RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Friday 29 May 2020 Volume 31 : Issue 91

ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks) Peter G. Neumann, founder and still moderator

***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31.91>
The current issue can also be found at
<http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

Contents:
The robots that can pick kiwi-fruit (bbc.com)
Google warns against catch-all rules for high-risk AI (Politico)
Smart home assistants have a staggering environmental cost (CBC Docs POV)
New Android Flaw Affecting Over 1 Billion Phones Let Attackers Hijack Apps
(The Hacker News)
GRU aiming at root access vuln in Unix-based email servers (NSA)
Programming Languages: Developers Reveal What They Love, Loathe, and What
Pays Best (ZDNet)
Politico is aggregating reports re contact tracing (Politico)
China's Virus Apps May Outlast the Outbreak, Stirring Privacy Fears
(NYTimes)
Your immunity passport future begins to materialize as airlines call for
digital ID tracking systems (activistpost)
Temperature Checks and Desk Shields: CDC Suggests Big Changes to Offices
(NYTimes)
The art of the distraction (via Dave Farber)
Executive order on social media (The White House and Rob Slade)
Twitter hides two Trump tweets glorifying violence behind warning notice
(CNN)
Trump Is Doing All of This For Zuckerberg (The Atlantic)
New ComRAT Malware Uses Gmail to Receive Commands and Exfiltrate Data
(The Hacker News)
Re: Misinformation (Andy Walker)
Re: More on the Tweeter and the Tweetee (Amos Shapir)
Re: The Pandemic Is Exposing the Limits of Science (R. G. Newbury)
Re: Vitamin C (R. G. Newbury, Amos Shapir, Andre Carezia)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 May 2020 09:33:11 +0800
From: Richard Stein <rmstein@ieee.org>
Subject: The robots that can pick kiwi-fruit (bbc.com)

https://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/follow-the-food/the-robots-that-can-pick-kiwifruit.html

"In fields around the world, ripening fruit and vegetables that should be getting picked, packaged and shipped to supermarkets were instead at risk of being left to rot in their fields. Farmers have been struggling to find the people they needed to harvest them."

The essay cites numerous risks which the farmbot competes against age-old
human harvesters: non-standardized crop growing techniques, farm terrain/geography, vine and fruit/crop structure, packaging produce for
sale, etc.

Farmbot deployment requires substantial investment to engineer, prepare, and maintain it. No mention of the harvest quantity destroyed or unpicked during operation. While substantially immune to insect infestation, software bug suppression remains a challenge.

Industrial-scale farming has a rapacious for-profit appetite, be it animal
or plant. Government subsidies may promote farmbot deployment as a means to suppress migrant worker populations.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 8:32:55 PDT
From: "Peter G. Neumann" <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: Google warns against catch-all rules for high-risk AI (Politico)

The European Union should adopt its existing rules for high-risk artificial intelligence technology rather than create a whole new rulebook from
scratch, U.S. tech giant Google told Brussels in its feedback to the EU=92s White Paper for AI. =93Creating a standalone assessment scheme for AI
systems would risk duplicating review procedures that already govern many higher risk products, -- the company said in a 45-page response<https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/FINAL-Googles-submission-to-EC-AI-consultation.pdf>
sent to the European Commission yesterday, adding that this would lead to =93needless complexity -- and weaken the Continent=92s standing in the
global race for AI supremacy.

FACIAL RECOGNITION: The Center for Data Ethics and Innovation has put
together a handy on facial recognition, looking at its uses and potential implications for the technology. The main thrust? That facial recognition is here to stay, but that there's still not enough regulatory oversight of how it's currently used. report<https://www.politico.eu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Snapshot-Paper-Facial-Recognition-Technology.pdf>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 05:54:00 -1000
From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: Smart home assistants have a staggering environmental cost
(CBC Docs POV)

There are already 66 million smart assistants in US homes and the number is growing daily. But what are we trading for the convenience of turning the lights on with our voice? #CBCdocsPOV #TheInternetofEverything

Director Brett Gaylor looks for an answer with his daughter Layla as they
learn about the processing power involved in the machine learning powering Alexa and the enormous amount of energy it takes.

