BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 24, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 135: Discussing Austin's Apology for Systemic Racism with Mayor Pro-Tem Natasha Harper-Madison
She and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss the Austin Council’s historic March 4th vote for Item 67 (sponsored by the MPT), a resolution formally apologizing for the city’s role in perpetuating racist policies that contributed to historical equity, health and wealth gaps that persist for Black Austinites.
For businesses looking at or new to Austin, this episode will provide insight into a long-standing issue touching residential and commercial land use, consumer facing business, and public safety.
You can listen to this episode and previous ones on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!
[CITY HALL MOVES]
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (5,260)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,428)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Bucking the Pandemic, Austin Is ‘the Hottest Market in the Country’ (New York Times)
In March 2020, the outlook in Austin was bleak after the pandemic forced business closures, lockdown orders and the cancellation of South by Southwest, the annual festival that brings in millions of dollars for the city.
A year later, optimism has replaced despair. Across the nation, the coronavirus remains a threat and empty office buildings and restaurants have hampered growth, but Austin, the Texas capital, has emerged as a hot spot for commercial real estate investment and a magnet for out-of-state corporate relocations that are strengthening its allure as a center of high-tech industry.
“It’s the hottest market in the country right now,” said Mike McDonald, vice chairman at Cushman & Wakefield who represents pension funds, insurance companies and real estate investment trusts. “Millennials are moving to the Sun Belt, and companies are following the millennials. Investors are following the companies.”
The city has become the No. 1 destination in the United States for potential commercial real estate investment, according to the CBRE Group, a national real estate services and investment firm. It displaced Greater Los Angeles as the most preferred market for 2021 because of the resilience in its labor market and an outlook for steady growth, according to an investor survey that CBRE will release this week.
The economic impact of the pandemic resulted in a net loss of 33,400 jobs in the Austin metropolitan area in 2020, according to the Austin Chamber of Commerce, but the influx of new companies helped Austin sustain the blow better than most other cities. A record 22,114 new jobs were attributed to businesses either expanding in Austin or moving to the city in 2020, compared with 13,562 in 2019, the chamber said.
The city’s prosperity is part of a broad economic wave that has spread across parts of the Sun Belt. The Dallas-Fort Worth area, which ranked No. 2 on CBRE’s investment survey, has also been high on the list of urban centers that have seen stability during the pandemic.
“The Sun Belt markets of Austin, Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta were among the top-performing metros where the least number of jobs were lost in 2020,” CBRE said in its survey.
Home to offices of tech giants such as Apple, Dell, Facebook, IBM and Samsung, Austin is increasingly considered one of the nation’s dominant tech hubs after Silicon Valley, promoting itself as “Silicon Hills,” a reference to its location in the Texas Hill Country.
That cachet has helped lure others. Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, said in December that he had moved to Texas from California, an announcement made as construction crews were erecting a $1.1 billion, 5,000-employee Tesla factory in the East Austin area. Oracle, one of the world’s largest database companies, announced in December that it was moving its headquarters to Austin from Silicon Valley.
“It’s become the second home for a large cluster of the larger tech companies,” said Charlie W. Malet, president and chief investment officer of San Francisco-based Shorenstein Properties, which invests in 22 markets across the country, including Austin. “It’s no secret that a market like Northern California, the Silicon Valley job market, is incredibly tight. There’s massive competition for talent. And many of the growing tech companies have decided that ‘we can’t have everything in one location; we need to spread our wings.’”
Nationwide, office vacancy rates rose to 17.1 percent by the end of 2020, the third consecutive quarterly increase, according to a report released in January by JLL, a commercial real estate services company. But the market in Austin was strong, “with less than 1 percent net occupancy losses in 2020,” the report said.
New projects in Austin are adding skyscrapers downtown and creating retail and residential complexes elsewhere in the city. Although the pandemic has not held back development, it has influenced design changes like touch-free elevators, expanded open space, operable windows and improved ventilation.
Experts attribute Austin’s counterintuitive economic performance to a number of factors: a stature as an education center and tech hub, a business-friendly climate, an abundance of social attractions and the charming eccentricity that spawned the slogan “Keep Austin Weird.”
“All the things that make Austin an attractive place before the pandemic are still here despite the pandemic,” said the mayor, Steve Adler, who noted that South by Southwest returned this month as an online event and that organizers were working toward its physical return in 2022.
