August 2016

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for THURSDAY, AUGUST 11, 2016

Community Connectivity Initiative-Webinar Series https://www.benton.org/calendar/2016-08-11

ELECTION 2016
   Do menacing comments about Hillary Clinton cross the First Amendment line? - op-ed
   Donald Trump Confronted by Secret Service Over Second Amendment Comment [links to Wrap, The]
   Op-ed: Media slams Donald Trump, ignores Clinton 2008 RFK gaffe [links to Hill, The]
   What is the tone of the 2016 presidential campaign on Facebook? - Brookings research
   Where Clinton’s really ahead of Trump: TV ads [links to Media life]
   Lessons from a digital mercenary: Beware the ‘October Surprise' [links to Christian Science Monitor]
   Op-ed: Government regulation becomes increasingly difficult once communication moves online, thus, large Internet platforms such as Google, Facebook and Twitter will become the primary regulators of political campaigns [links to Washington Post]
   Science Consortium Calls On U.S. Presidential Candidates to Address Key Science and Technology Questions [links to American Association for the Advancement of Science]

BROADBAND/TELECOM
   States win the right to limit municipal broadband, beating FCC in court
   Editorial: The FCC Gets Throttled [links to Wall Street Journal]
   The State of the Urban/Rural Digital Divide - research
   US broadband: Still no ISP choice for many, especially at higher speeds
   FCC Receives Comments on BDS/Special Access Price Rules [links to Multichannel News]
   FCC Releases Preliminary List and Map of Eligible Census Blocks for the Connect America Phase II Auction [links to Federal Communications Commission]
   Google Fiber wants to start testing wireless broadband to homes in over a dozen US cities [links to Benton summary]
   CenturyLink Broadband Roadmap: Funding Shifting From the Cloud [links to Benton summary]
   AT&T Fixed Wireless Planned for CAF-Funded Rural Areas [links to Benton summary]
   Internet access is now a human right: part 3 [links to Guardian, The]

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Can We Get Better Wi-Fi Without Jeopardizing Traffic Safety? - analysis
   The Incentive Auction Moves “Forward” – Here’s How to Follow Along - FCC press release [links to Benton summary]
   AT&T CFO: Our 40 MHz of unused spectrum will ‘dramatically improve our capacity’ [links to Fierce]

PRIVACY
   Virtual ID “cards” will dramatically change how quickly and easily we use web services, make online transactions and more, while dramatically decreasing the potential for fraud and identity theft [links to Revere Digital]

CYBERSECURITY
   The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity Wants to Hear from You [links to National Institute of Standards and Technology]
   Plan to boost cybersecurity workforce fails to impress professionals [links to Christian Science Monitor]

GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
   Two Years of the U.S. Digital Service [links to Medium]

GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS
   Now you can message President Obama on Facebook [links to White House, The]

LOBBYING
   Number of registered lobbyists plunges as spending declines yet again [links to Medium]
   Emails show Google’s close relationship with the White House [links to Benton summary]
   AT&T’s Jim Cicconi to retire [links to Benton summary]
   What do we know about the independence of think tank research that we didn’t a week ago? [links to Washington Post]

COMPANY NEWS
   One year later, Alphabet is a tale of two Googles [links to Revere Digital]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   'Countries with strong public service media have less rightwing extremism'
   Google Maps Palestine row: why neutrality in tech is an impossible dream - analysis [links to Benton summary]
   New powers to cut off illicit mobile phones used in prisons [links to Guardian, The]
   Australia Stops Online Collection of Census Data After Cyberattacks [links to New York Times]

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ELECTION 2016

CAMPAIGNS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: James Hoefler]
[Commentary] The 2016 presidential election has been notable for the rhetorical vitriol pervading the campaign, and unfortunately Donald Trump’s suggestion that “Second Amendment people” might be able to offer some sort of corrective to a Hillary Clinton presidency is merely a continuation of this well-established pattern. Do any of Trump’s statements or those of his supporters cross the line of protected speech under the First Amendment? Probably not. The relevant federal statue here — 18 USC Section 879(a)(3) — makes it a felony to threaten a presidential candidate with death or bodily harm. But the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has ruled that speakers should be accorded fairly wide latitude to express themselves in ways that do not pose a real and imminent threat. We look for guidance to the Supreme Court’s most recent case to test the limits of this sort of speech: Brandenburg v. Ohio. In that 1969 decision, the court set forth a three-part test to determine the contours of First Amendment sanctuary: Was criminal action (1) intended, (2) imminent and (3) likely? We all celebrate the First Amendment and its broad protections of speech, as egregious and unpresidential as that language might sometimes seem. But all political liberties come with limits, and a case could be made that Trump’s brutal entreaties have exceeded that limit. Should he continue to exhort violence at his rallies, it may be his own legal defense needs, rather than those of his followers, that he will need to worry about.
[James Hoefler is a professor of political science at Dickinson College specializing in American politics and public policy]
benton.org/headlines/do-menacing-comments-about-hillary-clinton-cross-first-amendment-line | Washington Post
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TONE OF THE CAMPAIGN
[SOURCE: Brookings, AUTHOR: Saud Alashri, Anish Pradhan, Srinivasa Srivatsav Kandala, Kevin Desouza]
The words and language used every day reveal who we are and what we want. They translate our internal thoughts and emotions to others as means of communication. In our previous posts, we analyzed candidates’ Facebook data to understand topics being discussed and how candidates interacted with the public. Here’s a discussion of the evolution of the leading Republican and Democratic candidates’ campaign on their Facebook pages since they announced their candidacy. We have deepened our analysis to include linguistic cues to understand the personal and psychological attributes of commenters. Reactions, linguistic, and psychological indices of candidates’ commenters reveal interesting findings. Democrats’ commenters scored the highest scores in analytical and anxiety indices. Republicans’ commenters scored the highest scores on clout, authenticity, anger, and sadness indices. The value in understanding these commenter attributes is to shed light on the type of supporters each candidate attracts, campaign strategies that affect supporters of opposition (i.e. email controversy and tax returns) and lastly, which events trigger the commenters’ tone. This gives us a clue of what to expect going into the final period of the 2016 elections.
benton.org/headlines/what-tone-2016-presidential-campaign-facebook | Brookings
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BROADBAND/TELECOM