Between the massive amount of non-renewable energy required to power their
web servers and the pollution generated by its delivery service, Amazon's carbon footprint continues to grow. In 2019, staff protests prompted shareholders to confront management, to demand a plan for climate change
and a reduction of the company's dependence on fossil fuels.

The Internet of Everything, from CBC Docs POV is a fast, funny and
enlightening look at what happens when we opt for the convenience of
connected ``smart'' objects, without fully understanding the
consequences for our health, our communities, or the planet. [...]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DfbRhcLHOBrE

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 05:52:00 -1000
From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: New Android Flaw Affecting Over 1 Billion Phones Let Attackers
Hijack Apps (The Hacker News)

Remember Strandhogg?

A security vulnerability affecting Android <https://thehackernews.com/2019/12/strandhogg-android-vulnerability.html> that malicious apps can exploit to masquerade as any other app installed on a targeted device to display fake interfaces to the users, tricking them into giving away sensitive information.

Late last year, at the time of its public disclosure, researchers also confirmed that some attackers were already exploiting the flaw in the wild
to steal users' banking and other login credentials, as well as to spy on
their activities.

The same team of Norwegian cybersecurity researchers today unveiled <https://promon.co/strandhogg-2-0/> details of a new critical vulnerability (CVE-2020-0096) affecting the Android operating system that could allow attackers to carry out a much more sophisticated version of Strandhogg
attack. [...] https://thehackernews.com/2020/05/stranhogg-android-vulnerability.html

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 8:11:04 PDT
From: "Peter G. Neumann" <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: GRU aiming at root access vuln in Unix-based email servers (NSA)

NYT article: https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/05/28/world/europe/28reuters-cyber-usa= -russia.html

The U.S. National Security Agency on Thursday warned government partners and private companies about a Russian hacking operation that uses a special intrusion technique to target operating systems often used by industrial
firms to manage computer infrastructure. https://media.defense.gov/2020/May/28/2002306626/-1/-1/0/CSA%20Sandworm%20Actors%20Exploiting%20Vulnerability%20in%20Exim%20Transfer%20Agent%2020200528.pdf

A security alert published by the NSA on Thursday explains how hackers with GRU, Russia's military intelligence, are leveraging a software vulnerability
in Exim, a mail transfer agent common on Unix-based operating systems, such
as Linux. The vulnerability was patched last year, but some users have not updated their systems to close the security gap.

Quoting Cress, ``Being able to gain root access to a bridge point into a network gives you so much ability and capability to read email, to navigate across and maneuver through the network, so it's more about the danger we're trying to help people understand.''

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 12:40:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Programming Languages: Developers Reveal What They Love, Loathe,
and What Pays Best (ZDNet)

Liam Tung, ZDNet, 28 May 2020 via ACM TechNews, 29 May 2020

A survey of roughly 65,000 developers by coding question and answer website Stack Overflow found that that TypeScript has overtaken Python as the secod most-preferred programming language, behind Rust. Stack Overflow credits TypeScript's growth to Microsoft's adoption of open source software, and to bigger and more complex JavaScript and Node.js codebases. The three least-popular coding languages in the survey were VBA, Objective-C, and
Perl. The survey, which also looked at average salaries for developer roles, identified the two highest-paid developer professions in the U.S. as engineering managers ($152,000 annually) and site reliability engineers ($140,000 annually). Data scientists and machine learning specialists earn
an average of at least $115,000 in the U.S., according to the survey. https://orange.hosting.lsoft.com/trk/click?ref=3Dznwrbbrs9_6-255e6x222971x068370&

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 8:17:11 PDT
From: "Peter G. Neumann" <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: Politico is aggregating reports re contact tracing (Politico)

