November 2016

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2017

Janet Reno, nation's first female attorney general

NEWS FROM THE FCC
   Court blocks FCC attempt to cap prison phone rates
   FCC announces that it plans to fine Network Services Solutions and its chief executive $21,691,499 for apparent violations involving the Universal Service Fund Rural Health Care Program and wire fraud [links to Federal Communications Commission]

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Emails Warrant No New Action Against Hillary Clinton, FBI Director Says
   Aides to Donald Trump have finally wrested away the Twitter account that he used to colorfully — and often counterproductively — savage his rivals [links to New York Times]
   President Obama says what many people are thinking about Trump’s Twitter account getting taken away [links to Vox]
   There are 4,000 people in a half-mile voting line in Cincinnati. This isn’t okay. [links to Vox]
   Under the Din of the Presidential Race Lies a Once and Future Threat: Cyberwarfare [links to New York Times]
   Iran’s Latest Propaganda Tool: The Clinton-Trump Debates on Live TV [links to New York Times]
   Hillary Clinton’s legacy on STEM is why anyone still uncertain should give her their vote [links to Vox]
   Fox News' Bret Baier apologizes for 'mistake' in Clinton Foundation report [links to Politico]
   New ways to fight Internet 'trolls' in a nasty political season [links to USAToday]
   This Election Has Trashed Social Media For All Of Us [links to MediaPost]
   Timothy Lee: Facebook is harming our democracy, and Mark Zuckerberg needs to do something about it [links to Vox]
   Clinton v. Trump on copyrights and patents: Reading the platform and the tea leaves [links to Ars Technica]

JOURNALISM
   Media’s Next Challenge: Overcoming the Threat of Fake News

OWNERSHIP
   Can a Media Merger Bring Success? Comcast and NBCUniversal Say Yes

DIVERSITY
   MMTC Pushes FCC to Do More on Diversity [links to Broadcasting&Cable]

TELEVISION
   Why Netflix needs Comcast more than ever — and vice versa [links to Washington Post]
   Nielsen and ESPN Feud Over Cord-Cutting Estimate [links to Wall Street Journal]

SECURITY
   NICE Framework Provides Resource for a Strong Cybersecurity Workforce [links to Department of Commerce]
   The Risk to Civil Liberties of Fighting Crime With Big Data [links to New York Times]

CONTENT
   Beware, iPhone Users: Fake Retail Apps Are Surging Before Holidays [links to New York Times]

GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
   The People’s Code: Unlock the tremendous potential of the Federal Government’s software [links to White House, The]

POLICYMAKERS
   Talking leadership with Megan Smith, the country’s chief technology officer [links to Washington Post]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   China Adopts Cybersecurity Law Despite Foreign Opposition
   Virgin to test network neutrality rules with free WhatsApp access
   Virgin Media raises fibre building targets [links to Financial Times]
   UK female tech workers earn 9 percent less than men [links to Financial Times]
   If China Meant to Chill Hong Kong Speech, Booksellers’ Case Did the Job [links to New York Times]
   An evaluation of China's evolving broadband policy: An ecosystem’s perspective [links to Telecommunications Policy]

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NEWS FROM THE FCC

COURT BLOCKS FCC ATTEMPT TO CAP PRISON PHONE RATES
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Once again, a Federal Communications Commission attempt to lower the price inmates pay for phone calls has been blocked in court. A ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a petition for a stay filed by Securus Technologies. This puts a halt to rate caps on inmate calling services that were implemented in August. “Petitioners have satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,” judges wrote. The FCC has repeatedly been stymied in attempts to lower the rates inmates pay for phone calls to family, friends, and lawyers. After a March 2016 federal appeals court ruling stayed new rate caps of 11¢ to 22¢ per minute on both interstate and intrastate calls from prisons, the FCC proposed new caps of 13¢ to 31¢ per minute in an attempt to satisfy the court. Those new caps were halted in the latest ruling.
benton.org/headlines/court-blocks-fcc-attempt-cap-prison-phone-rates | Ars Technica
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

