Hillicon Valley — Meta releases plan for midterm content

Meta unveiled its plan for monitoring midterm election-related content, and it’s largely similar to the protocol the social media giant used in the 2020 election.  

Meanwhile, Amazon workers at a California warehouse walked out Monday. They’re demanding higher pay and better working conditions.  

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. Subscribe here.

Meta uses 2020 playbook for midterms

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, pledged to remove misinformation about voting and invest an additional $5 million in fact-checking ahead of the midterm elections, according to a Tuesday blog post.

Much of Meta’s plans for midterm-related content uses the playbook the company implemented in 2020.  

The social media giant will continue its policy of removing posts with misinformation about dates, locations, times and methods of voting, as well as false claims about who can vote and whether a vote will be counted and calls for violence related to voting, Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg wrote.  

• Clegg said Meta is also prepared to again “respond to content discussing the integrity of the election” by labeling posts and directing users to its Voting Information Center, which has information about elections and lets local and state officials send alerts.
  
• In 2020, Facebook started to apply labels with information to all posts from presidential and congressional candidates about voting, regardless of whether they included misinformation. 

Read more here. 

Amazon workers walk out  

One hundred and sixty Amazon employees walked out of a San Bernardino, Calif., warehouse on Monday, demanding higher wages and better working conditions.  

• The facility, referred to as KSBD, is one of Amazon’s largest facility’s on the West Coast and one of only three “air hubs” in the U.S.
  
• The company uses the facility to transport packages to its warehouses across the country. 

“We’ve been organizing for a $5 pay increase, safe working conditions, and an end to retaliation at the KSBD warehouse,” Inland Empire Amazon Workers United said Monday, adding its repeated demands for change at the facility have been ignored. 

Amazon’s response: Amazon spokesman Paul Flaningan said that full-time employees at the San Bernardino facility can earn up to $19.25 an hour and receive industry-leading benefits such as health care and 20 weeks paid parental leave.

The company also countered the union statistics on how many workers participated in the walkout, saying that 74 out of the 1,500 employees at the facility participated.

Read more here.

TIKTOK PUSHES BACK

TikTok pushed back on claims that a top House official made last week about security concerns related to the social media platform.  

The company sent a letter to Chief Administrative Officer of the House Catherine Szpindor on Thursday, obtained by Politico. The company wrote that her “TikTok Cyber Advisory” contains inaccurate information and needs to be rescinded. The advisory warned lawmakers of security risks with the platform.  

When asked for confirmation, a spokesperson for TikTok said the letter the outlet published “appears to be authentic.” 

Szpindor’s office said in the memo that the office considers TikTok as a high risk due to a lack of transparency about how it protects user data, its requirement of “excessive permissions” for people to use the app and potential security risks associated with using it. 

Read more here.

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: Bipartisan legislation supports state and local cybersecurity 

Notable links from around the web: 

Gen Z TikTok creators are turning against Amazon (The Washington Post / Taylor Lorenz and Caroline O’Donovan) 

Biden’s three-headed cybersecurity team (Axios / Sam Sabin) 

Lyft Unveils Self-Driving Car Service in Las Vegas (With Caveats) (The New York Times / Cade Metz) 

📺  Lighter click: We’re the real judges

One more thing: Back to the office

Bloomberg News reported on Monday that Apple has set Sept. 5 as the deadline for corporate employees to return to the office in-person for at least three days a week.  

Apple will require its corporate employees to work from the office on Tuesdays, Thursdays and an undetermined third day during the week. The company’s initial plan was to have corporate employees work on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at the office. 

Apple recently held an in-person meeting at its main campus earlier in June for a developers’ conference presentation, signaling the first time in three years that the company is moving toward a return to normal operations, according to Bloomberg. 

The company, known as the maker of the iPhone and Mac computers and laptops, had delayed plans to return to the office multiple times due to COVID-19. 

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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