Government & Communications

President Donald Trump denied criticizing British Prime Minister Theresa May on her home soil July 13, despite being quoted in an interview with a British tabloid saying she had gone "the opposite way" and ignoring advice he gave her regarding Britain's withdrawal from the European Union. President Trump declared as "fake news" his criticism of May in an interview in The Sun, although the tabloid itself released a recording of the session. In the interview, President Trump said he would have done Brexit "much differently.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai proposed an overhaul of the agency’s online comment system after millions of fake comments were posted about a recent FCC rule change.

July 2018 marks the fifth anniversary of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, which was first coined following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin. In the course of those five years, #BlackLivesMatter has become an archetypal example of modern protests and political engagement on social media: A new Pew Research Center analysis of public tweets finds the hashtag has been used nearly 30 million times on Twitter – an average of 17,002 times per day – as of May 1, 2018.

On July 12, the Federal Communications Commission will be voting to ensure they won’t have to read your complaints anymore — and Democratic House Commerce Committee leaders are not happy about it. House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Mike Doyle (D-PA) sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to voice their disapproval of a proposed rule that, if approved, would send informal consumer complaints directly through to the company in question.

The media needs to stop letting President Donald Trump be its "assignment editor," Vox editor-at-large Ezra Klein says. There is no rule that "every time the president travels somewhere and opens their mouth, they get wall-to-wall coverage for days," Klein said. Rallies by previous presidents hardly attracted the type of attention that President Trump's do, he explained. Yet, when newsrooms scramble to cover PresidentTrump's rallies, such as the one held on July 5 in Montana, other, more important stories may be getting left behind.

According to several interviews with frequent Chinese travelers to the United States, those with China Mobile as their carrier are often unable to access American websites and apps that are banned in China. The experience of using China Mobile roaming in the United States “is exactly the same as when you surf on the Internet at home,” said May Sun, a 34-year-old analyst living in Shanghai.

President Donald Trump attacked the media once again on July 6, calling them "downright dishonest" and "really bad people" during a campaign-style rally in Montana. "I see the way they write. They're so damn dishonest," President Trump said. "And I don't mean all of them, because some of the finest people I know are journalists really. Hard to believe when I say that. I hate to say it, but I have to say it. But 75 percent of those people are downright dishonest. Downright dishonest. They're fake. They're fake." "They make the sources up. They don't exist in many cases," he continued.

Former Fox News Channel executive Bill Shine is joining the White House as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff for communications, the White House announced. The long-anticipated move follows weeks of speculation that the former Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network co-president was a front-runner for the job, which has remained vacant since former communications director Hope Hicks announced her resignation in February.

ACT: The App Association, which represents more than 5,000 app developers and device makers, said the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) should be the one collecting and compiling data on broadband availability, not the Federal Communications Commission. "[T]he technology administration [NTIA] is more at home working across government agencies to put together an unbiased report," said ACT senior policy director Graham Dufault.

Federal prosecutors concluded an 18-month investigation into a former congressional technology staffer on July 3 by publicly debunking allegations — promoted by conservative media and President Donald Trump — suggesting he was a Pakistani operative who stole government secrets with cover from House Democrats. As part of an agreement with prosecutors, Imran Awan pleaded guilty to a relatively minor offense unrelated to his work on Capitol Hill: making a false statement on a bank loan application. U.S. prosecutors said they would not recommend jail time.