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Nancy Pelosi hits Facebook

Moving the Market: Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Facebook's refusal to remove the doctored videos that made her appear drunk shows that the company was a "willing enabler" of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential campaign — a damning indictment of the social network by the nation's most powerful Democrat.

• "We have said all along, poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians," Pelosi said in an interview with KQED yesterday. "I think wittingly, because right now they are putting up something that they know is false."

• Facebook is “lying to the public," Pelosi said. “I think they have proven — by not taking down something they know is false — that they were willing enablers of the Russian interference in our election."

• Facebook spokespeople declined to respond, though the company's public policy VP Monika Bickert did appear on CNN last week to explain the decision.

The big picture: Pelosi's harsh indictment of Facebook will the only widen the divide between Washington and Silicon Valley at a time when there is immense pressure on lawmakers to regulate Facebook and other social media giants.

• It also draws national attention to the fact that Facebook still hasn't figured out how to adequately combat fake and deceptive content.

Theory of a solution: Whatever you make of Pelosi's accusations — it's not clear to me how Facebook is "lying," or how this video is comparable to Russia's efforts in 2016 — Facebook could absolutely do more to combat false or misleading content, all without diminishing its commitment to free speech.

• At present, Facebook does not remove false or misleading content, thought it does try to reduce its distribution and provide context from fact-checkers.

• To wit, the Pelosi videos are accompanied by a note which reads: "Before you share this content, you might want to know that there is additional reporting on this..."

• But that note can be easily ignored. A more effective effort, as proposed by The Verge's Casey Newton, would be a pop-up warning before the video that says something to the effect of, "This video has been distorted to change its meaning."

Whatever the case, removing the videos entirely, as YouTube did, isn't necessarily the right call.

• As NYT's Farhad Manjoo writes, "demanding that Facebook remove posts that cross some hard-to-define line" may end up adversely affecting legitimate political speech.

• It would also give Mark Zuckerberg "more power over what we read, watch, listen to and think about," which is something neither he nor we want.

Bonus: My colleague Jason Abbruzzese notes that Fox Business aired its own misleading, doctored Pelosi video recently.

• Manjoo suggests Facebook's critics rip their hair out and scream about that network's offense, instead.

Kimberly White/Getty

Jack Dorsey eyes a new ban

Big in the Bay, big in the Beltway: Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's trust and safety chief, tells Vice News that the company is conducting research to help executives decide whether or not they should ban white nationalists and white supremacists from the platform — a move that comes two months after a similar change by Facebook.

• "We're working with [researchers] specifically on white nationalism and white supremacy and radicalization online and understanding the drivers of those things," Gadde says. "What role can a platform like Twitter play in either making that worse or making that better?"

• "Is it the right approach to deplatform these individuals?" Gadde asks. "Is the right approach to try and engage with these individuals? How should we be thinking about this? What actually works?"

• Twitter is starting from the position that "counter-speech and conversation are a force for good, and they can act as a basis for de-radicalization," Gadde adds. The research is meant to "confirm that this is the case."

📞 Rally the Market 📞

Vignette of the decade: "'I can’t get the a--hole off the phone,' Rupert Murdoch once said of Trump, holding out the phone as the president’s voice rambled into the air."

— from Michael Wolff's "Siege"

(h/t Joe Pompeo)

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Ericsson, Nokia fight for 5G

Nordic visions: Ericsson's Börje Ekholm and Nokia's Rajeev Suri are moving to capitalize on the U.S.-China tensions, seizing on offers from companies in Japan and Europe that are abandoning Huawei.

• The latest: Softbank's Japanese telecom unit has tapped both Ericsson and Nokia to be vendors for its 5G rollout while spurning Huawei. Bloomberg reports that other major Japanese telcos are expected to follow suit.

• Danish firm TDC has also tapped Ericsson to replace Huawei as its 5G vendor, while Germany's Vodafone has asked Nokia to provide parts formerly provided by the Chinese hardware manufacturer.

