Hillicon Valley — Questions before Trump’s social media launch
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Former President Trump’s social media platform is slated to go public in app stores on Monday. But questions remain about what impact it will have on Trump’s reach, and how it will operate.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration said it believes Russia is behind the cyberattacks targeting Ukraine earlier this week.
Let’s jump into the news.
5 questions ahead of ‘Truth Social’ launch
Former President Trump’s new social media platform is expected to be released to the public on Monday.
There are still many unknowns about how Truth Social will work and whether it will successfully compete with the major platforms or their conservative alternatives.
More than a year after Trump was suspended from Facebook and Twitter, the platform may play a key role in outreach to his base as he considers a 2024 presidential run.
Here are five things we’ll be looking for when Truth Social launches.
White House: Russia behind Ukraine hack
The Biden administration believes Russian government hackers were behind cyberattacks targeting Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and banks in Ukraine earlier this week, a top White House official said Friday.
White House deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology Anne Neuberger told reporters the U.S. believes that hackers working with Russia’s military intelligence directorate, or GRU, are responsible for distributed denial-of-service attacks reported in Ukraine this week.
Neuberger said the Biden administration has “technical information” linking the attacks to the GRU and the U.S. shared underlying intelligence supporting the attribution with Ukraine.
“We have assessed that Russia was responsible for the distributed denial-of-service attacks that occurred earlier this week,” Neuberger said.
Neuberger added that the U.S. worked to attribute the attacks quickly because of the need to call Russia out for its behavior.
ADDING FUEL TO FACEBOOK’S FIRE
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen reportedly filed two new complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) arguing the tech giant misled investors about its efforts to mitigate the spread of misinformation on climate change and COVID-19.
The allegations build on Haugen’s broader efforts to raise the alarm about her former employer through SEC complaints. The first round of complaints against Facebook were filed in October.
The new complaints were filed by Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit representing Haugen, this month, The Washington Post reported.
The complaints allege Facebook, now under its parent company Meta, made “material misrepresentations and omissions in statements to investors” about efforts to combat misinformation, the Post reported, citing redacted copies of the documents.
Despite Facebook’s public commitments to fight climate misinformation on earnings calls with reporters, one complaint alleges the content was prominently available on Facebook and that the platform lacked a clear policy on the issue as recently as last year, according to the Post.
The other complaint alleges that Facebook’s internal documents “paint a different story” on efforts to combat misinformation about COVID-19, despite the company and executives’ public statements pledging to remove the harmful, false information, the Post reported.
FDA CLEARS APP TO DELIVER INSULIN
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the first-ever smartphone app that will assist in the delivery of mobile insulin to diabetic patients with iPhones and Androids.
Tandem Diabetes Care announced the FDA had approved it to deliver insulin with the assistance of its mobile app, called t:connect, in a news release on Thursday. The move is a major step toward improving direct care and using technology to help smooth the insulin delivery process to the estimated 37 million Americans with diabetes, Tandem says.
T:connect allows people using the company’s t:slim X2 insulin pump for insulin delivery “to program and cancel bolus insulin requests through the convenience of their compatible smartphone.”
BITS AND PIECES
An op-ed to chew on: Biden’s cybersecurity order opens our post-quantum era
Lighter click: The Baylonians were the OG
Notable links from around the web:
The startup Fast is a hit in Silicon Valley. But its CEO raises eyebrows in Australia (NPR / Bobby Allyn)
Kanye West’s $200 Stem Player will be the only way to get his next album, Donda 2 (The Verge / Richard Lawler)
Some U.S. Apple Store employees are working to unionize, part of a growing worker backlash (The Washington Post / Reed Albergotti)
One last thing: Virginia IT chief leaving after less than one month
The new head of Virginia’s information technology agency is leaving after working less than a month in the position.
Phil Wittmer, who was tapped by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to be the chief information officer at the Virginia Information Technologies Agency (VITA), is stepping down from his post, a Youngkin aide confirmed to The Hill on Friday.
It was not immediately clear why Wittmer was leaving. The Richmond Times-Disptach first reported of Wittmer’s departure. The Hill has reached out to VITA and Youngkin’s office for further comment.
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 Monday.
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