Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) pressed Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg over documents showing that developers in “high-risk” countries such as China and Russia have access to users' data. 

In a letter sent on Monday, the senior members of the Senate Intelligence Committee cited new evidence, released as part of litigation, showing that Facebook was aware that tens of thousands of developers based in Iran, North Korea, China and Russia have access to user information. 

"As Facebook’s own internal materials note, those jurisdictions 'may be governed by potentially risky data storage and disclosure rules or be more likely to house malicious actors,' including 'states known to collect data for intelligence targeting and cyber espionage,'" the senators wrote in their letter. 

"As the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, we have grave concerns about the extent to which this access could have enabled foreign intelligence service activity, ranging from foreign malign influence to targeting and counter-intelligence activity," they wrote. 

The lawmakers said the documents were released as a part of ongoing litigation involving Facebook's handling of users’ personal data in connection with Cambridge Analytica. Facebook agreed in December to pay $725 million to settle the class-action lawsuit in that case.

The senators asked Zuckerberg to respond to a series of questions and requests, including providing a full list of the types of information the developers had access to, the timeframes associated with that access and whether the company has “any indication that any developers’ access enabled coordinated inauthentic activity, targeting activity or any other malign behavior by foreign governments.” 

The letter notes that senators also made similar inquiries following a New York Times report in 2018 on how Facebook gave Chinese-based developers access to users’ profile data, user IDs, photos, contact information and private messages. 

"Given those discussions, we were startled to learn recently, as a result of this ongoing litigation and discovery, that Facebook had concluded that a much wider range of foreign based developers, in addition to the [China]-based device-makers, also had access to this data," the senators wrote.

In a statement Tuesday, a Meta spokesperson told The Hill the documents that senators noted in their letter are “from a different product at a different time," saying that the company has made “substantive changes” since then. 

"Many years ago, we made substantive changes to our platform, shutting down developers’ access to key types of data on Facebook while reviewing and approving all apps that request access to sensitive information," they said.

Twitter restored Sen. Steve Daines’ (R-Mont.) account on Tuesday afternoon after it was suspended earlier in the day for what the company said was a violation of its “media policy.”

“I’m free! Thanks, @elonmusk,” Daines tweeted. 

The account was restored shortly after Twitter CEO Elon Musk said the suspension was “being fixed."

The suspension apparently happened after Daines' account displayed an image of him and his wife hunting as the profile picture, prompting an outcry from Republicans. 

On Tuesday morning the account for the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman did not show his profile avatar or background picture. In addition, a number of posts going back days were unavailable and slew of posts going back as far as last Friday showed a statement that read, “@SteveDaines’s account is temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy.”

“This is being fixed,” Musk said in a tweet. “Policy against showing blood in profile pic is being amended to ‘clearly showing blood without clicking on the profile pic’. The intent is to avoid people being forced to see gruesome profile pics.”

“Going forward, Twitter will be broadly accepting of different values, rather than trying to impose its own specific values on the world,” Musk added. 

Republicans rallied around Daines on Twitter earlier in the day and defended the Montana Republican.

“This is the family photo that got @SteveDaines put in twitter jail. Stop censoring our Montana way of life!  Great shot, Cindy!” tweeted Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), who included a photo of Daines and his wife hunting. 

“Twitter has ridiculously suspended Sen. @SteveDaines because his profile picture is of him and his wife hunting…What a disgrace!” said Donald Trump Jr. in a post on Twitter. 

Microsoft said it is investigating a reported outage with its Microsoft Outlook email service after many users experienced issues sending emails, searching emails or receiving emails overnight and into Tuesday morning.

According to Microsoft's service status page, many users in North America were affected by the outage, and said it also impacted the calendar function and Microsoft Teams. At around 11 p.m. Monday, more than 2,000 users reported issues with Microsoft Outlook, according to Downdetector, which is a website that tracks user reports of online service outages.

Microsoft Service tweeted early Tuesday morning that a "recent change" contributed to the email service outage, and that it was working on "potential solutions to restore availability of the service."

Microsoft said on its service page that it started to see "gradual recovery" in the Microsoft Outlook programs Tuesday morning, saying it "applied mitigation throughout the affected infrastructure" to address the issues.

Microsoft Service tweeted at about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday that restoring service was almost complete.

"Availability is at 99.9%, with full restoration almost complete. We're continuing to monitor the environment to ensure full recovery," the tweet reads.

Microsoft announced last month that it plans to lay off 10,000 employees by the end of the third quarter, a move that many other tech companies have taken at the start of 2023.

A Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill at about 12:30 p.m. that the outage “has been resolved.”

Updated: 12:56 p.m.

The Chinese tech giant Baidu announced Tuesday that it is developing an AI bot as the program ChatGPT increasingly gains popularity. 

Baidu said in a tweet that it is creating an AI chatbot project called ERNIE Bot, which was first proposed as a language model in 2019. The program was capable of understanding 96 languages as of January 2021, according to a timeline of milestones for ERNIE included in the post. 

The tweet did not state the expected release date for the program but said the public should stay tuned for further updates. 

