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Dec 18, 2018

techpolicypodcast_washingtech_ambar januel

Bio

A Mexican American with a creative background and an untraditional career path, Ambar Januel (@ambarjanuel) is a marketing strategist and branding expert for non-profits and innovative tech companies. With a focus on social impact, her partners utilize future technologies to disrupt the system, while prioritizing diversity and inclusion, community engagement, and social justice. Tech startup project manager, turned creative director, turned agency co-founder, Ambar currently works independently as a strategist, bringing marketing, event production, and branding skills together through her work. She has spoken at a variety of conferences and has been featured in many publications, including 7in7, BBC Media, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Digital LA, Honeybook, WeRule, and more.

Resources

Ambar Januel

Good Call

Call Them by Their True Names by Rebecca Solnit

News Roundup

NAACP launches Facebook boycott for targeting people of color

The NAACP has launched a boycott of Facebook following reports that the Kremlin specifically used Facebook and other social media to recruit African Americans and other people of color to support Donald Trump. The NAACP is calling on Facebook users to log out of Facebook for one day—today, Tuesday.

Data analysts from the University of Oxford submitted a report to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday, yesterday, analyzing how Russians infiltrated social media to spread pro-Trump propaganda leading up to the 2016 presidential election. We’ve got a link to coverage in the show notes. But Russian operatives working for the Internet Research Agency—the propaganda arm of the Kremlin—sought to entice African Americans and other people of color to host events, start coalitions, and engage in other activities -- on American soil -- to gin up support for Donald Trump. These were leaflets, folks.

So even though the Kremlin used other social media platforms -- including Twitter , Google, and others -- to promote propaganda, and the report to the Senate Intelligence Committee says that these companies may have evaded Congress and provided incomplete datasets during testimony over the past year, this was the icing on the cake for the NAACP as far as Facebook’s concerned. The 110-year-old civil rights organization found a persistent pattern of anti-democratic tactics that have repeatedly implicated Facebook since the 2016 election cycle.

To add insult to injury, Facebook revealed yet another breach affecting private photos of some 6.8 million users. So this goes far beyond smart lawyering. Tech company’s testimony before Congress all year came with legal implications. And, as long as they didn’t commit perjury, disclosing as little as possible is frankly well within their Fifth Amendment rights. But there’s a particular quality to Facebook that’s fundamentally different from other platforms--because it’s so pervasive, and so personal.

YouTube has removed 58 million videos in last quarter

YouTube reports that it removed some 58 million videos during the past quarter for violating community standards. The Google unit said that 72% of the videos promoted spam or were misleading. YouTube also removed 1.67 million channels during the same period.

HuffPo: Cloudflare hosts terror organizations

The web giant Cloudflare apparently provides cybersecurity services to at least 7 foreign terrorist organizations and militant groups, according to the Huffington Post. All of the groups are listed on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Jesselyn Cook has the report in the Huffington Post.

AP: Iranian operatives hacked personal emails of American security officials

The AP reports that Iranian hackers hacked into the personal email accounts of U.S. officials last month to attempt to thwart the Trump administration’s new sanctions. The AP obtained the data from London-based security firm Certfa. Raphael Satter has more overage in the AP.

FCC allows internet service providers to block texts

The FCC voted last week to allow internet service providers to block some text messages, supposedly to prevent spam. Opponents say it’s a threat to net neutrality and gives ISPs too much control over content, in this case texts.

Manchin blocks Carr nomination

West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin moved to block Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s nomination to the the FCC  after the Republican-controlled agency voted to block the expansion of wireless internet service to rural areas. Carr’s term is actually already expired—it expired back on June 30th. And if the current Congress doesn’t vote to approve a new five-year term by January 3rd, which is when the current Congress concludes, and we move into the next session of Congress, Carr will need to step down. However, he could still be renominated and confirmed by the next Senate, which is what happened with Jessica Rosenworcel.