Daily Digest 8/22/2018 (Verizon Throttling Safety)

Benton Foundation
Table of Contents

Broadband/Internet

Rural Broadband’s Only Hope: Thinking Outside the Box?  |  Read below  |  Elizabeth Zima  |  Government Technology
How Municipal Broadband Models Generate Results  |  Read below  |  Matt Parnofiello  |  StateTech
22 states ask court to restore net neutrality  |  Read below  |  Jacob Kastrenakes  |  Vox
Fire Chief from CA: Verizon Throttling Data Was a Safety Threat  |  Read below  |  John Eggerton  |  Broadcasting&Cable
  • Verizon statement on California fire allegations  |  Read below  |  Verizon
New York City Has ‘a Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity’ to Create an Internet for All  |  Read below  |  Teke Wiggin  |  Nation, The
Rural South Dakotans get better broadband service than in other rural states  |  Sioux Falls Argus Leader
Broadband Authority working on $5M+ expansion on Virginia’s Eastern Shore  |  WVEC-TV
Fiber to the Home near-explosive growth  |  Read below  |  Dave Burstein  |  Fast Net News
More Google Fiber Deployments? Exec Shares Company’s Vision for New SuperPON Architecture  |  Read below  |  Joan Engebretson  |  telecompetitor
‘The community is the company’: A review of Spring Grove Communications, a Broadband Co-Op in MN  |  Bluff Country Newspaper Group

Wireless

Mobility Fund Phase II Challenge Process Window Extended 90 Days  |  Read below  |  Public Notice  |  Federal Communications Commission

Platforms

Facebook Pulls 652 Fake Accounts Engaged in Coordinated Influence Campaign Ahead of Midterms  |  Read below  |  Deepa Seetharaman, Dustin Volz  |  Wall Street Journal
  • Iran — not just Russia — is trying to influence through Facebook  |  Vox
President Trump: 'I would rather have fake news' than censorship  |  Read below  |  Brett Samuels  |  Hill, The
There should be ‘consequences’ for platforms that don’t remove people like Alex Jones, Senator Ron Wyden says  |  Read below  |  Eric Johnson  |  Vox
Twitter CEO talks to Reps McCarthy, Walden about allegations of bias  |  Read below  |  Ali Breland  |  Hill, The
Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to 1  |  Read below  |  Elizabeth Dwoskin  |  Washington Post
ACLU Warns Against ‘Worrisome’ Alex Jones Bans  |  Huffington Post
Facebook to remove over 5K ad target options to curb discrimination  |  Hill, The
 

News at the FTC

Industry Thoughts for FTC  |  Read below  |  Nancy Scola  |  Politico
Newspapers to FTC: Digital Deck Is Stacked Against Quality Journalism  |  Read below  |  John Eggerton  |  Broadcasting&Cable
NCTA: FTC Needs to Maintain Light Regulatory Touch  |  Read below  |  John Eggerton  |  Multichannel News
What Most Stunts FTC Antitrust and Consumer Protection Law and Enforcement?  |  Scott Cleland

Security

Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI) says Congress should consider letting companies 'hack back' after cyberattacks  |  Washington Post
New Cybersecurity Certification Program for Cellular-Connected IoT Devices  |  CTIA-The Wireless Association
Data on how states will spend $380M set aside for 2018 election infrastructure shows too little too late  |  ProPublica
FBI, DHS push back on Sen Nelson's claim that Russians 'penetrated' Florida election systems  |  Hill, The
6 common habits that put you at risk for identity theft  |  NBC
Gmail now lets you send self-destructing 'confidential mode' emails from your phone  |  CBS

Journalism

5 facts about the state of the news media in 2017  |  Read below  |  Michael Barthel  |  Research  |  Pew Research Center
Google Unveils New Tool to Make Good News Easier to Find  |  Vox
‘We Have Some Breaking News’: A Wild Day Makes Networks Scramble  |  New York Times

Communications and Democracy

How President Trump made the Sunday shows great again  |  Columbia Journalism Review
Journalists are "dirty, godless, hateful people,” says Washington State Lawmaker  |  Spokesman-Review
Protests and Blaming the Media. Sound Familiar? That Was During the ’68 Democratic National Convention.  |  ProPublica
Op-ed: 7 next steps for #FreePress  |  Poynter
White House Touts President Trump's Fundraising Prowess, Often Rooted in Press Attacks  |  Broadcasting&Cable