The flood of job-seekers coming to Texas has led to an influx of out-of-state investment capital, said William C. Jenkins, a principal of Stonelake Capital Partners, a developer in Austin that is planning a 50-story office and residential tower downtown. As migrating companies create new jobs in the Lone Star State, he said, institutional investors are looking for “new cutting-edge, best-of-market real estate in Austin and in Texas” with an eye to “write big investment checks” for major projects.
Out-of-state developers are beginning to notice. Tishman Speyer, a real estate developer based in New York, announced in February its debut in the Austin market, purchasing the Foundry, a two-building office property in East Austin. Adding the city to its real estate portfolio was a “logical choice,” Rob Speyer, the firm's president and chief executive, said in a statement.
Other major developers have long made Austin an essential element in their growth strategy.
Cousins Properties of Atlanta is one of the leading office property owners in Austin after more than 20 years there, with 4.8 million square feet of office space either completed or under construction. Cousins is a major developer of the Domain, a high-end complex with retail, residential and office space in the North Austin neighborhood.
Much of the city’s appeal stems from its posture as a “very socially progressive and eclectic, creative city” that benefits from being in a state with lower regulation and lower taxes, said Colin Connolly, the president and chief executive of Cousins.
Brandywine Realty Trust, the largest landlord in its hometown, Philadelphia, has operated in the Austin market for 15 years and is starting a multiyear development on a 66-acre site near the Domain. The Broadmoor campus, which is anchored by an IBM complex, is expected to be completed in about 10 years, at a cost of about $3 billion. Planners say it will infuse the area with an uptown vibe combining office, residential and retail space among at least 11 acres of parks.
The company is also nearing completion on the 405 Colorado, a 25-story office tower that will begin housing tenants this summer.
“People believe long term that Austin is on a roll and continues to be,” said William D. Redd, Brandywine’s executive vice president and senior managing director. “If you’re a big investment firm, you want a piece of that action.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin leaders say vaccinating key groups will remain the focus as Texas opens eligibility to all adults (KUT)
The State of Texas will be opening up vaccine eligibility to all adults beginning Monday, but Austin Mayor Steve Adler says he would have preferred if the state had focused on frontline workers first.
“I wish our next move had been to focus on essential workers and people that are really at the crossroads of passing this infection onto others,” he said at a joint session of the Travis County Commissioners and Austin City Council on Tuesday.
The city’s interim medical director, Dr. Mark Escott, said Austin Public Health had been hopeful the state's 1C group would include essential workers, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so APH "could target where transmission is happening."
"At this stage while positivity is low, under 5%, we really need to focus some attention on those younger people who are having more person-to-person interactions to interrupt that transmission cycle," he said.
Escott said there still won't be as many vaccine doses as there are people signing up for them.
“We are still going to have to prioritize, we’re gonna have to focus efforts in particular areas and on particular groups to ensure that we are achieving the best public health outcome that we can,” he said.
Council Member Greg Casar expressed concern about how a rush of newly eligible people might affect the chances of getting vaccines to those living in the ZIP codes with the lowest rates of vaccination.
"I will be really interested in ... how we make sure the system works if we have a big flood of people coming to they system — which is good," he said, "but how we handle it."
Austin Public Health again received 12,000 vaccine doses this week. Director Stephanie Hayden-Howard said APH is "anticipating that there will be more vaccine available in April" and said it can provide 37,000 shots per week through various clinics.
Data from the Texas Department of State Health Services shows that almost 77,000 Travis County residents aged 65 and older have received at least one dose of the vaccine. APH says as of this week, it has administered more than 148,000 first doses… (LINK TO STORY)
Council floats spending ‘huge’ portion of American Rescue Plan funds to solve homelessness (Austin Monitor)
City Council hopes that solving homelessness – the city’s biggest priority – may finally be within reach thanks to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package. Council members spoke effusively at Tuesday’s work session about the “transformational” change possible if the city concentrates its portion of the American Rescue Plan – $195.8 million – on solving key issues instead of spreading the money thin.
This is the chance, Mayor Steve Adler said, to “take one of our most significant challenges and just fix it.”
Council is set this week to adopt a resolution, dubbed Resilient ATX, which they say is a first step toward allocating the funds. Staffers will be tasked with creating a detailed spending plan based in part on the resolution.
