By chip pickering

Americas tech giants are not the problem and antitrust is not the solution. As we enter into a new age of competition and rivalry with China on strategic, on national security, on economic grounds, we have a lot of people in Washington who are wanting to now either break up or heavily regulate the internet companies just at the wrong time and in the wrong way. As you look at every measurement of consumer welfarelower prices, more innovation, greater investment across all parts of the economyAmerican tech companies are creating greater growth, lower prices, better servicesand thats a hallmark of a very competitive market and not a concentrated monopolistic market.

Ask yourself, is it not the American way to encourage innovation with our brightest minds? Do we want to stifle our ideas and productivity, which is what I would argue is the very thing that has put us on top. Fourteen of the worlds top twenty tech companies are American; we are in a new age of competition and rivalry with China. The U.S. tech industrys global market position is at risk and has huge ramifications for re-starting the American economy and our long-term prospects. Its clear the American technology and e-commerce sector drives U.S. growth. States are aggressively competing on a daily basis for good technology jobs. Our universities and colleges are investing in more and more technology and public-private partnerships. Lawsuits will definitely damage our fastest growing industry and threaten these American jobs.

With a global pandemic threatening the entire world, again ask yourself where would we have been over the last six months without technology to assist our businesses to continue to operate, to educate our children with distance learning, and to provide much needed health care by the use of telehealth? In a recent nationwide survey by the Connected Commerce Council, 93 percent of small businesses reported they were disrupted by COVID-19 and nearly 3 in 4 increased their use of digital tools with COVID-19. A majority of small businesses found digital tools more helpful during COVID-19 than before it. Most also plan to continue to use more digital tools after the pandemic.

By attacking U.S. companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, the Justice Department, members of Congress, and some state attorneys general have taken a step back in time and are forgetting the hard work that has been done on the issue of antitrust. Companies being too large or successful is not a violation of antitrust laws. Antitrust was established to focus on the consumer and there is a robust consumer welfare standard in our antitrust laws now. Plus, many of the technology companies that are currently being attacked provide free services to our families, services that we use every day in our lives. Comments have been made about political bias within our technology companies from both sides of the aisle. There are solutions to political bias, but mistakenly using antitrust is not the right way to encourage free speech.

Politicizing antitrust by attacking our technology companies and filing federal and state antitrust lawsuits are not the way to go for our countrys future. Lawsuits are a distraction from real issues that need to be addressed and a waste of taxpayers money. Solutions are out there; decision makers and our technology companies can find them together. Lawsuits will only cause delay, distraction and economic losses. Our technology jobs and our future are at stake. DBJ

Pickering represented Mississippis 3rd congressional district as a Republican in the United States House of Representatives. First elected in 1996, he chose not to run again in 2008. He is currently the CEO at Incompas.

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Tech Giants and Antitrust - Delta Business Journal

Singles Day, a Black Friday-like shopping festival dreamed up by large retailers, is normally boom time for Chinas major online platforms. And indeed Alibaba, which this year started its 11.11 event back on Nov. 1, claims a record $56 billion (RMB372 billion) of business, and sales coming in at up to 583,000 orders per second.

But Chinas tech investors are doing anything but cheering. Thats because the mainland government Tuesday said that it is in the process of issuing regulations to rein in the power of tech giants such as Alibaba, Tencent, JD.Com and Meituan-Dianping.

The StateAdministration for Market Regulation released draft rules that, for the first time, clearly defines anti-competitive behavior. They appear to cover areas including pricing, payment methods, and use of data to target shoppers.

That appears to run directly contrary to the business models of Chinas consumer-facing tech giants, who have built huge and diverse empires spanning e-commerce, payment systems, delivery, and dematerialized services such as gaming and video entertainment. The ecosystems are often supported by so-called super apps that aim to keep users engaged and within the vast walled garden for as long as possible.

It has long been suggested that Chinese customers are used to being spied upon by their government and are therefore far less worried than Western consumers about data privacy issues. The convenience and range of services available through each of the major platforms has allowed everyday Chinese society to become more technologically advanced that many Western countries.