Policymakers

FirstNet Board Leaders Announce Plans to Retire  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  National Telecommunications and Information Administration
The U.S. needs to think about the unthinkable on cybersecurity  |  Read below  |  Stewart Baker  |  Op-Ed  |  Washington Post

Lobbying

 
T-Mobile runs behind-the-scenes PR push to support Sprint deal  |  Reuters
BSA and Industry Leaders Urge Nomination of Under Secretary to Serve as Ombudsperson for the Privacy Shield  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  BSA | The Software Alliance

Radio

CPB Awards $1.3 Million for Public Radio Urban Alternative Initiative  |  Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Patents

Nokia says it is owed $3 for every 5G smartphone  |  Fierce

Content

Video streaming growth in US stunted by crowded market  |  Axios
Subscription tide not lifting all mobile software boats  |  Axios

Stories from Abroad

We can't tell if we're closing the digital divide without more data  |  Read below  |  Alison Gillwald  |  Op-Ed  |  World Economic Forum
Google Tried to Change China. China May End Up Changing Google.  |  Read below  |  Farhad Manjoo  |  Analysis  |  New York Times
Study links Facebook use to violence against refugees in Germany  |  Hill, The
Today's Top Stories

Broadband/Internet

Rural Broadband’s Only Hope: Thinking Outside the Box?

Elizabeth Zima  |  Government Technology

According to a 2017 Federal Communications Commission Broadband Deployment Report, 92 percent of the total US population has access to both fixed terrestrial services at 25 Mbps/3 Mbps and mobile LTE at speeds of 5 Mbps/1 Mbps. But for those living in rural areas, only 68.6 percent of Americans have access to both services, compared to 97.9 percent of urban dwellers."These are big challenges that call for another rural electrification administration approach. That is the scale of the problem," said Christophe Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the  Institute for Local Self-Reliance. "The reason we had initial rural electrification was because the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administration, particularly a guy named Harold Ickes, who realized that the private sector would not bring good infrastructure to rural America, so they created all these co-ops." 
 
Ironically those rural electric cooperatives are building fiber networks in rural areas frequently without government help today. "If we wanted to improve rural access quickly we would focus on the electric and telephone co-ops in rural areas," he said. "Instead, the federal government is giving billions of dollars to AT&T and CenturyLink." Minnesota is making a success of pushing broadband out to its rural areas by collaborating with rural cooperatives, private providers, and a wireless pilot programs as well, said Danna MacKenzie, executive director of the Minnesota Office of Broadband Development. The state collaborates with multiplicity of providers to help it meet its goal of border-to-border coverage of 25 Mbps/3 Mbps by the year 2022. By 2026 the state hopes to supply all businesses and homes with access to at least one broadband provider of with download speeds of at least 100 Mbps/20 Mbps. 

How Municipal Broadband Models Generate Results

Matt Parnofiello  |  StateTech

Broadband access throughout California and the country are the result of different models implemented by governing authorities. Those models sometimes differ from municipality to municipality, and they result in various avenues to internet access — either wholly funded by taxpayers and implemented by public agencies or provided entirely by private business in a competitive market, noted Blair Levin, nonresident senior fellow for the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, in a recent assessment. One such model, pioneered by the communities of the North Carolina Next Generation Network (NCNGN), leaves the task of providing broadband access to the private sector. Another in Lincoln (NE) employs dark fiber to support private sector carriers in the rapid and efficient rollout of next-generation services. And places outside of urban areas may receive broadband access from rural electric co-ops, which take full responsibility for the network and service. The United States now has 750 communities where broadband services are offered by a local municipality or electric cooperative, as stated in the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

22 states ask court to restore net neutrality

Jacob Kastrenakes  |  Vox

Attorneys general representing 22 states and the District of Columbia asked a federal court to reinstate network neutrality, saying the Federal Communications Commission failed to properly consider the issues when removing the policy in 2017. In a brief filed Aug 20, the attorneys general argue that the FCC’s decision “will cause [inevitable harms] to consumers, public safety, and existing regulatory schemes” and that the commission “entirely ignored many of these issues” when overturning net neutrality. In particular, the attorneys general say that the commission failed to consider public safety concerns that could come from the loss of net neutrality. That’s a critical problem, they say, because public safety is part of the agency’s forming statute. The brief also says the obvious: that the FCC just outright ignored a lot of clear evidence that internet providers aren’t the honest lot they claim to be. The FCC accepted industry promises, they write, despite “substantial record evidence showing that [broadband] providers have abused ... and will abuse their gatekeeper roles in ways that harm consumers and threaten public safety.”

