October 23, 2017 (Trump’s already won his war against the media)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2017
Today's Event -- Accessibility Innovations Expo, FCC -- https://www.benton.org/node/265584
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
Free speech or hate speech? Campus debates over universities in a bind over First Amendment
Commissioners Rosenworcel and Clyburn Need to Thump Trump - TVNewsCheck editorial [links to Benton summary]
President Trump’s already largely won his war against the media [links to Benton summary]
Scott Adams: The Power of the Presidential Tweet [links to Wall Street Journal]
Homegrown ‘fake news’ is a bigger problem than Russian propaganda. Here’s a way to make falsehoods more costly for politicians. - op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Chris Wallace Blasts His Own Fox News Colleagues: ‘I Don’t Like Them Bashing the Media’ [links to Wrap, The]
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
The movement to regulate Facebook is attracting powerful new allies [links to Benton summary]
A Tale Of Two Efforts To Improve Confidence In US Elections [links to National Public Radio]
How social media brought political propaganda into the 21st century [links to Marketplace]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Sens Wicker, Cortez Masto Introduce ‘SPEED Act’ - press release
AT&T Statement on SPEED Act, Legislation to Facilitate Broadband Deployment [links to AT&T]
The Cable Industry's Ingenious 'Solution' To TV Cord Cutting? Raise Broadband Rates [links to Tech Dirt]
Kevin Hassett Got it Wrong about “Title II” & Net Neutrality: The Proposed Tax Cuts Must be Worse. [links to Huffington Post]
Shane Tews: The politics of internet domain names and the case of .amazon [links to American Enterprise Institute]
WIRELESS
You can't wish away hard truths. One is we must fix Lifeline phone plan abuse. - Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO) op-ed
CONTENT
How Fiction Becomes Fact on Social Media
Google plans to share revenues with news publishers [links to Financial Times]
OWNERSHIP
Thoughtfully Modernizing the FCC’s Media Ownership Rules - FCC Commissioner O'Rielly blog
Sinclair’s Vision for a TV Network to Rival Fox Draws Critics on the Right
Washington takes aim at Big Tech: Proposed legislation for online political ads is one step towards a tougher regime [links to Financial Times]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Searching the Communications of Americans Should Require a Warrant - Peter Swire, Dick Clarke op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Report: 1 in 4 Emails That Appear to be Dot-Gov Addresses Are Phishing Attempts [links to Benton summary]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Hurricane Maria Communications Status Report for Oct. 22 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
Hurricane Maria Communications Status Report for Oct. 21 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
Hurricane Maria Communications Status Report for Oct. 20 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
Google parent company sends up solar-powered balloons to bring internet service to Puerto Rico [links to Los Angeles Times]
How FirstNet Will Make Mobile Officer Programs a Reality [links to FirstNet]
TELEVISION
NHMC warns Verizon of possible protest over Univision blackout
Verizon Gives FCC Its Side of Univision Impasse [links to Benton summary]
ADVERTISING
Verizon's Longshot Digital Ad Bet to Disrupt Google and Facebook [links to Wired]
JOURNALISM
Social media crackdowns at the Times and Journal will backfire [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
Fox’s Wallace doesn’t like colleagues echoing press attacks [links to Associated Press]
The Newseum Is Increasingly Relevant, but Can It Survive? [links to New York Times]
LABOR
FCC Issues EEO Audit Letters to Pay-TV Providers [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Tech companies to lobby for immigrant 'Dreamers' to remain in US [links to Benton summary]
Where Internet Orders Mean Real Jobs, and New Life for Communities [links to New York Times]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
DC Court Allows Live Streaming [links to Benton summary]
House Oversight Ranking Member presses White House for info on staffers' use of personal e-mails [links to Benton summary]
OpenGov Acquires Peak Democracy, Aims for Citizen Feedback Across Product Lines [links to Government Technology]
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
Tracking deregulation in the Trump era [links to Brookings]
LOBBYING
The super-secret Google X lab has hired its own lobbyists in the nation’s capital [links to Vox]
Amazon spends $3.4 Million on lobbying in record quarter [links to Hill, The]
Facebook and Google are spending big money to lobby on Russia, sex trafficking and immigration [links to Vox]
COMPANY NEWS
How Facebook’s Master Algorithm Powers the Social Network - analysis
O’Reilly Settled New, $32 Million Harassment Claim, Then Fox Renewed His Contract [links to New York Times]
How to quit Facebook [links to Vox]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
The unintended consequences of Europe’s net neutrality law after one year - AEI op-ed [links to Benton summary]
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
FREE SPEECH OR HATE SPEECH?