Coronavirus Apps

French App Update, Stats of the Day: Now that local politicians have given their approval, the contact-tracing tool will go live on June 2. But if
recent polls are anything to go by, the French are still torn about whether
to use the app. Let's leave aside the fact that almost one out of every four locals does not have a smartphone. But according to a survey by Data Publica
in early May, 59 percent of those polled said that they were in
favor of the StopCovid app. So far, so good, right? <https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/politique/sondage-stop-covid-une-majorite-de-francais-inquiets-de-l-utilisation-de-leurs-donnees-par-l-1589445489

But in the same survey, 51 percent of people said they were not prepared to download the app onto their mobile devices, with only 15 percent (that's a
very small minority, if Morning Tech is keeping count) of those polled
saying they would do so. What should we take from this? If the U.K. app
trial is anything to go, uptake on these coronavirus apps may prove less
than ideal, potentially hobbling them even before they really get going. by<https://twitter.com/_BeffH_/status/1265961033484718080>

The U.K.'s non-app approach: While London rolled out its `track-and-trace' system today, the digital tracing tool was nowhere to be seen. Morning Tech
was told the Brits still hoped to have it available sometime in June (a
month after it was supposed to be released), but that ongoing issues about keeping the bluetooth on people's smartphones working when devices were in sleep mode was still an issue. Still, if you had any doubts about if the
U.K. was taking the coronavirus seriously, the privacy notice in its `track-and-trace' system will either put your concerns to rest or make you
even more nervous. London said it planned to hold on to people's personal information for 20 years -- just in case the virus came back sometime in
the future.

Dutch go with Google/Apple for app: The design team behind The Netherlands' contact-tracing app posted documents detailing their approach on software development sharing platform GitHub. The group -- made up of a mix of
external consultants and government employees -- plan to build their app
within Google and Apple's framework. The Dutch health ministry quietly assembled developers to work on an app after a gameshow-esque app-athon it livestreamed to choose a design team fell flat. <https://github.com/minvws/nl-covid19-notification-app-design>

`Old wine in new bottles': That's how B=E9r Engels of Dutch digital rights
NGO Bits of Freedom -- which declined to be part of an expert subgroup overseeing the app -- described the government's shifting approach. =93The Ministry of Health has taken the media uproar of the past few weeks around
this app as a sign that 1) less transparency during the process means less criticism and 2) they'll need to change the public's perception of the app
and now refers to the `contact-tracing app' as a `notification app', due to launch somewhere in July. -- Echoing an earlier intervention by the
country's data protection watchdog, Engels said he thought that fundamental questions -- still had to be answered, such as whether contact-tracing apps really work. <https://www.politico.eu/article/meet-the-dutchman-aleid-wolfsen-who-cried-foul-on-europe-coronavirus-covid19-tracking-technology/>

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 18:03:56 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: China's Virus Apps May Outlast the Outbreak, Stirring Privacy Fears
(NYTimes)

With the disease there mostly under control, officials are looking for new
uses for the government software that’s now on many phones.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/technology/china-coronavirus-surveillance.html

[LW: As predicted. Governments never let go once they have a leash on
their citizens. PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 05:51:00 -1000
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: Your immunity passport future begins to materialize as airlines
call for digital ID tracking systems (activistpost)

*The world's largest airline trade group has called for immunity passports, thermal screening, masks, and physical distancing to be a part of the industry's strategy for returning to ``normal'' operations.*

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents 299 airlines, recently
issued their publication, Biosecurity for Air Transport A Roadmap for Restarting Aviation
<https://www.iata.org/en/about/members/airline-list/?> <https://www.iata.org/contentassets/4cb32e19ff544df590f3b70179551013/roadmap-safely-restarting-aviation.pdf>,
which outlines their strategy to open up air travel as governments begin to lift travel restrictions.

Under a section titled, ``The passenger experience'' and ``Temporary biosecurity measures,'' the IATA describes their vision of post-COVID-19 flights. The organization calls for contact tracing, a controversial method
of tracking the civilian population to track the spread of COVID-19. <https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/health/we-need-army-contact-tracers-meet-enforcement-arm-new-normal/>

``We foresee the need to collect more detailed passenger contact information which can be used for tracing purposes,'' the report states. ``Where
possible, the data should be collected in electronic form, and in advance
of the passenger arriving at the airport including through eVisa and
electronic travel authorization platforms.''

