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Competitive Edge: Protecting the “competitive process”
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When the president’s derogatory rhetoric sparks hostility and even violence, it lays bare a dark side to the United States’ proud liberal approach to speech. The US system offers no obvious way (short of voting a president out of office after four years) to contain a politician whose verbal demonization of rivals and the press provides what some citizens view as a White House invitation to lash out violently against their perceived opponents. Noxious and bigoted attacks are hardly unique to the Donald Trump era. But the president is abdicating his role in two key respects that are eroding confidence not just in his leadership or his ability to keep the country safe but also in the US system of expansive protections for speech. First, President Trump willfully shirks a duty of care to consider how his words will be interpreted and what consequences they could foreseeably trigger. Second, President Trump has refused to use his office to tamp down division in society.
To stop Americans from concluding that broad constitutional protections for free speech have become too dangerous to sustain, it falls to all those in a position to lead to prove that the United States is willing and able to keep such hateful speech in check.
[Suzanne Nossel is executive director of the Pen American Center and was formerly deputy assistant secretary of state for international organizations at the U.S. State Department.]
The internet is growing less free around the world, and democracy itself is withering under its influence. Disinformation and propaganda disseminated online have poisoned the public sphere. The unbridled collection of personal data has broken down traditional notions of privacy. And a cohort of countries is moving toward digital authoritarianism by embracing the Chinese model of extensive censorship and automated surveillance systems. As a result of these trends, global internet freedom declined for the eighth consecutive year in 2018. Events this year have confirmed that the internet can be used to disrupt democracies as surely as it can destabilize dictatorships. In April 2018, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg testified in two congressional hearings about his company’s role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which it was revealed that Facebook had exposed the data of up to 87 million users to political exploitation. The case was a reminder of how personal information is increasingly being employed to influence electoral outcomes. Russian hackers targeted US voter rolls in several states as part of the Kremlin’s broader efforts to undermine the integrity of the 2016 elections, and since then, security researchers have discovered further breaches of data affecting 198 million American, 93 million Mexican, 55 million Filipino, and 50 million Turkish voters.
NextLink, the internet service provider owned by AMG Technology Investment Group LLC, was the biggest winner in the recent Connect America Fund Phase II (CAF II) auction. Specifically, NextLink will get around $281 million of the $1.5 billion that the Federal Communications Commission distributed to telecommunications companies around the country so they can deploy services to rural areas in order to cross the digital divide. What does NextLink plan to do with all that money? A lot of buying. NextLink plans to dramatically expand its current fixed wireless network into locations in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. The company is currently evaluating equipment from a wide range of vendors and expects to make a decision on its vendor partner or partners sometime in the next few months.
Verizon Wireless says it will not move faster on building its 5G cellular network despite a Federal Communications Commission decision that erased $2 billion dollars' worth of fees for the purpose of spurring faster 5G deployment. The FCC's controversial decision in Sept angered both large and small municipalities because it limits the amount they can charge carriers for deployment of wireless equipment such as small cells on public rights-of-way. The FCC decision also limits the kinds of aesthetic requirements cities and towns can impose on carrier deployments and forces cities and towns to act on carrier applications within 60 or 90 days. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai justified the decision by saying it would speed up 5G deployment, and he slammed local governments for "extracting as much money as possible in fees from the private sector and forcing companies to navigate a maze of regulatory hurdles in order to deploy wireless infrastructure." But in a recent earnings call, Verizon CFO Matt Ellis told investors that the FCC decision won't have any effect on the speed of its 5G deployment. Verizon also said that it is reducing overall capital expenditures—despite a variety of FCC decisions, including the net neutrality repeal that the FCC claimed would increase broadband network investment.
Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Makan Delrahim shot down the idea that new antitrust laws are necessary to address large tech companies, telling an audience of industry leaders that existing rules are ”perfectly equipped, at least for now.” Critics argue that tech companies have amassed significant market power through their vast networks of users and pools of data, but that their dominance is overlooked because their services are free or inexpensive. Delrahim contends, however, that price isn’t the only way government officials can measure how firms affect consumers. Behavior that would “decrease substantially” consumer choice or innovation would be “fair game for current antitrust laws under current precedent,” Delrahim said. “I don’t think some of this broader debate that has come up in the last three or four years that we need a whole new set of antitrust — I don't think that's appropriate,” he said.
Competitive Edge: Protecting the “competitive process”—the evolution of antitrust enforcement in the United States
The Federal Trade Commission is tackling a central question of competition: Are the goals of antitrust enforcement in the United States best pursued by applying what’s known as the consumer welfare standard? But what does it mean just to safeguard “consumer” welfare? From its inception, the term has been surrounded by uncertainty, in part because the influential Chicago-School jurist and former Solicitor General of the United States Robert Bork himself thought that competitive effects should look beyond consumers to what economists label “total welfare” or the overall value produced by a particular market’s organization, independent of the specific way that gains or losses to individual firms are distributed. And now, the term is under attack. Legal phrases are not talismanic. The application of any formulation requires hard work, a close eye on evidence, and continued attention to competitive effects. But it is notable that leading antitrust scholars will focus us on protecting the competitive process as the next step in the evolution of antitrust.
[Jonathan B. Sallet is a senior fellow at the Benton Foundation and previously general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission and deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice]
Public Knowledge, joined by Common Cause, Consumers Union, Open Markets Institute, and Writers Guild of America West, filed reply comments with the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to deny the proposed merger of T-Mobile and Sprint. Senior Policy Counsel Phillip Berenbroick said, "The record compiled by the Federal Communications Commission clearly demonstrates that the proposed transaction will substantially reduce competition in the wireless market and harm consumers. Post-merger, New T-Mobile, along with AT&T and Verizon, would dominate the wireless market. The transaction would leave customers facing the types of harms the FCC and Department of Justice identified in their review and ultimate rejection of the AT&T-T-Mobile transaction in 2011 – a market with higher prices, reduced variety in products and services, lower innovation, poorer quality of service, and reduced incentives to invest and compete."
