BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2017
Today's Event -- A new course for the FCC: A conversation with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, AEI https://www.benton.org/node/259000
NET NEUTRALITY
For Now, Net Neutrality's Future Is At The FCC - analysis
Did network neutrality keep broadband out of low-income neighborhoods?
FCC Chairman Pai: Net Neutrality Rules Treating Internet As Utility Stifle Growth
Get government out of the Internet’s business - Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen Mike Lee (R-UT) op-ed
How Trump Is Handing AT&T, Verizon and Comcast A Double Win
4 Misleading Things ISPs And The FCC Need To Stop Claiming About Net Neutrality - Consumerist
Let’s read between the lines on what the FCC boss told us about his net neutrality plans - Vox analysis
Rural Broadband Members of USTelecom Praise Pai on Title II [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Op-Ed: Defending Democracy and Democratic Communications [links to Common Dreams]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Gigabit Opportunity Act Would Use Tax Breaks to Spur Broadband Deployment
Plan to kill municipal broadband fails in Maine legislature [links to Benton summary]
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
How President Trump thinks like a journalist [links to Axios]
Trump Praises Fox News Ratings, Trashes ‘Out of Control’ Media [links to Wrap, The]
PRIVACY/SECURITY
New Seattle cable rule to protect internet data privacy [links to Benton summary]
New York City, Seattle Enlist in Fight to Preserve Internet Privacy for Residents [links to Government Technology]
Op-ed: Consumer Privacy Is Tech, Not Ad, Issue [links to MediaPost]
Billboards target lawmakers who voted to let ISPs sell user information [links to Benton summary]
State Dept. seeks tougher visa scrutiny, including social media checks [links to Reuters]
ACLU says demanding US citizens unlock phones at the border is unconstitutional [links to Vox]
The End of the NSA’s ‘About’ Searches Is Just the Beginning [links to Medium]
Law Enforcement Agencies' Requests for Facebook Data Continue to Rise [links to Government Technology]
TELECOM
Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, July–December 2016 - National Center for Health Statistics
Comm O'Rielly Remarks at ACA International's Washington Insights Conference - speech [links to Benton summary]
CONTENT
What do we owe the people who protect us from the worst parts of the Internet? [links to Benton summary]
Who we are as data might soon become more important than who we are as people [links to Quartz]
How One Major Internet Company Helps Serve Up Hate on the Web [links to Benton summary]
ELECTIONS
An Evaluation of 2016 Election Polls in the U.S. - AAPOR research [links to Benton summary]
President Trump signs order aimed at allowing churches to engage in more political activity [links to Washington Post]
JOURNALISM
Navigating cautiously: Tentative drone journalism [links to Radio Television Digital News Association]
Publishers suffer in spar between social giants [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
For Journalists Covering the Toughest Stories, Protection Can Be Thin [links to New America]
TRANSPORTATION
Uber Faces Federal Criminal Probe Over ‘Greyball’ Software [links to Benton summary]
COMPANY NEWS
Fox News Besieged by New Bias Lawsuit and Federal Inquiry [links to New York Times]
Qualcomm seeking import ban on iPhones [links to Hill, The]
POLICYMAKERS
Chairman Pai to deliver speech touting first 100 days at AEI on May 5 [links to Hill, The]
Senior DOJ, FCC Lawyer Jon Sallet Joins Steptoe’s Antitrust, Telecom Groups - press release [links to Benton summary]
Commissioner O'Rielly Statement on Resignation of USAC CEO - press release [links to Benton summary]
Washington’s 100 Top Tech Leaders [links to Washingtonian]
Amid scrutiny, Corey Lewandowski quits his new lobbying firm [links to Washington Post]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
To Understand ‘Brexit,’ Look to Britain’s Tabloids [links to New York Times]
As US media gave Trump a honeymoon, international journalists took aim [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
European tech lobbies for action against Apple and Google [links to Financial Times]
Gigaclear raises £111m to roll out UK rural broadband [links to Financial Times]
Google Agrees to Pay Italy $334 Million in Back Taxes [links to New York Times]
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NET NEUTRALITY
NET NEUTRALITY AT THE FCC
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Robbie McBeath]
[Commentary] In the week since Federal Communications Commission Chairman Pai benton logoopened a new chapter in the ongoing network neutrality debate, the courts and Congress have confirmed that the ball is squarely in the FCC's court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected a request to further review the net neutrality rules it upheld in 2016, citing the Chairman’s upcoming Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) as the reason. In the legislative branch, Republican Senators introduced a bill that would nullify the FCC’s net neutrality rules and prevent any future action by the FCC. But Senate Democrats claim a bipartisan compromise is highly unlikely. For now, net neutrality's future is at the FCC.