Interestingly, this call for pre-boarding check-in using ``electronic travel authorization platforms'' coincides with the recent announcement of the Covi-Pass <https://www.covipass.com/> and the Health Pass from Clear <https://www.clearme.com/healthpass>, both of which call for a digital ID system using biometrics and storing travel, health, and identification data.

Alexandre de Juniac, IATA's CEO, told Arabian Industry
that ``a layered approach'' combining multiple measures which are ``globally implemented and mutually recognized by governments'' are ``the way forward
for biosecurity.'' [...]

<https://www.arabianindustry.com/aviation/news/2020/may/21/airlines-call-for-immunity-passports-ahead-of-industrys-restart-6385860/>
https://www.activistpost.com/2020/05/your-immunity-passport-future-begins-to-materialize-as-airlines-call-for-digital-id-tracking-systems.html

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 May 2020 21:47:51 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Temperature Checks and Desk Shields: CDC Suggests Big Changes
to Offices (NYTimes)

If followed, the guidelines would transform the everyday experience of employees across the country, from executives to clerical workers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/health/coronavirus-workplace-cdc.html

------------------------------

Date: May 29, 2020 at 20:19:19 GMT+9
From: Bloomberg Technology <noreply@mail.bloombergbusiness.com>
Subject: The art of the distraction (via Dave Farber)

Hi all, it's Eric. Donald Trump loves political theater. The president's tendency to chase drama first and foremost is obvious even what he's
ostensibly trying to do is overhaul decades-old communications regulations.

For most of the week, Trump has been raging about Twitter Inc.'s decision to attach fact-checking disclaimers to messages of his that make baseless arguments about voter fraud. On Thursday, the president signed an executive order designed to stop social media companies from taking any action against misleading or otherwise offensive posts. Such a move was needed, according
to Trump, ``to protect and uphold the free speech rights of the American people.''

This was the administration's most substantial attack on Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, a law it has had in its sights for quite
some time. Section 230 provides some legal protections for companies from
being sued over content their users post to their websites. The law has its critics from across the political spectrum; conservatives have been increasingly interested in stripping the protections as a way to punish companies for allegedly disfavoring political right. Trump's order would potentially narrow the Section 230's protections, and increase scrutiny of perceived political bias. [...]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 May 2020 10:12:08 -0700
From: Rob Slade <rmslade@shaw.ca>
Subject: Executive order on social media (The White House)

Original text: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing- online-censorship/ or https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_ede8f5bc92289244c181bc69b2bc093f

Text with annotations and translations below:

EXECUTIVE ORDER
- - - - - - -
PREVENTING ONLINE CENSORSHIP

In view of the whole situation, this is more than somewhat ironic ...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. Free speech is the bedrock of American democracy. Our Founding Fathers protected this sacred right with the First Amendment to
the Constitution. The freedom to express and debate ideas is the
foundation for all of our rights as a free people.

No problem.

In a country that has long cherished the freedom of expression, we cannot allow a limited number of online platforms to hand pick the speech that Americans may access and convey on the internet. This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic. When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power. They cease functioning as passive bulletin boards, and
ought to be viewed and treated as content creators.

"In America, freedom of the press is largely reserved for those who own one."
- A. J. Liebling

The growth of online platforms in recent years raises important questions about applying the ideals of the First Amendment to modern communications technology. Today, many Americans follow the news, stay in touch with
friends and family, and share their views on current events through social media and other online platforms. As a result, these platforms function in many ways as a 21st century equivalent of the public square.

Ah, my beloved Internet, filled with pointless drivel ...

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube wield immense, if not unprecedented, power to shape the interpretation of public events; to
censor, delete, or disappear information; and to control what people see or do not see.

"You must use this power only for good, never for evil ..."

