LEDE: House lawmakers will dig into why federal agencies do not mine public social media data when conducting background checks on employees.
{mosads}The House Oversight Committee has called officials to testify from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Congress is pressing agencies to start using social media and other public information online in background checks. OPM has recently been soliciting vendors for a pilot project to use software that automatically scrapes the web for information helpful in a background check. You can read our preview of the hearing here.
The pressure from lawmakers is building. “We don’t do that? [How] moronic are we? Come on,” Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said during a hearing earlier this year. “My 14-year-old could figure this out.”
SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY BEING FINALIZED: OPM acting director Beth Cobert, in prepared testimony, will say that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is finalizing a policy to incorporate a review of social media into security clearance background checks. She will say her agency “looks forward to implementing the policy” once it is finalized.
MORE HEAT ON FACEBOOK: After the Guardian published a large leak of internal Facebook guidelines about its embattled “trending” feature, the company was forced to make the broadest on-the-record explanation of its policies. The company released the lists of media outlets it relies on and its internal guidelines for staff working on the “trending” feature. In a blog post, Facebook’s vice president of global operations Justin Osofsky said: “Facebook does not allow or advise our reviewers to discriminate against sources of any political origin, period. Here are the guidelines we use.” Click here for more on the political firestorm over alleged bias by Facebook.
FACEBOOK’S MOTIVATIONS: The Verge interviewed Will Cathcart, who leads product management for Facebook’s News Feed. They asked about the trending topics controversy. “We care about creating the product that people want. Whether or not we can do that entirely with automated systems, or it’s helpful to have people help, is actually just a detail,” he said. “What’s more important is the product principle, which is that we want this to show you what you’re most interested in. We’re not interested in adding our point of view — we actually don’t think that works for a billion people.”
LOOKING TO ADD TO YOUR RSS FEED?: As part of its disclosure, Facebook released its 20-page list of news organization and RSS links that it uses to help curate its “trending” feature. It contains a comprehensive list of outlets for general news, politics, tech, business, sports and other topics.
DEM WANTS FAIR INVESTIGATION: Sen. Bill Nelson, the ranking Democrat on the Commerce Committee, wants to make sure the investigation into the FCC leak of private information ahead of a high-profile vote in March is fair. The senator sent a letter to the FCC’s inspector general, pressing him to “review all potential sources of leaked information.” Nelson said he was troubled by the “increasingly partisan discourse” surround FCC meetings and votes.
ITI HONORS LAWMAKERS: Trade group ITI said Thursday it was giving awards to Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), along with Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.). The group lauded them for their support on a range of issues, including Portman’s work on tax policy and DelBene’s broad tech portfolio.
APPLE IN THE CLASSROOM: The Wall Street Journal takes a look at Apple’s ongoing efforts to reach out to schools. The company has committed millions to the effort, which includes employees traveling to school districts to work with teachers on the ground. Apple executives also sponsor individual schools. This comes as Apple loses some ground in the education market.
FACEBOOK, MICROSOFT JOIN GREEN INITIATIVE: The two companies are part of a new initiative aimed at building out more renewable energy, according to Bloomberg.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Charter Communications said Thursday it plans to complete its purchase of Time Warner Cable and a smaller company next week, concluding a deal that will create the second-largest internet provider in the United States.
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) on Thursday introduced a bill that would force the White House to sanction seven Iranians recently indicted for a series of coordinated cyberattacks against the U.S. financial sector and for infiltrating a New York dam.
A California Democrat is urging Airbnb to take action against hosts who appear to be discriminating against minority customers.
Mozilla is pressing the government to disclose a possible security vulnerability in its Firefox web browser that helped the FBI track down visitors to a child pornography site.
Lyft has more than doubled the value of its settlement with drivers who sued over their worker status after a federal judge rejected the original amount.
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