Fire Chief from CA: Verizon Throttling Data Was a Safety Threat

John Eggerton  |  Broadcasting&Cable

According to testimony and documents provided by the fire chief of Santa Clara County, one of the CA counties fighting the largest wildfire in the state's history, throttling of its Internet speeds per a lower-priced Verizon data plan had a significant impact the department's ability to provide emergency and potentially life-saving services. The documents came in the legal challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's lifting of regulations against online blocking, throttling and paid prioritization.

Fire chief Anthony Bowden said that county fire personnel had to use other agencies Internet service providers and their own personal devices and that while Verizon did ultimately lift the throttling, it was only after the fire department had subscribed to a new, more expensive, plan. That came after, in the midst of responding to the Mendocino Complex Fire, they found that their data rates had been reduced to 1/200th or less of previous speeds, meaning it was essentially nonfunctional, "despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire's ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services," he told the court, adding: "Even small delays in response translate into devastating effects, including loss of property, and, in some cases, loss of life."

Verizon statement on California fire allegations

Press Release  |  Verizon

This situation has nothing to do with net neutrality or the current proceeding in court.

We made a mistake in how we communicated with our customer about the terms of its plan. Like all customers, fire departments choose service plans that are best for them. This customer purchased a government contract plan for a high-speed wireless data allotment at a set monthly cost. Under this plan, users get an unlimited amount of data but speeds are reduced when they exceed their allotment until the next billing cycle. Regardless of the plan emergency responders choose, we have a practice to remove data speed restrictions when contacted in emergency situations. We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake. We are reviewing the situation and will fix any issues going forward.

New York City Has ‘a Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity’ to Create an Internet for All

Teke Wiggin  |  Nation, The

Troy Walcott, a 39-year-old cable technician, felt vindicated in July when New York moved to expel his employer, Charter Communications, for allegedly failing to keep its promises to the state. “I shouted to myself,” Walcott said about hearing the news. “We’ve been speaking so long about the company’s wrongdoing, and people have agreed with [us], but nothing has been done.” Not only could the state action soften Charter’s resistance to the union, it has also further opened the door for Walcott and other strikers to launch a cooperative Internet provider or for the city to create a municipally owned network of its own. Advocates say either model could improve broadband service across the city, offering reduced cost, expanded access, good jobs, and a chance to ensure net neutrality in New York. Christopher Mitchell, who leads a community-broadband initiative at the Institute for Local Self Reliance, calls the situation with Charter a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for New York City. “We don’t want these deadbeat cable companies to be failing constantly,” he said.

Fiber to the Home near-explosive growth

Dave Burstein  |  Fast Net News

From Brazil to Italy to Canada, even the most reluctant carriers are now building, including Deutsche Telekom and British Telecom. Credit Suisse believes that for an incumbent, “The cost of building fibre is less than the cost of not building fibre.” 20% growth is common. Telefónica Spain has passed twenty million premises - over 70% - and continues at two million a year. Telefónica Brazil is going from seven million in 2018 to ten million in 2020. China has 328 million connected and added 5M in the month of June. AT&T on July 26 announced 5M more in the next 12 months. Fiber is now a proven moneymaker, bringing new customers every quarter.

More Google Fiber Deployments? Exec Shares Company’s Vision for New SuperPON Architecture

Joan Engebretson  |  telecompetitor

Google is seeking industry support for a new Google Fiber vision for a passive optical network (PON) fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) architecture that would increase the distance between the central office and the customer, said Claudio DeSanti, architect for Google. The Google SuperPON architecture would support up to 1,024 customers over distances up to 50 kilometers– a substantial change from today’s architecture that supports up to 64 customers over distances of up to 20 kilometers. The goal would be to minimize the amount of fiber required to support FTTH and the associated labor.

Google already has deployed the technology in one of its existing fiber markets, DeSanti said. That deployment supports existing GPON speeds but Google expects SuperPON to support speeds of 10 Gbps per customer. The development is an important one in that it suggests a renewed interest in PON on the part of Google Fiber. Google a few years ago “paused” its PON deployments. Asked whether Google Fiber would be deploying SuperPON in North America, DeSanti said “I would expect so” but stressed that he was involved in the technology side of the company, not the business side.

