Earlier this week, AWS vice president Tim Bray quit over what he sees is an attempt to punish whistleblowers who express concerns about lacking COVID-19 protections. Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board is looking into claims of retaliation against employees who organize or participate in protests.

In a statement provided to Engadget, an Amazon spokesperson said:

“These individuals were not terminated for talking publicly about working conditions or safety, but rather, for violating—often repeatedly—policies, such as intimidation, physical distancing and more. We support every employees’ right to criticize or protest their employer’s working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies. We look forward to explaining in more detail in our response to the Senators’ letter.”

Amazon has responded to criticism around its coronavirus response with a pledge to provide masks and conduct temperature scans, and CEO Jeff Bezos said the company will spend $4 billion on COVID-19 related expenses, including “keeping employees safe.” But Amazon is facing pressure abroad too, and it is being questioned regarding alleged data abuse.

As The Verge notes, in the past, Amazon has justified firing outspoken employees with vague claims that they violated internal policies. But with increased pressure on several fronts and big names like Sanders and Warren behind this letter, Amazon may have to offer a more in depth explanation.

Update 5/7/2020 3:05PM ET: This story was updated to include a statement from Amazon.

The campaign will have “more to say” in the weeks ahead about what it did with technology.

It isn’t unheard of for American candidates to rely on software for election runs, but developing open source tools is relatively rare. It may become more common, mind you. The Warren team noted that Spoke alone saved the campaign over $580,000 in texting costs. Free, easily modified tools like this could sustain political hopefuls who otherwise couldn’t afford to either buy pre-made software or write their own from scratch.

Warren drew significant attention over the past year by saying that many of the biggest tech companies in the world would be under close scrutiny if she were to become president. Specifically, she pledged to break up Amazon, Facebook and Google and accused them of using their power to unfairly influence the market and absorb their competition. She’s also taken issue with Facebook’s lack of responsibility for the content people post to its services, mocking the company for its ad policies that let politicians run campaigns that contained false information. She also had plans to significantly expand rural broadband access and to do her best to restore net neutrality.

With a formerly wide field essentially down to two candidates, it’s worth looking at what consumers of technology (as well as the tech industry as a whole) have to lose or gain under Biden or Sanders, should one of them become president in 2021. If you’ve followed their political leanings, you won’t be surprised to know that Sanders’ thoughts on big tech align much more closely with Warren than they do with Biden.

Sanders is a proponent of major antitrust reform, regardless of the industry. “I think we need vigorous antitrust legislation in this country because you are seeing — you name the area, whether it’s pharmaceuticals, whether it is Wall Street, whether it is high tech — fewer and fewer gigantic corporations owning those sectors,” he said at a Washington Post live event earlier this year. He specifically cited Amazon as a company moving rapidly towards becoming a monopoly and criticized Facebook for the “incredible power” it has over both politics and the economy in the US.

Sanders made similar remarks in an extensive, unedited interview with the New York Times editorial board in January, making it clear his focus was around increased enforcement of antitrust laws, regardless of industry. “I’ll be the first to admit it, but we have been derelict in that we have antitrust legislation that has not been enforced by Republican or Democratic administrations, and I intend to do that,” Sanders said. “And it is not just the big tech companies.”

Biden, on the other hand, hasn’t been as clear or forceful about how he’d deal with the tech giants should he become president. One thing is clear, though: He’s no fan of Facebook. In his interview with the Times editorial board, he slammed the company and CEO Mark Zuckerberg for ducking what he sees as its responsibility for the content posted to Facebook’s platform. Biden has more personal skin in this game — Facebook has rejected requests to remove a Trump ad making false claims about Biden and his son.

Biden pointed specifically to Facebook in comments on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), something that’s considered a cornerstone of the modern internet. It protects companies like Facebook from being sued for content posted on its services because of a status as a distributor rather than a publisher — protection that a journalistic endeavor does not enjoy. Overhauling or revoking Section 230 would have a huge effect not just on Facebook, but on Google, Twitter and likely dozens of other internet companies as well.

“[Zuckerberg] knows better. And you know, from my perspective, I’ve been in the view that not only should we be worrying about the concentration of power, we should be worried about the lack of privacy and them being exempt, which [The Times are] not exempt,” Biden said to the Times. “[Section 230] should be revoked because [Facebook] is not merely an internet company. It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false, and we should be setting standards not unlike the Europeans are doing relative to privacy.”

As for breaking up Facebook or other tech giants, Biden is less committed than Sanders or Warren. He told the Associated Press in May of 2019 that breaking up some of the tech companies was “something we should take a really hard look at,” but that it’s “premature” to say what the right tactics were. At the same time, he said that Warren “has a very strong case to be made” for the break-up she proposed. That said, we’re not holding our breath for Biden to adopt any of Warren’s plans now that she’s out of the race — let’s not forget that Biden was VP as part of President Obama’s administration, one that was quite friendly to Silicon Valley.

After admitting that’s not true, the ad states “If Trump tries to lie in a TV ad, most networks will refuse to air it. But Facebook just cashes Trump’s checks,” while also claiming the site “already helped elect Donald Trump once.” In a statement to CNN, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone said “If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should not be in the position of censoring that speech.” And so the ad stays up.

She plans to earmark $85 billion in federal funding to expand broadband networks in rural areas. Currently, the Federal Communications Commission offers $4.6 billion/year to fund rural broadband infrastructure, while the Rural Utilities Service doles out $800 million/year in grants and loans.