It has also allowed the Middle Kingdom tech companies to account for a far larger portion of the Chinese economy than their equivalents in North America and Europe. That may be the bigger worry for the Chinese government.

Even though they already largely cooperate with the central government on matters such as censorship, Chinas tech companies are now so large and multi-tentacled that they have the potential to represent another source of power and organization in Chinese society other than the Communist Party-led government.

The draft regulations, which are open for public comment until the end of November, were announced exactly a week after Chinas securities regulators effectively halted the IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong of Alibaba-affiliate Ant Group, two days before share trading was to have begun. The company is a new age finance industry giant that would have had an initial market capitalization of $310 billion.

Tuesdays draft regulations may also limit variable interest entities (VIEs), special purpose companies which allow Chinese companies to raise finance and list shares abroad. If these are indeed to be unwound there could be huge upheaval for corporations and in financial markets.

While some commentators have seen the Ant Group debacle in personal terms, a second slap-down for Alibaba founder Jack Ma, the broader message may be that politics always trumps economics: No company is too big to be punished. And no power, organization or personality can be bigger than the Party.

Those reminders bring multiple potential complications and contradictions. The firms now being targeted are the same fast-evolving digital companies that are driving Chinas post-COVID recovery. Reacting to U.S. pressure, the government has set out further plans to become more self-sufficient in technology, a challenge that has willingly been taken up by private sector. Are they now to be stopped? And PRC authorities dream of denting the U.S. dollars role as a reserve currency, and to make the Chinese currency more a medium of international trade than its current low level. Hurting its innovators hinders that.

Alibaba executives shrugged off the Ant Group shambles in their financial results presentation on Thursday last week. They have yet to react publicly to the draft regulations. Alibabas fiercest competitor Tencent will have its chance to form a response when it announced its third quarter figures on Thursday.

Investors have already demonstrated their fears by pulling the shares of the biggest tech firms off their recently-achieved all-time highs. Both Alibaba and Tencent fell by more than 7% on Wednesday. At HK$248.40 on Wednesday, Alibaba shares are 13% lower than their close on Friday Oct. 30. Tencent is 7% down on the month at HK$551 per share.

Originally posted here:

China to Stop its Tech Giants From Becoming Too Powerful - Variety

At the end of last month, we posed the question: Will Politicians Still Be As Apathetic When the Apocalypse Kicks In?At the time, that query was geared towards Amy Coney Barrett's appointment to the Supreme Court and her inexcusably lethargic response toaddressingthe climate crisis. Now, thanks to a new study courtesy of Bloomberg, we have a clearer answer to the question.

Rather thanacknowledging the climate threat (perthe UN) as "the defining issue of our time," Barrett'stake is that it's merely a "matter of public debate." Of course, it's not a stretch to imagine thatTrump's new McJustice probably knows that the climate crisis spells impending doom for us all, but rather chooses this head-in-the-sand angle, like many politicians do, because of one significant and obvious factor money.

We've written at length about who finances political campaigns (and why you should care) but Bloomberg's study shows how this funding ties into greenwashing, too. Better still, it puts it intoquick, digestible context, and in relation to brands you'll be more than familiar with Microsoft and Google.

For example, Microsoft, while actively and publicly stating that it will become carbon negative by 2030 and remove all the carbon emissions it has ever produced by 2050, has donatedto the campaigns of political candidates who actively obstruct climatepolicies. The report found that the tech giant gave $20k to Republican Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who apparently made 62 anti-environment votes in 2018 and 2019 alone.

Google, meanwhile, has reportedly donated more to those that hinder progressive climate legislation, as did its parent company, Alphabet. Using analysis via League of Conservation Voters (LCV, which tracks law-makers voting records on key climate bills), it showed that Alphabet contributed more to candidates whose pro-climate action was rated under 10 percent. Or, in other words, candidates who had voted in favor of climate-related causesat most 10 percent of the time over the course of their career.

(For what it's worth and it's worth a lot LCV found that the vast majority of Washington lawmakers score either below 10 percent or above 90. Republicans "almost exclusively [score] low and Democrats almost exclusively [score] high.McCarthy's LCV score is three percent.)