Though the resolution doesn’t prioritize all the issues that could be addressed using the funds, it does single out homelessness as the most pressing. At the work session, the mayor and others seemed optimistic about the opportunity the American Rescue Plan presents for solving homelessness.
“What would happen if we were able to actually put the resources necessary to effect the five-year plan to end homelessness in our community,” Mayor Steve Adler said, “and to begin to move all of the people in campsites … into permanent supportive housing?”
Adler and several Council members also insisted that artists, musicians and music venues should also receive a large portion of the funds.
“These are things we’ve been dreaming about for a long time,” said Council Member Alison Alter.
Though the rescue plan stipulates that the money be used “to respond to the Covid-19 public health emergency or its negative economic impacts,” as Chief Financial Officer Ed Van Eenoo said, the city will likely have leeway to spend the money as it pleases. “That’s very broad language,” he noted.
Even so, Austin must wait for the U.S. Treasury to release detailed spending guidelines before evaluating spending proposals. “The devil will be in the details in regards to how creative we can be in using those funds,” Van Eenoo said.
All the money must also be spent by the end of 2024. The city plans to allocate much of the funds to departments and programs this fiscal year, doling out the rest by the end of Fiscal Year 2022.
The city’s ability to enact such change also depends in large part on how Travis County spends the $247.1 million it received – a far greater amount than expected.
Adler suggested that a big chunk of the more than $400 million available to the two bodies should be spent on homelessness. “What if we put a huge component of our dollars toward that?” he said. “Maybe it’s $200 million or $250 million, or whatever it is.” Then the city and the county, he said, could court big donors in the community by saying, “Government is willing to put a real significant sum against this challenge, will you meet us on a similar scale?”… (LINK TO STORY)
They just moved into an Austin neighborhood. Now they want to end one of its traditions. (Texas Monthly)
The fleet of several dozen cars pulled into East Austin’s Fiesta Gardens, or “Chicano Park” as locals call it, on a recent weekend with the booming of powerful stereo systems announcing their arrival. After a few loops around the park, some drivers—most of them Black and Latino men in their twenties and thirties driving customized lowriders, bright, candy-colored slabs, and jacked-up trucks with flashy chrome rims—packed into a nearby middle school parking lot. Some unloaded barbecue grills, toddlers, and pit bulls, then cracked open beers, and blasted Texas hip-hop and Tejano music. Others joined a slow-moving carousel that flowed from the parking lot into the street and back again, swerving from side to side and occasionally screeching their tires, unleashing plumes of white smoke that covered the block in a light haze.
Some variation of this assembly has taken place nearly every Sunday afternoon since the early nineties. But now many residents of The Weaver, a newly built luxury apartment building across the street—whose website promises renters access to a “community that is rich in history and tradition”—have decided it’s time for the weekly event to come to an unceremonious end. Some of the building’s residents defend the car club gatherings and note they predate The Weaver residents’ arrival in the neighborhood, but many others have grown tired of the loud music, annoyed by the traffic, and turned off by the smell of skidding tires. One particularly vocal tenant, a non-Hispanic white woman with short blond hair who appeared to be in her fifties, claimed that smoke from the tires was killing nearby trees and that traffic from the gathering would make it impossible for an ambulance to reach her in the event of a medical emergency (though two other roads to the apartment building remain accessible at all times). Another Weaver resident voiced more generalized criticism, calling the event a “display of toxic masculinity.”
“[W]e should shut this thing down,” a third resident, who blamed the lack of police response on the “idiotic” city council’s decision to slash the Austin Police Department’s budget, wrote in March on a building forum. Indeed, at a recent gathering, a non-Hispanic white tenant had flagged two police vehicles and pleaded with officers to disband the celebration, calling it “scary.” The officers eventually drove off without taking any action. Even though the event sometimes violates noise and traffic ordinances, it doesn’t pose major threats to anyone in The Weaver, nor does it break other city rules… (LINK TO STORY)
Brodie Oaks developer explains plans (Austin Monitor)
Barshop & Oles and Houston investment firm Lionstone Investments are proposing a complete transformation of the Brodie Oaks shopping center. Their vision, as described to City Council Tuesday by urban planner Rebecca Leonard of Lionheart Places, would transform an old suburban shopping center with large surface parking lots into a mixed-use center with more than 1,500 residential units, 1.1 million square feet of office space, 448 hotel rooms and 110,000 square feet of retail, as well as 30,000 square feet of restaurant space.
