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      Fake news alert! Donald Trump’s new social media app is a triumph | Arwa Mahdawi

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      Fake news alert! Donald Trump’s new social media app is a triumphArwa MahdawiThe former president’s media venture, Truth Social has got off to a rocky start – with technical problems and potential legal issues to boot Truth hurts, everyone knows that. Nevertheless, I wasn’t expecting my experience with Truth Social, Donald Trump’s new social media venture, to be quite so painful. After months of fanfare, the former president’s new app, which is essentially a Twitter clone, was opened to the US public on Sunday night. Obviously, I signed up straight away – or at least I tried to.Donald Trump’s social media app launches on Apple storeRead moreI spent 20 frustrating minutes attempting to create a new account and getting error message after error message. Eventually, I managed to sign up with the username @stormyd, only to be told that I had been put on a waiting list “due to massive demand”. I was number 194,276 in line, apparently. Which, I’m sure, is a very precise number and not something they just pulled out of the air.It is unclear how many people were actually successful at getting on Truth Social – although the Guardian has reported that at least one Catholic priest managed to join. The fact that you, apparently, needed God on your side to secure an account wasn’t the only issue with the launch: the app has also run into potential legal trouble. It turns out Truth Social may not have just taken inspiration from Twitter, the app’s logo looks suspiciously like that of a British solar power startup called Trailar. “Great to see Donald Trump supporting a growing sustainability business!” Trailar tweeted on Monday. “Maybe ask next time?”If Trump’s new app failed to successfully launch on time, it would hardly be the surprise of the century. The last time he made a lot of noise about launching a new media platform, it turned out to be an underwhelming blog, which shuttered after just a few weeks. It’s not as if Trump put a technological genius in charge of Truth Social: Devin Nunes, head honcho at the app’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), may be most famous for the fact that he once unsuccessfully sued a cow.In 2019, Nunes, who used to be a Republican congressman, filed a $250m lawsuit against Twitter and two parody Twitter accounts: one was called “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and one was called “Devin Nunes’ Cow”. This is no laughing matter, I’ll have you know. The cow was very mean to him: it called the politician a “treasonous cowpoke” whose “boots are full of manure”. It was all very hard for the poor man, whose lawsuit claimed that the parody accounts subjected him to a “defamation campaign of stunning breadth and scope, one that no human being should ever have to bear and suffer in their whole life”.Nunes doesn’t just have beef with cows, by the way. He’s a big fan of suing anyone who says anything mean to him, and has launched defamation lawsuits against a number of journalists. He managed to juggle all these lawsuits with his political career for a while but, in December, announced he was leaving Congress to join TMTG. “The time has come to reopen the internet and allow for the free flow of ideas and expression without censorship,” he proclaimed. Unless cows are involved, obviously. No free speech or free flow of ideas for cows! Or pesky journalists. Or anyone who says anything unflattering, if we’re being honest.Truth Social’s marketing material talks about welcoming diverse opinions but the app’s terms and conditions are rather more restrictive. Under “prohibited activities”, the rules state that users of the site agree not to “disparage, tarnish, or otherwise harm, in our opinion, us and/or the Site”.A cynic might wonder whether the fact that you are not allowed to say mean things about Trump on his app may factor in why Melania doesn’t appear to be a big fan of her husband’s latest venture. A couple of weeks ago, you see, the former first lady entered into a “special arrangement” to share “exclusive communications” with the conservative social media app Parler. Why would she announce an exclusive relationship with a direct competitor to Truth Social shortly before it launched ? I’m not even going to begin to speculate. The truth is out there, but there’s a very long waiting list to get to it.
      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
      TopicsDonald TrumpOpinionUS politicsSocial mediaDigital mediaInternetcommentReuse this content More

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      Trump Truth Social app will be fully operational by end of March, Nunes says

