The Washington Post - 18.09.2019

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

A former lawyer f or Ken Griffin’s

Citadel Securities and

cryptocurrency exchange

Coinbase has been tapped to lead

the Commodity Futures Trading

Commission unit t hat monitors

derivatives markets and reviews

new products. Dorothy DeWitt,

who served in senior legal and

compliance roles for Citadel, will

oversee the CFTC’s d ivision of

market o versight, the regulator

said Tuesday. S he has been a top

attorney at C oinbase since

November, according to her

LinkedIn profile.

— From news services

COMING TODAY

8:30 a.m.: Commerce

Department releases housing

starts for A ugust.

2 p.m.: Federal Reserve

policymakers m eet to set interest

rates.

past seven years, the show has

garnered an audience of about

20 million people. All 279

episodes will be available o n HBO

Max when it launches i n the

spring of 2020, WarnerMedia

said in a statement. The show

about four b rilliant but socially

inept scientists began in 2007.

U.S. factory output i ncreased in

August in a broad a dvance that

signals manufacturing may be

starting to stabilize. Production

at m anufacturers r ose

0.5 percent, Federal Reserve data

showed Tuesday, a fter falling t he

prior month. To tal industrial

production, which also includes

output at m ines a nd utilities,

increased 0 .6 percent, the m ost in

a year as crude oil extraction

bounced back after Hurricane

Barry depressed drilling in the

Gulf of Mexico a month earlier.

Maria Brennan, president and

chief executive o f WICT.

The study, administered by

consulting firm Mercer and

funded by the Walter Kaitz

Foundation, determined that if

patterns persist, the number of

people of color at t he

management level won’t c hange

over the next decade — a nd those

in professional j obs will decline.

For women, Mercer projected a

slight increase in management

and no change at t he professional

level.

— Bloomberg N ews

ALSO IN BUSINESS

HBO Max, the u pcoming

streaming service f rom AT&T’s

WarnerMedia, has secured

exclusive five-year streaming

rights in the United States t o all

12 seasons of comedy hit “ The Big

Bang Theory.” R anked as the No. 1

comedy on U.S. television for the

women a nd people of color than

they did two years ago, but the

industry is still predominantly

white and male, with higher

turnover and lower rates of

promotion a mong women and

minority employees.

Turnover rates are about a

third higher for women and

minority employees compared

with men, a ccording to a 2019

survey released Tuesday from the

National Association f or Multi-

Ethnicity in Communications

and Women in Cable

Te lecommunications. The

attrition persists despite g ains for

women a nd minorities in the

boardroom and a mong top

managers, the biennial s tudy

showed.

“While we’re pleased that we

saw forward progression, we’re

really not done until we see

representations that are

reflective of our universe,” s aid

the currency w ill not be client-

facing.

The pilot will begin next year,

but the bank has tested the

technology b y moving money

between Canada a nd the United

States. A fter the broader rollout,

the company hopes to expand to

multicurrency transfers.

Wells Fargo has been bullish

on the p otential for blockchain

technology b ut more skeptical of

cryptocurrency such as bitcoin

Last y ear, Wells Fargo joined U.S.

rivals in banning the purchase of

bitcoin by credit card customers

because of its volatility.

— Reuters

MEDIA

Higher turnover for

women, minorities

Cable a nd communication

companies are hiring more

DIGITAL CURRENCY

Wells Fargo to test

blockchain system

Wells Fargo said on Tuesday it
will pilot its own digital currency
powered by blockchain to help
move cash across borders and
between branches in real time.
The currency, c alled Wells
Fargo Digital Cash, w ill be linked
to the U.S. dollar and transferred
using the b ank’s distributed
ledger technology t o keep track of
payments within its internal
network. The system will allow
the bank to bypass t hird parties
in the a sset transfer process,
saving costs and time, s aid Lisa
Frazier, head of the Innovation
Group at Wells Fargo.
The fourth-largest U.S. bank’s
corporate clients will not have to
make changes to the way they
interact with the bank because

Economy & Business

DIGEST

BY TONY ROMM

Facebook on Tuesday unveiled
its blueprint for an independent
oversight board to review the
company’s decisions about the
posts, photos and videos it takes
down or leaves online, respond-
ing to a wave of criticism that
inconsistent policies have under-
mined the platform.
The roughly 40-person panel
is supposed to function as the
social media giant’s version of a
“Supreme Court,” serving as the
final word for Facebook users
who want to appeal the compa-
ny’s moderation decisions. It will
also offer recommendations for
how the tech giant should tackle
problematic content in the fu-
ture.
“We are responsible for enforc-
ing our policies every day and we

make millions of content deci-

sions every week,” chief executive

Mark Zuckerberg said in a post.

“But ultimately I don’t believe

private companies like ours

should be making so many im-

portant decisions about speech

on our own.”

In shifting responsibility away

from top executives and engi-

neers, however, Facebook may be

able to distance itself from the

criticism it has faced over its

decisions, which have fueled calls

for government regulation.