MUNICIPAL BROADBAND RULING
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
The Federal Communications Commission has lost in an attempt to preempt state laws that restrict the growth of municipal broadband networks. A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in favor of the states that opposed the FCC’s rules. "The FCC order essentially serves to re-allocate decision-making power between the states and their municipalities," the judges wrote. "This is shown by the fact that no federal statute or FCC regulation requires the municipalities to expand or otherwise to act in contravention of the preempted state statutory provisions. This preemption by the FCC of the allocation of power between a state and its subdivisions requires at least a clear statement in the authorizing federal legislation. The FCC relies upon Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for the authority to preempt in this case, but that statute falls far short of such a clear statement. The preemption order must accordingly be reversed." The decision was essentially unanimous, with judges John Rogers, Joseph Hood, and Helene White all voting to reverse the FCC's order. Jude White concurred in part and dissented in part, writing a separate opinion to address a few issues not covered in the majority opinion.
benton.org/headlines/states-win-right-limit-municipal-broadband-beating-fcc-court | Ars Technica | Chairman Wheeler | Commissioner Pai | Commissioner Clyburn | Commissioner O'Rielly | AT&T
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URBAN/RURAL DIGITAL DIVIDE
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, AUTHOR: Edward Carlson, Justin Goss]
While 75 percent of Americans reported using the Internet in July 2015, the longstanding disparity between urban and rural users persists and has emerged in the adoption of new technologies such as the smartphone and social media, according to the latest computer and Internet use data collected for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. This suggests that in spite of advances in both policy and technology, the barriers to Internet adoption existing in rural communities are complex and stubborn. In particular, Americans who were otherwise less likely to use the Internet—such as those with lower levels of family income or education—faced an even larger disadvantage when living in a rural area. Conversely, rural individuals with higher levels of education or family income did not have significantly lower adoption rates than their urban counterparts, according to the data. While the digital divide appears to be closing for some demographic communities, the gap between rural and urban populations has remained remarkably consistent for at least as long as NTIA has been gathering data on Internet use. In 1998, 28 percent of Americans living in rural areas used the Internet, compared to 34 percent of those in urban areas. Even as Internet use increased dramatically overall, a rural/urban gap remained in 2015, with 69 percent of rural residents reporting using the Internet, versus 75 percent of urban residents. This data indicates a fairly constant 6-9 percentage point gap between rural and urban communities’ Internet use over time. The data comes from NTIA’s Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.
benton.org/headlines/state-urbanrural-digital-divide | National Telecommunications and Information Administration
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LITTLE ISP CHOICE
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
The latest Federal Communications Commission statistics show that Americans still have little choice of high-speed broadband providers. On the surface, the numbers appear to show that the broadband market has gotten slightly less competitive since 2013. But what has really happened is the FCC is collecting more granular data that better illustrates the lack of choice for most Americans. Things are probably getting a little better as providers boost speeds and new entrants like Google Fiber and municipal ISPs offer service. But the FCC's improved statistical analysis shows how far there is to go. The FCC's latest Internet Access Services report was released just recently and contains data through June 30, 2015. At the FCC's 25Mbps download/3Mbps upload broadband standard, there are no ISPs at all in 30 percent of developed census blocks and only one offering service that fast in 48 percent of the blocks. About 55 percent of census blocks have no 100Mbps/10Mbps providers, and only about 10 percent have multiple options at that speed.
benton.org/headlines/us-broadband-still-no-isp-choice-many-especially-higher-speeds | Ars Technica | FCC report
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WIRELESS/SPECTRUM

CAN WE GET BETTER WI-FI?
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Andrew Jay Schwartzman]
[Commentary] It might not be surprising that major industries would mount a big fight over how to deploy a swathe of currently unused spectrum. However, a dispute over a chunk of spectrum located in the 5.9 gigahertz (GHz) band also pits different parts of the federal government against each other and, even in Washington’s ever-more partisan environment, has Republicans and Democrats on both sides. As such, the dispute offers some important insights into the political gamesmanship surrounding spectrum allocation.
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Tara Conlan]
Countries that have popular, well-funded public service broadcasters encounter less rightwing extremism and corruption and have more press freedom, a report from the European Broadcasting Union has found. For the first time, an analysis has been done of the contribution of public service media, such as the BBC, to democracy and society. The report shows the impact strong publicly funded television and radio has had on voter turnout, control of corruption and press freedom. The report says that in “countries where public service media funding … is higher there tends to be more press freedom” and where they have a higher market share “there also tends to be a higher voter turnout”. It also says there is a strong correlation between how much of a country’s market its public service broadcaster has and the “demand for rightwing extremism” and “control of corruption”. “These correlations are especially interesting given the current public debates about low participation in elections, corruption and the rise of far right politics across Europe,” said EBU head of media intelligence service Roberto Suárez Candel, who conducted the research.
benton.org/headlines/countries-strong-public-service-media-have-less-rightwing-extremism | Guardian, The
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