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      Trump Truth Social app will be fully operational by end of March, Nunes saysApple App Store lists rightwing Twitter alternative but ex-congressman tapped to lead company indicates slow rollout Donald Trump’s rightwing riposte to Twitter – his new social media app Truth Social – is supposed to launch on Monday. But the rollout of what the former president hopes will be the start of a new media empire continues to be shrouded in confusion and secrecy.Tim Scott, only Black Senate Republican, hints he could be Trump running mateRead moreDevin Nunes, the former Republican congressman and Trump loyalist who heads Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), told Fox News on Sunday Truth Social would make its debut on the Apple App Store this week. The app is featured on the store, with the notice “Expected Feb 21”.But the launch has been beset with delays. On the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures, Nunes indicated that a full service was still weeks away.“Our goal is, I think we’re going to hit it, I think by the end of March we’re going to be fully operational at least within the United States,” he said.Truth Social is Trump’s answer to having been permanently thrown off Twitter after the company ruled that the then president’s tweets leading up to the US Capitol attack on January 6 2021 violated its policy against glorification of violence. The decision cut Trump off from direct contact with almost 90m followers.Facebook has also suspended Trump for comments inciting violence at the Capitol, but has left open the possibility of a return.Glimpses of what Truth Social will look like have been given in the past few days, prompting the observation that it looks remarkably similar to Twitter. Instead of blue ticks to denote verified accounts, it will use red ticks.Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr, tweeted a screenshot of his father’s first post on Truth Social, which said: “Get ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!”The remark was much less memorable than the fact that the Truth Social screenshot and Donald Jr’s actual tweet looked virtually identical.Truth Social describes itself as a “big tent” social media platform “that encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology”.But given the initial teething problems of the launch, the former president could find it difficult to fill the hole in his public profile left by his banishment from established social media.Twitter records more than 200 million daily active users and Facebook almost 2 billion. By contrast Gettr, a social media outlet set up by Jason Miller, a former Trump adviser, claims 4 million users on average per month.Gettr is part of a growing number of social media start-ups vying to take on tech giants they accuse of censoring rightwing ideology. Gettr, Parler and Gab all present as rightwing alternatives to Twitter.Rumble is a video platform that sets itself up as conservative competition to YouTube. The company has said it will be providing video on the Truth Social app.The proliferation of rightwing social media sites, despite their relatively small reach compared with Silicon Valley giants, is prompting concern about their political impact.Observers have questioned whether the start-ups, which present themselves as forums for open untrammeled discussion, will act as breeding grounds for misinformation on subjects such as vaccinations, the climate crisis and election integrity.Truth Social has promised to ensure that its contents is “family friendly” and has reportedly entered a partnership with a San Francisco company, Hive, which will moderate posts using cloud-based artificial intelligence.Even the new app’s name is likely to be controversial, given Trump’s legendary struggles with veracity. The Washington Post calculated that in the four years of his presidency, the man now behind Truth Social made 30,573 false or misleading claims.TopicsDonald TrumpSocial mediaDigital mediaInternetUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Getting the Public Behind the Fight on Misinformation

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      Misinformation is false or inaccurate information communicated regardless of intention to deceive. The spread of misinformation undermines trust in politics and the media, exacerbated by social media that encourages emotional responses, with users often only reading the headlines and engaging with false posts while sharing credible sources less. Once hesitant to respond, social media companies are increasingly enacting steps to stop the spread of misinformation. But why have these efforts failed to gain greater public support? 

      A 2021 poll from the Pearson Institute found that 95% of Americans believed that the spread of misinformation was concerning, with over 70% blaming, among others, social media companies. Though Americans overwhelmingly agree that misinformation must be addressed, why is there little public consensus on the appropriate solution? 

      Social Media and the Cold War Around Free Speech

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      To address this, we ran a national web survey with 1,050 respondents via Qualtrics, using gender, age and regional quota sampling. Our research suggests several challenges to combating misinformation. 

      First, there are often misconceptions about what social media companies can do. As private entities, they have the legal right to moderate content on their platform, whereas the First Amendment applies only to government restriction of speech. When asked to evaluate the statement “social media companies have a right to remove posts on their platform,” a clear majority of 58.7% agreed. Yet a divide emerges between Democrats, where 74.3% agreed with the statement compared to only 43.5% of Republicans.  