After looking into the financial campaign choices of 106 American companies from 2018 to October this year, Bloomberg asserts that For every dollar these corporations gave to one of the most climate-friendly members of Congress during this election cycle, they gave $1.84nearly twice as muchto an ardent obstructionist of proactive climate policy.

$68 million was donated in total by these companies; one-third of that went to political candidates with LCV scores under five percent, and almost half scored under 10.

Of course, this is purely scratching the surface of therelationship between government and the climate crisis, but when you look at how much money is actively involved, even from the brands who (for the most part) appear to have noobvious reason to push against it, it gives you a glimpse of just how deep this planet-fuckingrabbit hole goes. And unless this changes, the answer to the apocalypse apathy question is yes.

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Alexa, Why Are These Tech Giants Funding the Apocalypse? - Highsnobiety

Google has updated its Google Photos app on Android with a new option that lets users tell the search giant about the contents of their pictures. By labeling these images, Google can improve its object recognition algorithms, which in turn make Photos more useful. Its a virtuous cycle of AI development best deployed by tech giants like Google which have lots of data and lots of users.

This isnt an unusual practice at all. Machine learning systems dont just learn by themselves, and the vast majority of these applications need to be taught using data labeled by humans. Its the same reason that CAPTCHAs ask you to identify cars and motorbikes in images. By identifying these objects youre training AI to do the same.

The feature appears in the most recent version of Google Photos. Just tap on the search button in the apps menu, scroll down, and youll see an option to Help improve Google Photos. As reported by 9to5Google, click on it and youll be presented with four tasks: to describe your printing preferences for photos; your preferred collages or animations; to identify which photos belong to which holiday events (eg Christmas or Halloween); and to identify the contents of photos (Name the most important things in this photo).

As Google explains on a help page about the feature: It may take time to see the impact your contributions have on your account, but your input will help improve existing features and build new ones; for example, improved suggestions on which photos to print or higher quality creations that you would like. You can delete your answers at any time. (To do so, tap the three-dot menu at the top right of the screen and hit Delete my answers.) At the time of writing, it seems the update is available only on Android, not iOS.

Although this looks to be a new addition to the Google Photos app, the underlying software is much older. The process is powered by Crowdsource by Google, a crowdsourcing platform that the company launched in 2016. It gamifies data-labeling, letting users earn points and badges by completing tasks like verifying landmarks, identifying the sentiment of text snippets (is a review positive or negative, for example), transcribing handwritten notes, and other similar jobs. To be clear, though: users dont get any real rewards for their work beyond virtual kudos from Google.

Its worth remembering all this when using Googles whizzy machine learning products: they wouldnt be half as good without humans helping teach them.

View post:

Google wants you to help train its AI by labeling images in Google Photos - The Verge

Traders work the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

NYSE

The broader U.S. market is seeing a larger number of shares do well after being dominated by a handful of mega-cap names for most of 2020, signaling a comeback for the so-called average stock.

The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight exchange-traded fund (RSP) has jumped more than 6% this week, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) is up just 1.8% over that time period. Those gains helped the RSP narrow its year-to-date performance gap against the SPY.

Those gains came as investors cheered positive coronavirus vaccine news that lifted expectations of a broad economic recovery, shifting money away from tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft and into beaten-down names such as United Airlines and cruise operator Carnival. But for investors who want to ride this market shift, but in a less risky way, the RSP could be the way to go.

Originally posted here:

After being dominated by mega-cap tech, the 'average' stock is making a comeback how to play it - CNBC

Joe Biden

The industry has clashed with the Trump administration at almost every stage of Trumps presidency: over immigration, trade, net neutrality, and, more recently, social media content moderation. With the election of Biden, some indulgence is expected in the industry. I think everyone will love this boring presidency, which will be relatively calm.Not the anxiety and chaos that Trump and I experienced every day, investor Bradley Tusk recently told Protocol.Inconsistency is a problem.

