The FTC follows federal laws for maintaining its records, an agency spokesperson said Thursday in response to claims from congressional Republicans that the FTC is improperly destroying documents. Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., alleged in a letter Thursday that the agency improperly deleted documents about noncompete clauses, impeding oversight requests from Jordan. The group cited an inspector general report from February that said the agency failed to properly maintain its records. According to the inspector general, the agency failed to follow National Archives and Records Administration records scheduling requirements and didn’t set up automated practices for proper storage and timely disposal of records in a uniform manner across the agency. “By deleting documents, the FTC likely violated federal law,” they wrote. “It also impeded Congressional oversight of the FTC’s recent, unprecedented actions, including its proposed rule banning non-compete clauses.” Jordan and Cruz have heavily scrutinized the FTC under Chair Lina Khan (see 2303100065). An agency spokesperson confirmed receiving the letter Thursday: “The FTC maintains records in accordance with federal law, including Federal Information Security Management Act requirements on the retention of records and disposal of records for security purposes.”

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed DOJ and the FBI Thursday for documents about any communication between the agency, private companies and third parties about social media content moderation. The committee issued the subpoenas in support of its censorship investigation. Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the committee sought DOJ’s voluntary cooperation with oversight in April, but the agency’s compliance has been “woefully inadequate, producing only a single document: a publicly available transcript of a civil deposition of FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Elvis Chan from Missouri v. Biden.” Jordan said the committee uncovered evidence that contradicts Chan's testimony in the case on communication with social media platforms. DOJ and the FBI don't "censor content on social media platforms," the department said in a statement Thursday. "Private companies have the sole authority to make decisions to protect their platforms and users. As with all the Committee’s various requests, the Department remains committed to working with the Committee to fulfill their informational needs.”

The New Democrat Coalition formed its first AI Working Group, the coalition announced Tuesday. Leading the group will be Reps. Derek Kilmer of Washington, Don Beyer of Virginia, Jeff Jackson of North Carolina, Susie Lee of Nevada and Haley Stevens of Michigan. They will “engage with the Biden administration, key stakeholders and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and Capitol to develop and advance sensible, bipartisan policies to address this emerging technology,” the coalition said.

Google, Snap and OpenAI should stop using AI technology to promote content on eating disorders, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., wrote in letters to the companies Thursday. He cited a study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate showing OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard and Snapchat’s My AI “consistently generate content that promotes eating disorders.” The chatbots provide “detailed information on hiding uneaten food from parents, instructions to trigger a gag reflex, and promote ‘chewing and spitting’ as an extreme weight loss method,” Warner’s office said. He urged the companies to fix this “glaring problem.” Google said in a statement: "Eating disorders are deeply painful and challenging issues, so when people come to Bard for prompts on eating habits, we aim to surface helpful and safe responses. Bard is experimental, so we encourage people to double-check information in Bard’s responses, consult medical professionals for authoritative guidance on health issues, and not rely solely on Bard’s responses for medical, legal, financial, or other professional advice." The other companies didn’t comment.

If the Senate confirms Democratic FCC nominee Anna Gomez, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel could count on “a critical third vote” on new cybersecurity and data privacy matters that “are likely to feature prominently in the expected forthcoming wave of policymaking” that would follow a shift to a 3-2 Democratic commission majority, said ZwillGen lawyers Alex Stout and Jon Frankel in a Wednesday blog post. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., filed cloture on Gomez just before the August recess, teeing up likely floor votes on her the week after Labor Day (see 2307280074). “The FCC has a fulsome agenda for cybersecurity and data privacy” that Rosenworcel will likely “push rapidly to accomplish," since the FCC has been in a 2-2 tie for more than two years, Frankel and Stout said. Gomez “has said little on the record on cybersecurity and data privacy,” but “we expect that” she will “largely support” Rosenworcel’s agenda. Rosenworcel’s Privacy and Data Protection Task Force (see 2306140075) “will be center stage in this effort,” as will forward movement on a January NPRM on revised rules for wireless carriers to report data breaches, the lawyers said: The task force “already resuscitated a SIM-swap proposal and will likely similarly take the lead on turning the FCC’s 2022 notice of inquiry seeking comment about cybersecurity vulnerabilities of the internet’s Border Gateway Protocol global routing system (see 2202250062) “into a final proposal.” Rosenworcel’s proposed voluntary cybersecurity labeling program for smart devices (see 2307180054) also “looks to catapult the FCC into a consumer-facing role on securing” that equipment, Frankel and Stout said.