      Ignorance of the scope of the First Amendment may partially explain these findings, as well as respondents believing that, even if companies have the legal right, they should not engage in removal. Yet a history of tech companies initially couching policies as consistent with free speech principles only to later backtrack only adds to the confusion. For example, Twitter once maintained “a devotion to a fundamental free speech standard” of content neutrality, but by 2017 had shifted to a policy where not only posts could be removed but even accounts without offensive tweets. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Second, while most acknowledge that social media companies should do something, there is little agreement on what that something should be. Overall, 70% of respondents, including a majority of both Democrats (84%) and Republicans (57.6%), agreed with the statement that “social media companies should take steps to restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information.”

      We then asked respondents if they would support five different means to combat misinformation. Here, none of the five proposed means mentioned in the survey found majority support, with the most popular option — providing factual information directly under posts labeled as misinformation — supported only by 46.6% of respondents. This was also the only option that a majority of Democrats supported (56.4%).

      Moreover, over a fifth of respondents (20.6%) did not support any of the options. Even focusing just on respondents that stated that social media companies should take steps failed to find broad support for most options. 

      So what might increase public buy-in to these efforts? Transparent policies are necessary so that responses do not appear ad hoc or inconsistent. While many users may not pay attention to terms of services, consistent policies may serve to counter perceptions that efforts selectively enforce or only target certain ideological viewpoints.

      Recent research finds that while almost half of Americans have seen posts labeled as potentially being misinformation on social media, they are wary of trusting fact-checks because they are unsure how information is identified as inaccurate. Greater explanation of the fact-checking process, including using multiple third-party services, may also help address this concern.

      Unique Insights from 2,500+ Contributors in 90+ Countries

      Social media companies, rather than relying solely on moderating content, may also wish to include subtle efforts that encourage users to evaluate posting behavior. Twitter and Facebook have already nodded in this direction with prompts to suggest users should read articles before sharing them. 

      Various crowdsourcing efforts may also serve to signal the accuracy of posts or the frequency with which they are being fact-checked. These efforts attempt to address the underlying hesitancy to combat misinformation while providing an alternative to content moderation that users may not see as transparent. While Americans overwhelmingly agree that misinformation is a problem, designing an effective solution requires a multi-faceted approach. 

      *[Funding for this survey was provided by the Institute for Humane Studies.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and Trump ally, to step down from Meta board

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      Peter Thiel, PayPal founder and Trump ally, to step down from Meta boardThiel, a major donor to the Republican party, was seen by critics as part of the reason why Facebook did not censor Trump Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, is stepping down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, after 17 years.Finally, Facebook can say it’s not the most toxic social network | Marina HydeRead moreThiel, Facebook’s longest-serving board member and a major donor to the Republican party, plans to focus on backing Donald Trump’s allies in the November midterm elections, according to the New York Times. He recently donated $10m each to the Senate campaigns of Blake Masters, who is running for a seat in Arizona, and JD Vance, who is running in Ohio. Masters is the chief operating officer of Thiel’s family office and Vance used to work at one of Thiel’s venture funds.Thiel has long been a controversial figure on Facebook’s 10-person board, particularly as one of a few major tech figures who vocally supported Trump. Thiel, who donated millions of dollars to Trump’s campaign and served on the ex-president’s transition team, was seen by critics as a part of the reason Facebook did not take down Trump’s posts that violated its community standards. Thiel is a close confidant of Zuckerberg’s. He accompanied him to a private dinner with Trump in 2019 and has successfully advocated he withstand pressure to take political speech and ads off the platform.But recently he has publicly criticized Facebook’s content moderation decisions, saying he’d “take QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories any day over a Ministry of Truth”.Thiel joined Facebook’s board in 2005, a year after the company was founded and seven years before its made its debut on Wall Street. The company said on Monday that he would stay on until Meta’s next shareholder meeting later this year, where he would not stand for re-election.“Peter has been a valuable member of our board and I’m deeply grateful for everything he’s done for our company,” said Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, in a statement. “Peter is truly an original thinker who you can bring your hardest problems and get unique suggestions.”In a statement on Monday, Thiel called Zuckerberg “one of the great entrepreneurs of our time” and praised his “intelligence, energy and conscientiousness”.The Associated Press and Reuters contributed reporting.TopicsFacebookMetaSocial networkingPeter ThielRepublicansDonald TrumpUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Dignity in a Digital Age review: a congressman takes big tech to task