The big picture, via WSJ's Parmy Olson: "The U.S. pressure has increased the competition between Ericsson and Nokia to pick up any business that falls away from the Chinese giant."

• "Obtaining customers from Huawei — and each other — is crucial in solidifying separate turnaround efforts at Nokia and Ericsson, the Nos. 2 and 3 telecom-gear makers by sales, respectively, behind Huawei."

It may also be crucial in the U.S.: My colleague Phil McCausland notes that President Trump's tiff with Huawei could cut off rural Americans' cell service.

Meanwhile... Huawei has filed a new motion to accelerate its lawsuit against the White House, and it's taking extra care to promote the effort through U.S. media.

• NYT's Paul Mozur says it's a sign that Huawei intends to fight "through the courts and public opinion" rather than negotiations.

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Stephen Pagliuca takes tech

Big in Boston, big in the Bay: Bain Capital is raising $1 billion to create Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, "a new technology fund that will be used for buyouts and late-stage minority investments," CNBC's Alex Sherman reports.

• The new fund "will target $50 million to $200 million equity investments, primarily in enterprise software and cybersecurity."

• It "will also look to acquire smaller companies."

The big picture: "Bain sees a gap in the software market where there’s less capital available. The firm is looking for companies with annual recurring revenue of $30 million to $100 million and valuations of less than $500 million."

Market Links

• Tim Cook launches a new website to address App Store critics (Verge)

• Sundar Pichai brings Google's Digital News Initiative to the U.S. (Nieman)

• Mark Cuban casts doubt on the value of computer science degrees (Recode)

• Peter Naylor says 70% of Hulu viewers use ad-supported plan (Variety)

• David Goodman resumes negotiations with talent agencies (Deadline)

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty

Rethinking targeted ads

Talk of Madison Ave.: WSJ's Keach Hagey has got her hands on a new academic study that casts doubt on the efficacy of behaviorally targeted ads, which use cookies to collect data about readers behavior and then serve them tailored ads.

• The big finding: The study suggests that publishers "only get about 4% more revenue for an ad impression that has a cookie enabled than for one that doesn’t."

• The big picture: "That modest gain for publishers stands in contrast to the vastly larger sums advertisers are willing to pay for behaviorally targeted ads."

What's next: "Publishers’ inability to benefit much from behavioral targeting could have implications for policy as lawmakers in Washington, D.C., debate the shape of national privacy legislation.

• Because what's the point of invading people's privacy with micro-targeted ads if you're only deriving a marginal return on the investment?

Bonus... While we're on advertising, here's Burger King marketing chief Fernando Machado on the company's game changing marketing campaign and its 37:1 ROI.

Jonathan Ferrey/Getty

Rethinking 'added value'

Talk of "The Town": With the NBA Finals kicking off tonight in Toronto, WSJ's Ben Cohen takes stock of Steph Curry's "singular ability" to affect the game "simply by stepping on the court" and "driving the defense absolutely crazy."

• The big picture: "The greatest shooter ever doesn’t need to shoot to be effective. He doesn’t even need the ball. ... There is a certain gravitational force that pulls at the defense whenever they have to worry about Curry."

Mind-blowing statistic:

• Over the last five seasons, the Warriors have won the minutes that Curry is on the floor by 4,131 points.

• In that same time, the Warriors have lost the minutes that Curry is not on the floor by 447 points.

• The only other NBA players who even approach Curry's plus/minus, as the statistic is known, are Curry's teammates — and as Cohen notes, they "are there because of him."

Money quote, via Draymond Green: "Steph can completely ruin an entire team’s defensive possession and not touch the ball."

🏀 What next: The NBA Finals tip off tonight on ABC at 9 p.m. ET. Golden State is favored by most oddsmakers at almost 1-to-3 odds, but Nate Silver says Toronto has a 54% chance to win.

See you tomorrow.