Under Warren’s plan, the $5 billion funding for expanded broadband on Native American lands alone would surpass what the FCC currently offers in total each year. US Census Bureau data suggests about half of Native Americans on reservations or other tribal lands don’t have broadband access.

Should Warren win the election, she plans to set up an Office of Broadband Access in the Department of Economic Development that would oversee the $85 billion in funding. Instead of private ISPs, the funding would go to “electricity and telephone cooperatives, nonprofit organizations, tribes, cities, counties and other state subdivisions” that build out broadband in rural areas. Those that receive the funding would have to subsidize services for low-income households.

She also aims to use federal law to ensure local governments have the right to build their own broadband networks instead of having to rely on private companies. Municipalities including Sandy, Oregon and Chattanooga, Tennessee have taken that approach, and Warren hopes to allow them more flexibility to serve other local communities. Some states ban or limit the reach of municipal broadband services.

The plan also calls for more accurate broadband maps. To do so, Warren would appoint FCC commissioners who’d require ISPs to give better reporting on broadband access data. She’d also look to bring in commissioners who would restore net neutrality. The FCC repealed the Obama-era protections in 2017.

Warren isn’t the only candidate concerned with the digital divide. Joe Biden, for instance, plans to provide $20 billion to bolster rural broadband infrastructure. Amy Klobuchar and Bernie Sanders also hope to expand rural broadband access, but the other candidates haven’t revealed plans nearly as detailed as Warren’s.

California farmers are planting solar panels as water supplies dry up
Sammy Roth,
Los Angeles Times

In parts of California, water is becoming scarce, and that’s not great news for farmers. There is an alternative though: solar panels. Los Angeles Times explains how the renewable energy source might help replace jobs and revenue that are lost as over half a million acres are taken out of production in the San Joaquin Valley alone.

A group of lawyers, professors & judges are about to vote on whether to subject consumers to abusive contracts they don’t negotiate and can’t opt out of. This dangerous proposal will shape decisions in courts across the country – it should be voted down. https://t.co/V6aVf2QYoz

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 21, 2019

An ALI spokesman told Engadget in an email that the vote on the project has been pushed back to next year’s annual meeting after the group ran out of time. ALI members, which at Tuesday’s vote included more than 300 practicing lawyers, judges and legal scholars, only approved the project’s definitions.

Penn Record reported that consumer advocate Adam Levitin, who opposes the project, offered an amendment that would make contracts invalid if they were particularly egregious or out of line, or if they fell outside of what “any reasonable consumer would expect”. After a long debate, the amendment was defeated by a vote of 206–144.

But when it came to the substantive meat of the draft, the group was unable to reach a consensus. “We ran out of time before we could complete discussion of the draft. The first motion to approve the Sections of the draft that were discussed was to approve §§ [Sections] 1 and 2. After it was pointed out that the discussion on § [Section] 2 had not been completed, the motion was amended to seek approval of Section 1 only. A motion to defer the motion to approve Section 1 until a subsequent to Annual Meeting was defeated 144–142,” wrote the ALI spokesman. Deepak Gupta, a member of ALI who was present at Tuesday’s meeting, tweeted that there was “vigorous, civil debate”, but none of the project’s substantive sections were approved.

The ALI meeting on the draft Restatement of Consumer Contracts has just ended. There was vigorous, civil debate. None of the substantive sections were approved. The meeting ended with a postponement of the project’s ultimate fate.

— Deepak Gupta (@deepakguptalaw) May 21, 2019

One of Warren’s ads is a video directing users to a petition on her campaign website, asking voters to support her plan. Others feature images and text with the the same message. In a tweet, the Senator said that the event demonstrates how much power Facebook wields.

Curious why I think FB has too much power? Let’s start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power. Thanks for restoring my posts. But I want a social media marketplace that isn’t dominated by a single censor. #BreakUpBigTech https://t.co/UPS6dozOxn

— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) March 11, 2019

The company, however, told Politico that it pulled the ads down because they violated its policies against the use of its corporate logo. When it removed three of the Senator’s advertisements — more than a dozen were apparently not affected — it replaced them with a message that said: “This ad was taken down because it goes against Facebook’s advertising policies.” The spokesperson explained that the social network has now restored them “in the interest of allowing robust debate.”

Warren has two proposals to counter the influence of these companies. First would be designating large tech platforms as “platform utilities.” “These companies would be prohibited from owning both the platform utility and any participants on that platform,” Warren says in the Medium post. Second, Warren proposes focusing on the reversal of tech mergers that she calls anti-competitive. The examples she provides are reversing Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and Facebook’s purchase of Instagram, among others. These mergers and acquisitions, Warren posits, illegally undermined competition.

These changes would better allow small businesses to compete with Amazon by selling their goods on the company’s marketplace, but without the fear that the company would drive them out of business. It would also encourage Facebook to respect its users’ privacy, and would prevent Google from downranking competitors’ search results.

All of this comes at a time when privacy is in the headlines on a daily basis and the Democratic field is wide open. Voters are looking to these potential candidates to see how they’ll handle (or remain conspicuously silent) on the issues of these tech giants, which are increasingly dominating our everyday lives and internet experiences. As The New York Times notes, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar have both made comments about limiting these tech companies, while Kamala Harris has expressed privacy concerns but hasn’t spoken on specifically curbing influence. Cory Booker, meanwhile, is more comfortable with these large tech companies.