49 organizations spanning multiple industries announced they have joined forces as part of a new coalition dedicated to helping close America’s digital divide.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Oversight Subcommittee Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO), Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) sent letters to Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Jack Dorsey, the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter, to request information on their companies’ response to disinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city leaders announced that NYC will accelerate broadband deployment in all five boroughs, prioritizing public housing communities, which have suffered disproportionately during the COVID-19 pandemic. NYC will make a historic $157 million investment in ending digital redlining and providing high-speed internet, including $87 million redirected from the NYPD budget. This investment will extend new internet service options to 600,000 underserved New Yorkers, including 200,000 NYCHA residents over the next 18 months.
Google, Facebook, Amazon and other big American tech companies collectively spend tens of billions of dollars each year on things like massive warehouses of computer and internet equipment that let them speed along your Instagram posts and home shopping purchases. You might have driven by some of these computing centers and never noticed them. But the tech giants’ efforts to make these boring workhorses more efficient and effective is one of the most important advancements in technology in the last decade.
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