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November 2016

Demand Progress: More than 115,000 Americans sign petitions opposing the AT&T takeover of Time Warner

In just over a week since the AT&T takeover of Time Warner was announced, more than 115,000 Americans have signed petitions, hosted by CREDO Action, Demand Progress, and Free Press, opposing the deal. The petitions call on Washington policymakers to stop the mega-merger, noting the dangerous concentration of economic and political power the deal would create, and that such mega-mergers rarely benefit consumers – instead serving to line the pockets of corporate executives.

“This merger would hurt consumers, stifle competition and poison our democracy,” said CREDO Deputy Political Director Josh Nelson. “It would reward Wall Street banks with huge fees while offering consumers less choice and higher prices,” he continued. “Washington’s failure to block mergers and bust up existing monopolies has already put far too much economic and political power in the hands of major corporations,” Nelson added. “Federal regulators must stop this anti-consumer merger from moving forward.”

The AT&T-Time Warner Merger Must Be Stopped

[Commentary] There is zero reason for the Department of Justice or the Federal Communications Commission — who will pool their resources to examine this deal — to approve the AT&T-Time Warner transaction. And there are more reasons to say no than there are channels on DirectTV.

The high-speed Internet access market in America is entirely stuck on a expensive plateau of uncompetitive mediocrity, with only city fiber networks providing a public option or, indeed, any alternative at all. The AT&T/TWX deal will not prompt a drop of additional competition in that market. Nor will it mean that the entertainment industry will see more competition or new entrants — just that one player will get an unfair distribution advantage. It’s hard to think of a single positive thing this merger will accomplish, other than shining a bright light on just how awful the picture is for data transmission in this nation. This deal should be dead on arrival. In fact, AT&T should spare us by dropping the idea now. This merger must not happen.

[Susan Crawford is the John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a co-director of the Berkman Center.]

Bewkes: AT&T-Time Warner Merger Creates Advertising Competition

Facing the prospect of a lengthy review of its acquisition by AT&T, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said the transaction would spur consumer choice and competition in the digital advertising industry. Speaking on Time Warner’s earnings call with analysts, Bewkes said that both companies are committed to meeting the conditions necessary to clear regulatory hurdles and close the deal. But Time Warner believes the vertical merger is pro-competitive.
Bewkes noted that the digital advertising business has become increasingly concentrated, with Facebook and Google gaining big and growing shares of that market. The combination of AT&T and Time Warner would be able to offer advertisers more choice and new ad options that could prove to be more efficient and effective. “It has great benefits for advertisers because it gives them more effective advertising and it gives them more competition in advertising,” he said.

FBI never asked Clinton aides for all their devices

The FBI never asked Hillary Clinton's top aides to turn over all the computers and smartphones they used while Clinton was secretary of state, an omission that is now triggering questions from Republican lawmakers. While the FBI made a concerted effort to obtain all the computers that were used as Clinton's private server and ultimately asked two of Clinton's lawyers for laptops used to review her e-mail messages, investigators never requested or demanded all equipment her top staffers used for work purposes during her four years at State, apparently.

"No one was asked for devices by the FBI," said an anonymous source. The decision left the FBI at least partially dependent on the aides' attorneys' decisions about which messages were work-related and therefore might have contained classified information the agents were looking for. Those messages were turned over to State in response to its request in 2015. GOP lawmakers say the decision not to demand the aides' electronics, or even to ask for them, raises doubts about how the FBI and prosecutors handled the probe.

