Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Internet Insider, where we dive into the latest internet rights and big tech news unfolding online.
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Curated by: Andrew Wyrich, deputy tech editor
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
Dems buckle to Republican pressure, agree to have ‘senseless’ second hearing on Biden FCC nominee
A Senate committee agreed to have a second confirmation hearing for FCC nominee Gigi Sohn, a decision that was immediately criticized by public interest groups. The second hearing is just the latest delay in Sohn’s nomination, as Republicans have obstructed her making it through the committee. Read more about this below.
Massachusetts lawmakers advance state-level data privacy law
The bill “enshrines core internet privacy rights, protections, and standards” in the state. Massachusetts would join states like California, Colorado, and Virginia that have passed state-level data privacy laws in the absence of one at the federal level.
IRS will ‘transition away’ from facial recognition plan amid widespread criticism
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said it would “transition away” from its plan to use facial recognition software as it faced immense pushback from lawmakers and privacy experts.
MUST-READS
She’s A Crowd wants to collect data to fight gender-based violence—and is leveraging TikTok to do it
She’s A Crowd is leveraging TikTok to build a dataset that will help reduce gender-based violence.
‘There’s no work’: Amazon worker protests ‘time off task’ policy in viral TikTok
Internal criticism of Amazon’s surveillance of workers has increased lately, thanks to TikTok.
When you’re trying for a baby, set yourself up for success with the Kegg fertility tracker
What you need to know about the little conception device that’s making it easier to get pregnant.*
Elon Musk admits he designed Teslas to disobey basic traffic law
Elon Musk is defending Tesla after a software update led to the recall of 53,822 vehicles.
*The Daily Dot may receive a commission in connection with purchases of products or services featured here.
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INTERNET RIGHTS
FCC nominee Gigi Sohn is forced to go through another confirmation hearing after Dems give in to Republican gripes
FCC nominee Gigi Sohn is scheduled to have a second confirmation hearing tomorrow, after Democrats caved in amid Republicans blustering about her nomination for weeks.
Sen. Maria Cantwell’s (D-Wash.) decision to have the second hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee was immediately criticized as “senseless” and “nothing more than an opportunity to give these baseless concerns raised by industry an opportunity to hobble the appointment of a consumer champion to the commission.”
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you’ll know that the nomination of Sohn, who is a long-time public interest advocate and net neutrality supporter, has been met with obstruction from Republicans pretty much from the jump.
Meanwhile, Sohn has been hailed by experts and public interests groups as “historically one of the most qualified people to be nominated” to the FCC.
Even telecom industry lobbyists have admitted that they wanted Sohn’s nomination to be held up so the FCC would remain in a 2-2 deadlock, thus blocking any movement on issues like restoring net neutrality rules and the agency’s authority over the broadband industry.
Their gripes have moved past initial claims that she was “biased” against conservatives (despite several right-wing networks endorsing her) and after that didn’t work, their criticisms morphed into “ethical concerns” about her relationship with Locast, a service that allowed people to watch over-the-air television programing that was subsequently sued and shuttered. Those “concerns” have also faced pushback.
If you want to read more about that, we dug into it here. You can expect much of tomorrow’s second confirmation hearing to focus on Locast.
—Andrew Wyrich
ONE GOOD THING
Smaller tech companies are now winning fights against Google and Amazon. Go get ’em.
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Source: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/tech-newsletter-02-08-2022-gigi-sohn-fcc-second-confirmation-hearing/