Facebook’s ads have been a source of frustration for lawmakers for years, especially in the aftermath of the 2016 elections when it was discovered that Russian influence agents were able to place political ads involving US politics on the platform. Bills have been introduced to hold these platforms accountable, such as the Honest Ads Act, and federal agencies have launched investigations, but everything so far has fallen flat.
After Facebook implemented its own rules and agreed to adhere to the Honest Ads Act, all momentum on the bill stalled. Some federal regulators are already working on rules that would rein in Facebook, although any enforcement will be too late for the upcoming midterms. The Federal Elections Commission is currently considering a notice of proposed rule-making that would classify “internet communication” on platforms like Facebook and Twitter as “public communication,” therefore requiring explicit disclaimers when an ad is sponsored by a politician or political entity. As of right now, Facebook has no legal restrictions on how it fights false political ads, and no outside incentive to stop scammy election tactics.
Gab has become the most visible of a collection of services catering to people mainstream companies such as Twitter and Facebook have rejected as too hateful, extreme or threatening in their posts as part of a crackdown on extremism. The Pittsburgh tragedy has made Gab's creator, Andrew Torba, a key voice in growing debates over free expression and hate speech — and whether technology companies are making the right decisions over whose voices get heard and whose get muted. Gab’s Twitter feed — which Torba has acknowledged often writing himself — this week linked to an anonymously written blog post calling mainstream journalists “the Satanic mafia.” His dark turn is now an indelible part of the history of online radicalism in the United States. In a series of emails with the Washington Post, Torba described his disenchantment with Silicon Valley.
Apparently, SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk flew to the Seattle (WA) area in June for meetings with engineers leading a satellite launch project crucial to his space company’s growth. Within hours of landing, Musk had fired at least seven members of the program’s senior management team, the culmination of disagreements over the pace at which the team was developing and testing its Starlink satellites. Musk quickly brought in new managers from SpaceX headquarters in CA to replace a number of the managers he fired. Their mandate: Launch SpaceX’s first batch of U.S.-made satellites by the middle of 2019, apparently. The management shakeup and the launch timeline illustrate how quickly Musk wants to bring online SpaceX’s Starlink program, which is competing with OneWeb and Canada’s Telesat to be first to market with a new satellite-based Internet service. Those services - essentially a constellation of satellites that will bring high-speed Internet to rural and suburban locations globally - are key to generating the cash that privately-held SpaceX needs to fund Musk’s real dream of developing a new rocket capable of flying paying customers to the moon and eventually trying to colonize Mars. “It would be like rebuilding the Internet in space,” Musk told an audience in 2015 when he unveiled Starlink. “The goal would be to have a majority of long-distance Internet traffic go over this network.”
In a lively and freewheeling argument on Wednesday, the Supreme Court considered whether it should place limits on class-action settlements in which the plaintiffs’ lawyers receive millions and their clients get nothing. In the process, several justices mused about the nature of privacy in the digital age. The case arose from an $8.5 million settlement between Google and class-action lawyers who said the company had violated its users’ privacy rights. Under the settlement, the lawyers were paid more than $2 million, but members of the class received no money. Instead, the company agreed to make contributions to institutions concerned with privacy on the internet, including centers at Harvard, Stanford and Chicago-Kent College of Law, and AARP, the group once known as the American Association of Retired Persons.
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the appointment of six individuals to serve on the Board of the First Responder Network Authority, including five new members.
- FirstNet Chair Edward Horowitz
- Chief Richard Carrizzo, Southern Platte Fire Protection District, Kansas City (MO)
- Welton Chase, Former General officer, US Army, Cyber & Army Information Technology (Signal Corps)
- Neil Cox, CEO, Repio, Inc.
- Brian Crawford, Chief Administrative Officer, City of Shreveport (LA)
- Billy Hewes, Mayor, Gulfport (MI)
- Paul Patrick, Division Director, Family Health and Preparedness, Department of Health, State of UT
As a member of the Federal Communications Commission, Jessica Rosenworcel is charged with regulating the nation’s radio, television, and phone industries. That means, she makes the rules that govern everything from your WIFI access to your wireless service. “Being able to see what's happening first in technology is extraordinary,” she says. “I feel like I've got a front row seat at the digital revolution, and every day I'm in awe at how new technologies are changing every aspect of social and commercial life.”
On net neutrality: “Women know a thing or two about gatekeepers and an open Internet has been extraordinary for them,” said Commissioner Rosenworcel. “It's been a tool for organizing political action. It's been a platform for building businesses — many small businesses are owned by women and they extend their reach when they can put their services and wares online.” But FCC voted to repeal the rules, and Commissioner Rosenworcel was on the losing side of the vote. There’s a silver lining, though. In Rosenworcel’s eyes, the debate over net neutrality “awoke a sleeping giant.” She says, “The American public is paying attention to what's happening in Washington, what's happening at the FCC. They're not happy that this little agency decided that it's okay for broadband providers to block websites, to throttle online services, and to censor content. And they are pushing back.” Whether it’s through the court or the ballot box, she believes momentum is growing to reverse the FCC’s decision and preserve the old policy. “It leaves me enthusiastic and it leaves me believing that an open Internet and the choice to pursue policies that support it puts me on the right side of history.”
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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