Ownership

A Q&A with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. 

If politicians in the US make the mistake of over-regulating big tech, Chinese competitors could easily take over the market, according to Sen Mark Warner (D-VA). When asked if tech giants should be broken up under antitrust laws, Sen Warner said regulators need to be careful not to be too “heavy-handed” because breaking up those companies could create an opening for Chinese competitors. 

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is calling out social media and technology giants over what he sees as anti-conservative bias. Majority Leader McCarthy, a leading candidate to replace retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), tweeted a video from a speech in which he lashes out at Amazon, Facebook and Twitter, accusing them of trying to censor conservatives. “Social media is being rigged to censor conservative voices. We will not be silenced,” Majority Leader McCarthy wrote in the tweet.
 

ABC abruptly canceled “Roseanne” hours after Roseanne Barr, the show’s star and co-creator, posted a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, an African-American woman who was a senior adviser to Barack Obama throughout his presidency and considered one of his most influential aides. Barr wrote if the “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj." Barr later apologized, but it was too late.

Some high-profile broadcast groups have been telling the Federal Communications Commission they would be OK with moving the 39% national ownership cap to 50% from 39%, rather than eliminating it altogether.  In filings at the FCC, Hearst Television, Scripps Media, Raycom Media, Gray Television, Graham Media, Quincy Media, Dispatch Broadcast Group and Morgan Murphy Media told the FCC they can support both a cap at 50% and eliminating the UHF discount for future broadcast groups, so long as current groups that would be over that 50% cap without the discount are grandfathered.  They say that "

Pirate TV boxes that falsely display the Federal Communications Commission logo should be removed from Amazon and eBay, said FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly.  Commissioner O'Rielly wrote a letter to the Amazon and eBay CEOs asking them to crack down on set-top boxes that violate FCC rules. Amazon quickly responded, saying that it already takes steps to prevent sale of these products but that it is willing to step up enforcement if any such devices are still for sale on Amazon.

The seemingly endless review of the proposed Sinclair Broadcast Group-Tribune Media merger doesn’t show signs of being wrapped up anytime soon. And that’s fine with the cable and satellite operators opposed to the deal, who are looking to block it, and maybe also get some help from a federal court in the effort.

T-Mobile is getting advice from Corey Lewandowski, the former campaign manager for President Donald Trump, as part of a lobbying effort to help the telecommunications company secure federal approval for its proposed takeover of Sprint. T-Mobile said it hired Turnberry Solutions in August. “Corey Lewandowski is now affiliated with that firm and they have offered perspective to T-Mobile on a variety of topics, including the pending transaction,” the company said. According to documents,  Lewandowski receives a cut of the fees paid to the lobbying firm on the T-Mobile contract.

Some observers note a decline in competition in American industry; fewer new firms are entering the market, and markets are becoming more concentrated. Federal and state agencies can devise regulations to catalyze competition. Federal and state agencies can use different types of rules to spur competition, including deregulation, which removes rules that discourage new firms, or switching price rules, which makes it easier for consumers to try a new service provider (such as the rule that phone customers can keep their phone number when changing service providers).

This paper recommends that dominant online platforms be required to provide their users with “due process,” that is, procedural protections that ensure fairness, when the platforms wish to take an action that may be detrimental to the user. It argues that the principles of due process are a way to ensure that individuals are treated fairly by large institutions -- whether they are public or private. It recommends a robust set of procedural protections adopted from leading legal scholars and proposes a way of determining "dominance" that is informed by the history of communications law.