October 2017

[Commentary] By the time you finish reading this article, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter will have made billions of decisions about what you and hundreds of millions of others will see next. Each time you log into a social media platform, its algorithms — sophisticated mathematical models designed by a few thousand engineers in Northern California — decide what information you should consume.

The Campaign Legal Center is teaming up with a pro-Trump PAC to try and force the Federal Election Commission to establish strong online ad disclosure rules. CLC has teamed up with the Take Back Action Fund (TBAF) to file an advisory opinion request with the FEC that they say requires the commission to address the issue of online ad transparency by the end of 2017. They don't want a new election cycle to rev up without the protective gear of strong disclosure. By law the FEC must respond to the request within 60 days, they said.

[Commentary] The exchange of information and ideas that takes place on the internet is more important now than ever. To protect it, we need to keep the current network neutrality rules in places. We need them to ensure that people working to make the world better can reach their intended audiences. We need them to ensure that artists everywhere continue to have a platform through which we can discover their work. Right now, the internet is a level playing field. The question the Trump administration needs to answer is: Why would you want to change that?