As President, I have made clear my commitment to free and open debate on the internet. Such debate is just as important online as it is in our universities, our town halls, and our homes. It is essential to sustaining our democracy.

It's always good to throw in some humour in a tense situation.

Online platforms are engaging in selective censorship that is harming our national discourse. Tens of thousands of Americans have reported, among
other troubling behaviors, online platforms "flagging" content as inappropriate, even though it does not violate any stated terms of service; making unannounced and unexplained changes to company policies that have the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints; and deleting content and entire accounts with no warning, no rationale, and no recourse.

a) There is, of course, no evidence for this assertion, but I feel in my gut
that it's right.
b) Those who write their names on bathroom stalls also want laws against wall
cleansers.

Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets
in a manner that clearly reflects political bias. As has been reported, Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician's tweet. As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing
to mislead his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer
in charge of so-called "Site Integrity" has flaunted his political bias in his own tweets.

"I want to be able to spread outright lies like these without retrictions."

At the same time online platforms are invoking inconsistent, irrational,
and groundless justifications to censor or otherwise restrict Americans' speech here at home, several online platforms are profiting from and promoting the aggression and disinformation spread by foreign governments like China. One United States company, for example, created a search
engine for the Chinese Communist Party that would have blacklisted
searches for "human rights," hid data unfavorable to the Chinese Communist Party, and tracked users determined appropriate for surveillance. It also established research partnerships in China that provide direct benefits to the Chinese military. Other companies have accepted advertisements paid
for by the Chinese government that spread false information about China's mass imprisonment of religious minorities, thereby enabling these abuses
of human rights. They have also amplified China's propaganda abroad, including by allowing Chinese government officials to use their platforms
to spread misinformation regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,
and to undermine pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

SQUIRREL!

As a Nation, we must foster and protect diverse viewpoints in today's
digital communications environment where all Americans can and should have
a voice. We must seek transparency and accountability from online
platforms, and encourage standards and tools to protect and preserve the integrity and openness of American discourse and freedom of expression.

But only for our side.

Sec. 2. Protections Against Online Censorship. (a) It is the policy of the United States to foster clear ground rules promoting free and open debate
on the internet. Prominent among the ground rules governing that debate is the immunity from liability created by section 230(c) of the
Communications Decency Act (section 230(c)). 47 U.S.C. 230(c). It is the policy of the United States that the scope of that immunity should be clarified: the immunity should not extend beyond its text and purpose to provide protection for those who purport to provide users a forum for free and open speech, but in reality use their power over a vital means of communication to engage in deceptive or pretextual actions stifling free
and open debate by censoring certain viewpoints.

"We already have a law."

Section 230(c) was designed to address early court decisions holding that,
if an online platform restricted access to some content posted by others,
it would thereby become a "publisher" of all the content posted on its
site for purposes of torts such as defamation. As the title of section
230(c) makes clear, the provision provides limited liability "protection"
to a provider of an interactive computer service (such as an online
platform) that engages in "'Good Samaritan' blocking" of harmful
content. In particular, the Congress sought to provide protections for
online platforms that attempted to protect minors from harmful content and intended to ensure that such providers would not be discouraged from
taking down harmful material. The provision was also intended to further
the express vision of the Congress that the internet is a "forum for a
true diversity of political discourse." 47 U.S.C. 230(a)(3). The limited protections provided by the statute should be construed with these
purposes in mind.

"We already have a law."

In particular, subparagraph (c)(2) expressly addresses protections from "civil liability" and specifies that an interactive computer service
provider may not be made liable "on account of" its decision in "good
faith" to restrict access to content that it considers to be "obscene,
lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable." It is the policy of the United States to ensure that, to
the maximum extent permissible under the law, this provision is not
distorted to provide liability protection for online platforms that -- far from acting in "good faith" to remove objectionable content -- instead
engage in deceptive or pretextual actions (often contrary to their stated terms of service) to stifle viewpoints with which they disagree. Section
230 was not intended to allow a handful of companies to grow into titans controlling vital avenues for our national discourse under the guise of promoting open forums for debate, and then to provide those behemoths
blanket immunity when they use their power to censor content and silence viewpoints that they dislike. When an interactive computer service
provider removes or restricts access to content and its actions do not
meet the criteria of subparagraph (c)(2)(A), it is engaged in editorial conduct. It is the policy of the United States that such a provider should properly lose the limited liability shield of subparagraph (c)(2)(A) and
be exposed to liability like any traditional editor and publisher that is
not an online provider.

