COVID-19 Technology Task Force, an effort to let big tech companies assist White House's pandemic response, beset by disagreements over privacy and other issues
Effort to join Silicon Valley tech giants including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon with the White House to fight the coronavirus is faltering Tweets: @trippmickle , @kirstengrind , and @wsj Tweets: Tripp Mickle / @trippmickle : Behind the breakdown of the tech coalition aiming to tackle Covid-19: Disagreements over privacy & Apple-Google contact tracing. https://www.wsj.com/... via @KirstenGrind Kirsten Grind / @kirstengrind : Silicon Valley rushed in to save the world from the coronavirus pandemic. It didn't quite work out that way. My story on what went wrong: https://www.wsj.com/... @wsj : A heralded effort to bring Silicon Valley tech giants including Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon together with investors and the White House on tools to fight the coronavirus is fizzling https://www.wsj.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The task force traces back to early March, when the White House pulled in Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon to help combat misinformation and track the virus's spread, days after a similar request in a single meeting. A parallel track of more than 35 Silicon Valley executives convening on a Cisco-led call showed how quickly the industry organized around the crisis.
First-order effects
- The coalition's breakdown leaves the White House without a single coordinated channel into Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon for pandemic response, forcing each company into bilateral arrangements.
- Apple and Google's unresolved privacy disagreements over contact tracing stall one of the few concrete deliverables the coalition had on its agenda.
Second-order effects
- With the joint channel closed, companies are pursuing their own agendas through other vehicles — including the lobbying push quietly advancing tech's long-held policy goals inside the frantic pandemic environment.
- Industry bodies fill the vacuum the task force leaves: the Consumer Technology Association's Public Health Tech Initiative with Microsoft and Facebook becomes the venue where lessons from the failed coalition get institutionalized.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, crisis-era public-private coordination in Washington defaults not to formal coalitions but to individual company deals and trade-group working groups — consistent with the broader dynamic where the pandemic hands tech giants an opening to expand their political fortunes and power.
The trend: Pandemic-era cooperation between Silicon Valley and the federal government is fragmenting from a unified coalition into bilateral company deals and industry-group initiatives.