Baidu’s announcement comes after Google announced its own AI chatbot called Bard to rival ChatGPT. The program, which can provide highly detailed answers to inquiries from users, will become more widely available to the public in the “coming weeks.” 

NBC News reported that shares for Baidu rose more than 15 percent on Tuesday, the best day for the stock in almost a year, and other Chinese AI stocks also rose. 

Microsoft announced last month that it is investing billions of dollars into OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, as part of a partnership between the two companies. 

ChatGPT has faced controversy over its use in schools with the potential for students to use the tool as a cheating mechanism. Some schools and universities have taken steps toward banning the use of the tool to prevent any negative impacts to students’ learning.

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Tuesday said that the suspected Chinese spy balloon that traveled over the country last week has further weakened relations between the United States and China.

"I think it certainly undermines U.S.-China relations and damages trust between our two countries, between our leadership," Esper said in an appearance on "CNN This Morning."

The “high-altitude surveillance balloon” initially entered U.S. airspace in Alaska on Jan. 28, and briefly traveled through Canada before reentering the U.S. through Idaho on Jan. 31. Biden said on Saturday that he ordered the military to bring down the aircraft "as soon as possible" on Wednesday. The balloon was subsequently shot down by the military on Saturday near the South Carolina coast.

The balloon incident led Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his visit to Beijing last week, calling the suspected surveillance balloon in U.S. air space "unacceptable."

Esper, who served as the Defense Secretary under President Trump, said he questions why they did not detect Chinese balloons that came near the United States during the Trump administration. He suggested that previous balloons may have become "lost in the noise," which may be why they were undetected.

A senior official said over the weekend that Chinese balloons traveled over the U.S. three times during the Trump administration. Trump and his officials denied the claim, and Trump called it "disinformation."

"I would be ordering an inquiry as to what happened and why," he said. "And I'm sure Congress is going to do the same to find out what happened, how did it happen? When did we find out and what are we doing to fix the problem?"

Twitter suspended the account of Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Republicans' campaign arm, because the social media platform said it violated its media policy.

Daines’s @SteveDaines account did not show his profile or background photos as of Tuesday morning, and slew of posts going back as far as last Friday showed a statement that read, “@SteveDaines's account is temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy.”

The statement also linked to Twitter’s sensitive media policy, which notes that users could not publish graphic media or adult content on their banner images or profile header, among other places. 

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), linking to a reporter’s tweet, alleged that Daines had been suspended from his account because he and his wife were shown hunting in his profile header. The Hill has reached out to Twitter for comment.

“This is insane. Twitter should immediately reverse this suspension,” NRSC spokesman Philip Letsou said in a statement.

Other Republicans rallied around Daines on Twitter and defended the Montana Republican.

“This is the family photo that got @SteveDaines put in twitter jail. Stop censoring our Montana way of life!  Great shot, Cindy!” tweeted Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), who included a photo of the Daines and his wife hunting. 

“Twitter has ridiculously suspended Sen. @SteveDaines because his profile picture is of him and his wife hunting...What a disgrace!” said Donald Trump Jr. in a post on Twitter. 

A new United Nations report says that North Korea set a record for its cryptocurrency crimes last year. 

In a confidential report obtained and published by Reuters on Monday, independent sanctions monitors said that South Korea estimated that North Korean-linked hackers stole virtual assets worth at least $630 million in 2022. One cybersecurity firm estimated that North Korean cybercrime yielded cyber currencies worth more than $1 billion, according to the report. 

The sanctions monitors said groups controlled by the Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea’s primary intelligence organization, carried out the majority of the reported cyber attacks, adding that hacking teams under the names of Kimsuky, the Lazarus Group and Andariel were under those groups and tracked by the cybersecurity industry.

"These actors continued illicitly to target victims to generate revenue and solicit information of value to the DPRK including its weapons programmes," the U.N.’s report said, using an acronym for North Korea's official name. 

The sanctions monitors also said those groups used malware for various methods such as phishing, noting that one campaign using this method targeted employees in organizations across various countries. 

"Initial contacts with individuals were made via LinkedIn, and once a level of trust with the targets was established, malicious payloads were delivered through continued communications over WhatsApp," the report added. 

North Korea, which was accused by the monitors of conducting cyber attacks to fund its nuclear and missile programs, has previously denied any allegation of hacking or cyberattacks. 

Diplomats told Reuters that the report, which was submitted to the 15-member North Korea sanctions committee last week, will be released publicly later in February or early March.

—Updated at 11 p.m.

Google unveiled an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that is seemingly a rival product to the increasingly popular ChatGPT feature. According to Google’s CEO, more AI tools from the search giant are on the horizon.  

Meanwhile, we’ll dive into how TikTok is facing increasing criticism from both Republican and Democrat lawmakers as they seek to ban the app, citing national security and privacy concerns.

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 and Ines Kagubare. 

Google launches AI tool Bard

Google on Monday unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool called Bard, its rival product to the increasingly popular ChatGPT tool.  