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Abigail Hauslohner, Susan Svrluga]
The nation’s college campuses are facing growing pressure to redefine the limits of the First Amendment in an age of resurgent white supremacists: rallies featuring clashes between far-right and far-left groups; pleas for inclusiveness and equality and against racism; and a desire for so-called safe spaces. Demands for free speech often become secondary to concerns about safety and hate and victimhood, even as those terms are increasingly difficult to define. That conflict was on display Oct 19 when hundreds of protesters at the University of Florida drowned out a speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer, prompting him to leave the stage early.
benton.org/headlines/free-speech-or-hate-speech-campus-debates-over-universities-bind-over-first-amendment | Washington Post
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
SPEED ACT
[SOURCE: US Senate, AUTHOR: Sen Roger Wicker (R-MS), Sen Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV)]
Sens Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) have introduced the “Streamlining Permitting to Enable Efficient Deployment of Broadband Infrastructure Act of 2017” (SPEED Act) (S 1988). Specifically, the SPEED Act would streamline federal permitting processes that impede the quick and efficient deployment of next-generation broadband technologies, including 5G. Currently, new and replacement telecommunications infrastructure is subject to numerous, sometimes duplicative federal approvals, including environmental and historical reviews. These duplicative approvals extend to areas that have already been established as a public right-of-way (ROW), and where telecommunications infrastructure already exists. The SPEED Act would not preempt the authority of a State or local government to apply and enforce all applicable zoning and other land use regulations on communications providers.
benton.org/headlines/sens-wicker-cortez-masto-introduce-speed-act | US Senate | Broadcasting&Cable
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WIRELESS
WE MUST FIX LIFELINE PHONE PLAN ABUSE
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Sen Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
[Commentary] No matter how valuable the Lifeline program is in theory, it’s wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. It allows the telecommunications carriers who profit from the program to verify eligibility for their participants — and too many are turning a blind eye. Lifeline was poorly structured and badly executed from the start. The goal of providing low-income Americans help regaining their economic footing with phone and broadband service is worthwhile and admirable — but that doesn’t mean that any plan doing that is worthy of unequivocal support. Sidestepping the problems in this terribly run program is a disservice to all participants as well as those footing the bill, and will endanger the program’s existence if we allow it to continue. I’ll remain engaged on this issue and committed to serious changes. In the meantime, I encourage my party, as well as my friends from across the aisle, to join me in pushing for oversight and accountability regardless of its political convenience.
benton.org/headlines/you-cant-wish-away-hard-truths-one-we-must-fix-lifeline-phone-plan-abuse | USAToday
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CONTENT
HOW FICTION BECOMES FACT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Benedict Carey]
At a time when political misinformation is in ready supply, and in demand, “Facebook, Google, and Twitter function as a distribution mechanism, a platform for circulating false information and helping find receptive audiences,” said Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College. For starters, said Colleen Seifert, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, “People have a benevolent view of Facebook, for instance, as a curator, but in fact it does have a motive of its own. What it’s actually doing is keeping your eyes on the site. It’s curating news and information that will keep you watching.” That kind of curating acts as a fertile host for falsehoods by simultaneously engaging two predigital social-science standbys: the urban myth as “meme,” or viral idea; and individual biases, the automatic, subconscious presumptions that color belief. Stopping to drill down and determine the true source of a foul-smelling story can be tricky, even for the motivated skeptic, and mentally it’s hard work. Ideological leanings and viewing choices are conscious, downstream factors that come into play only after automatic cognitive biases have already had their way, abetted by the algorithms and social nature of digital interactions.
