Benton Foundation

Sen Mark Warner’s (D-VA) proposals to regulate social media platforms are by far the most ambitious to come from Congress. ProMarket gathered three experts to discuss the pros and cons. Below is the reaction of Beton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate Gigi Sohn:

American democracy, like any democracy, requires the freedom to speak. But American democracy has always recognized the corollary: the strength of speech rests on access to communications networks. From the Post Office, to the telegraph, the telephone, and broadband, governmental action of various stripes has helped connect Americans to each other. The Benton Foundation serves that mission. Our goal: To bring open, affordable, high-capacity broadband to all people in the U.S.

The House Communications Subcommittee held a long-delayed Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing July 25. Overall, the review of the FCC was split along partisan lines. Republican representatives generally expressed satisfaction with the work of the FCC over the last nine months. Democratic representatives felt differently.  The hearing touched on a variety of policy issues, from spectrum allocation, to cybersecurity, to emergency alerts.

The House Communications Subcommittee held a long-delayed Federal Communications Commission oversight hearing July 25. Notably, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stood by the FCC's decision to designate the Sinclair-Tribune deal for hearing. Full House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) took the lead in pressing Chairman Pai on President Donald Trump's tweet criticizing the FCC for not approving the Sinclair-Tribune deal and his suggestion there was a need for a conservative voice like Sinclair's.

[Commentary] Talk about a curveball. Last week, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai struck a potentially fatal blow to a deal that President Donald Trump favored, the proposed merger of Sinclair Broadcasting and Tribune Media. If it had gone through, the deal would have had a major adverse impact on future election cycles, making Sinclair the king of the hill with unfettered capabilities to control political advertising and messages across all of its stations.

[Speech] I want to talk about the secret to smart policies about smart cities.  I can summarize my idea in one word.  Learning.

[Analysis] On July 17, 2018, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) changed the network neutrality debate. Through two bold steps, Rep. Coffman disrupted the ongoing Republican vs Democrat divide on the issue and became, perhaps, the most prominent Republican to not just provide lip service to the “open internet,” but to make a positive proposal to enshrine net neutrality consumer protections for broadband users. First, Rep. Coffman introduced legislation that would amend U.S. communications law to provide for internet openness requirements for broadband internet access service providers.

On July 9, President Donald Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. This week, we examine some of Judge Kavanaugh’s decisions on key communications policy issues, like net neutrality, the First Amendment, and surveillance. At 53, Kavanaugh is relatively young, consistent with President Trump's desire to appoint judges who can serve on the High Court for decades. Since 2006, Kavanaugh has served on the U.S.

US District Court Judge Richard Leon’s decision to approve the AT&T-TimeWarner merger was a horse-and-buggy decision utterly blind to the realities of the twenty-first-century economy. His magnum opus means that one of the largest internet service providers is permitted to merge with one of the largest TV and film companies, thereby creating a powerful entity controlling the content and distribution of some of the most important programming in the market.  Marrying content and carriage creates gatekeepers with every incentive to favor their own services at the expense of their competito

In 2016, Libraries Without Borders established the Wash and Learn Initiative (WALI) to expand the access and accessibility of information to families waiting for their clothes to wash and dry in laundromats. This article discusses the private-public partnerships between small, mom-and-pop laundromat businesses and library branches that have made this work possible. For our laundromat partners, we have heard that WALI libraries provide them with a direct means to give back to their communities.