Cecilia Kang

After two days and more than 10 hours of questioning of Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, there was widespread consensus among lawmakers that social media technology — and its potential for abuse — had far outpaced Washington and that Congress should step in to close the gap. But the agreement largely ended there.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's appearance before Congress turned into something of a pointed gripe session, with both Democratic and Republican senators attacking Facebook for failing to protect users’ data and stop Russian election interference, and raising questions about whether Facebook should be more heavily regulated. Of specific interest were the revelations that sensitive data of as many as 87 million Facebook users were harvested without explicit permission by a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, which was connected to the Trump campaign.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, tried to get ahead of a week of intense scrutiny for him and his company by visiting several top lawmakers in Washington and reiterating how sorry he was for the social network’s failings. He held several meetings with leaders of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees. He also posted testimony apologizing for Facebook’s role in false news, data privacy leaks and foreign interference in elections, as his company announced that it would form an independent commission of academic researchers to study social media’s impact on elections.

For Facebook, April 10, 2018 is being seen as a kind of dreaded final exam. That’s when Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, will swap out his trademark gray T-shirts for a suit and tie, and embark on a two-day marathon of testimony on Capitol Hill. His goal? To apologize for Facebook’s missteps, reassure Congress that Facebook intends to stop foreign powers from using its service to meddle in American elections and detail the company’s plans to better protect its users’ privacy.

The head of Turner Broadcasting pushed back against one of the central arguments of the government’s case to block the AT&T and Time Warner merger, saying that his company’s channels would not be used as a weapon against rivals if the deal went through. The Justice Department has argued that Turner, which is owned by Time Warner, owns “must-have” channels like CNN and TNT that the merged company would use as leverage in negotiations with other cable and satellite TV operators.

Would the combination of AT&T and Time Warner hurt consumers or help them? 

Politics have been at the center of the public debate about the Justice Department’s lawsuit to block AT&T’s $85 billion purchase of Time Warner. But the trial itself, starting later in March, is shaping up to be a fight focused on classic issues in antitrust law.  In court filings on March 9, the Justice Department and AT&T laid out the arguments that they plan to make in the trial. Regulators will argue that the deal will hurt competition and lead to higher prices.

As the United States and China look to protect their national security needs and economic interests, the fight between the two financial superpowers is increasingly focused on a single area: technology. The fight over technology is redefining the rules of engagement in an era when national security and economic power are closely intertwined. China, under President Xi Jinping, has launched an ambitious plan to dominate mobile technology, supercomputers, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge industries, putting huge resources behind an effort that it considers crucial to the country’

Being at the forefront of a new technology often provides a strategic advantage. That helps explain why there is so much scrapping now by companies and countries over a next wave of wireless technology known as 5G.

Sinclair remains locked in a prolonged battle with Justice Department antitrust officials over how many stations it must sell to get their approval to buy Tribune Media. It is latest cloud over Sinclair’s $3.9 billion deal, coinciding with an internal investigation underway at the Federal Communications Commission into the agency’s relationship with the company. At issue is how much power Sinclair, the country’s largest broadcaster, will have over local media markets and national television audiences.