Is Silicon Valley for someone other than Harris?

WIRED Politics Lab: Silicon Valley Is Coconuts for Kamala Harris (Is Joe Biden a coup’)

Today on WIRED Politics Lab, how Democratic megadonors in Silicon Valley are showing their support for Vice President Kamala Harris now that President Joe Biden has dropped out of the race. Plus, why posts from the far-right and Republican lawmakers calling Biden’s exit a ‘coup’ have exploded online.

With Vice President Harris announcing she’s running immediately, we have more than a month left before the election, and we will win.

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Source: Silicon Valley Is Coconuts for Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris, tech policy, and tech policy: What we know (and don’t know) about tech policy (and why she is interested in tech policy)

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But in an election year that saw both the passage of the TikTok ban and the once-in-a-generation DOJ antitrust suit against Apple, there are tech policy questions that Kamala Harris cannot avoid forever. The GOP ticket has already articulated its position — coherent or not — on some of those issues. It will be Harris’ turn soon enough.

Harris has some personal connections in the tech industry. Tony West is her brother-in-law. The Washington Post says she attended a wedding of a former Facebook president.

Having spent most of her political career either in California or representing it, tech and entertainment companies were among the top contributors to Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign. According to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks political donations and groups together organizations’ political action committee (PAC) spending and employee donations, the University of California was the top contributor to her campaign at $209,00. Harris raised $144,00 from Alphabet, $137,000 from Disney, and $134,000 from AT&T.

The right has already zeroed in on Harris’s tenure as so-called “border czar,” even though her actual role was focused on diplomacy with Central America. But immigration is much more than a border issue, and Harris would likely continue Biden’s policies with regards to legal immigration and visas. Maintaining the H-1B visa program is a key interest of the tech sector and is used to help high skilled workers stay in the country. The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act would remove per-country caps for employment-based green cards. She wanted to eliminate discrimination so that high- skilled immigrants can stay in the U.S. and contribute to the economy. She has not talked about the issue in a while.

Source: Here’s what we know (and don’t know) about Kamala Harris and tech policy

Kamala Harris: An Odd Choice for Crypto-Industry, Climate, and the Silicon Valley? And Where Does The Democrat Party Stand?

Nevertheless, the US is still not on track to meet climate goals it set under the Paris agreement of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by the end of the decade. Donald Trump could try to wipe existing climate policies off the books.

The legislation was the biggest investments in clean energy and climate that the US has yet to pass. And the Environmental Protection Agency under Biden and Harris has introduced sweeping new pollution regulations for cars, power plants, and industrial facilities. The measures could change how Americans get around, how their homes are built and how they get their energy.

As vice president, Harris has been tasked with addressing “root causes” of immigration from Central America. She secured private sector commitments to help train entrepreneurs and small businesses there, and helped women build their online presence, as part of the work she did in that role. During Biden’s term, the Department of Homeland Security increased its use of border monitoring technology, which could continue if Harris is elected.

Meanwhile, Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have indicated they would be open to a less regulated environment for crypto — Trump is even slated to speak at a crypto conference over the weekend. It has been claimed that this deregulation attitude has resulted in $160 million in campaign contributions to the Republican party from companies in the gaming industry, as well as from prominent venture capitalists. Their firm has a big fund for cryptocurrencies.

Vice President Kamala Harris is all but certain to become the Democratic presidential candidate. She was catapulted to the top of the presidential field after President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and publicly endorsed her, and now key power broker in the party have supported her. The heart of the tech industry is California’s Bay Area, and Harris would be a president who has roots there.

We know where she stands on climate, and we have some idea of how she feels about privacy, but there are a number of other questions that she has yet to be asked or has successfully avoided answering. She’s an odd choice for tech antitrust and the TikTok ban. And she has yet to speak directly to the issues that most concern the moneyed donor class of Silicon Valley, such as crypto regulation.

“I think this is a big opportunity for the Democratic Party to do a little bit of introspection and say — where have they lost certain communities?” In an interview with The Verge, Box’s CEO said he gives a lot to Democratic candidates. He said the party has seen “missed opportunities” with the tech and business community, like in pushing for taxes on unrealized gains and failing to update the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers. Ultimately, he hopes for “a bit of a reset on some of either the policy initiatives, or just the the tone and the message from the party.”

Source: Here’s what we know (and don’t know) about Kamala Harris and tech policy

Kamala Harris and antitrust policy: What we know (and don’t know) about tech policy and its affect on the American public opinion

Even so, she has left the possibility of enforcement open. Also that year, she told CNN that “we have to seriously take a look at” breaking up Facebook. She also called the platform “essentially a utility that has gone unregulated.”

Silicon Valley has differing opinions on the issue of antitrust, and Harris will find some friends there. (The most direct beneficiaries of antitrust policy, after all, are the rival companies.) “There’s not a dinner that I’ve been at where three people can agree on an antitrust policy,” Levie said. I have friends that are ardent supporters of capitalism, free markets and Lina Khan’s efforts to keep Big Tech in check.

There is one area of privacy in which Harris has had a strong, substantive record: legislation and enforcement targeting the sharing of non-consensual images. This issue is not related to data privacy, rather it is an extension of her work on online sex traffickers.

Her work in this area predates her entry to Washington, DC. While she was California attorney general, Harris secured a guilty plea over a hacking scheme to steal intimate images off of people’s Google accounts.

In her position as the vice president, she was tasked with being a point person in the administration on the policy of artificial intelligence and leading panels for labor and civil rights leaders.

Harris called for the establishment of an Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit in the United Kingdom last November. At the summit, Harris said that they should “consider and address the full spectrum of AI risk threats to humanity as a whole as well as threats to individuals, communities, to our institutions, and to our most vulnerable populations.”

“And when people around the world cannot discern fact from fiction because of a flood of A.I.-enabled mis- and disinformation, I ask: Is that not existential for democracy?” Harris said at the U.K. summit.

Source: Here’s what we know (and don’t know) about Kamala Harris and tech policy

TikTok: A Protected Platform for Crypto-Intelligence Exchanges and Anti-Deserialization in Crypto-Ares

The owner of TikTok has national security concerns and we need to deal with them but we have no intentions of banning the toy. She also added that TikTok has “very important” benefits, like serving as an income generator and “allowing people to share information in a free way.”

When asked about her specific views on TikTok itself during an on-stage interview at The New York Times DealBook summit last November, Harris declined to comment.

The Biden administration has had a less-than-rosy relationship with the crypto industry due to Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler’s stance on how it should be regulated. Even if she just puts in her own SEC chair pick instead of Gensler, this will still improve relations with the sector.