https://www.benton.org/blog/now-net-neutralitys-future-fcc
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NET NEUTRALITY AND INVESTMENT
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Mike Snider]
A big reason current network neutrality rules need to get the boot, says Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, is that they're curbing broadband investment in low-income neighborhoods — cutting off important information and services 21st-century citizens access via high-speed Internet. But were these 2015 rules, which aimed to prevent companies that bring Internet into homes from favoring their own content over others, really the culprit? A review of broadband investment over the past two years paints a more complicated picture. One study of the largest carriers, the basis Pai’s claim, does show investment fell over the two-year period the rules were in effect. But that was largely due to AT&T. It's blamed the Open Internet rules for decreased broadband investment. Analysts point out, however, that like other large carriers it was engaged in a competitive shift that likely played a role — two mammoth acquisitions including the $85.4 billion deal for Time Warner. At the same time, Comcast — another big spender of broadband investment — increased its outlays by double digits. "You are going to hear a lot of posturing when it comes to the attempts to stifle some of those regulations," said Tuna Amobi, an equity analyst at CFRA Research who tracks companies such as Comcast and Charter Communications (which want the rules repealed) and Netflix (which supports them). "What we saw ultimately was that, frankly, it was more or less a lot of noise," Amobi said. The market is simply too competitive not to invest, he says. "No one wants to be left behind."
benton.org/headlines/did-network-neutrality-keep-broadband-out-low-income-neighborhoods | USAToday
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PAI Q&A
[SOURCE: National Public Radio, AUTHOR: Alina Selyukh, David Greene]
A Q&A with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. He wants the government to focus on correcting actual anti-competitive behavior that Internet providers might demonstrate, rather than regulating against hypothetical harms. "Preemptive regulation is appropriate when there's a major market failure — when the Internet is broken," he says. Chairman Pai argues that his predecessor, Tom Wheeler, unnecessarily inserted the government into the Internet economy, stifling its innovation and growth.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-chairman-pai-net-neutrality-rules-treating-internet-utility-stifle-growth | National Public Radio
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GET GVT OUT OF THE INTERNET'S BUSINESS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen Mike Lee (R-UT)]
[Commentary] We reject the idea that the federal government should control the Internet. That’s why we have introduced the Restoring Internet Freedom Act, which will complement Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s efforts to repeal the 2015 Internet takeover by preventing the FCC from issuing any similar regulations in the future. As Pai recently explained, “regulations designed for monopoly will push the market further toward monopoly.” This is not what is best for citizens in Utah, Wisconsin, Texas or the rest of the country. We want more competition, not less. More investment, not less. More innovation, not less. We support an open Internet. But we reject the notion that heavy-handed regulations are the way to accomplish this goal.
benton.org/headlines/get-government-out-internets-business | Washington Post
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DOUBLE WIN FOR CORPORATIONS
[SOURCE: Fortune, AUTHOR: Aaron Pressman]
The Trump administration proposed plans giving two big wins to the nation's largest communications companies. President Donald Trump proposed tax cuts that would make AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast among the biggest winners of his plan. Later, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai proposed lifting net neutrality rules that put limits on Internet service providers.
benton.org/headlines/how-trump-handing-att-verizon-and-comcast-double-win | Fortune
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4 MISLEADING THINGS ISPS AND FCC NEED TO STOP CLAIMING ABOUT NN
[SOURCE: Consumerist, AUTHOR: Kate Cox]
[Commentary] Claim: "Network neutrality has hurt investment and the broadband industry." Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai keeps making this claim, so we’ll keep debunking it.
Claim: “We support net neutrality, but just want to get rid of Title II.” A federal court ruled in early 2014 that the legal underpinning for the FCC’s rules was no good, and strongly implied the best way to square that circle would be common carrier classification. Without it the FCC did not have the legal authority to make ISPs adhere to rules about blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization of content.