NO NEW ACTION IN EMAIL CASE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Matt Apuzzo, Michael Schmidt, Adam Goldman]
FBI Director James Comey told Congress that he had seen no evidence in a recently discovered trove of emails to change his conclusion that Hillary Clinton should face no charges over her handling of classified information. Comey’s announcement, just two days before the election, was an effort to clear the cloud of suspicion he had publicly placed over her presidential campaign in late October when he alerted Congress that the FBI would examine the emails. “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton,” Director Comey wrote in a letter to the leaders of several congressional committees. He said agents had reviewed all communications to and from Clinton in the new trove from when she was secretary of state.
benton.org/headlines/emails-warrant-no-new-action-against-hillary-clinton-fbi-director-says | New York Times
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JOURNALISM

MEDIA’S NEXT CHALLENGE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jim Rutenberg]
[Commentary] With Donald Trump providing must-see TV theatrics, cable news has drawn record audiences. Newspapers have reached online readership highs that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. On Nov 9 comes the reckoning. The election news bubble that’s about to pop has blocked from plain view the expanding financial sinkhole at the center of the paper-and-ink branch of the news industry, which has recently seen a print advertising plunge that was “much more precipitous, to be honest with you, than anybody expected a year or so ago,” said The Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker. Papers including The Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, the Gannett publications and others have responded with plans to reorganize, shed staff, kill off whole sections, or all of the above. Taken together, it means another rapid depletion in the nation’s ranks of traditionally trained journalists whose main mission is to root out corruption, hold the powerful accountable and sort fact from fiction for voters. It couldn’t be happening at a worse moment in American public life. The internet-borne forces that are eating away at print advertising are enabling a host of faux-journalistic players to pollute the democracy with dangerously fake news items.
benton.org/headlines/medias-next-challenge-overcoming-threat-fake-news | New York Times | Wall Street Journal
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OWNERSHIP

MEDIA MERGER SUCCESS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Emily Steel]
Comcast is the country’s largest cable company, selling television, broadband and phone service to 28.3 million customers. AT&T is the country’s largest television distributor after its acquisition last year of DirecTV, and counts more than 100 million subscribers across its wireless, broadband and TV offerings. Consumer groups denounced both deals with similar complaints: that they stifle competition, create unfair pricing and spur even more consolidation in an industry already controlled by relatively few companies. And some Washington experts have pointed to the conditions placed on Comcast’s deal for NBCUniversal as being too difficult to enforce — a harbinger, they say, of similar problems with an AT&T-Time Warner merger. Comcast says there has been just one violation of the conditions attached to its deal, but critics point to several disputes. They also point out that the conditions expire in 2018.
benton.org/headlines/can-media-merger-bring-success-comcast-and-nbcuniversal-say-yes | New York Times
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

CHINA’S CYBERSECURITY LAW
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: ]
China has green-lit a sweeping and controversial law that may grant Beijing unprecedented access to foreign companies’ technology and hamstring their operations in the world’s second-largest economy. The Cyber Security Law was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislature, and will take effect in June, government officials said. Among other things, it requires internet operators to cooperate with investigations involving crime and national security, and imposes mandatory testing and certification of computer equipment. Companies must also give government investigators full access to their data if wrong-doing is suspected.
benton.org/headlines/china-adopts-cybersecurity-law-despite-foreign-opposition | Bloomberg
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VIRGIN TESTS NET NEUTRALITY RULES
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Nic Fildes]
Virgin Media is to test Europe’s network neutrality rules after launching 4G services in the UK that offer free access to Facebook’s messaging apps WhatsApp and Messenger. Those services will be “zero rated,” meaning that they can be used without eating into a customer’s data allowance. Although European Union telecoms regulations do not forbid zero-rating, guidelines published by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications — which will oversee the enforcement of the rules — have curtailed its usage. Networks are prohibited from providing free access to some apps if the data allowance is used up, for example.
benton.org/headlines/virgin-test-network-neutrality-rules-free-whatsapp-access | Financial Times
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