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Dec 4, 2018

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Joseph Kane: The Impact of Automated Vehicles on Your White Collar Job (Ep. 165)

Brookings' Joseph Kane joined Joe Miller to talk about how automated vehicles could impact your white collar job--not just those of drivers.

Bio

Joseph Kane (@jwkane) is a senior research associate and associate fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.

Kane’s work focuses on a wide array of built environment issues, including transportation and water infrastructure. Within these areas of research, he has explored infrastructure’s central economic role across different regions as well as its relationship to opportunity and resilience. Across several projects, he has concentrated on the use of innovative datasets, combining them with other qualitative measures to better assess current and future infrastructure needs. From the exploration of metropolitan freight trends to the first-ever analysis of infrastructure jobs at a metropolitan level, he has coordinated the production of new metrics and developed other interactive content to better inform decisions by policymakers and practitioners across the country.

Prior to Brookings, Kane was an Economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. He holds a master’s degree in urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia and a bachelor’s degree in economics and history from the College of William and Mary.

Resources

Metropolitan Policy Program @ Brookings

How big could the AV industry be? 9.5 million workers and counting by Joseph Kane and Adie Tomer

Why the Garden Club Couldn't Save Youngstown by Sean Stafford

News Roundup

Consequences Facebook’s poor engagement with people of color taking root

The consequences of Facebook’s poor engagement over the years with people of color began to take hold last week. On Tuesday, USA Today’s Jessica Guynn reported on a former black Facebook employee – Mark Luckie – who says the company has a deep seated race problem both internally and on the platform. Luckie wrote an internal blog post on Facebook earlier this month—to management and employees—that later went public—saying the platform itself actively works against black people. He says that Facebook works against attempts by black users to create safe spaces on Facebook, amplifies some users over others using class-based criteria, which effectively dilutes black voices, and fails to hire a workforce that reflects the demographics of its user base.

Color of Change CEO Rashad Robinson met with Sheryl Sandberg on Thursday. Politico reported that it was a victory, but then went on to talk about all of the ways in which it really wasn’t. For example, Facebook hasn’t committed to release records on its work with Definers Public Affairs to engage in promoting far right, anti-Semitic attacks against George Soros. It was a campaign that also targeted Color of Change. Robinson also told Politico that Sandberg defended Joel Kaplan. Apparently Sandberg, according to Politico’s account of the meeting, offered a sincere apology and Mark Zuckerberg popped his head in. But really, who cares. Sandberg did agree to a civil rights audit that Color of Change would conduct and agreed to have a public debate on the results of the audit. But that’s really non-negotiable since they have to do something to prevent a boycott.

Also, a New York Times report out the same day Robinson met with Sandberg suggested that Sandberg directed the communications team in their research of George Soros’s financial interests and actually sent an email asking if Soros had  shorted Facebook’s stock.

A lot of people are just sort of wondering why Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Zuckerberg and Joel Kaplan should keep their jobs. But would that solve Facebook’s race issues?

Mattis says Russia interfered in midterms

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said over the weekend during an interview at the Ronald Reagan Public library that Russian operatives attempted to interfere with the U.S. election. He said the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia has deteriorated. Mattis’ remarks came a couple of days after Trump canceled his scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit amidst Michael Cohen’s guilty plea for making misstatements to Congress in the investigation into the Trump administration’s business dealings with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Marriott hack affects 500 million guests

Marriott reported a hack that apparently affected some 500 million of its Starwood guests, exposing personal information including home addresses, passport numbers, drivers’ license numbers, names, and other personal details. New York State Attorney General Barbara Underwood is investigating the breach. The company has known about the breach since early September.

Nexstar to acquire Tribune

Nextstar has announced plans to acquire Tribune Media for $4.1 billion, making it the largest tv station owner in the U.S. The merger would add 42 stations to Nexstar’s portfolio bringing its total number of stations to 216 in 118 markets, just under the FCC’s 39% ownership threshold. The deal comes after Sinclair failed in its bid for Tribune earlier this year.

Delrahim for AG?

CNN reports that President Trump may be considering Makan Delrahim to replace Jeff Sessions as US Attorney General.  Currently, Delrahim is the Assistant Attorney General who sued AT&T to stop its acquisition of Time Warner—he lost. That deal went through. Some are still debating whether the president directed Delrahim to stop the merger. Delrahim denies this. But if he did act at Trump’s behest, the Attorney General job would be a big reward—ya think?

FBI Charges 8 in Ad-fraud scheme

The FBI charged eight individuals last week in an ad fraud scheme. The men face 13 charges for allegedly scheming to infect 1.7 million computers and drive traffic to counterfeit websites serving up ads. Craig Silverman has a detailed report in BuzzFeed News.

DOJ Indicts 2 Iranians for Ransomware Attacks

The Department of justice indicted 2 men in connection with an alleged Iranian ransomware plot since 2015 that has caused some $30 million in financial damage to city universities, governments and hospitals, including the City of Atlanta. Officials say the scheme, known as SamSam, affected more than 200 victims and led to some $6 million in ransom payments. Brian Fung has the story in the Washington Post.

Google employees pledge $200k to help striking employees

Some Google employees have banded together to create a $200k fund to help striking engineers who are opposing Google’s work on a censored search engine in China. The project is known as Project Dragonfly and hundreds of engineers oppose the effort and signed a letter to that effect last week.