Hillicon Valley: Twitter shares more details on political ad rules | Supreme Court takes up Google-Oracle fight | Pentagon chief defends Microsoft cloud contract

by Emily Birnbaum,Maggie Miller and Chris Mills Rodrigo - 11/15/19 6:37 PM ET

Welcome to Hillicon Valley, The Hill’s newsletter detailing all you need to know about the tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. If you don’t already, be sure to sign up for our newsletter with this LINK.

Welcome! Follow the cyber team, Maggie Miller (@magmill95), and the tech team, Emily Birnbaum (@birnbaum_e) and Chris Mills Rodrigo (@chrisismills).

NEW DETAILS ON TWITTER’S POLITICAL AD RULES: Twitter on Friday announced that it is going to restrict, but not outright ban, advertisements that raise awareness about particular issues like climate change and abortion as part of a broader effort to rein in political advertisements.

The social media platform, which has about 330 million monthly active users and raked in ad revenue of $2.61 billion last year, said it is placing significant limitations around advertisements that touch on topics like “environmental stewardship” or “social equity causes.” Twitter will no longer allow the groups and individuals placing those “cause-based” ads to target particular demographic groups or zip codes.

And Twitter will do what its CEO Jack Dorsey announced earlier this month: the platform will completely ban all advertisements from or about politicians, political candidates, particular pieces of legislation, specific regulations, ballot measures, elections or court cases.

Twitter’s new pared-down political ads policy, which the company shared for the first time on Friday, will go into effect next week.

How Twitter is explaining it: “We believe … political reach should be earned and not bought,” Del Harvey, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety, said on a call with reporters. “But the other thing that we considered is, while advertising should not be used to drive political, legislative or regulatory outcomes, there’s certain cause-based advertising that can facilitate conversation about important topics.”

Twitter is walking a fine line as it seeks to ban all advertising aimed at achieving specific political outcomes, while allowing advocacy groups and individuals to pay to raise awareness around issues like the economy, health care and climate change.

The specifics: The company’s new policy specifies that for-profit organizations, like large corporations, will not be allowed to run ads with the “primary goal” of pushing for particular political outcomes. For example, a company like Exxon will be allowed to continue running ads about carbon dioxide, as it currently does, but it will not be allowed to run ads pushing for particular bills.

Political action committees and social welfare organizations registered as 501(c)(4)s will not be allowed to run ads at all, alongside candidates and government officials.

The politics: Twitter’s Dorsey first announced the political ads ban two weeks ago amid controversy over Facebook’s policy of allowing politicians to publish misleading or false claims in political ads. While Facebook launched an offensive to defend the policy as an effort to promote free expression online, Dorsey announced Twitter would ban those ads entirely, claiming his company is against “paying for reach” when it comes to political messaging.

On the Friday call, officials made it clear that Twitter does not have a specific policy barring misinformation in advertisements, including cause-related ads. But Harvey said Twitter will no longer allow “super siloed, hidden targeting” on those sensitive topics.

Read more on Twitter’s new policy here.

ESPER DEFENDS JEDI: Defense Secretary Mark Esper doubled down Friday on his belief that Microsoft was fairly awarded a $10 billion cloud-computing contract, The Associated Press reports.

When the Pentagon awarded the massive contract to Microsoft in late October, Amazon, which was in the running for the contract, protested heavily, citing “unmistakable bias,” while announcing that it would challenge the decision in court.

Esper reportedly recused himself from the awarding process as his son had previously worked for one of the unsuccessful bidders.

“I am confident that it was conducted freely and fairly without any type of outside influence,” Esper told reporters Friday in Seoul, South Korea.

Amazon is challenging the decision in federal court.

Read more on Google v. Oracle here.

ROBOCALL COMPROMISE: Key lawmakers in the House and Senate on Friday announced they have drawn up a bill to stave off the scourge of robocalls in the U.S., expressing optimism that the negotiated legislation “can be signed into law by the President.”

The long-awaited anti-robocall bill, which has not been made public in its final form yet, would allow telephone carriers to block robocalls – spam calls often aimed at stealing personal information from vulnerable populations – in a “consistent and transparent” way without charging consumers any extra money, according to Friday statement from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a top member of the Senate Commerce Committee, among others.

The House and Senate have been working for months on similar legislation to address robocalls, which have been increasing in volume and aggravating millions of Americans for years. The statement on Friday signals they have negotiated agreements over several of the points of disagreement between the bills.

“Today, we are proud to announce that we have come to an agreement in principle on legislation, the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act, to combat the robocall epidemic that we believe can be signed into law by the President,” the House and Senate lawmakers said in the statement. “It’s time to put Americans back in charge of their phones.”

The anti-robocall bill will require telephone carriers to verify calls and offer tools for their customers to block spammy calls. It will also give the Federal Communications Commission more time to investigate and punish illegal robocallers.

The statement is also signed by the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore).

The lawmakers are working to finalize the bill text “in the coming days,” they said.

The final bill will likely allow for tougher penalties against the scammers who generate billions of unwanted calls each year. The number of robocallers dialing up U.S. consumers is on the rise.