Hillicon Valley — Officials on alert ahead of Election Day
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Election officials are gearing up in advance of a potentially contentious Election Day, with one top agency expressing confidence in the security of the process a year after controversy following the 2020 elections.
Meanwhile, a report released by two federal bank regulators and a White House commission called for Congress to increase regulation on “stablecoins,” and Twitter announced plans to boost authoritative information about climate change during the United Nations climate summit.
Let’s jump in.
Feds to monitor election-related cyber threats
Officials are on alert for Election Day threats aimed at states such as Virginia, which is home to a hotly contested gubernatorial race this year.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) put out a statement on Monday, on the eve of various state contests, announcing that it would set up an election situational awareness room to monitor elections in more than 30 states.
Coordination: This space will serve to coordinate election security efforts between CISA, the key agency responsible for election security, and election officials at the state and local levels, along with representatives from political organizations and other private-sector groups.
CISA stressed Monday that while preparations were underway to monitor for any security concerns, there is currently “no specific, credible threat to election infrastructure.”
Key state: In Virginia, likely to be the most watched state Tuesday due to its tight governor’s race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin, officials are also confident ahead of Election Day.
Chris Piper, the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections, wrote an op-ed published Saturday for The Richmond Times-Dispatch stressing the security of the process and detailing the methods employed to secure machines used in the voting process.
“Voting is your right,” Piper wrote. “And it is our privilege and duty to assure you that your ballot was counted accurately and produced a reliable, trustworthy outcome. You can count on your defenders of democracy.”
Toughen up on stablecoin
Two federal bank regulators and a White House commission on Monday called for increasing federal supervision and regulation of digital tokens with values tied to government currencies or other financial assets.
The report: In a Monday report, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets said Congress should pass legislation bringing so-called “stablecoins” under close federal watch.
Stablecoins have grown rapidly in prominence and value as part of the larger cryptocurrency boom redefining financial markets. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, whose values are determined largely by trading activity, stablecoins are tokens tied to cash or other safer assets held by an issuer. Their relative stability compared to other, highly volatile tokens has made stablecoins a popular medium for payments and loan products.
“If well-designed and appropriately regulated, stablecoins could support faster, more efficient, and more inclusive payments options,” the report reads. But the officials also said the tokens psoe serious money laundering, illicit finance and even financial stability concerns given their decentralized nature, gaps in federal regulatory authority and growing reach.
“If stablecoin issuers do not honor a request to redeem a stablecoin, or if users lose confidence in a stablecoin issuer’s ability to honor such a request, runs on the arrangement could occur that may result in harm to users and the broader financial system,” they wrote.
The goals: The report called for legislation focused on three basic goals: limiting stablecoin issuance only to banks or credit unions with federal deposit insurance; putting companies who offer cryptocurrency “wallets” under federal supervision; and restricting relationships between stablecoin issuers and commercial firms.
A HOT TOPIC
Twitter will boost authoritative information about climate change on its platform during the United Nations climate summit, the company said Monday.
Twitter is rolling out so-called pre-bunks, hubs containing “credible, authoritative information,” as part of the initiative.
“These pre-bunks will surface reliable, factual context across a range of key themes, like the science backing climate change and global warming realities,” Twitter said in a blog post.
Twitter plans to stop showing the pre-bunks after the two-week COP26 summit taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, but will continue to monitor conversations and “can resurface context as needed” about the topic in the future, a Twitter spokesperson told Axios.
CANADIAN TV QUIETS COMMENTS
The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) will keep comments turned off on its Facebook posts, the outlet said Monday.
The decision follows an experiment CBC launched in June to turn comments off on CBC-branded Facebook pages after seeing an “inordinate amount of hate, abuse, misogyny and threats in the comments under our stories,” editor-in-chief Brodie Fenlon said in a blog post.
“The experiment has been a positive one. We are now posting more diverse stories than ever to Facebook. We are no longer moderating a space with few controls. The impact on our web traffic has been marginal. The well-being of our staff has improved, according to an internal survey we conducted during the experiment,” Fenlon wrote.
Fenlon dismissed concerns that the outlet was limiting free speech. He said the CBC found a “surge of comments” on its website during the federal election, and users are free to comment on their own personal Facebook pages and other social media accounts.
Amazon lifts mask mandate (again)
Workers fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will no longer be required to wear face coverings in Amazon warehouses.
The face covering requirement will be lifted starting Tuesday, unless otherwise mandated by federal, state or local regulations, according to an Amazon spokesperson.
Workers received a notice about the update on Friday, CNBC reported.
“Vaccines are universally available across the U.S. and vaccination rates continue to rise which enables the ability to return to our previous mask policy,” the notice reportedly stated.
Workers must provide proof of their vaccination status in Amazon’s internal employee portal, according to CNBC.
ROBLOX RISES
Roblox, the gaming website wildly popular with children, is back online after experiencing a weekend outage.
Roblox users started having trouble connecting to the platform on Thursday, and technicians have since been working around the clock to identify the issue and fix it, Roblox CEO David Baszucki said in a statement Sunday
“As most of the Roblox community is aware, we recently experienced an extended outage across our platform. We are sorry for the length of time it took us to restore service,” Baszucki said. “A key value at Roblox is ‘Respect the Community,’ and in this case, we apologize for the inconvenience to our community.”
BITS AND PIECES
An op-ed to chew on: Now is the time to take stock of our cyber defenses
Lighter click: Best of luck I guess
Notable links from around the web:
Snap, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube lose nearly $10bn after iPhone privacy changes (The Financial Times / Patrick McGee)
A mysterious network of Twitter bots promote alleged NRA hack (The Daily Beast / Shannon Vavra)
Banks Tried to Kill Crypto and Failed. Now They’re Embracing It (Slowly). (The New York Times / Emily Flitter)
Some Amazon Delivery Companies Are Struggling to Hire. Amazon Is Threatening to Terminate Their Contracts. (Motherboard / Lauren Kaori Gurley)
ICYMI: Meta faces Facebook’s problems
Facebook’s rebrand as Meta has done little so far to assuage its critics or turn down the political heat focused on the Silicon Valley giant.
The makeover of the company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 comes amid historic scrutiny of the social media behemoth, which has long been in the crosshairs of lawmakers and privacy hawks.
Facebook has been grabbing negative headlines for well over a month stemming from documents shared by a whistleblower, Frances Haugen. More than a dozen outlets this week released stories on the files, dubbed the Facebook Papers, painting a picture of a company consistently placing profits above user safety.
Congress has taken note and vowed to take action on regulating the company following a hearing with Haugen earlier this month.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s technology and cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you Tuesday.
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