Claim: "You can’t use old law because the internet is new technology." This is where we get to outright, bald-faced hypocrisy, instead of disingenuous misdirection.
Claim: “We should leave this to Congress.” In the hyper-partisan, hyper-polarized, frankly completely bonkers political world of 2017, getting Congress to act on anything is an uphill battle, to put it mildly. Getting them to do it in a bipartisan way is like herding unicorns.
benton.org/headlines/4-misleading-things-isps-and-fcc-need-stop-claiming-about-net-neutrality | Consumerist
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READING BETWEEN THE LINES
[SOURCE: Vox, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai stressed the importance that net neutrality protections come in the form of “light-touch regulation.” And his public notice leaves it up for tech and telecom companies to debate exactly how that might look. [To hell with broadband subscribers’ opinions.]
What “light touch” really mean? In short, “light touch” net neutrality could take a lot of forms, but here’s one of them: There’s a world in which the FCC doesn’t have any explicit, preemptive net neutrality rules on its books at all.
What Pai really thinks about online fast lanes: “These don’t exist, and prior to 2015, they didn’t exist ... so we’re talking about something that’s entirely hypothetical,” he said of such deals. That means, to Chairman Pai, maybe the FCC doesn’t need to ban them outright.
How Chairman Pai plans to approach public comments: What happens if a majority still thrashes Chairman Pai and his plan to roll back the Obama administration’s work? “Well, look, that’s part of the process. ... After that [public comment period] is over, the agency takes stock of what’s in the record.” While he said the FCC must have “substantial evidence” justifying its work, he said “there’s no numerical threshold the courts have applied” to evaluate if regulators act appropriately. And by the way, he stopped short of saying consumers’ fears are unfounded. Asked if public-interest groups had been disingenuous, he replied: “The parade of horribles trotted out have no resonance in fact.”
benton.org/headlines/lets-read-between-lines-what-fcc-boss-told-us-about-his-net-neutrality-plans | Vox
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
GO ACT
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
The Gigabit Opportunity Act, also known as the GO Act, aims to spur gigabit broadband deployment by using a range of tax breaks. Sen Shelley Moore Capito (R–WV) said the GO Act “gives states flexibility, streamlines existing regulations and eliminates barriers to investment so we can better connect our low-income and rural communities.” The act calls for state governors to establish Gigabit Opportunity Zones that would be eligible for tax breaks including enabling companies to immediately expense the cost of gigabit-capable equipment and temporarily deferring capital gains for broadband investments and upgrades. It also directs the FCC to release a framework that encourages states, counties and cities to voluntarily adopt streamlined broadband laws, with which Gigabit Opportunity Zones would have to comply. If this sounds familiar, that’s because the Gigabit Opportunity Act is based, in part, on a Gigabit Opportunity Zone proposal made by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai prior to his chairmanship. Not surprisingly, Chairman Pai issued a statement in support of the proposed legislation. The Gigabit Opportunity Act, he said, is “an important step toward closing the digital divide.” He added that “[w]ith targeted tax incentives and regulatory streamlining, the GO Act aims to remove the major barriers holding back internet access in economically challenged areas.” Some stakeholders argue, however, that while removing regulatory barriers and providing tax incentives can help spur broadband deployment, they are not a complete solution.
benton.org/headlines/gigabit-opportunity-act-would-use-tax-breaks-spur-broadband-deployment | telecompetitor
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TELECOM
WIRELESS SUBSTITUTION
[SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics, AUTHOR: Stephen Blumberg, Julian Luke]
The second 6 months of 2016 was the first time that a majority of American homes had only wireless telephones. Preliminary results from the July–December 2016 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that 50.8% of American homes did not have a landline telephone but did have at least one wireless telephone (also known as cellular telephones, cell phones, or mobile phones) — an increase of 2.5 percentage points since the second 6 months of 2015. More than 70% of all adults aged 25-34 and of adults renting their homes were living in wireless-only households. This report presents the most up-to-date estimates available from the federal government concerning the size and characteristics of this population.
benton.org/headlines/wireless-substitution-early-release-estimates-national-health-interview-survey-july | National Center for Health Statistics | The Verge
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