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      Dignity in a Digital Age review: a congressman takes big tech to taskRo Khanna represents Silicon Valley and the best of Capitol Hill and wants to help. His aims are ambitious, his book necessary Just on the evidence of his new book, Ro Khanna is one of the broadest, brightest and best-educated legislators on Capitol Hill. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Yale Law School who represents Silicon Valley, he is by far the most tech-savvy member of Congress.Silicon Holler: Ro Khanna says big tech can help heal the US heartlandRead moreAt this very dark moment for American democracy, this remarkable son of Indian immigrants writes with the optimism and idealism of a first-generation American who still marvels at the opportunities he has had.Even more remarkable for a congressman whose district includes Apple, Google, Intel and Yahoo, Khanna is one of the few who refuses to take campaign money from political action committees.Once or twice in a “heated basketball game” in high school, he writes, someone may have shouted “go back to India!” But what Khanna mostly remembers about his childhood are neighbors in Pennsylvania’s Bucks county who taught him “to believe that dreams are worth pursuing in America, regardless of one’s name or heritage”.His book is bulging with ideas about how to transform big tech from a huge threat to liberty into a genuine engine of democracy. What he is asking for is almost impossibly ambitious, but he never sounds daunted.“Instead of passively allowing tech royalty and their legions to lead the digital revolution and serve narrow financial ends before all others,” he writes, “we need to put it in service of our broader democratic aspirations. We need to steer the ship [and] call the shots.”The story of tech is emblematic of our time of singular inequality, a handful of big winners on top and a vast population untouched by the riches of the silicon revolution. Khanna begins his book with a barrage of statistics. Ninety percent of “innovation job growth” in recent decades has been in five cities while 50% of digital service jobs are in just 10 major metro centers.Most Americans “are disconnected from the wealth generation of the digital economy”, he writes, “despite having their industries and … lives transformed by it”.A central thesis is that no person should be forced to leave their hometown to find a decent job. There is one big reason for optimism about this huge aspiration: the impact of Covid. Practically overnight, the pandemic “shattered” conventional wisdom “about tech concentration”. Suddenly it was obvious that high-speed broadband allowed “millions of jobs to be done anywhere in the nation”.The willingness of millions of Americans to leave big city life is confirmed by red-hot real estate markets in far flung towns and villages – and a Harris poll that showed nearly 40% of city dwellers were willing to live elsewhere.“The promise is of new jobs without sudden cultural displacement,” Khanna writes.He suggests a range of incentives to spread tech jobs into rural areas, including big federal investment to bring high-speed connections to the millions still without them. This is turn would make it possible to require federal contractors to have at least 10% of their workforces in rural communities.The congressman imagines nothing less than a “recentering” of “human values in a culture that prizes the pursuit of technological progress and market valuations”. A vital step in that direction would be a $5bn investment for laptops for 11 million students who don’t have them.The problems of inequality begin at the tech giants themselves. Almost 20% of computer science graduates are black or Latino but only 10% of employees of big tech companies are. Less than 3% of venture capital lands in the hands of Black or Latino entrepreneurs.If redistributing some of big tech’s gigantic wealth is one way to regain some dignity in the digital age, the other is to rein in some of the industry’s gigantic abuses. Data mining and the promotion of hate for profit are the two biggest problems. Khanna has drafted an Internet Bill of Rights to improve the situation.Throughout his book, he drops bits of evidence to suggest just how urgent it is to find a way to make the biggest companies behave better.“Algorithmic amplification” turns out to be one of the greatest evils of the modern age. After extracting huge amounts of data about users, Facebook and the other big platforms “push sensational and divisive content to susceptible users based on their profiles”.An internal discussion at Facebook revealed that “64% of all extremist group joins are due to our recommendations”. The explosion of the bizarre QAnon is one of Facebook’s most dubious accomplishments. In the three years before it finally banned it in 2020, “QAnon groups developed millions of followers as Facebook’s algorithm encouraged people to join based on their profiles. Twitter also recommended Qanon tweets”. The conspiracy theory was “actively recommended” on YouTube until 2019.And then there is the single greatest big tech crime against humanity. According to Muslim Advocates, a Washington-based civil rights group, the Buddhist junta in Myanmar used Facebook and WhatsApp to plan the mass murder of Rohingya Muslims. The United Nations found that Facebook played a “determining role” in events that led to the murder of at least 25,000 and the displacement of 700,000.The world would indeed be a much better place if it adopted Khanna’s recommendations. But the question Khanna is too optimistic to ask may also be the most important one.Have these companies already purchased too much control of the American government for any fundamental change to be possible?
      Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work For All Of Us is published in the US by Simon & Schuster
      TopicsBooksSilicon ValleyDemocratsUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesUS domestic policyreviewsReuse this content More

