June 2017

A Q&A with Mark Lloyd, professor of communications at USC’s Annenberg School and former associate general counsel and chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission from 2009-2012.

In the interview, Lloyd discusses media consolidation, saying, "The big challenge is that we have an FCC that is not really even looking at the impact of media consolidation on what it means to local communities, on what it means to whether or not folks in those local communities actually get the service that they need. So one of the things that I wrote about before, which is sort of obscure and sort of hard to figure out, is that there is this rule that local radio stations actually have to be in the local radio stations that they operate; it’s called the main control room....what’s happening now is not only that these rules are sort of vague and not really particularly well enforced; it’s that we have an administration that has sent signals to the broadcasters, to the telecommunications companies that provide Internet service, that these rules will not be enforced. They’ve been sent a very clear signal: you can do what it is that you want to do if you have a license to operate, if you are a broad band provider, you can do whatever you want, we’re not going to enforce net neutrality, whether it’s determined to be legal or not legal. This FCC is not going to enforce it."

Facebook may soon help its users do something unfamiliar on the platform: pay for news. The social-media giant is building a feature that would allow users to subscribe to publishers directly from the mobile app, apparently. The feature, long-requested by publishers, is expected to roll out by the end of 2017. Many details remain up in the air, but discussions have centered around making the feature available only on stories published natively to Facebook through its Instant Articles product. Talks have also focused on how to structure the arrangement, with Facebook leaning toward a metered-payment model, which would allow users to read some articles for free each month before prompting them to pay.

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission’s proposed rollback of its 2015 Open Internet Order has put the term “net neutrality” back in the political zeitgeist. The phrase itself is more strategic marketing than precise meaning, but understanding that all it really means is heavy-handed government regulation of the internet makes it clear that net neutrality policy is bad for broadband consumers.

The net neutrality debate has little to do with making the internet open for users to go where they wish online. Americans have always enjoyed that liberty, even before the Open Internet Order was passed. Internet service providers have every incentive to provide that freedom to their customers.

[Jessica Melugin is an adjunct fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington]

As Silicon Valley is increasingly bifurcated into haves and have-nots, labor rights activists are becoming more vocal about the need for these tech companies to “make the world a better place” for the tens of thousands of low-wage contract laborers that make it possible for technology companies to function. The situation among Silicon Valley’s low-wage contract workers has become so perilous that in January, thousands of security guards working at immensely profitable companies like Facebook and Cisco followed the shuttle-bus drivers and voted to unionize in an effort to collectively bargain for higher wages and better benefits. The upcoming labor contract negotiations between the roughly 3,000 security guards (represented by SEIU United Service Workers West) and their employers is one of the biggest developments in Silicon Valley labor organizing to happen in 2017.