"We'd like to modify that law, without actually getting Congress to change it."

(b) To advance the policy described in subsection (a) of this section, all executive departments and agencies should ensure that their application of section 230(c) properly reflects the narrow purpose of the section and
take all appropriate actions in this regard. In addition, within 60 days
of the date of this order, the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary), in consultation with the Attorney General, and acting through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), shall file a petition for rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requesting that the FCC expeditiously propose regulations to clarify:

"We'd like to modify that law, without actually getting Congress to change it."

(i) the interaction between subparagraphs (c)(1) and (c)(2) of section 230, in particular to clarify and determine the circumstances under which a provider of an interactive computer service that restricts access to content in a manner not specifically protected by subparagraph (c)(2)(A) may also
not be able to claim protection under subparagraph (c)(1), which merely states that a provider shall not be treated as a publisher or speaker for making third-party content available and does not address the provider's responsibility for its own editorial decisions;

"We'd like to modify that law, without actually getting Congress to change it."

(ii) the conditions under which an action restricting access to or availability of material is not "taken in good faith" within the meaning
of subparagraph (c)(2)(A) of section 230, particularly whether actions can
be "taken in good faith" if they are:

(A) deceptive, pretextual, or inconsistent with a provider's terms of service; or

(B) taken after failing to provide adequate notice, reasoned explanation,
or a meaningful opportunity to be heard; and

(iii) any other proposed regulations that the NTIA concludes may be
appropriate to advance the policy described in subsection (a) of this
section.

"We'd like to modify that law, without actually getting Congress to change it."

Sec. 3. Protecting Federal Taxpayer Dollars from Financing Online
Platforms That Restrict Free Speech. (a) The head of each executive department and agency (agency) shall review its agency's Federal spending
on advertising and marketing paid to online platforms. Such review shall include the amount of money spent, the online platforms that receive
Federal dollars, and the statutory authorities available to restrict their receipt of advertising dollars.

(b) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the head of each agency shall report its findings to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

(c) The Department of Justice shall review the viewpoint-based speech restrictions imposed by each online platform identified in the report described in subsection (b) of this section and assess whether any online platforms are problematic vehicles for government speech due to viewpoint discrimination, deception to consumers, or other bad practices.

"If we can't change the law, we'll try and hit them in the pocketbook."

Sec. 4. Federal Review of Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices. (a) It is the policy of the United States that large online platforms, such as
Twitter and Facebook, as the critical means of promoting the free flow of speech and ideas today, should not restrict protected speech. The Supreme Court has noted that social media sites, as the modern public square, "can provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private
citizen to make his or her voice heard." Packingham v. North Carolina, 137
S. Ct. 1730, 1737 (2017). Communication through these channels has become important for meaningful participation in American democracy, including to petition elected leaders. These sites are providing an important forum to
the public for others to engage in free expression and
debate. Cf. PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 85-89
(1980).

"We've got lots more high-sounding verbiage."

(b) In May of 2019, the White House launched a Tech Bias Reporting tool to allow Americans to report incidents of online censorship. In just weeks,
the White House received over 16,000 complaints of online platforms
censoring or otherwise taking action against users based on their
political viewpoints. The White House will submit such complaints
received to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC).

"I'm going to tell my base on you!"

(c) The FTC shall consider taking action, as appropriate and consistent
with applicable law, to prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices in
or affecting commerce, pursuant to section 45 of title 15, United States Code. Such unfair or deceptive acts or practice may include practices by entities covered by section 230 that restrict speech in ways that do not

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