| Welcome to The Technology 202! Below: A Washington Post-ProPublica collaboration out today reveals that Facebook groups were home to hundreds of thousands of posts attacking the legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. election in the days leading up to Jan. 6. First up though: | Biden's coronavirus testing push will need to face the ghost of websites past |  President Biden answers questions after speaking about the pandemic at the White House on Dec. 21. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) | | | The swift spread of the omicron variant has laid bare the dearth of coronavirus tests nationwide, prompting President Biden last month to announce plans to make 500 million rapid tests available in part through a new federal website where citizens can sign up to receive them. If history is any indication, though, the portal's launch could face some of the same technological stumbling blocks that have plagued similar projects in the past. The federal government has a checkered history when it comes to standing up critical public health sites, including the botched rollout of healthcare.gov in 2013 and the national covid-19 screening site once touted by former president Donald Trump in 2020 that never fully materialized. But there have also been far less turbulent launches, including the White House's smooth unveiling in May of a portal to help Americans sign up for vaccination appointments. Still, major questions remain unanswered about how the White House will stand up a website that can meet the soaring demand for tests. Here are a few: | How will the site handle a likely massive surge in traffic? | | With online searches for rapid at-home coronavirus tests soaring in recent weeks, according to Google Trends, interest in the new website is likely to be immense. That could strain the federal government's technical capacity to keep up with the demand, as it did with healthcare.gov. "I think that we're going to be seeing a huge amount of traffic on the site," said Jenny Wagner, director of programs at Linux Foundation Public Health. She added that having a game plan and infrastructure in place to handle that surge will be "critical" for the initiative. | | Still, Aneesh Chopra, who served as the United States' first chief technology officer during the Obama administration, said launching the new site will pose a more "modest" technical challenge than the healthcare.gov rollout in 2013. He likened it to standing up a "simple e-commerce site." "I don't see this having a great deal of technical risk," said Chopra, who was a member of the Biden transition's agency review teams. "It's got to work, it's got to be fast, it's got to scale, so there are obviously infrastructure-related questions, but we're not launching a new marketplace of health plans." White House spokesman Kevin Munoz declined to answer questions about how the plan will account for a potential surge in traffic, among other issues, noting that many of the details are still "forthcoming." | How will it serve underserved communities with sparse Internet access? | | The Biden administration has stressed the need to address gaps in care for underserved communities in its coronavirus response efforts. But the new website will pose a unique test toward achieving that goal, given that some of those most in need likely lack Internet access. The White House accounted for that when it rolled out its portal for vaccine appointments in May, also creating a telephone line and call center as a way to "offer a tool for those who may lack Internet access." But it has yet to detail how it plans to mitigate for that here. "Accessibility is really a critical piece of it," Wagner said. She added, "Making sure that the website also comes with analog ways to order these tests and get access to these services is going to be really critical on the health equity side." White House press secretary Jen Psaki said late last month that the website will be "ready when tests start to be ready" and "will ensure tests are available equitably and that they will be attained with ready access." | How will it protect Americans' private data? | | When Trump first announced plans to, as he erroneously described at the time, partner with Google to launch a website where Americans nationwide could screen for covid-19 symptoms, privacy advocates sounded the alarm about possible data privacy risks. (The project, run not by Google but its sister company Verily, was initially only planned for a few cities, and Trump's remarks sent the company scrambling.) | | They called on the federal government to implement guardrails to protect users' data from itself, private companies and external bad actors alike. The new project runs some of the same risks. | | "You're going to have a website with a lot of personal information, which is going to then also be attractive to anybody who wants that," Wagner said. "And so making sure that you've got good cybersecurity practices in place to defend against that … [is] going to be important." Despite the outstanding questions, both Wagner and Chopra said they believe the executive branch now has the technical expertise to consider and