|
|
|
|
|
The Morning Risk Report: Republicans Intensify Calls for Investigation of Twitter After Disclosures of Internal Documents
|
|
|
|
|
|
Good morning. House Republicans are eager to investigate Twitter Inc.’s handling of news about Hunter Biden before the 2020 election, an episode that has shined the spotlight on how the company handles platform moderation today.
|
|
Elon Musk purchased the social network in October and has recently been working with journalists to distribute internal documents that dealt with the platform’s decision to temporarily curb sharing of New York Post articles about President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, shortly before the 2020 election, as well as Twitter’s decision to remove then-President Donald Trump from the platform two days after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
Mr. Musk has alleged Twitter’s previous management aided Democrats by temporarily suppressing October 2020 articles from the New York Post. Former members of the intelligence community signed a letter in October 2020 asserting that the information relating to Hunter Biden had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Twitter partially backtracked within two days, allowing the articles to be linked in tweets, but froze the Post’s Twitter account for two weeks. Twitter executives also have said the initial decisions were wrong.
For Republicans, the Twitter files bolster a view that conservatives have been treated unfairly by large social networks, like Twitter. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) has pledged that Republicans will investigate how conservatives are treated on social networks and probe the younger Biden.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s new head of trust and safety is looking to address concerns from both sides of the political spectrum, saying that the platform is moving swiftly to address problematic content, even if it means figuring out some specifics later.
|
|
|
Content from our Sponsor: DELOITTE
|
|
Intersection of ESG, Reputation, Resilience Grows More Critical
|
Abstract: Many organizations recognize the importance of reputational capital, including in the context of ESG. But research indicates relatively few address related risks in a fully integrated manner. Read More ›
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sam Bankman-Fried PHOTO: KENNY WASSUS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
|
|
|
|
FTX founder arrested. Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested in the Bahamas after the United States filed criminal charges, the Office of the Attorney General of the Bahamas said on Monday.
The arrest was made based on a sealed indictment filed by the United States Attorney’s Office Southern District of New York, the U.S. attorney said. “We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in a statement.
The Bahamas police said he was taken into custody for charges of “various Financial Offenses against laws of the United States, which are also offenses against laws of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas.” He will appear in Magistrate Court on Tuesday in Nassau, the police said.
|
|
|
Carlos Ghosn’s escape planner speaks out. One of the two Americans who helped Carlos Ghosn flee Japan hidden inside a musical-equipment box said he had no regrets. Mr. Ghosn, the former Nissan Motor Co. chairman, was charged in Japan with financial misconduct and now lives as an international fugitive in Lebanon.
“I’d do it again every day of the week and twice on Sunday,” said Peter Taylor, who was convicted in Japan for his role in the escape. “Anyone who’s forced to undergo those conditions for a nonviolent offense quite frankly totally deserves to escape.”
Mr. Taylor recently completed a 14-month term in a prison south of Tokyo for his role in the December 2019 escape and returned to the U.S.
|
|
|
-
Delivery companies Grubhub and DoorDash Inc. are pushing for enactment of a bill in New York City that would amend the city’s cap on fees they can charge restaurants—a measure the companies say is urgent as a new minimum wage for delivery workers takes effect next year.
-
China’s Ministry of Commerce said Monday it has filed a complaint against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization in response to new controls from Washington on semiconductor trade with China, describing the action as a response to trade protectionism.
|
|
|
|
|
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell has the challenge of charting the next stage of interest-rate policy. PHOTO: ELIZABETH FRANTZ/REUTERS
|
|
|
|
Interest rate drama at the Fed. In the past nine months, Jerome Powell has raised interest rates at the fastest pace of any Federal Reserve chair since the 1980s, triggering a market rout, bringing the housing market to a standstill and prompting fears of an imminent recession. That was the easy part.
When inflation was hitting 40-year highs, Fed officials were unanimous that rates needed to rise aggressively. Now cracks are beginning to emerge among them over how stubborn inflation has become and what they should do about it.
|
|
|
-
Ukraine rushed to restore power supplies following the latest round of Russian attacks, while President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with President Biden and other Group of Seven leaders following a flurry of weekend diplomacy aimed at strengthening sanctions on Russia.
-
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday condemned what he called an unprovoked outbreak of firing and shelling by Afghan border forces a day earlier that killed seven people in Pakistan and injured more than a dozen.
-
Indian and Chinese security forces clashed on the countries’ disputed border alongside a northeastern Indian state last week, injuring several soldiers on both sides, the Indian army said Monday.