Wireless

Mobility Fund Phase II Challenge Process Window Extended 90 Days

Public Notice  |  Federal Communications Commission

In this Order, we extend the previously announced deadline for the close of the Mobility Fund Phase II (MF-II) challenge window by an additional 90 days. Challengers will have until November 26, 2018, to submit speed test data in support of a challenge. We adopt this extension to ensure that interested parties can initiate and submit speed test data for areas they wish to challenge. In addition, given this extension, we propose to make modifications to the speed test data specifications regarding the relevant timeframes for valid speed tests. We also address two applications for review regarding the procedures and parameters of the MF-II challenge process and grant in part and deny in part a related extension request.

Platforms

Facebook Pulls 652 Fake Accounts Engaged in Coordinated Influence Campaign Ahead of Midterms

Deepa Seetharaman, Dustin Volz  |  Wall Street Journal

Facebook dismantled 652 pages, groups and accounts engaged in an coordinated influence campaign ahead of the 2018 US midterm elections, part of the company’s broader purge of bad actors on its site. Facebook said the 652 pages and accounts originated in Iran, and that they had been flagged for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” Facebook said the offenders had targeted internet services in the US, Middle East, UK and Latin America. The company separately found evidence of inauthentic Russian activity. Facebook said it found no evidence the campaigns by Russia and Iran were connected.

President Trump: 'I would rather have fake news' than censorship

Brett Samuels  |  Hill, The

During a rally in Charleston (WV), President Donald Trump railed against social media censorship, declaring he would "rather have fake news than have anybody... stopped and censored." He told a crowd that his administration is "standing up to social media censorship." While the issue has been championed by conservatives, President Trump pushed back against potential censorship of any accounts, regardless of political affiliation. "I would rather have fake news than have anybody -- including liberals, socialists, anything --than have anybody stopped and censored," President Trump said.  "You can’t pick one person and say ‘well we don’t like what he’s been saying, he’s out,'" he added. He warned against embracing censorship of opposing viewpoints, because "it can turn around, it can be them next."

There should be ‘consequences’ for platforms that don’t remove people like Alex Jones, Senator Ron Wyden says

Eric Johnson  |  Vox

Since 2016, everything that social media companies have done has been “either a bizarre idea or not really doing much of anything that’s actually gonna help people,” said Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR). As one of the more tech-savvy members of Congress, he’s a proponent of new legislation that will regulate voting machine companies and data firms such as Cambridge Analytica, but also believes existing laws have given platforms like Twitter more power than they have deigned to use. “I think what the Alex Jones case shows, we’re gonna really be looking at what the consequences are for just leaving common decency in the dust,” said Sen Wyden. “... What I’m gonna be trying to do in my legislation is to really lay out what the consequences are when somebody who is a bad actor, somebody who really doesn’t meet the decency principles that reflect our values, if that bad actor blows by the bounds of common decency, I think you gotta have a way to make sure that stuff is taken down.”

Twitter CEO talks to Reps McCarthy, Walden about allegations of bias

Ali Breland  |  Hill, The

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey spoke with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) about the growing firestorm over alleged anti-conservative bias by tech companies. Dorsey thanked the high-ranking GOP Reps for a “productive conversation today about the importance of transparency including how algorithms work,” in a tweet. "It's an important issue in the tech industry and I look forward to continuing the conversation," he added. Dorsey spoke to the lawmakers over the phone. During the conversation, Chairman Walden reiterated his invitation for Dorsey to testify before the committee.

Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to 1

Elizabeth Dwoskin  |  Washington Post

Facebook has begun to assign its users a reputation score, predicting their trustworthiness on a scale from zero to 1. The previously unreported ratings system, which Facebook has developed over the past year, shows that the fight against the gaming of tech systems has evolved to include measuring the credibility of users to help identify malicious actors. Facebook developed its reputation assessments as part of its effort against fake news, Tessa Lyons, the product manager who is in charge of fighting misinformation, said in an interview. The company, like others in tech, has long relied on its users to report problematic content — but as Facebook has given people more options, some users began falsely reporting items as untrue, a new twist on information warfare for which it had to account. It’s “not uncommon for people to tell us something is false simply because they disagree with the premise of a story or they’re intentionally trying to target a particular publisher,” Lyons said. Users’ trustworthiness score between zero and 1 isn’t meant to be an absolute indicator of a person’s credibility, Lyons said, nor is there is a single unified reputation score that users are assigned. Rather, the score is one measurement among thousands of new behavioral clues that Facebook now takes into account as it seeks to understand risk. Facebook is also monitoring which users have a propensity to flag content published by others as problematic and which publishers are considered trustworthy by users.