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      Share the Profits! Why US business must return to rewarding workers properly | Robert Reich

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      Share the profits! Why US businesses must return to rewarding workers properlyRobert ReichThe economy is booming and corporate profits are huge, but American wages still stagnate. History provides the answer According to this week’s release from the commerce department, the US economy has been growing at its fastest pace in almost 40 years. Corporate profits are their highest in 70 years. And the stock market, although gyrating wildly of late, is still scoring record gains.Where egos dare: Manchin and Sinema show how Senate spotlight corrupts | Robert ReichRead moreSo why do most Americans remain gloomy about the economy? Mainly because their real (inflation-adjusted) wages continue to go nowhere.Steeply-rising profits, economic growth and stock market highs – coupled with near-stagnant wages – has been the story of the American economy for decades. Most economic gains have gone to the top.So why not share the profits?Profit-sharing was tried with great success in the early decades of the 20th century but is now all but forgotten. In 1916, Sears, Roebuck & Co, then one of America’s largest corporations with more than 30,000 employees, announced it would begin to share profits with its employees, giving workers shares of stock and thereby making them part-owners.The idea caught on. Other companies that joined the profit-sharing bandwagon included Procter & Gamble, Pillsbury, Kodak and US Steel.The Bureau of Labor Statistics suggested profit-sharing as a means of reducing “frequent and often violent disputes” between employers and workers. Profit-sharing gave workers an incentive to be more productive, since the success of the company meant higher profits would be shared. It also reduced the need for layoffs during recessions because payroll costs dropped as profits did.By the 1950s, Sears workers had accumulated enough stock that they owned a quarter of the company. And by 1968, the typical Sears salesperson could retire with a nest egg worth well over $1m, in today’s dollars.The downside was that when profits went down, workers’ paychecks would shrink. And if a company went bankrupt, workers would lose all their investments in it. The best profit-sharing plans took the form of cash bonuses that employees could invest however they wish, on top of predictable wages.But profit-sharing with regular employees all but disappeared in large US corporations. Ever since the early 1980s when corporate “raiders” (now private-equity managers) began demanding high returns, corporations stopped granting employees shares of stock, presumably because they didn’t want to dilute share prices. Sears phased out its profit-sharing plan in the 1970s.Yet, just as profit-sharing with regular employees disappeared, profit-sharing with top executives took off, as big Wall Street banks, hedge funds, private equity funds and high-tech companies began doling out huge wads of stock and stock options to their MVPs.The result? Share prices and chief executive pay (composed increasingly of shares of stock and options to buy stock) have gone into the stratosphere, while the wages of the typical worker have barely risen.Researchers have found that before the 1980s, almost all the increases in share prices on the US stock market could be accounted for by overall economic growth. But since then, a large portion of the increases have come out of what used to go into wages.Jeff Bezos, who now owns around 10% of Amazon’s shares, is worth $170.4bn. Other top Amazon executives hold hundreds of millions of dollars of shares. But most of Amazon’s employees, such as warehouse workers, haven’t shared in the bounty.Amazon used to give out stock to hundreds of thousands of its employees. But in 2018 it stopped the practice and instead raised its minimum hourly wage to $15. The wage raise got headlines and was good PR – Amazon is still touting it – but the decision to end stock awards was more significant. It hurt employees far more than the increased minimum helped them.Corporate sedition is more damaging to America than the Capitol attack | Robert ReichRead moreIf Amazon’s 1.2 million employees together owned the same proportion of Amazon’s stock as Sears workers did in the 1950s – a quarter of the company – each Amazon worker would now own shares worth an average of more than $350,000.America’s trend toward higher profits, higher share prices, mounting executive pay but near stagnant wages is unsustainable, economically and politically.Profit-sharing is one answer. But how can it be encouraged? Reduce corporate taxes on companies that share profits with all their workers, and increase taxes on those that do not.Sharing profits with all workers is a logical and necessary step to making the system work for the many, not the few.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
      TopicsUS economyOpinionEconomicsStock marketsUS domestic policyUS taxationUS politicsAmazoncommentReuse this content More