With Bard, individuals can “simplify complex topics” by using the AI tool to get highly detailed responses to queries. For example, a user can ask Bard to explain discoveries from a NASA telescope to a 9-year-old, according to Google’s blog post.  

The release of Bard comes after competitor Microsoft announced a multibillion-dollar investment into OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool. 

• The feature will be opened up to a group of “trusted testers” and made “more widely available” to the public “in the coming weeks,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in the blog post.  
  
• The tech giant is looking to introduce more AI-powered tools across its search function, in addition to Bard, which is powered by Google’s Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA. 

Read more here. 

Bipartisan lawmakers push for TikTok ban 

Anti-TikTok pressure is mounting in Congress from both sides of the aisle, with lawmakers proposing legal measures to ban the popular video sharing app from use in the U.S. to requests for dominant app stores to drop it.  

• The push is largely based on concerns that the app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, poses national security and privacy risks based on the data TikTok is able to collect on users’ activity on their devices both on and off the app. 
  
• Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) introduced a bill last week that would ban TikTok in the U.S. It is the first of its kind to be introduced this Congress, following a similar proposal led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) last year. 

What are lawmakers saying? 

“The big problem with TikTok is that it is a backdoor for the Chinese Communist Party into the personal data and the personal lives of every American who uses it, that includes especially our kids,” Hawley told The Hill. 

Earlier this week, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) asked the chief executive officers of Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, warning its “vast influence and aggressive data collection pose a specific threat.” Spokespeople for Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment.  

• Bennet said that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is compelled by Chinese law to comply with requests from the government for access to data from such apps, which could potentially allow the Chinese government to access and collect information on American citizens.   
  
• Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) raised similar issues as Hawley about TikTok’s data collection and the possibility of TikTok being used as a potential propaganda tool. Warner said the app’s data collection is not “dissimilar to some of the collection of American companies,” but his concerns are amplified by supposed ties to China.  

Read more here.

TEXAS PROPOSES STATEWIDE TIKTOK BAN

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) unveiled Monday a statewide plan to ban TikTok from state government-issued devices and networks, following a December order to crack down on the use of the popular social media app. 

“The security risks associated with the use of TikTok on devices used to conduct the important business of our state must not be underestimated or ignored,” Abbott said in a statement. 

“Owned by a Chinese company that employs Chinese Communist Party members, TikTok harvests significant amounts of data from a user’s device, including details about a user’s internet activity,” he added. 

The statewide plan would prevent the download or use of TikTok and other prohibited technologies on state-issued devices, including cellphones, laptops, tablets and desktop computers. 

Read more here.

SCHUMER PRESSED ON ANTITRUST BILLS

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is facing renewed pressure from advocacy groups to prioritize antitrust bills targeting tech giants this Congress. 

More than 20 organizations led by Demand Progress, an advocacy group aimed at advancing competition in the tech sector, sent a letter to Schumer on Monday pressing him to prioritize two key antitrust bills. 

Both measures passed the House and Senate Judiciary committees with bipartisan support but did not become law. 

The proposals target the nation’s four largest tech companies, Meta, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon. They faced fierce pushback from the companies and industry groups that represent the companies, which spent millions of dollars to oppose the bills. 

The industry also fought the proposals with aggressive advertisement campaigns arguing the proposals would dismantle services consumers enjoy and lead to security concerns. 

Read more here. 

DELL CUTS MORE THAN 6,000 JOBS

Dell Technologies is the latest technology company to announce job cuts, saying Monday that it will be cutting about 5 percent of its workforce, or about 6,600 jobs. 

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, Dell will cut 5 percent of its global workforce to respond to a “challenging global economic environment.”  

Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke said in an email to employees that the company is facing market conditions that “continue to erode with an uncertain future,” which will require restructuring the organization and letting some employees go. 

Dell is the latest company in the technologies industry to announce layoffs. PayPal and Workday also announced rounds of job cuts last week, eliminating 7 percent and 3 percent of their workforces, respectively. 

Read more here. 

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: Will the NASA-DARPA nuclear engine test cause environmental protests? 

Notable links from around the web: 

Biden’s State of the Union address to take aim at Silicon Valley (The Washington Post / Cat Zakrzewski and Tyler Pager) 

For Better and for Worse, Elon Musk Is His Own Spokesman (The New York Times / Jacob Bernstein)  

ONE MORE THING

Greene calls probe into Chinese balloons

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Monday called for a probe into why former President Trump was apparently not informed of previous Chinese surveillance balloons that Biden officials are saying crossed over the U.S. at least three times during the previous administration. 

“If it’s true the Pentagon purposely did NOT tell President Trump of Chinese Spy Balloons during his administration then we had a serious breach in command during the Trump admin,” Greene said on Twitter. 

“The POTUS is the Commander in Chief. We must investigate and hold accountable those who broke rank,” the longtime Trump ally said.  

President Biden ordered the U.S. military on Saturday to shoot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had spent days floating over the country in what defense officials later said was a clear effort to spy on sensitive sites.  