But things shouldnt be expected to go back to the blissful days of Barack Obama when the president touted Silicon Valley as a dark spot for the US economy. Too much has changed since then. The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 and subsequent events irrevocably changed the public perception of the tech giants and demanded the attention it deserves from legislators and the public. These checks will not disappear under the Biden administration.

Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden did not rely on the tech industry like Obama, nor did he criticize it like Trump.Therefore, it is difficult to predict what will happen next.Especially in connection with the possible division in the US Congress: Democrats will control the House of Representatives, and the Senate may remain with the Republicans.

But it is already clear that Mr. Biden appears poised to repeal many of Trumps immigration orders, including restrictions on the entry of highly skilled professionals. Over the course of four years, the Trump administration has added new hurdles to the H-1B visa application and renewal process, resulting in huge delays that have created uncertainty for foreign technical workers, their families, and the companies that employ them. However, Joe Biden promised to increase the number of visas for permanent immigration at work and to lift restrictions on obtaining green cards for a number of countries.

Another area: net neutrality and broadband access to the Net.Mr. Biden said he fully supports the Obama-era rules that allowed the FCC to punish companies that try to block, restrict, or force consumers to pay for broadband traffic. Biden also outlined a plan to invest $ 20 billion in broadband infrastructure, but this will require congressional support.

Relief in relations with China is also expected.Joe Biden is going to strengthen cooperation between the United States and China to combat climate change, contain the COVID-19 pandemic, and so on. Experts believe that further aggravation of relations is unlikely, as it was under Donald Trump (for example, in the case of TikTok or Huawei).

Perhaps the biggest unknown for the tech industry that leads the Biden administration is his approach to antitrust issues.Will the new president follow the calls of his partys progressive wing for dividing up the big tech companies?This is one of the few policy areas around which there is a bipartisan consensus.There may not be much difference between the antitrust actions of the Trump or Biden administration, said former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell, now a partner of Cooley.

If antitrust investigations and legal battles against large tech companies continue, the next 4 years may not be easy for the tech sector (albeit easier than the previous 4).

Excerpt from:

Biden's thaw: how the lives of tech giants will change after the US presidential election - Phone Mantra

Last week, the stock market rallied as the 2020 election results rolled in. The Nasdaq Composite Index surged 8.6%. Donald Trump and Joe Biden were in close competition on electoral votes. Over the weekend, Joe Biden dethroned Donald Trump in the race for the next U.S. President. However, Bidens win doesnt guarantee him a blank check to implement his policies as it appears Republicans will remain in control of the Senate.

Before the election, State Street Global Advisors Chief Investment Strategist Michael Arone stated that the stock market would rally irrespective of the election results on the back of low-interest rates and fiscal and monetary policy. While he is right so far, three tech stocks Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), Facebook (FB), and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA) will benefit from a split Congress. These stocks soared 9%, 11.5%, and 5%, respectively, on the expectation of congressional gridlock.

How will a split Congress benefit tech stocks?

In October, GOOGL and FB came under fire when the Justice Department launched an antitrust lawsuit. The big four tech giants, including Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN), have digital monopolies in their respective fields. GOOGL controls the search and advertising space, and FB controls the social networking space.

The subcommittee report made several suggestions to address the anti-competitive practices of the four tech giants. Some of these suggestions were:

These suggestions, if implemented, could take a long time and significantly deleverage the tech giants power of data and efficiency. While US tech giants faced an antitrust threat, BABA was negatively impacted by the US-China trade war.

The three companies came under the scrutiny of Democrats and Republicans ahead of the election. But the divided control of the Senate could make it difficult to pass US antitrust laws that are targeted towards internet giants. According to a Bloomberg report, Synovus Trust Company Senior Portfolio Manager Dan Morgan, in an email, wrote, A Democrat-controlled Senate would be more likely to create overhaul and fine on Tech giants. Whereby, a Republican-controlled Senate (which seems to be most likely) would have a more laissez-faire stance.

Morgan also stated, A massive capital gains increase is not going to get through a Republican-controlled Senate. This will bring significant tax savings for tech investors who have generated huge profits on the tech stock rally over the last few years. Moreover, gridlock could ease global trade tensions, especially with China.