benton.org/headlines/how-fiction-becomes-fact-social-media | New York Times
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OWNERSHIP
THOUGHTFULLY MODERNIZING THE FCCS MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly]
I think it is important to address the elephant in the room. There is currently a merger pending before the Commission that some argue will benefit from, and is the reason for, any changes to our media ownership rules. While I make no comments regarding this, or any, merger application, let me be clear: this transaction is in no way the catalyst for FCC action on these issues. First, the statute requires the FCC review its media rules. Having failed that, we now have pending petitions before us to reconsider the past shoddy effort. Second, I have been calling for media ownership reform since joining the Commission and as a staffer in the U.S. Senate before that. It’s not a new position or reaction to a pending application. Instead, for the first time, we finally have a Chairman receptive to these ideas.
benton.org/headlines/thoughtfully-modernizing-commissions-media-ownership-rules | Federal Communications Commission | B&C
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SINCLAIR DRAWS CRITICS ON THE RIGHT
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Todd Shields, Anousha Sakoui]
The fiery editorials of Sinclair Broadcast Group chief political analyst Boris Epshteyn will be beamed into seven in 10 American living rooms if the company is allowed to complete a merger that would transform it into a nationwide conservative TV juggernaut. But Sinclair’s proposed $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Media Co. is encountering opposition from unlikely foes: media stalwarts of the right. Newsmax Media, headed by friend-of-President Trump Chris Ruddy, One America News Network and TheBlaze, founded by former Fox News host Glenn Beck, are joining liberals in criticizing the merger. The Coalition to Save Local Media -- an alliance that includes One America, TheBlaze, the Common Cause policy group and Dish Network, which worries about Sinclair demanding higher fee -- said it was commencing an advertising campaign against the deal. Charles Herring, president of One America Network parent Herring Networks, said Sinclair will have leverage to force cable providers that most viewers rely upon to pay high fees for its TV stations’ signals, draining the pool of money available for independent programmers such as his news channel. “Small, large, left, right -- everybody has spoken out against this merger,” Herring said. “I’m unaware of anybody who isn’t directly or very closely associated with Sinclair speaking out in favor of the merger,” he added.
benton.org/headlines/sinclairs-vision-tv-network-rival-fox-draws-critics-right | Bloomberg
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TELEVISION
NHMC AND VERIZON
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR: Mike Snider]
The National Hispanic Media Coalition is threatening to rally Latino leaders against Verizon for its removal of Univision from the Verizon Fios service. Verizon's blackout comes as the country recovers from Hurricane Katia and a pair of earthquakes, all of which hit in September. In a letter to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, the group's president and CEO Alex Nogales said the NHMC "is outraged that at a time when catastrophic events have occurred in Mexico and Puerto Rico, Verizon has chosen to blackout Univision, the primary source of news for millions of Spanish-speaking and bilingual Latinos residing in the United States." Verizon removed Univision from its network Oct 16 when the two could not reach an agreement. Univision President and CEO Randy Falco charged Verizon with not acting in good faith in a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai.
benton.org/headlines/nhmc-warns-verizon-possible-protest-over-univision-blackout | USAToday
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COMPANY NEWS
How Facebook’s Master Algorithm Powers the Social Network - analysis
FACEBOOK ALGORITHM
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Christopher Mims]
[Commentary] Artificial intelligence permeates everything at Facebook, the social network’s head of applied machine learning says—and humans are bound to understand Facebook less than ever. The algorithm behind Facebook’s News Feed, a “modular layered cake,” extracts meaning from every post and photo.
benton.org/headlines/how-facebooks-master-algorithm-powers-social-network | Wall Street Journal
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