The center is within the Barton Springs recharge zone, and if built as planned would be the largest project ever developed under the redevelopment exception of the Save Our Springs Ordinance. Jerry Rusthoven, assistant director of the Housing and Planning Department, explained that the developers are required to present a development assessment to staffers and Council before filing their application for a planned unit development.
One of the selling points of the proposal is reduction of the site’s impervious cover from 84 percent to 54 percent. “This would be 8.9 acres more than what they’re required to do under code,” he said. In addition, Rusthoven noted that the developers are proposing nearly a mile of trails, linked to a proposed accessible trailhead from the shopping center into the Barton Creek Greenbelt.
The plan includes restoring more than 25 percent of the site to open space adjacent to the greenbelt. Leonard’s presentation stressed that restoring that open space would be possible if the city allows the developer to build a 275-foot tower along the frontage road of Loop 360 and South Lamar Boulevard.
City Environmental Officer Chris Herrington told Council the proposed reduction of impervious cover is significant. He said under the SOS Ordinance’s redevelopment exception, developers would be able to redevelop the existing footprint at the same amount of impervious cover they have now. “They would have to provide water quality treatment and pay for mitigation land,” he said, adding that the project “would be achieving SOS levels of water quality treatment.”
Noting that the site is within her district, Council Member Ann Kitchen thanked the developers for having conversations with area neighbors. She did express concern about the 275-foot height, saying it might set a precedent for the area. Because this is a redevelopment under the Save Our Springs Ordinance, the code will receive extra scrutiny.
Council Member Kathie Tovo, who always asks for more affordable housing, brought up the issue during the presentation. Leonard said the developer would provide 10 percent affordable rental housing as well as 10 percent of owner-occupied affordable housing. She said they intend to provide the housing on-site, not simply to contribute to the city’s affordable housing fund.
Council Member Pio Renteria expressed concern about the small businesses and restaurants currently on the site. “This is very exciting,” he said, but added, “This little corner there has a lot of popular restaurants that people do go to,” which are affordable. “I hope you will be able to keep some of those services and restaurants and small businesses.”
“I notice that sometimes we kind of lose the old family type restaurants where people like to go and eat … I hope if you do this development, you can keep the affordable services there for the population, because those places attract a lot of people.”
Renteria also mentioned the small Sprouts grocery store, which “feels more like a mom-and-pop type store than these big corporations’ stores. So I hope that we keep that when we do go through the development process.”
As Leonard noted, the site is adjacent to Capital Metro’s existing high-capacity transit route on South Lamar. Development of housing on the site will support that route, with the hope that there will be less reliance on single-occupancy vehicles.
At this point, Leonard explained that the city has to answer some critical questions about its priorities in terms of land uses. The total site to be developed is 37.6 acres, but Capital Metro, Austin Energy, Austin Water and the Parks and Recreation Department have requested land donations… (LINK TO STORY)
City Of Austin says it might permanently close Barton Springs if Texas bill becomes law (KUT)
A bill filed to reduce federal oversight of the Texas fossil fuel industry could also force the closure of one of the state’s most iconic swimming holes: Barton Springs Pool.
House Bill 1683, filed by Republican state Rep. Brooks Landgraf, would prohibit state agencies and political subdivisions from interacting with the federal government to enforce federal oil and gas regulations if those rules don’t exist under Texas law.
“This is about protecting jobs in the Permian Basin,” Landgraf, who represents Odessa, told NewsWest9.
But the impact of the bill could go well beyond the oilfields.
Texas has a reputation for lax regulation when it comes to the fossil fuel industry. Opponents of the bill say it would make it even harder to enforce public health, climate and environmental protections in the state.
It could also destroy preexisting partnerships and agreements between either cities or state agencies and the federal government.
Take Barton Springs as an example.
While most Austinites know Barton Springs Pool as a nice place for a swim, it is also a federally designated endangered species habitat. The springs are home to the Austin blind salamander and the Barton Springs salamander.
Because of the presence of endangered species, the city must hold an operating permit from the U.S. Department of Fish And Wildlife to keep the pool open to the public. The terms of that permit require the city to protect the salamanders’ habitat. That means Austin must participate in legal and regulatory actions to protect local water quality.