Internet stocks and Chinese stocks could rally significantly this week on the back of a favorable election outcome.

Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL)

GOOGL rules the online search and advertising space. Before the elections, both Democrats and Republicans argued that GOOGL has way too much control over the way people shop, search, and consume information. The Justice Department filed a monopoly-abuse suit against GOOGL last month to stop its anticompetitive and exclusionary practices.

The department noted that GOOGL favors its products by giving them higher ranking over third-party content. It also wades out the competition by acquiring potential competitors like Android. The department suggested banning product favoring and the acquisition of tech startups to create an even playing field. It also suggested breaking up GOOGL. If GOOGL was to be broken up, its Android OS and Search were more likely to be split.

GOOGL has built its search monopoly by collecting a large amount of data from users and feeding it into its algorithm to create more behavioral data. The Justice Department suggested interoperability, wherein GOOGL would be required to interconnect with other networks to ensure the same services are available across firms.

GOOGL collected this data by offering free products to consumers. It earns 84% of its revenue from advertising. Any of the above suggestions would reduce its advertising revenue and hurt consumers who are getting free or low-cost products.

These antitrust threats had little impact on the stock, with GOOGL gaining 8.6% last month. However, the election results reduced the antitrust threat, relieving investors and pushing the stock up 8.9% in the first week of November. The search engine giant should continue to grow in this age of digitization.

How does GOOGL stack up for the POWR Ratings?

A for Trade Grade

A for Buy & Hold Grade

A for Industry Rank

A for Peer Grade

A for overall POWR Rating

You cant ask for better. The stock is also ranked #2 stock in the 58-stock Internet industry.

Facebook (FB)

Like GOOGL, FB also uses its monopoly in social networking, messaging, and user data to dictate the terms of advertising. It favors its products and content over third-party content. Also, it acquired its potential competitors WhatsApp and Instagram. It even acquired many startups so no new company could come close to challenging its dominance.

The Justice Department suggested interoperability as well as data portability, wherein users can migrate their FB data to other platforms. Here again, FB collected this data over the years by offering free services. It is now monetizing this data through advertising and e-commerce.

FBs entire revenue comes from advertising. The above suggestions could hurt its revenue. Hence, its stock went through a rollercoaster ride in October, but the overall impact was positive. The stock surged 5.3% last month and 4.4% in the first week of November. With the ease in regulatory concerns, FB can focus on its e-commerce venture to boost future growth.

FB is rated Buy in our POWR Ratings system. It also has an A for Trade Grade, Peer Grade, and Industry Rank, and a B for Buy & Hold Grade. In the Internet industry, it is ranked #5.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA)

BABA dominates the Chinese e-commerce market. It also leads in the cloud computing space and is now expanding into internet content services. But all this dominance is in the Chinese market. For a giant like BABA, it needs to expand beyond China to sustain growth.

In September 2014, BABA launched the worlds largest IPO of $25 billion on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), with a stock price of $68. Since then, it has grown fourfold to $272 on the back of growth in e-commerce and other sectors. While BABAs earnings were unaffected by the US-China trade war, it was investors fear that prevented the stock from rallying above $200 on the NYSE in 2018-2019.

However, the pandemic-infused e-commerce wave drove BABAs stock up 41% year-to-date to $299. BABAs stock dipped 8% last week even though it reported robust earnings. The stock dipped as Chinese officials and regulators suspended the $37 billion IPO of fintech company Ant Group, after Jack Ma gave a speech critical of the Chinese banking industry at a summit.

Amidst this heat, the US election outcome came as pleasant news. A gridlock Senate would ease the U.S. tariffs on China and revive US investors confidence in the Chinese giant. BABA should continue to ride the digitization wave and report strong growth in the future.

Hence, BABA is rated a Strong Buy in the POWR Ratings. It holds straight As in Trade Grade, Buy & Hold Grade, Peer Grade, and Industry Rank. It is also ranked #1 in the 115-stocks China industry.

Note that BABA is one of 8 stocks in the Reitmeisters Total Return portfolio. Learn more here.