While the Oversight Board de-

tailed Tuesday is still in its early

stages, its ultimate test will be its

ability to navigate and interpret

Facebook’s thicket of rules to

reach decisions in real time —

while revealing more about how

Facebook comes to its conclu-

sions about content in the first

place. That means figuring out

the ever-elusive line between free

expression and harmful speech,

and serving as a court of sorts for

a global network that has differ-

ent needs and varying visions for

what the Web should look like.

The release of the charter

came a day before Facebook will

join its peers from Google and

Twitter at a hearing on Capitol

Hill to probe how social media

contributes to real-world vio-

lence. For years, lawmakers have

pressured Silicon Valley to take a

more active role to stop the

spread of white supremacy, de-

tect violent threats in real time

and combat falsehoods, includ-

ing manipulated online video —

and Facebook announced Tues-

day it had tightened its rules and

tools to spot and remove hate

speech.

Facebook has long maintained

detailed policies to combat and

remove harmful speech, includ-

ing attacks on the basis of race or

religion, terrorist propaganda

and disinformation. But the com-

pany often has struggled to im-

plement and enforce such rules

uniformly, resulting at times in

the viral spread of harmful con-

tent — or accusations that its

executives and engineers are bi-

ased.

To help better navigate these

and other political pressures

globally, Zuckerberg in Novem-

ber first sketched out his vision

for an “independent body” that

would serve as a check on the

human reviewers and artificial-

intelligence tools that vet the

posts uploaded by its community

of 2.2 billion users.

The charter released Tuesday

outlines new oversight at Face-

book meant to address allega-

tions of unfairness, on a global

scale. The company aims to have

a board of “likely” 40 members,

representing different regions of

the world, each serving for a

three-year term. Facebook said

Tuesday it intends to select a few

members to start. Those mem-

bers will then choose the remain-

ing members, all of whom will be

overseen b y an independent trust

Facebook plans to establish to

handle logistical matters such as

the budget.

The roster of members has not

yet been announced. But it is

likely to be one of the most

closely watched elements of the

endeavor, given the difficulty of

establishing a truly globally rep-

resentative body, said Kate Klon-

ick, a fellow at the Information

Society Project at Yale Law

School who is studying Face-

book’s work.

“How do you pick one person

from the U.S. who represents all

of the U.S., and should there be

one person from the U.S.?” Klon-

ick asked. Still, she praised Face-

book for a “massive commitment

of resources” toward trying to

figure it out.

Users who disagree with Face-

book’s content decisions can ap-

peal to the company, and if they

still do not like the resolution

they will then be able to appeal to

the board. Facebook has said that

board decisions will be binding

and implemented quickly. The

company said it will also send

cases to the board for automatic,

expedited review if there is a

potential for “urgent real world

consequences,” according to the

charter released Tuesday. It ex-

pects to take its first cases from

users in 2020.

Facebook’s new review board

will have the ability to recom-

mend broader changes beyond

the content it is asked to study,

such as additional content take-

downs or new business practices.

But it will be up to the social-net-

working company to decide

whether and how it will imple-

ment them — though Facebook

pledged to publish detailed rea-

soning about the decisions it

makes.

“This charter brings us an-

other step closer to establishing

the board, but there is a lot of

work still ahead,” Zuckerberg

said. “We expect the board will

only hear a small n umber of cases

at first, but over time we hope it

will expand its scope and poten-

tially include more companies

across the industry as well.”

The stakes grew after the dead-

ly March gun massacre in

Christchurch, New Zealand,

when some users uploaded vid-

eos of the attacks in ways that

evaded tech companies’ censors.

Others in the United States criti-

cized Facebook earlier this year

for refusing to take down a

manipulated video of House

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

that made it appear she was

drunk.

[email protected]

Facebook unveils charter for ‘Supreme Court’-like oversight board

Independent body will

make binding rulings

on content decisions

BY TAYLOR TELFORD

AND THOMAS HEATH

Saudi Arabia has restored half
of the crude production that was
lost to devastating attacks on its
oil industry, a nd the k ingdom said
output will be fully restored by the
end of this month.
The details c ame during a news
conference Tuesday afternoon in
Jiddah by Saudi energy minister
Prince Abdulaziz bin S alman.
Saudi Aramco’s critical Abqaiq
processing plant has restored
2 million barrels per day that was
lost due to the wave of drone and
missile attacks on the Saudi oil
fields, bin Salman said. The en-
ergy minister said production will
reach 11 million b arrels per day by
the end of September.
“The oil market has gone from
pricing in the worst-case scenario,
in terms of lost Saudi oil supplies,
to one of the best-case scenarios,
considering the scope and scale of
the attack,” said analyst John
Kilduff of Again Capital.
The kingdom will be producing
back at the quota set by the Or-
ganization of the Petroleum Ex-
porting C ountries, and its o il part-
ner Russia, by the end of the
month. It will restore its full ca-
pacity of 12 million barrels per day
by the end of the October, the
energy minister said.
Stock markets bounced back a
bit from their Monday declines as
investors await an expected inter-
est rate cut from the Federal Re-
serve on Wednesday.
The Dow Jones industrial aver-
age was up Tuesday, one day after

it fell on concerns that a protract-

ed loss of Saudi oil production

could harm the global economy.