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      Electric cars on show in Washington as Biden pushes for green revolution

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      Electric cars on show in Washington as Biden pushes for green revolution Auto show dedicates entire pavilion to electric vehicles but experts say more charging stations are needed for Biden’s goal to be realizedThe Washington DC Auto Show has been showcasing alternative fuel vehicles for 15 years, but this is the first year an entire pavilion was dedicated to electric vehicles, or EVs. In part, you can thank the current occupant of the nearby White House for that.If Joe Biden has his way with his ambitious $2.2tn Build Back Better plan there will be 50% zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030. The Biden administration also has plans to convert an estimated 600,000 of its fleet to alternative fuels as part of a renewed commitment to combat climate change.There are major issues ahead – the plan is being blocked by Republicans and there are serious equity issues to be addressed as the US transitions away from fossil fuels. But big changes are already happening, and the car show, which ends this weekend, is on it.EVs have now been adopted on a global scale, said John O’Donnell, chief executive of the Washington DC Auto Show, and the show, which focuses on public policy and gives congressional members and auto industry leaders a space to review the latest technology, needed to reflect that.“We’ve had other technologies and declared them a pavilion, but I thought it was very important right now for us to make it larger and more high profile,” said O’Donnell. Not just because of the current debate over EVs in Washington but also to “dispel the myth the US car dealers do not want to sell electric vehicles”.An aggressive transition like the one Biden envisions will require an equally aggressive overhaul of infrastructure. In the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, $7.5bn is dedicated to EV-charging infrastructure and building charging stations along highway corridors. But the industry is concerned about how that money is spent.Matthew Nelson, director of government affairs at Electrify America, said the infrastructure that serves the public must be “future-proofed”. Ultra-fast charging at 350 kW of power, or the equivalent to 20 miles of range per minute, has been his paramount message to government stakeholders. “We think it’s really important that the chargers paid for today are able to charge faster than the vehicles on the market today,” Nelson said. “The vehicles are getting faster and faster every model year. If we design for today’s vehicles it will be outdated in five years.”Electrify America, a sponsor of the EV Pavilion at the car show, has the largest network of DC (direct current) charging stations in the US. Currently, the Electrify America network consists of 800 charging stations, mostly along highway corridors, and the company is planning an increase to 1,800 charging stations with 10,000 chargers by 2026.However, 500,000 charging stations are needed to meet Biden’s goals and Nelson said they should be reliable and non-proprietary. There are 31 different brands of auto manufacturers in the US that use the same non-proprietary standard for charging and Nelson said leveraging the consensus around that single standard is in the public’s interest.Right now, consumers’ biggest concern is their bottom line, and EVs are more cost-efficient than gas-powered cars. An e-gallon – the cost to drive a comparable vehicle the same distance you could go on a gallon of gasoline – currently averages $1.16, compared with gasoline’s $2.85. Because Electrify America offers public charging their prices are a little higher than at-home chargers, but are standard in every state.Recently, Congress amended the Public Utility Regulatory Act (Purpa) that requires each state to consider EV-specific utility rates, giving them the liberty to change rates not suited for EV adoption. These demand charges lead to “extremely high-priced” electricity being charged to the stations, making it difficult to maintain low prices. States such as Colorado, Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island and Connecticut have revised these rates, but Nelson said every state should be on board.And there’s an equity element to charging. Homeowners who charge their cars in their garage do not pay demand rates, but those who charge at commercial charging stations or who live in multifamily dwellings or apartments will pay the demand rate.Incentives to support EV charging infrastructure in multi-family dwellings and more community-based charging infrastructure are important tools to making EV adoption more equitable, said Kellen Schefter, director of transportation at Edison Electric Institute, which leads the National Electric Highway Coalition. He believes the biggest barrier to EV adoption is the lack of charging infrastructure that’s affordable, equitable and reliable.Making sure investments go into those communities that are not traditionally getting those allocations is a large part of the National Electric Highway Coalition’s agenda. “There is such a great need on the infrastructure front,” said Schefter.The right policies will be critical if Biden is to hit his EV goals. O’Donnell said a wider range of tax incentives are needed to persuade the American public to swap their fuel-dependent cars for EVs.“In Build Back Better, they are proposing $12,500 per vehicle purchased, but only if it is built by a United Auto Worker manufacturer. It doesn’t seem like mass-market adoption will be achieved using only union-made vehicles. We think all electric vehicles should qualify for the full $12,500 incentive,” O’Donnell said.But while tax incentives make a difference, chargers are more meaningful said Dilip Sundaram, chief international business officer at Acrimoto, an electric autocycle company. China – the biggest EV market – has about 800,000 chargers and Sundaram said 500,000 chargers in the United States, a car-dependent country, is not enough.“In China, the tax incentive is about $2,500,” Sundaram said. “Accessibility to chargers is what is driving mass adoption. If you remove range anxiety to make sure chargers are available everywhere you will suddenly see the EV adoption increase.”“Biden wants to put the United States in a leadership role instead of a passive role on the issue of climate change, but policies need to reflect the new challenge,” Sundaram said. “So that any new structure whether it be a mall or apartment complex, has chargers.”Despite a lower than usual attendance at this year’s show because of Covid, the line to ride in the new Arcimoto was long. As attendees watched the small autocycle whip around the EV pavilion, others buzzed about the displays for the latest EV models presented by Bentley, McLaren, Polestar, Hyundai and Nissan.The star of the show was the new all-electric Ford F-150, the latest iteration of the US’s best-selling vehicle. The impressive aluminum truck can pull 10,000lb, gets 300 miles on a standard charge, and can generate power for an entire house for three days. And it’s fast – going from 0-60mph in less than five seconds.As the demand for these new high-performing EVs grows, gasoline-powered cars look more and more like relics. But for now, all eyes are on Congress as to how soon the US can transition to mass adoption, and an equitable, EV market.TopicsAutomotive industryElectric, hybrid and low-emission carsUS politicsJoe BidenMotoringfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Silicon Holler: Ro Khanna says big tech can help heal the US heartland