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GOOGL shares were trading at $1,806.26 per share on Monday morning, up $46.53 (+2.64%). Year-to-date, GOOGL has gained 34.86%, versus a 14.06% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.

Puja is a seasoned writer working with financial publishing companies like Motley Fool Canada and Market Realist. With over 13 years of experience in the field of fundamental research, she brings a blend of comprehensive, well-researched insights into her articles. More...

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GOOGL: 3 Best Technology Stocks to Buy After the Election - StockNews.com

(TNS) AsPresident Trumpand his supporters continue to spread false information about the results of the election, officials from the incoming Biden administration are ramping up criticism of tech companies, in particularFacebook.

In a move that may telegraph a more muscular approach to fighting online misinformation, one of Biden's senior aides unleashed a broadside against the social networking giant in a series of tweets.

"If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after,"Bill Russo, a Biden deputy press secretary, wrote Monday on Twitter.

Russo lambasted theMenlo Parkcompany for allowing what he said were appeals for violence to remain on its core network for hours, even days, before being taken down. He also called the company out for carrying a live stream of a Trump campaign news conference that conservative-leaningFox Newscut away from because it advanced unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud during the election.

"We knew this would happen. We pleaded withFacebookfor over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not," Russo wrote. "Our democracy is on the line. We need answers."

Russo's fiery posts were not the first anti-Facebookrhetoric to come from the Biden camp.

"I've never been a big (Mark)Zuckerbergfan," nor ofFacebook, then-candidate Biden said late last year, referring to the company CEO during a December interview with the New York Times editorial board.

Facebookdefended its performance in combating misinformation.

"In the lead-up to this election, we announced new products and policies to reduce the spread of misinformation and the potential for confusion or civil unrest," spokesmanDaniel Robertssaid in a statement.

"We built the largest third-party fact-checking network of any platform and they remain actively focused on claims about the election, including conspiracy theories," Roberts added. "We changed our products to ensure fewer people see false information and are made aware of it when they do."

Facebookalso owns Instagram andWhatsApp, both of which have been vectors for political misinformation in elections around the world.

The president-elect's approach to regulating social media remains uncertain. He supports revoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields tech companies from liability from user posts. He has said that the law lets tech companies spread falsehoods without any consequences, but any change to it depends on an act ofCongress, where the balance of power remains unclear.

A Biden spokesman didn't respond to questions about the president-elect's tech policy priorities.

Earlier this year, Trump sought to weaken the same section through an executive order, but was motivated by what he said was tech company censorship.Republicanshave complained that social media companies are biased against conservatives.

Experts say that revoking Section 230 would have a much greater effect beyond social media companies.

"This is the foundational law that has enabled the development of the internet as we use it today," saidMichael Petricone, senior vice president of government affairs and regulation at theConsumer Technology Association, a tech trade group.

"The potential impact here is huge," Petricone said. "We often talk about Section 230 in the context of a few big companies," but any consumer review service like Yelp, digital marketplace, or other websites like Wikipedia or Reddit could face litigation for posts on their sites without the protection.

Supporters of Section 230 are calling for measured reforms. Zuckerberg himself has called for updates to ensure it is working as intended through collaboration between businesses and lawmakers.

"Section 230 is a foundational principle for protecting users' voices online. It allows platforms to host a wide array of public speech without worrying they'll be sued for every comment posted on their service and, critically, it allows them to respond to things like hate speech and misinformation," saidAlexandra Givens, CEO of theCenter for Democracy & Technology, an advocacy group partially backed by the tech industry.

She said any reforms should recognize "the important balance attained by Section 230," which specifically allows tech companies to moderate user posts without losing their protection from liability, and respect the First Amendment. The group sued to block Trump's order on Section 230.

Biden has said Zuckerberg and his company should face civil penalties for what he said was knowingly allowing misinformation and intentional disinformation to spread on their sites.

The New York Times "can't write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued. But he can," Biden said in December.

Tech groups still see prospects for an improved relationship with theWhite Houseafter its occupant changes in January.