The Dow closed at 27,110, up

34 points from where it started the

day. The Standard & Poor’s 500

index finished on the day positive

at 3,005, a slight gain of 0.26 per-

cent. The Nasdaq Composite

gained 0 .40 percent at 8 ,186.

Real estate, utilities and con-

sumer staples, all havens for stock

investors concerned about volatil-

ity, w ere t he best performers in the

S&P stock market sectors. Energy

was the worst-performing sector.

Shares of international oil compa-

nies — known as the supermajors

— were mixed. BP, ExxonMobil

and Chevron closed lower Tues-

day. France’s Total SA and Nether-

lands-headquartered Royal

Dutch Shell showed s mall advanc-

es. Companies that service and

supply the supermajors also de-

clined; Halliburton and Schlum-

berger Limited saw shares drop

on the news of Aramco’s quick

recovery.

Shares in transportation com-

panies that rely heavily on fuel

gained on the lower oil prices.

American, Delta and United Air-

lines all were up, as was cruise l ine

Carnival Corp.

Crude prices abruptly fell near-

ly 6 percent Tuesday before the

news conference on reports that

indicated Saudi Arabia, the

world’s swing oil supplier, would

recover from the attack sooner

than e xpected.

Weekend drone strikes took out

an oil p rocessing plant a nd n earby

oil field operated by state-owned

Aramco, forcing the company to

cut its output in half. That took

5.7 million barrels of crude out of

daily circulation, or nearly 6 per-

cent of worldwide consumption.

Analysts said a quick resolution

was crucial to ensuring against

disruptions in the supply chain

and a corresponding jump in fuel

prices.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported

that the world’s second-largest oil

producer would resume normal

production within two to three

weeks. The report, citing top Sau-

di sources who have been briefed

on the matter, said Aramco al-

ready had restored nearly 70 per-

cent o f its l ost oil production.

Aramco churned out 9.85 mil-

lion barrels per day in August,

according to the U.S. Energy In-

formation Administration. The

kingdom h as the capacity to pump

as much as 12 million barrels per

day, making it the only nation in

the world with that kind o f elastic-

ity.

Brent crude oil, petroleum’s i n-

ternational benchmark, was trad-

ing near $64 a barrel, down 7 per-

cent, as of 4 p.m. Tuesday. Brent

had spiked nearly 20 percent, to

$72 per barrel, in the wake of the

attacks. West Texas Intermediate,

the U.S. benchmark, was selling

for $59 on the futures market,

down 6 percent from Monday’s

close.

The price swings illustrate the

fragility of the world’s oil delivery

system. The global energy market

is a complex balance that delivers

100 million barrels a day from a

constellation of producers to con-

sumers in virtually e very corner of

the planet. Any sudden shift in the

equilibrium can send oil prices

spiraling u p or down.

“Even before last week’s attack

in Saudi Arabia, it has been abun-

dantly clear that the global supply

is vulnerable to geopolitical dis-

ruption,” said analyst Pavel Mol-

chanov of Raymond James. “We

have seen this during the Arab

Spring with frequent disruptions

in places like Libya. We have seen

it for decades with rebel violence

in Nigeria. And more recently, we

have seen a production meltdown

in Venezuela, which is happening

for internal political reasons.”

It is unclear whether news of

Aramco’s recovery timeline will

stop the release of crude oil from

the United States’ Strategic Petro-

leum Reserve. On Sunday, Presi-

dent Trump announced via Twit-

ter that he had authorized the

release of a yet-unspecified

amount of crude oil from the

600 million-barrel reserve to

“keep the markets well-supplied.”

It takes 13 days for SPR oil to hit

markets after a presidential deci-

sion.

Experts had estimated that a

protracted oil shortfall f rom Saudi

Arabia c ould translate into higher

pump prices, from 10 to 25 cents a

gallon, depending on how long

Aramco took to get its production

back on track. The average gas

price Tuesday i n the United S tates

was $2.59 per gallon, down

25 cents f rom a year ago.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Saudi Arabia says

its oil output will

rebound in weeks

ZAK BENNETT/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Workers help clean up oil Monday at a storm-damaged terminal in the Bahamas. Any sudden shift in the equilibrium of the 100 million-

barrel-a-day global oil market can send oil prices spiraling up or down, as the weekend attacks on Saudi oil facilities made evident.



DOW 27,110.

UP 33.98, 0.1% 

NASDAQ 8,186.

UP 32.47, 0.4% 

S&P 500 3,005.

UP 7.74, 0.3% 

GOLD $1,513.

UP $1.90, 0.1% 

CRUDE OIL $59.

DOWN $3.56, 5.7% 

10-YEAR TREASURY

UP $3.80 PER $1,000; 1.80% YIELD

CURRENCIES

$1=$108.12 YEN;

EURO=$1.

Days after attack, half of

capacity is restored;

crude prices plunge 6%

JEAN-PAUL PELISSIER/REUTERS

Tankers sit anchored Tuesday off an oil hub near Marseille, France.

Experts predicted a spike in gasoline prices before Tuesday’s news.