Matt Stoller Profile picture
Apr 12, 2022 32 tweets 11 min read Read on X
1. Here's Apple CEO Tim Cook today arguing that antitrust laws against big tech are bad for privacy and bad for national security. In honor of his speech, I thought I'd do a little thread on just how bad these tech firms are for American security.
2. Let's start with Apple, which systemically transferred technology to Chinese firms after Tim Cook in 2016 made a $275 billion investment pledge to invest in China. theinformation.com/articles/facin…
3. Apple sourced "more components from Chinese suppliers, signed deals with Chinese software firms, collaborated on technology with Chinese universities" and "directly invested in Chinese tech companies." It helped bring "“the most advanced manufacturing technologies” to China.
4. In 2021, Apple and Google removed a voting app created by the Russian political opposition leader after pressure from the Russian government. Security! Prestige Worldwide! nytimes.com/2021/09/17/wor…
5. Apple lobbied on behalf of forced labor in China, seeking to weaken the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
6. Apple Maps nearly sent chef Jose Andres into sending me into Russian-controlled territory. It was an accident! Black leather gloves! Research and development! axios.com/jose-andres-be…
7. Apple's app store is so full of scams and garbage, and the firm is so inattentive, that one dude on Twitter - @keleftheriou - is constantly embarrassing Apple by showing their claims of protecting users are essentially fraudulent. theverge.com/2021/4/21/2238…
8. Apple handed over "priceless knowledge" to Chinese firms on how to build its products. This directly contributed and is still contributing to the rise of China's tech industry. Apple is *more* invested in China, not less. theinformation.com/articles/how-a…
9. "Apple and Facebook provided customer data to hackers who masqueraded as law enforcement officials, according to three people with knowledge of the matter."

So much security! Putting in the man hours to study the science. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
10. Facebook regularly helps scammers impersonate U.S. soldiers, and does nothing to stop it. nytimes.com/2019/07/28/tec…
11. Google's Android software accidentally gave away the location of secret military activities.

Last week we put liquid paper on a bee! It died.
washingtonpost.com/world/a-map-sh…
12. Still, it's not like Apple actually uses slave labor in China to make its products oh wait seven Apple suppliers are accused of doing that, um, Tim Cook cares about your privacy. theinformation.com/articles/seven…
13. Apple tried to refuse unlocking an iPhone to help solve a shooting at a Navy base in Pensacola. There was a court warrant, so this wasn't some glorious stand on privacy. cnbc.com/2020/01/14/app…
14. Google abandoned a contract to deliver the Pentagon drone AI technology, leaving the DOD with no alternative supplier. washingtonpost.com/news/the-switc…
15. While pretending to stand up for human rights as its rationale for not being in the Chinese market, Google secretly tried to develop a censored version of its search engine in China that would help the Chinese government surveil its citizens. theintercept.com/2018/08/01/goo…
16. Facebook profited from advertisements peddling illegal opioids. The ads remained on Facebook for months after an NBC News investigation, and weeks after U.S. officials declared opioid addiction a public health crisis. cnbc.com/2017/11/14/fac…
17. We need big tech research to compete with China, right?

" 10 percent of the collective AI research labs of Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft were housed in China by the end of 2020."

oops!

defenseone.com/ideas/2021/08/…
18. But what about TikTok? Don't we need someone to take on TikTok? Glad that you asked. Facebook is why we *have* a TikTok problem. promarket.org/2020/08/07/tec…
19. Amazon, of course, actively facilitated as much Chinese seller activity into the US as possible, thus spawning a wave of counterfeits and dangerous products. ImageImage
20. The economies of scale facilitated by firms like Amazon and Facebook are just great.
21. Naturally Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple do wonderful political work to protect us. Microsoft, for instance, lobbied on behalf of Chinese telecom firm Huawei. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
22. NYT: "Amazon ‘Reviewing’ Its Website After It Suggested Bomb-Making Items"