House China Committee leaders pressed FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Tuesday for information about the extent to which Chinese equipment manufacturers like Fibocom and Quectel are spying via U.S. IoT-connected devices via connectivity modules. Those “modules have the capacity both to brick the device and to access the data flowing from the device to the web server that runs each device,” House China Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Calif., said in a letter to Rosenworcel. If the Chinese government “can control the module, it may be able to effectively exfiltrate data or shut down the IoT device. This raises particularly grave concerns in the context of critical infrastructure and any type of sensitive data.” The lawmakers specifically cited Fibocom and Quectel because both gearmakers get “extensive state support” from the Chinese government that makes their equipment a surveillance vector. “The FCC has taken important steps to counter the nefarious influence of [Chinese Communist Party]-controlled technology in U.S. telecom networks, including” clamping down on use of gear from Huawei and ZTE on U.S. networks, Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi said: “There are still many U.S. and allied firms that compete with” Chinese “cellular IoT module providers -- such that restricting Quectel and Fibocom’s access to the U.S. market would not undermine U.S. telecommunications networks.” Tackling Chinese IoT modules “is a natural next step for the FCC, in consultation with appropriate national security agencies,” the lawmakers said. They asked Rosenworcel to tell them whether the FCC is “able to track the presence” of IoT modules on U.S. networks and whether the commission is considering addressing that equipment as part of its November order (see 2211230065) to prevent the sale of yet-to-be authorized equipment from Chinese companies in the U.S., among other matters.

Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and 10 other Democrats urged the FCC Monday to “issue a guidance … restating its long-held requirements” for combatting “unwanted telemarketing calls.” The Democratic lawmakers “are heartened” the agency “is considering ways to curtail the number of unwanted” robocalls via its March robotext Further NPRM (see 2303160061), but the agency’s “current regulations already prohibit many of the activities that lead to the proliferation of unwanted telemarketing calls.” The FCC’s 2003 rules “for telemarketers to obtain consent for calls to lines subscribed to the Do Not Call Registry” and its 2012 regulations “governing consent to receive telemarketing calls made with an artificial or prerecorded voice or an automated telephone dialing system … clearly set out the types of protections intended by Congress to eliminate unwanted telemarketing calls,” the Democratic senators said in a letter to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Both of these regulations allow robocalls only if the call recipients sign a written agreement relating to calls from a single seller.” Creating new “inconsistent rules governing the same activity would be problematic,” while “issuing guidance similar to the FTC’s” recent business guidance restating its telemarketer rules would “assist telemarketers and sellers in complying with these requirements,” the lawmakers said: “This guidance should also emphasize that the obligations imposed by” the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act “apply when these agreements are entered into online.”

Google needs to be more transparent about its new healthcare AI chatbot, said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., in a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai Tuesday. Warner raised concerns about reports of Med-PaLM 2's inaccuracies. The chatbot is designed to answer healthcare questions, summarize documents and organize data. Warner said, according to reports, senior researchers at Google have reservations about whether the technology is ready for public deployment. “I worry that premature deployment of unproven technology could lead to the erosion of trust in our medical professionals and institutions,” he wrote. Google believes AI “has the potential to transform healthcare and medicine" and is "committed to exploring with safety, equity, evidence and privacy at the core,” the company said Tuesday: Med-PaLM 2 will be available to a “select group of healthcare organizations for limited testing, to explore use cases and share feedback.” This group will retain control of the data, the company said. Google disagreed with the characterization that the tool is a chatbot, saying it’s a “fine-tuned version of our large language model PaLM 2, and designed to encode medical knowledge.”

Internet safety advocates need to turn over documents to assist the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation of the Biden administration’s alleged collusion with social media companies to censor free speech, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Thursday (see 2305080039). Jordan wrote Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) CEO Imran Ahmed requesting documents about the organization’s communication with the government and social media companies on content takedowns. X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, is suing the CCDH over free speech claims (see 2308020038). “Whether directly or indirectly, a government-approved or -facilitated censorship regime is a grave threat to the First Amendment and Americans’ civil liberties,” Jordan wrote. “Accordingly, as part of the Committee’s constitutional oversight obligations, we write to request relevant information and documents.” Ahmed in a statement accused the committee of engaging in a “fishing expedition” in order to show a nonexistent funding link between the CCDH and the government: “I fear all of this is an attempt to hinder, delay and silence our work exposing hate and harmful disinformation online. Regardless, we look forward to releasing new research in the coming days, despite these transparent attempts to hinder our ongoing work.”

X Corp. is taking a “hostile” approach toward social media researchers under the leadership of Elon Musk, which doesn’t bode well for the company’s content moderation practices, House Democrats wrote the company Tuesday. Reps. Lori Trahan, D-Mass.; Sean Casten, D-Ill.; and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., signed the letter. They accused X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, of trying to “threaten and intimidate independent research organizations,” citing the company’s lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Musk has been responsible for a “series of troubling decisions that appear calculated to harass, silence, and suppress research and accountability into this issue,” they said. The lawsuit followed a CCDH report claiming Twitter failed to act on 99% of “hateful content” posted by Twitter Blue subscribers. Twitter accused CCDH of “actively” trying to suppress “free expression.” Musk has laid off important content moderation teams and reinstated accounts owned by “misogynists and Neo-Nazis,” the lawmakers wrote. X responded Wednesday with an automatic reply, saying, “We'll get back to you soon.”