10 things in tech you need to know today, September 6

Ashton
Kutcher shared his thoughts on electric
scooters.
Steve Jennings/Getty Images
for TechCrunch

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this
Thursday.

1.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was grilled by Congress for claims of
anti-conservative bias he says just aren’t
true. The Republicans have repeatedly pushed
claims that big tech firms are biased against conservatives.

2.
Jeff Bezos complains to his staff if he goes a week without a
brainstorming session, and is always working “two or three years
into the future.” In a new Forbes profile,
Bezos discussed his management style, and explained how he and
his leadership prefer to focus on the long-term goals at Amazon.

3.
Elon Musk is said to have hired a lawyer who used to work for the
SEC as the agency reportedly investigates his “funding secured”
tweet. Musk has hired two lawyers, Roel Campos
and Steven Farina, as the Securities and Exchange Commission
reportedly investigates statements Musk made about converting
Tesla into a private company, Fox Business Network reports.

4.
Jeff Sessions is summoning state attorney generals to discuss
whether tech companies are “intentionally stifling” free
speech. The US Justice Department said in a
statement that it would convene a meeting to discuss whether
social media platforms are purposefully stifling free speech and
obstructing competition.

5.
A congressman shut down a far-right protester during Twitter CEO
Jack Dorsey’s testimony by speaking like an
auctioneer. Missouri congressman Billy Long,
who was an auctioneer in Missouri for more than 30 years, began
speaking like an auctioneer to drown the protester out as she was
escorted from the room.

6. Jack
Dorsey shared a look at his spiking heart rate while he was
getting grilled by Congress. The 41-year-old
CEO, who fasts every day, has an impressively low resting heart
rate.

7.
NASA’s longest-lived robot on Mars may be dying due to
a global dust storm that has been raging on the planet since
June. If the robot can’t get enough sunlight,
its batteries may lack the electricity to power heaters, and the
blistering cold on Mars can snap electronic circuits.

8. 
Actor-turned-investor Ashton Kutcher thinks it’s “absurd” if
anyone has a problem with the scooters that were littering San
Francisco’s sidewalks. Electric scooter
companies like Lime, Bird, and Spin faced regulatory issues after
introducing their pay-as-you-go scooter services to the streets
of San Francisco earlier this year.

9.

Apple’s largest new iPhone could have the weirdest name
yet. Apple is expected to launch a trio of new
iPhone models next week, and the biggest and most expensive one
could be called “iPhone Xs Max,” according to a report.

10.
More than one in four Americans have deleted the Facebook app in
the past year, according to a new survey. A new
study from Pew taken shortly after the Cambridge Analytica
scandal found that 26% of Americans had deleted the Facebook app
from their phone in the last year.