Journalism

5 facts about the state of the news media in 2017

Michael Barthel  |  Research  |  Pew Research Center

Every year since 2004, Pew Research Center has issued an annual assessment of the state of the news media that tracks key audience and economic indicators for a variety of sectors within the US news media industry. Here are the key findings for 2017:

  1. The audience for nearly every major sector of the US news media fell in 2017 – with the only exception being radio. Circulation for US daily newspapers, whose audience has been steadily declining for several decades, fell by 11% in 2017.
  2. The “post-election slump” for TV viewership explains audience declines for cable and local TV – but not network.
  3. Cable networks stand out for revenue growth, and network news’ economic picture was stable.
  4. Digital advertising revenue continues to grow, but little of it benefits news organizations. 
  5. Hispanic media also experienced audience declines.

News at the FTC

Industry Thoughts for FTC

Nancy Scola  |  Politico

The News Media Alliance, which represents the newspaper industry, laid out a potential antitrust case against its foes, Google and Facebook, in comments filed with the Federal Trade Commission. The organization outlined legal considerations — including non-price harm to consumers, such as the newspaper industry’s ability to sustain journalism — and explained “how they connect to a potential antitrust case against one or more platforms.” 

The Internet Association, which represents Google and Facebook, noted that enforcement related to privacy should “encourage companies to take innovative approaches to privacy and data security given each company’s resources, and the volume and sensitivity of the personal information each company collects.” The organization also filed comments in response to the FTC’s inquiry on intellectual property, saying “the problem of low-quality patents” is a concern that merits further study.

Taking note of the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality regulations, which put the FTC in charge of policing broadband providers, AT&T said the agency should avoid ISP-only rules. Instead, the expectations for internet service providers should be the same as those for other players in the internet ecosystem, the company said. AT&T also argued that vertical mergers — such as its deal with Time Warner — are “usually procompetitive.”

Newspapers to FTC: Digital Deck Is Stacked Against Quality Journalism

John Eggerton  |  Broadcasting&Cable

The News Media Alliance has told the Federal Trade Commission that it needs to take action to "rein in tech giants' anticompetitive conduct." That came in comments to the agency in advance of a planned series of public hearings over the next six months or so on competition and consumer protection policy in the digital age. It told the FTC that the Googles and Facebooks of the world did not get to be dominant in distribution and monetization on their merits alone. Instead, "they have grown with the assistance of serial acquisitions and exclusionary conduct aimed at nascent competitors and technologies that threaten to supplant their positions." NMA also said those tech giants are using that market power to force practices on their members that threaten the viability of the news business. One thing NMA takes issue with what they say is social media platforms' "unwillingness to prioritize and identify the original source of news content, even for a limited time. This solution would greatly benefit news publishers who spend significant time and resources on long-term investigative journalism that is then repackaged and distributed by those who do not make similar investments."

NCTA: FTC Needs to Maintain Light Regulatory Touch

John Eggerton  |  Multichannel News

NCTA: The Internet & Television Association says the Federal Trade Commission needs to take a light-touch approach to regulating the wildly competitive communications marketplace, but apply that touch to everyone in the space. That came in comments in advance of months-long FTC hearings on what, if any, changes need to be made to how the agency protects competition and consumer welfare in the digital age. That also comes as that job is getting bigger with the Federal Communications Commission's deregulation of network neutrality rules, which puts the primary oversight of ISP conduct in the hands, quite capable hands NCTA argues, of the FTC. NCTA points out that when the FTC last undertook such a review--in 2007--it concluded that in the fact of burgeoning competition and innovation, it should take a cautious approach to regulation, and rely on market forces in the absence of demonstrable consumer harm. NCTA says that was the right approach then, and is even more so today. The wrote, "at a minimum, there is plainly no reasonable basis in today’s marketplace for singling out ISPs for unique regulatory burdens. To the contrary, as discussed further below, recent experience suggests that large Internet platform providers pose a greater risk to Internet openness and consumer privacy than ISPs."

Policymakers

FirstNet Board Leaders Announce Plans to Retire

FirstNet Board Chair Sue Swenson and Vice Chair Jeffrey Johnson notified Assistant Secretary of Commerce David Redl of their resignation from the FirstNet board. Formal letters of resignation have been submitted to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.