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      InterviewSilicon Holler: Ro Khanna says big tech can help heal the US heartlandLauren Gambino in Washington As part of his drive to use tech to close social divides, the California Democrat has written a book, Dignity in the Digital AgeShortly after Silicon Valley sent him to Washington, Ro Khanna visited “Silicon Holler”, a name coined by a colleague, Hal Rogers, for the fledgling tech sector in eastern Kentucky.Gentrification destroyed the San Francisco I knew. Austin is next | Patrick BresnanRead moreThe two congressmen’s districts had little in common. Khanna’s was among the wealthiest, most diverse and most Democratic. Rogers’ was among the poorest, whitest and most Republican.But when he visited Rogers’ district, in once-prosperous coal country, the California Democrat did not meet with resentment. Desire to participate in the digital revolution was there. Only opportunity was lacking.“In my district, young people wake up optimistic about the future – there’s $11tn in market value in the district and surrounding areas,” Khanna said.“But for many working-class Americans, across the country, globalization has not worked. It’s meant jobs going offshore. It’s meant the shuttering of communities and it’s meant that their kids have to leave their hometowns.“We need to figure out how to bring economic opportunity for the modern economy to these communities that have been left out.”In his new book, Dignity in a Digital Age, Khanna lays out his vision for democratizing the digital economy. He wants the tech industry to expand to places like Paintsville, Kentucky, and Jefferson, Iowa, where the Guardian watched him make his case.Khanna is an intellectual property lawyer who taught economics at Stanford before serving as the congressman for California’s 17th district, home to companies like Apple and Intel. The top contributors to his most recent campaign were employees of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.And yet Khanna is a member of the Congressional Antitrust Caucus and was a co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. He says tech companies must be held accountable for harm, and has backed regulatory and privacy reforms.Two senators, Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, have introduced legislation to stop tech platforms disadvantaging smaller rivals. Khanna calls it a “promising” start. Despite fierce opposition from large tech companies, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act was voted out of committee this month on a bipartisan vote, 16–6.A House committee passed a version of the bill last year. Khanna, however, was critical of that effort, warning that the language was imprecise and could have unintended consequences. His nuanced views on tech and its impact on the economy and democracy have helped make him a rare figure in Washington and Silicon Valley, taken seriously by politicos and entrepreneurs alike.“You can’t just have the tools of antitrust and think, ‘OK, now we’re going to have jobs in Youngstown or jobs in New Albany,’” Khanna said. “You want to have antitrust so new competitors can emerge but then you also need a strategy for getting jobs into these communities.”Antitrust: Hawley and Klobuchar on the big tech battles to comeRead moreKhanna says Silicon Valley has a responsibility to address inequality it helped create. Tech companies would benefit, he argues, from a diversity of talent and lower costs of living. Such a shift, he says, would help revitalize communities devastated by the decline of manufacturing and construction, and by automation and outsourcing, thereby allowing young people to find good jobs without leaving their home towns.For years, Khanna said, the notion met resistance. But millions have transitioned to remote work during the coronavirus pandemic, pushing tech companies to embrace changing practices. He says he has gone from “swimming against the tide” to “skiing down the mountain”, so much so that an industry friend said he had put into practice many of the ideas Khanna outlines in his book.