Hillicon Valley — Tesla faces federal investigators

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s investigation into Tesla’s driver assistance was upgraded this week andcould ultimately result in a major recall.

Speaking of electric vehicles, President Biden’s ambitious plan to expand their usage is being met with increased optimism. 

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar, Chris Mills Rodrigo and Ines Kagubare. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Tesla investigation upgraded  

Federal investigators are expanding their investigation into potential safety risks of Tesla’s Autopilot feature. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Thursday that it is upgrading the probe of the feature launched in August to an engineering analysis, a more rigorous evaluation that can lead to a recall. 

The agency first opened the investigation following roughly a dozen crashes between Tesla cars with Autopilot engaged and parked emergency vehicles.  

The expanded probe will look at a total of 16 crashes to see whether Tesla’s automated driving features “may exacerbate human factors or behavioral safety risks by undermining the effectiveness of the driver’s supervision.” 

Tesla has defended its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features as safer than normal driving, and stresses that drivers are told to remain engaged at all times. 

Read more. 

Electric vehicle challenges 

President Biden’s push for more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road and more charging stations around the U.S. is gaining fresh traction while Americans continue to face historically high gas prices at the pump. 

The president has been focused on an ambitious climate agenda, which has largely stalled in the Senate, but federal funding for electric vehicle infrastructure manufacturing was passed in the bipartisan infrastructure law, which the president signed in November. 

The law included $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers and since then, the Biden administration has allocated funding to kick-start programs with the goal of making electric vehicles more prevalent on American roads by the end of the decade. 

“I think the amount of money makes me optimistic. Of course, most of it is being distributed to the states, and the states are going to have to use that infrastructure money strategically. And that I believe is going to mean a heavy emphasis on making charging access available to apartment dwellers,” said Jenny Carter, assistant professor at the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment. 

Read more on the challenges ahead. 

10 STRIKES YOU’RE OUT! 

Facebook is allowing marketplace buyers and sellers to violate its ban on gun purchases 10 times before they are kicked off the platform, according to a Thursday report from The Washington Post.  

The Post reported that Facebook’s guidelines also include a five-strikes system for gun sellers and buyers who call for violence or voice support for a “known dangerous organization” before they lose Facebook access. Facebook reportedly banned the private sale of guns on its website more than five years ago but has not publicly explained in much detail how the company enforces the ban.  

Facebook spokesman Andy Stone told the Post that the company takes down posts that violate its policy quickly and applies increasingly severe consequences for repeat offenders, up to permanently suspending an account.  

“If we identify any serious violations that have the potential for real-world harm, we don’t hesitate to contact law enforcement,” Stone said. 

He said almost 90 percent of those who receive one strike will not receive more than one additional one, adding that violators are mostly unaware of Facebook’s policies and don’t violate them again once they are told about it. 

Read more. 

AMAZON HEARING STAYS PUBLIC  

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has denied a request by Amazon to close off public access to a hearing on the validity of a union’s historic win at a Staten Island warehouse. 

The e-commerce giant, which is petitioning to overturn the Amazon Labor Union’s win, was seeking to restrict who could view the hearing, which is starting Monday and is being held on Zoom. 

An NLRB officer denied the request in a filing Thursday, noting that the agency’s “hearings are not secret.” 

“Accordingly, preventing the public from viewing its important processes is not an option,” Cornele Overstreet, the regional director overseeing the hearing, wrote.  

“That this case has garnered national and international attention from outside parties only further solidifies the importance of allowing public observation, as employees and members of the public can be better informed of the purposes and policies of the Act,” he added. 

Read more about the decision. 

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: Making cities green using digital technology 

Lighter click: Mondays am I right? 

Notable links from around the web: 

Wickr, Amazon’s encrypted chat app, has a child sex abuse problem — and little is being done to stop it (NBC News/ Ben Goggin) 

Firefox and Chrome are squaring off over ad-blocker extensions (The Verge / Corin Faife) 

Meta knew its apps harm teens’ mental health, families allege in suits (The Washington Post / James Bikales) 

One more thing: Prime time

Nearly 20 million people watched Thursday night’s first hearing of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol across broadcast and cable news, according to preliminary ratings figures from Nielsen. 

Each of the major television news networks pre-empted their regularly scheduled programming on Thursday to show continuous live coverage of the two-hour hearings.  

• ABC took the largest haul of viewers, earning 4.8 million viewers
  
• NBC and CBS carried 3.5 million and 3.3 million, respectively
   
• On cable, MSNBC pulled in a whopping 4.1 million viewers during the hearings, nearly four times what the network averages on a typical weeknight

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you next week.

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