Tech went to Washington this week, and their biggest problems followed them.[1]
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg faced Congress[2], and though Google CEO Larry Paige was invited, he declined to make the trip—a move that didn’t ingratiate him with Congressional watchdog Mark Warner[3]. One uninvited guest did make an appearance at the hearings, however: Alex Jones. He heckled Dorsey and a CNN reporter, and was captured by a photographer’s lens for what is one of the most perfect (and surreal) photos of 2018[4]. Though Jones’ DC antics were mild compared with his past bad behavior, being that physically close to his trolling seems to have finally woken up Dorsey; Twitter permanently banned Jones[5] the next day.
In other Washington news, Jon Kyl heads to DC[6] to take John McCain’s Arizona senate seat. Kyl is of particular interest to people in Silicon Valley, as he’s the person Facebook appointed to investigate allegations of its bias against conservatives. And the Department of Justice officially charged a North Korean with hacking Sony Pictures in 2014[7], and also names him as participating in both the WannaCry ransomware scare and a 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist.
In other Google news, the company celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Chrome browser[8], and announced its plans to kill the URL[9]. Apple, also missing in Washington, was busy this week looking into reports that one of the most popular apps in its Mac App Store acts like spyware[10]. The company pulled the app after WIRED and others reported on its shady data collection.
Plus, there's more. As always, we’ve rounded up all the news we