The suit says those schemes include: stealing accounts and selling them to third parties, selling credit card information for fraudulent purchases, selling ads on infected devices, and selling access for devices to be used as proxies for cyber criminals to conceal locations and IP addresses.

This lawsuit is filed against the operators of the botnet and alleges, among other things, computer fraud and abuse and trademark infringement.

Driving the news: Google said in the lawsuit the botnet network has operated since at least 2011 and infected more than 1 million Microsoft Windows devices.

The company says it's the first lawsuit against a blockchain-enabled botnet.

Google's suit comes after Microsoft announced Monday it seized websites from a Chinese hacking group that was carrying out cyberattacks.

What they're saying: "Unfortunately, Glupteba’s use of blockchain technology as a resiliency mechanism is notable here and is becoming a more common practice among cyber crime organizations," wrote Google general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado and VP of security Royal Hansen in a blog post. 

Google sues foreign botnet operators

Tech companies are taking the reins in fighting back against computer hackers.

Atlanta

Axios Atlanta

Newspapers all over the country have been quietly filing antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook for the past year, alleging the two firms monopolized the digital ad market for revenue that would otherwise go to local news. 

Why it matters: What started as a small-town effort to take a stand against Big Tech has turned into a national movement, with over 200 newspapers involved across dozens of states. 

"The intellectual framework for this developed over the last 3-4 years," said Doug Reynolds, managing partner of HD Media, a holding company that owns several West Virginia newspapers, including the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

Reynolds, along with a group of lawyers, filed the first newspaper lawsuit of this kind in January in West Virginia.

Catch up quick: As a part of the first lawsuit, Reynolds worked with a coalition of lawyers that has agreed to represent newspapers all over the country looking to file similar lawsuits. 

The lawyers include experts in antitrust litigation and lawyers with a personal interest in newspapers from Farrell and Fuller, Fitzsimmons Law Firm, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP and Herman Jones LLP. 

The lawsuits are being funded via contingencies, which means the lawyers involved only get paid if and when the newspapers win settlements.  

By the numbers: To-date, the group has been retained by over 30 newspaper ownership groups (list) on behalf of over 200 publications to file lawsuits. 

Of those, antitrust complaints have officially been filed by 17 different ownership groups representing  roughly 150 newspapers. 

The News Media Alliance, a trade group that represents newspapers, has not been involved in the litigation, but has been monitoring the lawsuits.

“We fully support this litigation,” News Media Alliance general counsel Danielle Coffey said in a statement.

The goal of the litigation is "to recover past damages to newspapers" caused by Big Tech companies, says Clayton Fitzsimmons, one of the lawyers representing the newspapers. 

The other is to "establish a new system going forward in which newspapers aren't just competitive again, but can thrive," he said, referencing laws like Australia's that force tech firms to pay publishers for their content. 

Between the lines: "Past damages" in lawsuits like these will vary by paper. 

If the lawsuits are successful, the papers could be entitled to “treble damages,” settlements that are three times the actual damages that are proven to have occurred, said Paul Farrell Jr., a West Virginia lawyer who successfully took on some of the country’s biggest drug companies in opioid lawsuits in 2018.

Farrell was inspired to work on Reynolds' first case in West Virginia, in part because of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism of the opioid crisis done by his hometown paper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

The big picture: The lawsuits were filed after the House Judiciary Committee published its major digital competition report last October, which included a section on newspapers. 

Lawmakers have expressed keen interest in understanding how Google and Facebook's dominance affects the newspapers industry. 

The Justice Department, along with several state attorneys general, sued Google for violating antitrust laws. Facebook is facing a similar antitrust lawsuit from state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission. 

What to watch: All of the lawsuits were consolidated by a judicial panel over the summer in the Southern District of New York.

The News Media Alliance filed a declaration to have the cases consolidated there earlier this year, with the hope that the attorney general there would be more sympathetic to the newspaper lawsuits. 

The lawsuits were able to be consolidated in New York because of a similar  lawsuit that was filed by Associated Newspapers, parent to The Daily Mail, against Google in New York in April. 

What's next: There are different ways for the court to handle tackling these lawsuits, says Fitzsimmons. They could select some as bellwethers, test cases for all the individuals claims, or could send some cases back to the states they were filed to be tried. 

For now, the consolidated cases are still pending. 

Facebook didn‘t to comment. Google said, “These claims are just wrong. The online advertising space is crowded and competitive, our ad tech fees are lower than reported industry averages, and publishers keep the vast majority of revenue earned when using our products. We are one of the world's leading financial supporters of journalism and have provided billions of dollars to support quality journalism in the digital age."

Go deeper: Full list of newspaper groups and newspapers that filed complaints and/or retained legal services to file an antitrust complaint in the near future. 

Scoop: Over 200 papers quietly sue Big Tech

A small-town effort to take a stand against Big Tech has turned into a national movement.

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