tackle these challenges. "What you have now is you have a very competent and professionally run U.S. digital services team [that was] stood up in the wake of the healthcare.gov rescue operation and has continued and thrived" under former president Barack Obama, Trump and now Biden, Chopra said. | | |  | Our top tabs | | Facebook was inundated with posts attacking the 2020 election before Jan. 6 |  Facebook has denied responsibility for violence on Jan. 6. (Richard Drew/AP) | | | Facebook groups were home to more than 650,000 posts that attacked the legitimacy of Joe Biden's victory between Election Day and the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol, according to a Washington Post-ProPublica investigation that analyzed millions of posts between Election Day and Jan. 6 and drew on interviews with former employees and internal documents. Some posts called for arrests, executions and the use of force to prevent the U.S. government from falling into the hands of traitors, according to the investigation. "Facebook executives have played down the company's role in the Jan. 6 attack and have resisted calls, including from its own Oversight Board, for a comprehensive internal investigation," Craig Timberg, Craig Silverman, Jeff Kao and Jeremy B. Merrill write. "The company also has yet to turn over all the information requested by the congressional committee studying the Jan. 6 attack, though it says it is negotiating with the committee." Facebook continues to deny that it was responsible for Jan. 6 violence. "The notion that the January 6 insurrection would not have happened but for Facebook is absurd," said Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for Facebook parent Meta. He said the "responsibility for the violence that occurred on January 6 lies with those who attacked our Capitol and those who encouraged them." | The Biden administration is expected to make a fresh push for Senate to confirm top FTC, FCC nominees |  Gigi Sohn has faced Republican opposition for a seat on the Federal Communications Commission. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) | | | The Biden administration is expected to renew its nominations of Gigi Sohn for a slot at the Federal Communications Commission, Alvaro Bedoya for a seat on the Federal Trade Commission and Alan Davidson as head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Reuters's Nandita Bose reports, citing a Biden administration official. "The nominations have been held up due to Republican opposition," Bose writes. "The delay has kept Democrats from having a majority at these agencies and acting on priorities such as robust antitrust enforcement and net neutrality rules." Sohn has faced the most intense opposition from Republicans, who have pointed to her past comments about Fox News to cast her as "hyperpartisan," a claim she denies. | A jury found Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes guilty of four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud investors |  The jury also found Elizabeth Holmes not guilty on four counts and deadlocked on three others. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg) | | | The verdict marks a major win for prosecutors in their years-long probe into Elizabeth Holmes, who they accused of misleading investors and patients about Theranos's blood-testing technology, Rachel Lerman, Nitasha Tiku and Faiz Siddiqui report. The jury found Holmes not guilty on four counts; it also deadlocked on three counts. "The trial opened a window into the secretive world of Silicon Valley start-ups, granting a rare peek into a place where CEOs rarely stand for trial and companies often skirt regulatory consequences," Rachel, Nitasha and Faiz write. "The industry is known for its 'fake it until you make it' adage, which leads some founders to overhype their products. But Holmes's story stood out as an oft-cited extreme example of that culture due to the high-profile investors she attracted and Theranos's direct involvement in patient health care." | | |  | Rant and rave | | | Apple on Monday briefly became the first publicly traded company valued at $3 trillion, prompting Twitter users to think about all the different Apple products and services they're paying for. Journalist Casey Newton: | | The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern: | | Content creator Tomi Adebayo: | | |  | Hill happenings | | | |  | Inside the industry | | | |  | Mentions | | - Amena Ross is joining Block, formerly known as Square, where she will become Cash App's head of policy. She previously worked as chief of staff for Rep. Al Green (D-Tex.).
| | |  | Trending | | | |  | Daybook | | - Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger speaks at an Atlantic Council event on Monday at 10 a.m.
| | |  | Before you log off | | | A quick note: We mislabeled Jim Steyer as president of Common Sense Media yesterday. He is the founder. We regret the error. That's all for today — thank you so much for joining us! Make sure to tell others to subscribe to The Technology 202 here. Get in touch with tips, feedback or greetings on Twitter or email. | |
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