"Considering the fraught relationship the industry had withPresident Trumpover issues of content moderation, trade, immigration and net neutrality, this is a welcome shift for the tech community. Biden is a centrist and is more pragmatic than his predecessor," saidJennifer Stojkovic, executive director of SF.citi, an advocacy group forSan Franciscotech companies.

As watchful as tech companies might be over their relationship withWashington, they are equally if not more concerned with the perception of their efforts to manage fake news and polarization inside their ranks.

Since Trump's election in 2016, concern over misinformation has roiled management, hurt morale and even hindered recruiting at some bigBay Areatech companies. But workers expressed some satisfaction with how their companies handled the election through an informal poll run for The Chronicle by Blind, an app that lets workers talk about their companies anonymously and verifies they work at a particular company through their work email.

More than three-quarters of the 25Facebookemployees who responded to one survey question said their company had handled the election results as best as it could. About 70% of the 42 Google respondents said the same of their company.

Responding to a different survey question, the vast majority of nearly 60 tech employees felt that their company had handled the election better than other tech giants. On yet another question, most of the more than 50 tech workers who responded some fromFacebookand Google did not believe their companies had unfairly affected the results. Most said they would not consider changing jobs because of how the election results were handled on their sites.

More urgent crises, including an ongoing pandemic and a flailing economy, could impede the Biden administration from prioritizing tech policies.

"There's no shortage of crises of the moment that we need to address," including the worsening coronavirus pandemic, saidCori Zarek, a professor atGeorgetown Universityand formerU.S.deputy chief technology officer during the Obama administration.

"At the same time, we can't turn away from the increase in the reach of online speech and where it's headed," Zarek said.

Elected officials will still have huge influence through social media which they can use, as Trump has, to drown out media sources.

"The challenge is getting people elected who are going to reduce their own media power in the best interest of the country," saidJennifer Grygiel, a professor atSyracuse Universityand an expert in social media.

Grygiel said while Biden is likely to use sites like Twitter and Facebook without spreading falsehoods, the potential for governments to abuse social media will remain long after Trump.

"Just because another administration might be more respectful of the norms, it doesn't make the risk go away," Grygiel said.

(c)2020 the San Francisco Chronicle.Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Looking for the latest gov tech news as it happens? Subscribe to GT newsletters.

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Will Biden Crack Down on Facebook as Misinformation Spreads? - GovTech

Digital map of Taiwan. Source: Shutterstock

Microsoft looks to be the latest tech giant planning a significant investment in Taiwan, with moves underway to establish Microsofts first cloud data center region there by 2024.

The US software giant will also invest in developing local digital talents for over 200,000 people over the four years, with an eye towards turning Taiwan into an Asian design hub and home for Microsofts expanded Azure hardware engineering team.

Once operational, the new cloud data center region will become one of 66 global cloud regions under its belt, Microsoft clarified in a statement, and will deliver Azure cloud services along with Microsoft 365, before adding Dynamics 365 and Power Platform services to the services offered later on.

Microsoft did say the Taiwan region would include Availability Zones, which are physically separate locations within an Azure region, each comprising of at least one data center equipped with its own independent power, cooling, and networking.

To ensure data and operational resiliency, a minimum of three separate zones are established in all enabled regions,a move that Microsoft has saidaims to safeguard applications and data from datacentre failures. ASoutheast Asia Azure Availability Zoneserved out of Singapore, was launched in December 2018.

Microsoft has longstanding ties with the Taiwanese technology fraternity, having previously launched an Internet of Things (IoT) research center in Taipei, Taiwans capital, to connect startups and study integrating cloud and data services with the IoT supply chain.

The Windows OS creator also works with local tech firms like Acer, Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, and Trend Micro to build customized applications for their clientele. To meet the regional industry regulatory requirements, Microsoft stated that its local region would support more than 90 compliance certifications imposed on the local technology sector.

The Azure cloud data center region expansion in APAC echoes other regional cloud data center growth by other American cloud giants, including Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Ironically, Google was the first American tech giant to build a data center in Taiwan, nearly eight years ago.

ZDNet shared that a Microsoft spokesperson would not reveal details about the size of its investment in new data center locations, or how many customers can be supported on its local cloud data center only that the company intends to build scalable and resilient infrastructure to support the needs of its customers in the market.