“It’s amazing how people go from, ‘It’s impossible’ to ‘It’s already been done’ as if there are no steps in between,” Khanna said. “The truth is, it’s not impossible, but it hasn’t already been done. My book is sort of an accelerant for what is now taking place.”Early in the pandemic, tech workers fled San Francisco for smaller cities in neighboring states. While the transplants brought new business and wealth, in some places they widened wage gaps and drove up real-estate prices. Growth has to be planned, Khanna says.“It’s important to learn some of the lessons and the mistakes of the Valley. There has to be more housing supply, there has to be proper conditions for workers and fair wages so you don’t have the stark inequality that you see in Silicon Valley, where you have, in certain communities, 50% of people’s income going to rent because rents are so high.”Khanna thinks bridging the digital divide might also begin to alleviate polarization that Donald Trump exploited.“Just having good economic empowerment and prosperity for rural Americans, for Black Americans, for Latino Americans is not a silver bullet for becoming a multiracial, multi-ethnic democracy,” he said. “But it could be a starting point.”He has called for billions in federal investments in research, manufacturing and workforce development; building tech hubs that emphasize regional expertise, such as a hub in eastern Washington state to focus on lumber technology; providing tax incentives for federal contractors who employ workers in rural areas; underwriting training programs at historically black colleges; and expanding Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in public schools.Such ideas have captured the attention of Joe Biden’s White House, as it looks to expand opportunity at home and counter China abroad.This week, House Democrats turned to a bill that aims to make the US more competitive with China by strengthening technology, manufacturing and research, including incentives for producing computer chips, which are in short supply.The plan incorporates key planks of Khanna’s Endless Frontier Act, including the establishment of a Directorate for Science and Engineering Solutions. A similar measure passed the Senate with unusual bipartisan support last year but House Republicans seem less amenable.“We need to produce things in this country, including technology, and have the supply chains here,” Khanna said. “Everyone now recognizes that it’s a huge challenge for America to have semiconductors produced in Taiwan and South Korea. With the shipping costs and the disruption with Covid, it has created huge challenges in America from manufacturing cars to making electronics.”‘Can we get more Republicans?’With much of the Democrats’ agenda stalled, Khanna believes the new bill can provide a second major bipartisan accomplishment for the party to tout in a difficult midterms campaign.Billionaire Republican backer donates to Manchin after he killed key Biden billRead more“Can we get more Republicans than voted for the infrastructure bill?” Khanna said, recalling 13 who crossed the aisle. “That’s the barometer.”Khanna, who is also a deputy whip for the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Democrats must be ready to accept a less ambitious version of Biden’s Build Back Better domestic spending plan. That is in limbo after Joe Manchin – a senator from West Virginia, the kind of state to which Khanna wants to bring tech jobs – announced his opposition.“A big pillar of [the spending plan] should be climate,” Khanna said, “and then let’s get a couple more things that can get support from Senator Manchin, like establishing universal pre-K and expanding Medicaid.”When it comes to combatting climate change and easing child and healthcare costs, he said, “something is certainly better than nothing”.
      Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work For All Of Us is published in the US by Simon & Schuster
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