A Pentagon official revealed on Sunday that similar aircraft had been spotted at least three additional times under Trump, but the former president swiftly denied that balloons had entered U.S. airspace on his watch. 

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 tomorrow.

Tech industry group Chamber of Progress is urging President Biden to lay out a plan to support recovery and job growth in the tech sector after widespread layoffs during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. 

The CEO of Chamber or Progress, which includes Apple, Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet and Meta among its corporate partners, sent the president a letter last week asking him to “offer a jobs and competitiveness plan” for the tech sector during his speech, according to a copy of the letter exclusively shared with The Hill. 

“To help prevent a worsening economic cycle and to maintain U.S. competitiveness in tech during the current downturn, I urge your Administration to put forward a plan for tech sector recovery, job growth, and competitiveness,” Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich wrote. 

The push from Chamber of Progress comes as Biden is reportedly expected to call for tougher regulations of tech giants, ramping up his support of efforts to rein in the power of the nation’s largest tech companies. 

Biden’s speech will address antitrust enforcement, as well as a call for stronger privacy protections, The Washington Post reported. It follows an op-ed the president penned in The Wall Street Journal urging Congress to work together across the aisle on issues related to boosting competition and improving data privacy. 

If Biden shares a message backing efforts to reform antitrust law, tech advocacy groups will likely cheer the decision. 

Kyle Morse, deputy executive director of The Tech Oversight Project, said “we hope that President Biden will double down and galvanize Congress to pass tech accountability measures that will improve competition and rein in bad actors.”

“Tech oversight is widely popular and bipartisan. That’s why Big Tech and their allies spent a combined $230 million on TV ads and lobbying to kill off antitrust. When these bills come up for a vote, they pass by wide margins,” he said in an email.

The Chamber of Progress’s push for more help arrives after tech giants including Meta, Google and Amazon laid off or announced plans to lay off a combined 41,000 employees. 

Kovacevich underscored the push for Biden to address growth in the tech sector by saying the “consequences of these layoffs” impact the broader communities during the “period of time it takes displaced workers to find new jobs.”

“Put simply, laid off tech workers mean less business for local coffee shops, restaurants, and furniture stores,” he wrote. 

The plan should target investments in emerging technology, such as autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI) and biotechnology. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) unveiled Monday a statewide plan to ban TikTok from state government-issued devices and networks, following a December order to crack down on the use of the popular social media app.

“The security risks associated with the use of TikTok on devices used to conduct the important business of our state must not be underestimated or ignored,” Abbott said in a statement.

“Owned by a Chinese company that employs Chinese Communist Party members, TikTok harvests significant amounts of data from a user’s device, including details about a user’s internet activity,” he added.

The statewide plan would prevent the download or use of TikTok and other prohibited technologies on state-issued devices, including cellphones, laptops, tablets and desktop computers. 

It would also prohibit employees or contractors from conducting state business on devices with prohibited technologies. The plan also includes restrictions from using TikTok and other prohibited technologies on state-issued internet networks.

"It is critical that state agencies and employees are protected from the vulnerabilities presented by the use of this app and other prohibited technologies as they work on behalf of their fellow Texans."

State agencies in Texas will have until Feb. 15 to implement policies that support the statewide plan. 

Abbott is one of many Republican governors to have issued the ban on government devices, including in Ohio, South Dakota and Maryland. 

U.S. lawmakers have also followed suit.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a bill to ban TikTok on government-issued devices for federal employees. The legislation unanimously passed the Senate and was added into a government funding package at the end of last year and signed into law by President Biden.

Hawley has since introduced another bill that would ban the app nationwide. This would be the first of its kind to be introduced this Congress, following a similar proposal led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) last year.

"We're sorry to see the unintended consequences of these rushed TikTok bans—policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity—beginning to impact universities' ability to share information, recruit students, and build communities around athletic teams, student groups, campus publications, and more," a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is facing renewed pressure from advocacy groups to prioritize antitrust bills targeting tech giants this Congress.

More than 20 organizations led by Demand Progress, an advocacy group aimed at advancing competition in the tech sector, sent a letter to Schumer on Monday pressing him to prioritize two key antitrust bills.

Both measures passed the House and Senate Judiciary Committees with bipartisan support, but did not become law.

The proposals target the nation’s four largest tech companies, Meta, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon. They faced fierce pushback from the companies and industry groups that represent the companies, which spent millions of dollars to oppose the bills.

The industry also fought the proposals with aggressive advertisement campaigns arguing the proposals would dismantle services consumers enjoy and lead to security concerns.

Supporters of the bills said those allegations misrepresented the bills and were scare tactics.

“Americans across party lines support government action to rein in Big Tech’s monopoly abuses, and securing the passage of these bills will advance President Biden’s vision for a competitive tech sector and demonstrate the seriousness of Congress on these issues. We hope your leadership prioritizes this in the months ahead,” the organizations wrote, according to a copy of the letter exclusively shared with The Hill. 

One bill the groups are pushing for would limit companies from "self-preferencing" their own products and services over rivals. For example, the bill would ban Amazon from placing its products higher in search results. 