What we can share right now is that cloud is creating new business opportunities that will help support economic recovery. Building the datacenter region in Taiwan is timely as it will continue to accelerate the digital transformation journey of businesses and organizations, the Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet, also revealing the facility will be part of Microsofts aim to be carbon negative by 2030, fully tapping renewable energy for its data centers by 2025.

The [Taiwan cloud] data center region will enable private and public sectors to further embrace innovation through our cloud products and services. More specifically, Microsoft Cloud in Taiwan will help customers to meet local data residency requirements within Taiwan, especially for highly regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services and public sector.

The Redmond, Washington-headquartered company did not outline how many new people would be hired to man its regional infrastructure engineering team that it plans to establish. But it does target to equip a minimum of 200,000 individuals in Taiwan with digital skillsets over the next four years, offering skills acquisition programs for youth, non-profits, startups, and enterprises, with planned initiatives including reskilling workshops for women.

Joe Devanesan| @thecrystalcrown

Joe's interest in tech began when, as a child, he first saw footage of the Apollo space missions. He still holds out hope to either see the first man on Mars, or Jetsons-style flying cars in his lifetime.

Read more:

Why Microsoft is bringing an Azure cloud region to Taiwan - Tech Wire Asia

Is it a double standard to talk up remote working while wanting as many staff in your office as possible?

Thats a question that some of the biggest tech multinationals in Ireland might now face.

On one hand, Google (8,000 workers), Facebook (4,500 workers), Microsoft (2,500 workers) and others extol the benefits of working flexibly from home. On the other, none want to downsize their truly massive Irish office campuses.

How do they square these seemingly contradictory positions?

In two ways. First, tech multinationals have invested a hell of a lot of cash in those Irish offices. Google is now one of the biggest property investors in Dublin 4, having sunk 1.1bn into its multiple buildings there. Microsoft recently spent 134m on its own Sandyford campus.

And Facebook, while it doesnt own its new Ballsbridge headquarters, is also nevertheless spending a fortune on its long-term development.

In Cork, Apple recently opened a large new extension on its Holyhill campus. It employs over 6,000 workers in the southern city.

Its not just the physical space, either. The layouts and facilities in some of these office buildings is state-of-the-art. They generally set the pace for almost everyone else, inside and outside the tech sector.

So theres a powerful instinct against ditching an office-first work environment, no matter how eloquent they make remote working sound.

Even if they had not sunk so many millions (or billions) into their buildings, these goliaths have other reasons to want workers back under one roof.

For all the enlightened talk about productivity outside the office, the core Silicon Valley work culture is still based around collaboration through physical presence. And its not, as cynics sometimes suggest, to keep you locked up under their supervision. Tech companies have had a productivity edge for years because of the way they organise their offices, from project workflows to reporting systems between colleagues and managers. Its one of the reasons why young people rate them so highly as a first or second employer -- they learn far more about how to get stuff done, to an elite tech standard, than in many other workplaces. That culture, executives say, is far more difficult to nurture or grow when key staff are confined to their bedroom, kitchen or parents house, only interacting with colleagues at specified Zoom call times.

This is particularly the case with workers who came to work in Dublin from other countries. Part of the draw for them is to be physically located in the office of Google, Facebook, Microsoft or any one of the dozens of high-end tech offices here. If offices remain closed, and key staff are sitting with a laptop in a small apartment kitchen, theres a risk not only to tighter collaboration on work projects but also to retaining these (mostly continental European) staff in the first place.

And that brings up another major problem -- tax. If a French, Dutch or Spanish worker tries to go home and still work for the Dublin-based company, there are significant tax and regulatory implications. This is one reason why none of the big tech multinationals allows permanent relocation from outside the country as part of a remote working setup.

But the longer the offices here remain closed, the harder it is to keep all of these staff physically in the country.

Tech bosses, from Mark Zuckerberg down, have conceded that some staff will work flexibly forever. But the rest, it is hoped, will be back in their offices soon.

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Tech giants thrive on collaboration and need staff back in offices - Independent.ie