That seems bad! nytimes.com/2017/09/20/tec…
23. Not exactly a national security problem, but it's sort of adjacent.
24. It's not America, but Zuckerberg at one point tried to remove all newspaper content in Australia from Facebook, in order to threaten the government over a new antitrust law to help newspapers. nytimes.com/2021/02/17/tec…
25. Also, when Mark Zuckerberg talks up the importance of national security and how Facebook can help America stand up to China, remember that he once asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to name his child. nytimes.com/2015/10/27/tec…
26. Also once Zuckerberg actually blurbed Xi Jinping's book and made his employees read Chinese government propaganda. amazon.com/Xi-Jinping-Gov…

qz.com/308023/faceboo… Image
Ok, what am I missing? Are there any big tech-related national security vulnerabilities out there I've forgotten? The answer is yes, but I can't remember them. So help me out.
27. I didn't know that Google and Chinese giant Tencent had a patent sharing agreement to engage on "deeper collaboration on innovative new technologies." How very IG Farben-Standard Oil of them. dw.com/en/google-and-…
28. And of course Apple doesn't bother to patch zero day exploits, which is to say it doesn't protect its products from hackers. intego.com/mac-security-b…
29. And another one, Facebook has no idea what happens with user data it collects. Economies of scale! vice.com/en/article/akv…
30. Google, Facebook, and Apple were all duped into releasing information used to harass and sexually extort minors. Economies of scale! bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
31. And another in the 'big tech is bad for security' files, via @ndcarson. Amazon is profiting from the sale of malware to users that can steal sensitive data.

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More from @matthewstoller

Mar 24
Can we admit Obamacare was a disaster and Obama was a bad President yet? Or are we still pretending that Biden is the problem because he’s not cool? time.com/6279937/us-hea…
If the Rs has an alternative beyond ‘feed sick people into a woodchipper’ they would have implemented it already.
Also the statement ‘we need universal health care’ is answering the wrong question. We need to stop equating health insurance with health care.
Read 6 tweets
Mar 13
1. A lot of people involved in the TikTok debate are saying 'hey but we aren't regulating our own social media firms so going after TikTok is cray cray.' But there is actually a lot Biden is doing to regulate social media and data you just don't know about. So let's take a look. Image
2. First, the Federal Trade Commission has banned Meta from tracking kids and using surveillance advertising to kids, and Meta is in litigation which it is slowly losing.
3. Second, the Antitrust Division has *two* cases where it is seeking to break up Google, and the FTC has an antitrust case where it is seeking to break up Meta and another where it is trying to break up Amazon. All involve heavy use of data.
Read 11 tweets
Mar 5
Here's WH Press Secretary reading out talking points denying the 20% cut to the Antitrust Division budget. It would be nice if more than 5 people in the administration knew anything about the administration's policies.
It’s also nonsense. DOJ number #2 and ex-Apple lawyer Lisa Monaco’s absurd slush fund got a boost of $2 million from six months ago, the Antitrust Division got gutted.

Image
Image
The most charitable reading is they are dumb and don’t care. The least charitable reading is Lisa Monaco is working on behalf of big tech while at DOJ.
Read 7 tweets
Jan 17
Not to get all Will Stancil, but it is weird how little anyone on Twitter wants to give credit to Biden for doing good stuff. Like he cuts overdraft fees and the response is 'More half measures! Yay. I wonder how watered down this will get if it even happens.' It did happen!
I mean @joebiden and @PeteButtigieg preside over the smoothest travel season in a decade after massively punishing Southwest and there's zero interest, even from Buttigieg fans.
@JoeBiden @PeteButtigieg There was so much shit-talking about Biden after he ended a possible rail strike with a promise of getting workers sick days. Union-buster! they said. But he did help get them sick days just a few months later. theguardian.com/business/2023/…
Read 4 tweets
Dec 12, 2023
Media corruption is so obvious. Yesterday there was a historic antitrust win against Google’s monopoly. Does NY magazine cover it? Nope. They release a bad faith hit piece on Lina Khan and anti-monopolists. Image
“fatal to a once-in-a-generation movement to dramatically transform government antitrust policy, for better or worse”

This is literally published 5am the day after Google lost a historic antitrust case.
This story was published literally the day after the FTC’s historic win against a killer acquisition in biotech, where Khan blocked a monopolist charging $750k a year for treatment from wiping out a possible rival.
Read 5 tweets
Dec 1, 2023
This isn't actually wrong. DEI is what a civil rights movement looks like without unions. The ugly truth about racial politics is in the 1970s civil rights leaders gave up on the working class and turned to corporate compliance and 'justice via webinar.'
Sociologist Frank Dobbin wrote up this dynamic in 'Inventing Equal Opportunity,' but he misses the corrupting reality of letting people dispute employer action around narrow identity grievance but under no other terms. press.princeton.edu/books/paperbac…
There has always been a fundamental tension in black politics. Dubois's 'talented tenth' frame is deeply elitist, vs MLK's populist poor people's march. It's no different than every other area of American politics, with a much stronger sense of group identity in black America.
Read 21 tweets

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