The other proposal is a bill aimed at improving competition the market for smartphone applications. The measure, which largely targets Google parent company Alphabet and Apple, aims to restrict the companies from imposing certain rules, such as collecting fees from in-app payments. 

In the letter, the groups also highlighted Biden’s support for boosting competition in the tech sector. The president wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal last month pushing for sweeping reform for tech giants, including a call to “bring more competition back to the tech sector, but stopped short of backing specific proposals.

Other signatories of the letter include Public Knowledge, Athena, the Center for Digital Democracy and the Open Markets Institute. 

Google on Monday unveiled a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool called Bard, its rival product to the increasingly popular ChatGPT tool.

With Bard, individuals can “simplify complex topics” by using the AI tool to get highly detailed responses to queries. For example, a user can ask Bard to explain discoveries from a NASA telescope to a 9-year-old, according to Google’s blog post. 

The release of Bard comes after competitor Microsoft announced a multi-billion dollar investment into OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool.

This developing story will be updated.

Twenty-two LGBTQ advocacy organizations are urging Congress to confirm the nomination of Gigi Sohn to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), condemning attacks on her identity that have forced her nomination to languish for more than a year.

In a letter sent Monday to Senate leadership, groups including the LGBTQ Victory Fund and the National LGBTQ Task Force wrote that it is “past time” for Sohn, who was first nominated in October 2021, to join the FCC and “use her tremendous qualifications for the betterment of our country.”

“Our diversity is our power,” the groups wrote Monday in a reference to Sohn’s history-making nomination. If her nomination to the FCC is confirmed, Sohn would be the agency’s first openly gay commissioner.

The FCC has been without a fifth commissioner for nearly two years, leaving the agency that oversees interstate and international communications deadlocked with two Democrats and two Republicans. Sohn’s confirmation would give Democrats a majority at the FCC, paving the way for the party to accomplish telecommunications objectives set by the Biden administration, including reinstating net neutrality rules that the Republican-led FCC voted to repeal in 2017.

But Sohn, a lawyer with more than three decades of experience in technology and privacy law who served as a top aide to former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, has faced an onslaught of online attacks that have called her qualifications into question.

Among them is an accusation that Sohn, who sits on the board of directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights group, opposes anti-sex trafficking efforts because of the organization’s stance on proposed federal legislation to crack down on sex trafficking.

The EFF has argued that two Republican-led bills – the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) – “will not stop sex trafficking and will instead make stopping it harder.” 

The organization has also argued that the bills amount to censorship of legal free speech that advocates for the decriminalization of sex work and provides health and safety information to sex workers.

Articles published late last month in outlets including Fox News and the Daily Mail allege Sohn and the EFF oppose efforts to protect victims of sex trafficking. Breitbart has claimed that Sohn has “far-left sympathies” and would censor conservative voices if appointed to the FCC.

These and similar claims have fueled a belief held by extremists affiliated with movements including the QAnon conspiracy that Sohn supports sex trafficking and is actively participating in a secret plot by Democrats to silence conservatives, the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD wrote in a recent report analyzing posts about Sohn in far-right chatrooms.

On TruthSocial, the social media site launched by former President Trump, users including former U.S. Republican Rep. Devin Nunes have referred to Sohn as a “she-male” and a “fringe lunatic,” according to the GLAAD report.

In Monday’s letter to Congress, LGBTQ groups – including GLAAD – wrote that Sohn’s stalled nomination was the result of “homophobic tropes and attacks.”

“That cannot stand,” the groups wrote. “Homophobic and sexist fearmongering should have no place in the consideration of Gigi’s qualifications. It’s morally corrupt and antithetical to the high virtue of the Chamber.”

“Americans deserve a full-functioning FCC. We call upon every member of the Senate to condemn homophobia and sexism and consider Gigi’s nomination on its merits. We urge Members to confirm Ms. Sohn to the seat she is so qualified for without delay,” the groups wrote.

Monday’s letter was addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) and Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Sohn is expected to appear before the committee for a third hearing later this year.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Monday called for a probe into why former President Trump was apparently not informed of previous Chinese surveillance balloons that Biden officials are saying crossed over the U.S. at least three times during the previous administration.

“If it’s true the Pentagon purposely did NOT tell President Trump of Chinese Spy Balloons during his administration then we had a serious breach in command during the Trump admin,” Greene said on Twitter. 

“The POTUS is the Commander in Chief. We must investigate and hold accountable those who broke rank,” the longtime Trump ally said. 

President Biden ordered the U.S. military on Saturday to shoot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had spent days floating over the country in what defense officials later said was a clear effort to spy on sensitive sites. 

A Pentagon official revealed on Sunday that similar aircraft had been spotted at least three additional times under Trump, but the former president swiftly denied that balloons had entered U.S. airspace on his watch. 

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton said he was not aware of any such incidents during his tenure — and other Trump administration officials have chimed in with the same. 

