Hillicon Valley — Kids’ safety bills on deck in Senate

by Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare - 07/26/22 5:51 PM ET

A senate panel will mark up two bipartisan bills Wednesday aimed at boosting safety for kids online through design changes and new data regulations.

And in chip news, the Senate voted Tuesday to advance legislation to provide

$52 billion to the domestic semiconductor industry, $81 billion to the National Science Foundation and a 25 percent investment tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing.

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Senators to debate kids’ safety bills

Two bills that would revamp how tech companies cater to and obtain data from young users will be in the spotlight Wednesday as a Senate panel debates how to update laws designed before the rise of social media.

The markup has been long awaited by critics who say the existing regulations are no longer adequate for a generation raised on the internet. Support for the issue has snowballed since a Facebook whistleblower leaked bombshell internal documents last year.

The Senate Commerce Committee is slated to discuss two bipartisan pieces of legislation that, taken together, would provide stricter regulations for how online platforms operate for children and teens. In part, the proposals would bring the U.S. closer to the standards put in place by other countries.
“We have been saying for a while now that children need both better privacy protections, including privacy protections for teens for the first time, and they need to be protected against manipulative and harmful design that keeps them online too long and exposes them to harmful content. So these bills really work well together,” said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, a group that advocates for children’s and teen’s online safety.

The bills before the committee are the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, also known as COPPA 2.0, and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

Read more here.

Semiconductor bill pushed forward

The Senate voted 64-32 on Tuesday to advance legislation to provide $52 billion to the domestic semiconductor industry, $81 billion to the National Science Foundation and a 25 percent investment tax credit for semiconductor manufacturing.

The vote brings the semiconductor bill closer to the finish line after more than a year of negotiations.

The Senate passed the first version of the legislation in June of last year, but it stalled after House Democrats objected to several of its provisions, and conference negotiations between the two chambers had bogged down in recent weeks.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) saved the bill by dropping several provisions objected to by the House, including a package of trade provisions negotiated by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden
(D-Ore.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) last year.

Read more here.

SMALL BUSINESS GROUP BACKS ANTITRUST BILL

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) sent Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) a letter Tuesday backing the senators’ bipartisan antitrust bill aimed at tackling the market power of tech giants.

NFIB vice president of federal government relations Kevin Kuhlman called the bill, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, a “commonsense proposal that seeks to remedy conflicts of interest, foster increased choice in online services, and ensure a level playing field for small businesses and users of platforms covered by the legislation,” according to a copy of the letter shared with The Hill.

The proposal would limit tech giants from preferencing their own products and services over rivals.

The legislation advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support earlier this year, but has not been called for a floor vote — despite pressure from Klobuchar and Grassley.

META MULLS COVID MISINFORMATION POLICY UPDATES

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, asked the board tasked with overseeing policy debates on the platform to weigh in on whether it should ease its COVID misinformation policy.

The company asked the Oversight Board, a task force funded by Meta that operates independently, if the company’s policy, including to remove posts with false claims, is still appropriate as the pandemic “has evolved,” Meta’s President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg wrote Tuesday in a blog post.

Facebook is asking the board to issue an advisory opinion on whether the current measures are appropriate, or if the company should address misinformation through other means such as labeling or demoting content.

Facebook broadened its misinformation policies in January 2020 to include removing posts with misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company expanded the policy to remove false claims about the coronavirus vaccine in late 2020, as vaccines became available.

Read more here.

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Toomey, Sinema eye crypto exemption

Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) introduced legislation on Tuesday that would exempt small crypto purchases from a capital gains tax.

The pair of lawmakers introduced a bill that would offer an exemption for personal transactions using cryptocurrency of less than $50 or personal transactions that have gains of under $50 from being subject to a capital gains tax.

The legislation would encourage people to use cryptocurrency for small trades and transactions without worrying about being subjected to typical taxation requirements.
Transactions that use cryptocurrency can be taxed, according to the IRS’ website, which notes that “Taxpayers transacting in virtual currency may have to report those transactions on their tax returns.”

Read more here.

UBER EXPANDING EV SERVICES

Uber announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its offerings of electric vehicles to seven additional cities as a step in its efforts to reach zero emissions by 2030.

Conor Ferguson, the mobility communications manager for Uber, confirmed to The Hill that Comfort Electric, the company’s fleet of all-electric vehicles, will be offered in Las Vegas; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Denver; Austin, Texas; Philadelphia; and Baltimore. The company originally launched Comfort Electric in May in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

The news was first reported by Axios.

Ferguson told The Hill that Uber’s partnership with the car rental company Hertz is designed to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles throughout the country. He said customers who select the Comfort Electric option will be able to ride in a “premium” electric vehicle such as a Tesla, Polestar or Ford Mustang Mach-E.

One last thing: Keeping up with Mosseri

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri rebuffed criticism Tuesday that the social media platform was rapidly changing to become more like TikTok, telling users that while photo-sharing will always be an integral part of the app, “more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time.”

After big-name celebrities like Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian criticized Instagram for evolving into a TikTok-like service, Mosseri uploaded a video on Twitter to inform users on why he believes the changes were necessary.

“We’re going to continue to support photos, it’s part of our heritage. You know I love photos, I know a lot of you out there love photos too,” Mosseri said. “That said, I need to be honest — I do believe more and more of Instagram is going to become video over time.”

Read more here.

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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Tags Amy Klobuchar Chuck Schumer Mike Crapo Ron Wyden