That occasionally pits the city against fossil fuel companies in disputes over federal law. Most recently, Austin sued pipeline company Kinder Morgan alleging the company had violated the Endangered Species Act in constructing its Permian Highway Pipeline.
The city says legal actions like that would become illegal if House Bill 1683 is passed. And breaking the law would cause the city to lose state grant funding.
In testimony before the state House Energy Resources Committee on Monday, Chris Herrington, the City of Austin's environmental officer, said the bill would force Austin “to choose between meeting our federal permit obligations at the cost of unrelated state grant funding, or closing our internationally famous springs.”
Herrington said if the bill moves forward, it should “include provisions that would exempt any actions by a political subdivision that are necessary to meet federal permit obligations.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Homeless hotel fight moves to the Texas Legislature (FOX 7 Austin)
The stage is set for another state-versus-local showdown as two bills have been filed in the Texas Senate in response to the Austin homeless hotel controversy. Testimony was heard Monday at the Texas State Capitol regarding Senate Bill 796 and Senate Bill 646, both filed by state Sen. Charles Schwertner (R-Georgetown) to regulate how local communities should consider controversial homeless housing plans. Schwertner says that his bills before the Senate Committee on Local Government were not filed to simply bash Austin. "This is about doing right for not just the homeless, but for the community that’s going to be affected by the placement of a homeless shelter in the middle of their community," said Schwertner.
Schwertner’s legislation is in response to the city of Austin‘s plan to purchase the Candlewood Suites hotel in North Austin. Residents held another protest Sunday in front of the Pecan Park Boulevard location. They say Austin blindsided them with its plan to convert the site into a homeless housing and resource center. SB 796 would require a public hearing before approving a project, certified mail notification to every resident within a two-mile radius of any proposed site, and a 36-hour notification before approving the project. SB 646, a companion bill, requires a city to draft a comprehensive operation plan and submit it to county commissioners for approval. It also requires public notification 61 days before the property can be purchased… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Matthew McConaughey And Camila Alves McConaughey’s ‘We’re Texas’ Virtual Concert Benefit Raises Nearly $8 Million For Those Affected By Winter Storm (Deadline)
The We’re Texas virtual benefit concert organized by Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camila Alves McConaughey to raise money for victims of last month’s devastating winter storm in Texas has raised $7.7 million, with donations still coming in after its premiere Sunday on YouTube and Spectrum News 1.
Proceeds will go towards the continued support to those affected by the storm through the McConaugheys’ just keep livin Foundation Texas Relief Fund.
The lauded virtual event has been seen by people all around the world on Matthew McConaughey’s YouTube Channel and Spectrum News 1 in Texas. Since its premiere, more then half a million people have tuned into to watch the concert and the all-star list of stars in attendance… (LINK TO STORY)
‘Back the Blue Act’ passes Texas Senate committee as GOP seeks to rein in defunding efforts (Dallas Morning News)
In a Republican-led effort to make it harder for local governments to reallocate law enforcement funds, the Senate Jurisprudence Committee on Tuesday moved the “Back the Blue Act” to the full Senate for a vote.
Committee Chairwoman Joan Huffman, R-Houston, said the bill was intended to put “the power back in the hands of Texans” by requiring an election before a local government could cut law enforcement funds as a percentage of its total budget.
Under the bill, if the Texas comptroller of public accounts determined a local government had cut funding without an election, and without meeting some exceptions outlined in the bill, then the municipality could not raise property taxes for the next fiscal year.
In a Tuesday morning hearing, Huffman argued that few Texans support defunding local law enforcement, and she said Senate Bill 23 would give citizens more power over the actions of their elected representatives.
“They don’t have much say-so in a budgetary process. … Many people feel helpless in these situations,” she said.
Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Dallas Democrat who voted against the bill along with committee Vice Chairman Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa of South Texas, raised the issue of whether it would reduce citizens’ power at the local level.
“It seems to me we’re creating a giant, expensive procedural hurdle to good governance solely to send a political message which has no basis in fact,” Johnson said during the hearing.
Hinojosa, also a Democrat, added that the bill would micromanage local governments and possibly impede their functions… (LINK TO STORY)
Not all emergencies are priorities in the Texas Capitol (Texas Tribune)
In 2019 and 2020, 110 people were killed in mass shootings in Texas and another 266 were injured, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an online database of incidents of gun violence.