-
The U.S. is trying to shore up its influence among Pacific island nations against China’s inroads in the region. But first, the U.S. Postal Service needs to get on board.
|
|
|
|
|
Attendees write on a chalkboard at last month’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. PHOTO: BELLE LIN / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
|
|
|
|
Tight market for cybersecurity talent. According to Amazon.com Inc. Chief Security Officer Stephen Schmidt, the online retail giant is relying on a combination of internal training and active recruitment to help navigate a worldwide cyber talent shortage.
The broader economic climate is adding to the pressure. Amazon recently announced a companywide hiring pause and expects to lay off up to 10,000 workers, but Mr. Schmidt said he plans to boost Amazon’s security team.
“We as an industry are short hundreds of thousands of security professionals, and even in this very tight hiring environment, we are still hiring security professionals at Amazon this year,” he said.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vincent Clerc, foreground, will become A.P. Møller-Maersk’s next CEO as the company faces a challenging outlook. PHOTO: RITZAU SCANPIX/VIA REUTERS
|
|
|
|
A.P. Møller-Maersk changes leadership. The Danish shipping and logistics giant said Monday that it appointed Vincent Clerc as its next chief executive, as the company enters a tougher environment with lower freight rates and mounting macroeconomic challenges.
Mr. Clerc is taking the reins after a period when high ocean freight rates helped Maersk report strong earnings through the Covid-19 pandemic. The outlook for 2023, however, is challenging, analysts and executives say.
|
|
|
-
Three senior VMware Inc. executives are leaving the enterprise software company that Broadcom Inc. wants to acquire for $61 billion, VMware’s leader told staff in a memo on Monday.
-
Weber Inc. on Monday said it agreed to a sweetened buyout from BDT Capital Partners LLC, the private-equity firm that took the grill maker public in 2021 and had remained the company’s majority owner.
-
Private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LP is tapping its newest and largest fund to date as it plans to take Coupa Software Inc. private in an all-cash acquisition with an enterprise value of $8 billion.
-
Microsoft Corp. will take a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange’s corporate parent and help shift the exchange’s financial data and trading platforms to the cloud, in a deal that reflects the growing use of data and tech in global finance.
|
|
|
|
|
The company that runs Zelle said fraud and scam payments represent less than 0.1% of payments across the network. PHOTO: DIEGO THOMAZINI/SHUTTERSTOCK
|
|
|
|
Smaller banks might drop Zelle. Community banks and credit unions might drop out of partnerships with instant-payment apps like Zelle if required to reimburse customers who fall victim to scams, two industry trade groups said.
Facing pressure from lawmakers and regulators to do more to protect customers from fraud, the seven large banks that own Zelle are working on a plan to standardize refunds for customers duped into sending money. Scams using instant-payment apps like Zelle, Venmo and CashApp are expected to cost Americans $3 billion by 2026, up from $1.6 billion in 2021, according to a recent report by ACI Worldwide, a payments-software company.
|
|
|
-
Amgen Inc.’s deal to buy Horizon Therapeutics PLC for $27.8 billion, which comes as the company faces the loss of patent protection on several blockbuster drugs, is the latest and biggest this year by a major pharmaceutical company seeking new revenue sources to offset patent expiries.
-
Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter Inc. won’t be a distraction for SpaceX, NASA said it was told by a senior executive at the rocket company.
|
|
|
|
|
Bad Bunny performed at Aztec Stadium in Mexico City on Friday. PHOTO: EDUARDO VERDUGO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
|
|
|
|
Ticketmaster apologizes again. Ticketmaster apologized to Bad Bunny fans who bought tickets but were turned away from the artist’s concert in Mexico City because security officers thought their tickets were fake.
This was the second time in less than a month that Live Nation Entertainment Inc.’s Ticketmaster apologized to fans for their ticketing experiences. The company apologized to Taylor Swift’s fans on Nov. 18 after its website repeatedly crashed while they were trying to buy tickets to her upcoming U.S. “Eras Tour.” The episode last month raised questions about Ticketmaster’s dominant position in the ticketing industry.
|
|
|
|
|
Shein has grown rapidly into one of the world’s top online retailers. PHOTO: NORIKO HAYASHI/BLOOMBERG NEWS
|
|
|
|
Fast-fashion giant looks to online market. One of world’s largest online fashion retailers, Shein is exploring moving beyond its conventional business of selling its own brand apparel into a marketplace platform that will enable other merchants to sell directly to customers, according to a memo to investors viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The fast-growing company, now based in Singapore, is also diversifying its supply chain away from China, where Shein was founded. It has started manufacturing in Turkey since midsummer, and has leased and operated warehouses in Poland to store merchandise and ship to customers in Western Europe, according to the memo.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|