Bloomberg reported Sunday, citing a senior administration official, that the U.S. didn’t learn about the previous balloon flights until after Biden had replaced Trump in the Oval Office — though it remains unclear how the Biden officials eventually learned about the past incidents.

The defense official noted that previous flights — including an additional sighting at the beginning of the Biden administration — had not transited U.S. airspace for as long as the balloon recently shot down. 

It was downed off the coast of the Carolinas, and the administration is working to recover its parts.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that recovering the balloon will take time but "we can then exploit what we recover and learn even more than we have learned.”

Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, agreed on Monday that the U.S. will "learn a lot" about China’s surveillance operations from the recovered materials.

Dell Technologies is the latest technology company to announce job cuts, as it announced Monday that it will be cutting about five percent of its workforce, or about 6,600 jobs.

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Dell will cut five percent of its global workforce to respond to a "challenging global economic environment." Co-Chief Operating Officer Jeff Clarke said in an email to employees said the company is facing market conditions that "continue to erode with an uncertain future," which will require restructuring the organization and letting some employees go.

"In the coming days and weeks, you’ll begin to see a series of changes – some resets – across the organization to better structure us for the future, to better collaborate, reduce complexity, increase speed and to accelerate innovation," Clarke said in the email that was included in the SEC filing.

Dell is the latest company in the technologies industry to announce layoffs. PayPal and Workday also announced rounds of job cuts last week, eliminating 7 percent and 3 percent of their workforces, respectively.

"Remember, we’ve navigated economic downturns before and we’ve emerged stronger," Clarke said in the email. "We’ll prevail as we always do, for our customers, partners and each other. We’ll be more competitive, more focused and find a new level of operational performance. We will be ready when the market rebounds."

Dell's media relations team confirmed the layoffs in a statement to The Hill, and said that the company has reduced spending costs and paused external hiring since June to "navigate a challenging global environment."

"We have further opportunity to drive efficiency through department reorganizations, which has resulted in a reduction of team members across the globe. This is a difficult decision that was not made lightly, and we’ll support those impacted as they transition to their next opportunity," Dell's media relations said in the statement.

The U.S. military shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon on Saturday off the coast of South Carolina after it floated for days through U.S. airspace.

Republicans have blasted Biden for the delay in taking down the balloon, however reports have emerged that at least three similar “spy” aircraft were spotted over the U.S. during former President Trump's time in office.

Fox News also reported Sunday that another balloon crashed off the coast of Hawaii late last year.

Here’s what we know about the past sightings:

Three sightings during Trump administration

Senior U.S. defense and military officials said Sunday that Chinese balloons similar to the one shot down by the Biden administration flew over the U.S. at least three times while Trump was in the White House.

“PRC government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time,” a Pentagon official said. 

President Trump on Sunday denied the claims that the balloons had entered U.S. airspace during his presidency, saying on Truth Social that “China had too much respect for ‘TRUMP’ for this to have happened.”

Trump-era national security adviser John Bolton didn’t categorically say the balloons hadn’t crossed the U.S., but told Fox News on Sunday that he not aware of any such incidents during his tenure. 

Bloomberg reported Sunday, citing a senior administration official, that the U.S. didn’t learn about the prior balloon flights until after Trump had left the White House.

It remains unclear exactly when or how Biden administration intelligence officials learned about the past incidents — but they’re open to briefing Trump-era officials on the surveillance, according to the report.

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said Sunday that Pentagon officials informed him that “several Chinese balloon incidents have happened in the last few years,” including a sighting over Florida.

Balloon sightings were also reportedly noted in the airspace over Texas, Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam, according to multiple reports. 

CBS News reported that previous balloons were recovered by China after being pushed along by the jet stream.

However, Fox News reported Sunday, citing U.S. officials, that a balloon crashed off the coast of Hawaii four months ago, though it did not say whether it was recovered.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sunday acknowledged that aircraft have been spotted before, but said the length of the latest flight means there’s “no comparison” to prior sightings.

“That it flew briefly over some part of the continental U.S., that's one thing, but what we saw this week, it's unprecedented and that’s why everyone’s reacting the way they’re reacting,” Rubio said.

Balloon downed by Biden has 'intelligence value' for U.S.

The balloon shot down off South Carolina's coast could help the U.S. understand what China is trying to do with the balloons.

China has claimed the balloon downed over the weekend is a weather balloon that was blown unwillingly into American airspace — a claim the U.S. says is refuted by the recovered aircraft wreckage.

"This was a PRC surveillance balloon. This surveillance balloon purposefully traversed the United States and Canada.  And we are confident it was seeking to monitor sensitive military sites," a top defense official said Sunday.

"We have learned technical things about this balloon and its surveillance capabilities.  And I suspect if we are successful in recovering aspects of the debris, we will learn even more," the official added.

Senators are set to be briefed on the downed balloon next week.

Additional balloons spotted in Central and South America

The balloon shot down in South Carolina this weekend isn’t the only such aircraft operating in the Western Hemisphere, Pentagon officials said Sunday. 

Officials have seen at least one other Chinese surveillance balloon floating over Central and South America — and additional balloons have been spotted over several countries in the past few years, in Europe and Asia. 