In April, NTIA issued a notice to recruit candidates to replace board members whose terms were ending and received responses from a wide range of qualified applicants. With today’s resignations, there will be seven seats to fill. The board’s next quarterly meeting is in December.

Security

The U.S. needs to think about the unthinkable on cybersecurity

Stewart Baker  |  Op-Ed  |  Washington Post

[Commentary] US officials have often said that the United States has unrivaled offensive cybercapabilities. Why hasn’t that deterred anyone? It’s simple. The United States is so reliant on computer networks that we’re afraid to launch a tit-for-tat exchange in cyberspace. We need to get tougher and more inventive. In the hope of inspiring others’ imagination, here are a few options that belong in the US toolkit:

  • The next time North Korea uses its cadre of expatriate hackers in Kenya, Mozambique and other countries to attack the United States, we should demand that the host government expel the hackers. 
  • Russia has allegedly loaded US electrical control systems with tools that could shut down the grid. It’s possible to build electro-magnetic pulse weapons the size of a large copy machine that can fry electronics for a few miles around. Why not install several such weapons in high-rise office spaces around Moscow, including a few places where they’ll be found? 
  • Iran has a shown a willingness to use malware that leaves victim networks irretrievably damaged. If Iran did that to US systems, Iran’s remarkably vulnerable offshore oil platforms would be good targets for payback, from simple interruption of gas flows to complete destruction of as many platforms as are necessary to end or deter an attack.

[Stewart Baker served as general counsel of the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1994 and assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2006]

BSA and Industry Leaders Urge Nomination of Under Secretary to Serve as Ombudsperson for the Privacy Shield

Press Release  |  BSA | The Software Alliance

Tech industry leaders sent a letter to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo urging him to put forward a qualified candidate to serve as the Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment. In addition to advocating for open markets and fair trade policies, the Under Secretary plays a critical role as Ombudsperson for the US-EU Privacy Shield Framework, which facilities trans-Atlantic data transfers and is essential to almost every US industry. 

Stories From Abroad

We can't tell if we're closing the digital divide without more data

Alison Gillwald  |  Op-Ed  |  World Economic Forum

Much has been made of the digital underpinning of many of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals – gender equality, good health, quality education, industry innovation, and smart and sustainable cities – and the need to set ICT sub-targets for them. The truth is we don't have the data from developing countries, and therefore in our global statistics, to determine where we are now or to know what progress we are making towards overcoming the ‘digital divide’. The current supply-side data collected by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) from national administrative data doesn’t allow us to measure several basic indicators in the predominantly pre-paid mobile environment that characterizes communication services in developing countries. These indicators inform the access part of the sub-indices of the ICT Development Index (IDI). As the only global ICT dataset, it forms a crucial part of others, such as the UN E-Government Index, the World Bank’s Little Data Book on ICT, the new Facebook/Economist Intelligence Unit ‘3i’ index and the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report.

To redress digital inequality in the Global South, far more attention will need to be paid to measures that stimulate demand. Even where environments that are conducive to investment have been created for the extension of networks, our survey data illustrates how the socially and economically marginalized – particularly those at the intersections of class, gender and race – are unable to harness the internet to enhance their social and economic well-being. The data available shows that besides affordability, human development – particularly education and therefore income – are the primary determinants of access, intensity of use and the use of the internet for production not just consumption.

[Professor Alison Gillwald (PhD) works for Research ICT Africa and the University of Cape Town]

Google Tried to Change China. China May End Up Changing Google.

Farhad Manjoo  |  Analysis  |  New York Times

Ever since its founding 20 years ago in a Silicon Valley garage, Google has proudly and often ostentatiously held itself up as the architect of a new model for corporate virtue. Google, they said, would always put long-term values over short-term financial gain. “Making the world a better place” would be a primary business goal, and Google’s ethical compass could be summed up in a simple and celebrated motto: “Don’t be evil.” Now, Google appears to be changing its mind. Under a plan called Dragonfly, the company has been testing a censored version of its search engine for the Chinese market. In a meeting with employees last week, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said that “we are not close to launching” a search engine in China, but he defended the company’s exploration of the market. It is hard not to see how going back to China would be anything other than a terrific comedown — the most telling act of a company that, day by day, has come to resemble the utterly conventional corporation it once vowed never to become. The plausible conclusion is the obvious one: Google took on China, and Google lost.

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