Overnight Tech: Latest on shooting at YouTube | Facebook deletes more Russian accounts | Trump keeps up attack on Amazon | Senators press Grindr on privacy

SHOOTING AT YOUTUBE: Police on Tuesday said responded to an active shooter at YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, Calif.

{mosads}San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said they were still investigating the incident, but they found a woman they “believe is the shooter” dead with a “self-inflicted” wound.

He added that four others had been wounded and had been sent to the hospital.

 

President Donald Trump responds: “Was just briefed on the shooting at YouTube’s HQ in San Bruno, California. Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved. Thank you to our phenomenal Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders that are currently on the scene,” Trump tweeted.

 

Google said that it has set up a helpline for employees.

 

Note: This story is still developing. Stay updated here.

 

Watching out for hoaxes:

-An exhaustive thread by BuzzFeed’s Jane Lytvynenko highlights various hoaxes that are already being spread about the shooting.

-One YouTube employee’s verified Twitter account was hacked as he was tweeting updates about the shooting.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Twitter that he’s aware of hoaxes and outlined steps his company is taking to curb their spread on its platform.

 

Please send your tips, comments and NCAA National Championship post-game analysis Ali Breland (abreland@digital-staging.thehill.com) and Harper Neidig (hneidig@digital-staging.thehill.com) and follow us on Twitter: @alibreland and @hneidig. We’re also on Signal and WhatsApp. Email or DM us for our numbers.

 

FACEBOOK DELETES OVER 250 MORE RUSSIAN ACCOUNTS: Facebook said on Tuesday that it removed over 250 accounts and pages linked to Russian trolls that had attempted to influence U.S. politics around the time of the 2016 election.

The company’s chief security officer Alex Stamos said in a post that the company removed 70 Facebook and 65 Instagram accounts, as well as 138 Facebook pages linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA) a Kremlin-linked troll farm whose top employees have been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Stamos said that 95 percent of the accounts that Facebook took down were in Russian and targeted at Russians or Russian speakers in nearby countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.

More than one million Facebook users followed at least one of the now deleted pages and 493,000 Instagram users followed at least one of the now deleted accounts.

The pages and accounts collectively spent $167,000 on advertising since Jan. 1 2015, according to numbers provided by Facebook.

From CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “Most of our actions against the IRA to date have been to prevent them from interfering in foreign elections. This update is about taking down their pages targeting people living in Russia. This Russian agency has repeatedly acted deceptively and tried to manipulate people in the US, Europe, and Russia — and we don’t want them on Facebook anywhere in the world,” the Facebook CEO wrote in a post.

 

Senate Intelligence Committee top Dem Mark Warner (Va.) reacts: “Today’s disclosure of more IRA-linked accounts is evidence that the Kremlin continues to exploit platforms like Facebook to sow division, spread disinformation, and influence political debates around the globe,” he said in a statement.

“I am glad that Facebook is taking some steps to pinpoint and address this activity, but I also expect Facebook and Mr. Zuckerberg, along with other platform companies, to continue to identify Russian troll activity and to work with Congress on updating our laws to better protect our democracy in the future.”  

 

House Intelligence Committee top Dem Adam Schiff (Calif.) reacts:  “Facebook should proactively notify affected Facebook and Instagram users, including those based in the United States, and continue to do so as future malign activity and content is discovered on its platforms. We also expect Facebook to continue to provide Congress with all relevant information and documents, including these new findings, as part of their ongoing investigation into Russian influence operations,” he said in a statement.

 

SENATORS GRILL GRINDR OVER HIV PRIVACY: Two Democratic senators are demanding answers after it was reported that the dating app has been sharing sensitive information about users’ HIV status with third parties.

“Simply using an app should not give companies a license to carelessly handle, use, or share this type of sensitive information,” Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a letter to the company.

To recap: Here’s Buzzfeed’s report from yesterday that revealed Grindr was sharing users’ HIV status with outside firms.

 

TRUMP KEEPS UP ATTACK ON AMAZON: The president is keeping up his Twitter attacks against Amazon over what he suspects is a cozy deal with the U.S. Postal Service.

“I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy. Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne [sic] by the American Taxpayer. Many billions of dollars. P.O. leaders don’t have a clue (or do they?)!” Trump tweeted.

Amazon does pay a discounted rate to the USPS due to the volume of its shipping and the postal service has agreed to ship the e-commerce giant’s packages on Sundays. But fact-checkers are disputing the notion that the USPS’s financial woes can be attributed to Amazon.

 

More on the feud:

Vanity Fair: Sources tell the publication that Trump’s renewed vendetta with Amazon isn’t populist, it’s personal

New Republic: A case for not feeling bad about Trump targeting Amazon

 

HOUSE PANEL WILL LOOK AT INTERNET ‘FAST LANES’: The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on April 17 to examine paid prioritization, a practice that was banned under the FCC’s net neutrality rules and a sticking point in the largely-partisan debate over possible legislation.

“While most everyone agrees on no blocking and no throttling, we need to get the policy right on the impact of prioritization,” a committee spokeswoman said in an email. “The goal of this hearing is bringing folks to the table for a good faith conversation on the issue.”

Republicans have been calling for legislation to fill the void, but net neutrality supporters say that any legislative proposal will fall short of adequate protections. For their part, Democrats are pushing a legislative effort that will nullify the FCC’s repeal.

 

POLL FINDS FACEBOOK USERS DON’T TRUST THE COMPANY WITH DATA: A new Huffington Post/YouGov survey has found that a majority of Facebook users are uneasy about how the company handles their data. Here are some highlights from the survey:

-When asked how much they trusted the social media giant with their data, 63 percent of respondents who use the site said “not very much” or “not at all.”

-Fifty-five percent of respondents who said they had heard about the Cambridge Analytica scandal said they were not satisfied with Facebook’s response.

-Forty-eight percent said they hold a favorable view of the company, while 44 percent view it unfavorably.

-And despite Facebook’s public grappling with disinformation on its platform, a slight majority — 52 percent — say they trust the news they get from the site “a great deal” or “a fair amount.”

 

WORD AROUND TOWN: The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey tweets that Peter Thiel is expected to have dinner with President Trump in D.C. tonight, per sources.

Thiel and Trump’s relationship: Thiel was a major surrogate and adviser to Trump during the campaign trail and one of his only public Silicon Valley backers, but reports after suggested their relationship soured to some degree.

In November, Vanity Fair did a lengthy profile on Thiel and his dealing with the Trump administration that gives good background on their interactions.

 

ON TAP:

The Federal Communications Bar Association Wireline Committee will hold a discussion on space traffic management at 6:00 p.m.

 

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