Hacked e-mails show Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt played a crucial role in Team Hillary’s election tech

“I met with Eric Schmidt tonight,” John Podesta, the longtime Hillary Clinton adviser, told campaign manager-in-waiting Robby Mook in April 2014, more than a year before Clinton announced her candidacy for president. The e-mail, stolen by Russian hackers and published by Wikileaks, details the billionaire Alphabet chairman’s interest in backing Hillary Clinton’s nascent presidential run: “He’s ready to fund, advise recruit talent, etc. He was more deferential on structure than I expected. Wasn’t pushing to run through one of his existing firms. Clearly wants to be head outside advisor, but didn’t seem like he wanted to push others out. Clearly wants to get going. He’s still in DC tomorrow and would like to meet with you if you are in DC in the afternoon. I think it’s worth doing.” What did the meeting lead to? As of this week, Schmidt hasn’t bothered to donate a cent directly to Clinton’s campaign. Instead, he has leveraged his Silicon Valley acumen to generate a new source of influence.

How Twitter Bots Are Shaping the Election

There is power in numbers, or so the saying goes. But statistics mean different things to different people. Take Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, for instance. During the first presidential debate, Trump touted a 30-million strong Facebook and Twitter following as a sign of mainstream popularity not reflected elsewhere. The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, has stuck by traditional polls as evidence of her success. All these numbers—social media followings, polls, or statistics—are only as viable as the tools used to get to them. Political campaigns worldwide now use bots, software developed to automatically do tasks online, as a means for gaming online polls and artificially inflating social-media traffic.

Recent analysis by our research team at Oxford University reveals that more than a third of pro-Trump tweets and nearly a fifth of pro-Clinton tweets between the first and second debates came from automated accounts, which produced more than 1 million tweets in total. This data corroborates recent reports suggesting that both candidates’ social media followings are highly automated. What does this mean for democracy?

300 newsrooms sign on to monitor voting problems

On Election Nights past, ProPublica staffers were more likely to be found at home watching the results roll in on TV or online than in the newsroom. The nonprofit, public-interest journalism outfit isn’t in the business of tracking the vote. But in 2016, it’s trying something new.

Working out of a temporary newsroom setup at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York, it will be the hub of a country-wide network of journalists, journalism students, and concerned citizens tracking and reporting on problems that prevent people from voting. Amid Donald Trump’s cries of a “rigged” election and a “crooked” news media, more than 300 newsrooms—at least one in every state—have signed on to participate in the Electionland project to ensure voter problems are surfaced, reported, and rectified by the time the polls close on Election Day, when it counts.

Mass media has utterly failed to convey the policy stakes in the election

Beneath the din of e-mail coverage and the mountains of clichés about populism, the mass-market media has simply failed to convey what’s actually at stake in the election. Regardless of which candidate the policy-light tone of coverage helps at any given moment, it represents a fundamental abdication of responsibility to explain to people what is going on.

The two candidates are running on very different policy agendas, agendas that in some ways contradict the media narratives about downscale “populists” versus cosmopolitan elites. And because House Republicans are both unified on policy and entrenched in safely drawn districts, there is a sharp asymmetry in terms of the direction of change. Donald Trump is nobody’s idea of a policy wonk, but he has signed on to a real agenda, and if he wins he’ll probably implement it. The public should hear about its contents before they decide whether to make him president.

Facebook's Actions Have Dangerous Consequences for People of Color

Facebook talks a good game when it comes to fighting for racial justice and protecting human rights. Mark Zuckerberg has made important symbolic statements in support of the Movement for Black Lives, including putting up a giant Black Lives Matter sign at Facebook headquarters. But Facebook often fails to live up to this kind of rhetoric — and that has dangerous consequences for people of color.

The company has a habit of removing documentation of human-rights abuses at the request of law enforcement and government agencies. This came up most recently in the case of Korryn Gaines: At law enforcement’s request, Facebook deactivated Gaines’ livestream of an encounter with Baltimore police that left her dead and her young son wounded. There have also been numerous other reports of Facebook censoring content from Black and indigenous activists; it’s also disabled the accounts of Palestinian journalists. By removing these kinds of recordings and documentation, Facebook is stifling activism and allowing law enforcement and government agencies to control the narrative on a platform that plays an increasingly important role in breaking news. It’s time for Facebook to make a conscious choice to change its policies and live up to the values it espouses.

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