“These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries,” officials said.  

Updated: 10:02 p.m.

Nate Fick, the country’s top cyber diplomat, said on Sunday that his personal Twitter account was hacked.

“My account has been hacked. Perils of the job,” Fick wrote on Twitter. 

The diplomat did not share further details about the hacking incident, and it remains unclear who was behind the breach — or what its security implications might be. The Hill has reached out to the State Department for comment. 

Fick is the first U.S. ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy, nominated by President Biden last year to head up the newly formed Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP).

In addition to his personal account, Fick also Tweets occasionally with the CDP's official handle.

The new bureau is aimed at encouraging "responsible state behavior in cyberspace" and fostering policies "that protect the integrity and security of the infrastructure of the Internet," according to its mission statement.

Fink is set to travel this week to Seoul, where he'll meet with his South Korean counterparts to "discuss cooperation on cybersecurity, secure information and communications technology infrastructure, and digital regulation," according to the State Department.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said on Sunday that TikTok is collaborating with U.S. intelligence to enact precautions aimed at safeguarding the popular video-sharing platform from Chinese surveillance.

"I think there's two ways to approach this one," Cruz told Margaret Brennan on CBS's "Face the Nation." "The proactive step of banning and on government devices, is something that the United States federal government is doing, states and even localities are doing."

"But the other way to go about this is going directly to the company, they are now working with U.S. intelligence folks to try to make sure that the proper precautions are taken, so the Chinese cannot get access and use it for spying," he continued.

Congress and many state legislatures have passed bills banning TikTok on government devices, largely citing national security concerns. Two Republicans announced a bill last month to ban TikTok across all devices in the U.S., alleging that the application poses national security risks.

Booker also said on Sunday there's a "strong bipartisan view" that action needs to be taken to meet potential threats that China could pose to the "safety, security and national secrets" of the U.S.

"This is something we have to take seriously," he said. "It is an issue for American companies who have their secrets stolen. It is an issue that we have to have around our military."

--Updated at 12:11 p.m.

Anti-TikTok pressure is mounting in Congress from both sides of the aisle, with lawmakers proposing legal measures to ban the popular video sharing app from use in the U.S. to requests for dominant app stores to drop it. 

The push is largely based on concerns that the app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, poses national security and privacy risks based on the data TikTok is able to collect on users’ activity on their devices both on and off the app.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) introduced a bill last week that would ban TikTok in the U.S. It is the first of its kind to be introduced this Congress, following a similar proposal led by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) last year. 

“The big problem with TikTok is that it is a backdoor for the Chinese Communist Party into the personal data and the personal lives of every American who uses it, that includes especially our kids,” Hawley told The Hill. 

Security experts have expressed similar concerns about the app.

Brandon Pugh, policy director of the cybersecurity and emerging threats team at the R Street Institute, said the app presents a privacy concern and a security threat in terms of how the data collected can be leveraged or exploited against Americans, particularly those “in sensitive positions or our most vulnerable populations like children.”

“As a general principle, China has a history of amassing large amounts of data on their own citizens and those around the world, including Americans,” Pugh said. 

“This data can reveal sensitive parts of our daily lives, including health and location information,” he added. 

Democrats shared some of these concerns, but caution that a singular focus on TikTok may miss broader issues posed by apps run by foreign adversaries and the data collected by social media apps as a whole. 

Hawley and Buck’s legislation would direct the president, by use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to block and prohibit transactions with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, with penalties for entities that attempt to evade the sanctions.

It would also require the director of national intelligence to submit a report and brief Congress on what the lawmakers characterized as TikTok’s threats to national security. It said TikTok could allow China to access U.S. user data and use it for “intelligence or military purposes, including surveillance, microtargeting, deepfakes, or blackmail.”

Hawley said he is concerned that China is “vociferously attempting to gather information on as many Americans as possible” to build data files and use it to “feed their algorithms” and “who knows what else.” 

“Frankly, I don't care to find out. I would prefer that we deny them access to Americans’ data. And I want to say, particularly — as the father of three children, I particularly despise the idea that China would be able to build files on our kids beginning at a young age by tracking them all around the internet,” he said. 

TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter said TikTok’s policy “clearly states [that] we collect ‘keystroke patterns or rhythms.’ This is not the same as collecting the content of keystrokes.” That data is used to help TikTok detect spam and bots, and to assist with “debugging, troubleshooting, and monitoring for proper performance,” she said. 

“We understand that there are concerns about TikTok. That is [why] we have been working with [The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] CFIUS for over two years on a plan to address those concerns in the U.S.,” Oberwetter said in an email. 

President Biden ordered CFIUS to review TikTok in June 2021, after withdrawing executive orders issued under former President Trump to ban new downloads of the app in the U.S. Few details have emerged about the administration’s review.

“We hope that legislators who want to see these concerns addressed will encourage the Administration to conclude its national security review of TikTok so we can continue to implement this solution and provide peace of mind to our community and our stakeholders,” Oberwetter said. 

