Overnight Tech: Zuckerberg to make his case to conservatives

LEDE: Mark Zuckerberg is bringing the right to Menlo Park.

It’s been over a week since Gizmodo published allegations that editors for Facebook’s trending topics section had omitted conservative stories and news sources from the list. While it’s not quite the powerful News Feed, the trending topics section still drives traffic and the mere perception of bias is a dangerous thing for Facebook.

{mosads}On Wednesday, Zuckerberg will convene a meeting of bold-faced conservative names to talk about the issue. The guest list includes Washington figures as well as media personalities: Donald Trump aide Barry Bennett, radio host Glenn Beck, and former White House press secretary, and current Fox News personality, Dana Perino are all confirmed to be attending.

Some have opted out, for various reasons. American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp said that his organization felt that Facebook wouldn’t be able to address their issues in a single meeting. “Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg are drawing the wrong conclusion from the negative response from conservatives,” he said in a statement. “It appears that they believe they can avoid having to answer for their actions by hosting conservative luminaries at their state-of-the-art headquarters.” Breitbart also declined to come.

So did Erick Erickson, but he said that he felt the company had been responsive to him in the past. “I appreciate the company reaching out to me, am sorry I can’t get to the meeting next week, but think the fact that Facebook is reaching out is a positive sign,” he wrote. “Frankly, I think Facebook has been far more open and fair to conservatives than Twitter, which seems increasingly hostile toward conservatives.”

For more on Zuckerberg’s big meeting, click here.

IN FACEBOOK’S CORNER: Joel Kaplan, the company’s vice president for global public policy, will be a part of the meeting. He’s a former deputy White House chief of staff for policy whom Facebook hired in 2010, in part, it was said, to improve its standing with Republicans.

FORMER FACEBOOK CONTRACTOR PENS OP-ED: A former Facebook contractor who says she worked on the company’s “Trending Topics” feature published a column in The Guardian describing the workplace as a toxic environment with heavy turnover. Though the former contractor said she did not observe the suppression of conservative news, which was alleged by others, she did say that contractors were discouraged from mentioning rival Twitter in its descriptions. You can read the entire column from the anonymous contractor here.

THE HILL EVENT: Join us 5/24 for State of the Sharing Economy: A Discussion on the Future of Cross-Border Commerce, featuring conversations with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Navdeep Bains, Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development. Topics of discussion include: New markets created by technological innovation, the global sharing economy, and policy & regulatory reforms to protect personal and proprietary data. Register here.

DON’T EXPECT ROBOCALLING LEGISLATION FROM THUNE: Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday that tomorrow’s oversight hearing on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act doesn’t necessarily clear the path to legislation on the issue. “It’s 25 years now since it was passed, and a lot of issues with actions taken by the FCC, so we felt it was a good time to do an oversight hearing,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s going to lead to any kind of legislative action or anything like that. We’ll see. I don’t anticipate anything like that at the moment.”

HOUSE E&C SETS HEARING ON FTC BILLS: The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade will hold a hearing on 17 bills related to consumer protection and the Federal Trade Commission next Tuesday. Click here for more on the hearing.

QUESTIONS ABOUT ONLINE VOTING: Cybersecurity experts are concerned about the 32 states that have some form of electronically transmitted ballots during elections, The Washington Post reported. While most of those electronic forms of voting are only allowed for military personnel or Americans living overseas, Alaska is the only state that allows any of its registered voters to cast a ballot online. Though only a small percentage of people have chosen that option in the past, cyber experts say security is not strong enough to guarantee that ballots won’t be subject to a breach.

LAWSUIT AGAINST GOOGLE MOVES FORWARD: The Wall Street Journal reported that a federal lawsuit is moving forward that alleges Google unfairly excluded a search engine optimization company from the tech giant’s search results. A judge’s decision not to quickly toss the case is significant because Google usually prevails quickly in these type of cases by invoking the First Amendment.

NET NEUTRALITY WATCH: The D.C. Circuit Court takes a median time of 148 days to decide cases, according to Bloomberg BNA. That is an important number for net neutrality watchers, who have been waiting in anticipation for months for court decision that will determine the fate of the Federal Communications Commission’s controversial regulations. The news outlet reported that the net neutrality case is a few week over that median time. Oral arguments were held in the case back in early December.

ON TAP:

At 8:30 a.m., Microsoft is holding a talk on technology and voter persuasion in the 2016 election.

At 10 a.m., the Senate Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which governs the legality of robocalls.

At 2 p.m. the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is holding a meeting on the use of private and commercial use of drones.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

The Senate majority whip is raising concerns this week after President Obama backed a Federal Communications Commission proposal to open up the market for television set-top boxes.

A controversial proposal to regulate the privacy policies of companies that offer internet service could benefit from more time, a majority of Federal Communications Commission members said Tuesday.

The head of the group behind the annual Conservative Political Action Conference says he won’t attend a Wednesday meeting between Facebook and conservatives over allegations the company downplayed right-leaning content on part of its platform.

Apple CEO Tim Cook plans to meet with Indian President Narendra Modi this week, according to a Bloomberg report Tuesday.

If Mozilla wants the FBI to disclose a potential hacking vulnerability on its Firefox browser, it should take it up with the government directly, a judge ruled on Monday.

Please send tips and comments to David McCabe, dmccabe@digital-staging.thehill.com and Mario Trujillo, mtrujillo@digital-staging.thehill.com

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