There were two substantiated cases of election fraud in Texas during those two years, according to the Heritage Foundation’s database of election fraud cases.
Guess which topic state leaders consider to be an emergency?
The latest additions to the appalling, steady stream of mass shootings in America came in the last few days — in three Atlanta-area massage parlors, where eight were killed last week, including six Asian women, and then in a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where 10 were killed on Monday.
Those out-of-state shootings reignited a familiar set of arguments about gun violence in a state where new limits on gun ownership and possession are unlikely.
It’s not that lawmakers aren’t thinking about weaponry: In the current session, they’ve filed 22 bills that contain the word “firearm” and 45 bills — there’s some overlap — containing the word “gun.” They run the gamut: regulating sales at gun shows, prohibiting people from carrying guns while intoxicated, allowing unlicensed carry of guns, creating an annual sales tax holiday for gun sales and more. Many of those are up for consideration on Thursday in the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Cold storage for food is hot real-estate play (Wall Street Journal)
A surge in online grocery shopping is intensifying demand for food-storage warehouses, sparking billions of dollars in new real-estate development.
Shopping for groceries online was taking off even before the pandemic. Services like Amazon Fresh, FreshDirect and Misfits Market offered a convenient alternative to the supermarket. Demand soared when people started worrying that they could catch Covid-19 on a trip to the store.
Now, companies like Americold Realty Trust and Lineage Logistics LLC are building or preparing to break ground on tens of millions of square feet of temperature-controlled warehouses that can store meat, dairy products, produce and other perishables.
Many of the new facilities are located close to residential neighborhoods and designed to fulfill home orders more efficiently. They also feature advanced robotics and data analytics that will enable the service to pivot quickly if demand shifts among households, restaurants, schools, grocery stores and other final stops on the supply line.
The global cold-storage construction market is expected to swell to $18.6 billion in 2027 compared with $7 billion in 2019, according to Emergen Research, a consulting company. New players in the business “are popping up all over,” said Kristin Gannon, a managing director of real-estate investment bank Eastdil Secured.
In 2019, only about 5% of groceries were purchased online, according to Bain & Co. That figure grew to 10% last year and Bain forecasts it could get as high as 12% by 2025.
Many existing food buildings are old and inefficient and lack the safety features of new development, said Neil Johnson, founder and chief executive of Provender Partners LLC.
His company is planning warehouses where perishable food can be stored, processed and shipped to homes. These buildings can store foods at different temperatures and offer room for food company tenants to cook simple meals and prepare meal and grocery kits for home delivery.
Grocery-store chains also are rethinking supply lines after panic shopping in the pandemic’s early days emptied shelves of meats, dairy products and other perishable items… (LINK TO STORY)
House lawmakers fired up for hearing with tech CEOs (The Hill)
The CEOs of the country’s biggest social media platforms will testify Thursday before a Congress eager to press them on their roles spreading misinformation related to coronavirus and the leadup to the deadly insurrection at the Capitol in January.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Sundar Pichai will appear remotely in front of two House Energy and Commerce subcommittees set to take a markedly different tone from previous hearings.
“We are done with conversation,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), chairwoman of the Consumer Protection and Commerce Subcommittee, said at an event Monday. “We are now moving ahead with regulation and legislation, and that is inevitable. We want them to understand how seriously they better take this.”
The hearing will likely focus on the part the massive platforms play in spreading potentially dangerous misinformation — ranging from election result conspiracies to lies about the coronavirus vaccine — and a suite of proposed and forthcoming legislative fixes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives platforms liability protection from content posted by third parties and allows them to safely moderate.
All three companies have highlighted their work on content moderation and new policies recently, hinting at how they will approach the hearing.
Facebook published a blog by Guy Rosen, its vice president of integrity, on Monday that outlined efforts to take down fake accounts, fact-check content and remove coronavirus misinformation across its platforms.
YouTube earlier this month revealed that it took down 30,000 videos with COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
Twitter rolled out a policy for labeling vaccine misinformation posts and implemented a strike system for broader coronavirus misinformation that could see accounts suspended or removed for repeated violations.
The storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 that left five people dead will undoubtedly be a focus of questioning, at least by Democrats… (LINK TO STORY)