In addition to the ongoing CFIUS review, TikTok briefed members of the media this week on a plan TikTok dubbed “Project Texas” that relies on software from Austin-based company Oracle.

TikTok officials said all U.S. user traffic is routed through Oracle’s servers, NPR reported. TikTok first started its relationship with Oracle to manage data under the Trump administration, when the former president made his own push to put TikTok out of operation in the U.S. 

Oracle engineers will be able to inspect TikTok’s source code, including the algorithm that drives what videos are served to users, and a third-party monitor will inspect TikTok’s data and algorithm in case Oracle misses anything, according to NPR. 

This is the second time Hawley has introduced legislation to ban TikTok. His previous bill to prohibit the use of the app on government devices was successfully added into a government funding package at the end of last year and signed into law by President Biden. 

Separately, a number of states, including Texas, Maryland, New Jersey and Ohio, have banned the app from government devices.  

Hawley’s latest proposal faces a tough road — especially in the Democratic-controlled Senate. 

Democratic lawmakers broadly are seeking more measured steps than Hawley’s proposed ban. 

Earlier this week, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) asked the chief executive officers of Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores, warning its “vast influence and aggressive data collection pose a specific threat.” Spokespeople for Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment. 

Bennet said that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is compelled by Chinese law to comply with requests from the government for access to data from such apps, which could potentially allow the Chinese government to access and collect information on American citizens.  

Oberwetter said Bennet’s letter “relies almost exclusively on misleading reporting about TikTok, the data we collect, and our data security controls” and “ignores the considerable investment” made with Project Texas. 

In the long run, Bennet told The Hill he thinks Congress should address concerns posed by TikTok by way of adopting his proposal to create a Federal Digital Platform Commission tasked with oversight over digital platforms. 

“I don't think we should be doing this on a one-off basis if we can avoid it. We need a coherent and comprehensive approach; that's the way to get to that clear and comprehensive approach,” he said. 

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner (D-Va.) raised similar issues as Hawley about TikTok’s data collection and the possibility of TikTok being used as a potential propaganda tool. Warner said the app’s data collection is not “dissimilar to some of the collection of American companies,” but his concerns are amplified by supposed ties to China. 

“If suddenly, I'm not saying this is happening today, but a decision is made that [TikTok is] not going to show videos … that doesn't do anything other than reinforce that Taiwan should be part of the [People’s Republic of China] forever, that would be a national security concern,” he said. 

Cyrus Walker, the founder and managing principal at cybersecurity firm Data Defenders, raised similar concerns. He said the Chinese government could use the app to influence American users to think a certain way about a particular topic or policy.

He explained that since TikTok is owned by a Chinese-based company, it’s possible that the government could use the app to spread disinformation or share videos that amplify negative views towards the U.S. or undermine American values.

“It's a concern about how the application itself could be used as a strategic tool of China’s effort to influence American sentiment across various spectrums of society and the economy,” Walker said. 

For instance, he said the Chinese government could use specific algorithms on TikTok to increase the number of views of a video, hence allowing more users to see it.

“The algorithm could be manipulated to elevate the exposure of the video across the platform more than it normally would have gotten in its general state,” he added.

Rather than a TikTok ban, Warner is planning to introduce a proposal that would establish a comprehensive and risk-based process to review foreign-owned technology services that pose national security risks. In addition to TikTok, the proposal could target reviews of technology like the Russian-based Kaspersky antivirus software, a Warner spokesperson said. 

Walker also said he wouldn't oppose a nationwide ban of the app, especially if the company does not completely divest itself from Chinese ownership and become a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary or entity.

“I wouldn’t have any issue with an all-out ban simply because of the truly controlling entity behind it that will then have the capability to access our lives,” he added.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on Sunday that President Biden should have ordered the suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down sooner than Saturday.

"I want to start by doing something that I don't do very often, which is commending Joe Biden for actually having the guts to shoot this down," Cruz told Margaret Brennan on CBS's "Face the Nation. "That was the right thing to do. That is absolutely what the president should have done. Unfortunately, he didn't do that until a week after it entered us airspace."

"He allowed a full week for the Chinese to conduct spying operations over the United States, over sensitive military installations, exposing not just photographs but the potential of intercepted communications," he continued.

The "high-altitude surveillance balloon" first entered U.S. airspace in Alaska on Jan. 28, and briefly traveled through Canada before reentering the U.S. through Idaho on Jan. 31. U.S. defense officials confirmed the presence of the balloon on Thursday after it was reportedly spotted in Montana on Wednesday.

Biden said on Saturday that he ordered the military to take down the aircraft "as soon as possible" on Wednesday. The military shot down the balloon on Saturday near the South Carolina coast.

Cruz said on Sunday that the Biden administration only acted on the balloon because people in Montana spotted it. He said that Biden administration was "forced" to take action based on politics, not national security.

"When the Biden administration knew about the balloon, they said nothing. They did nothing. They didn't shoot it down. And at the end of the day, I think the only reason they shot it down is because it made it into the news," he said.