John McKinnon

Apparently, President Donald Trump is considering establishing a panel to review complaints of anticonservative bias on social media, in a move that would likely draw pushback from technology companies and others. The plans are still under discussion but could include the establishment of a White House-created commission that would examine allegations of online bias and censorship. The administration could also encourage similar reviews by federal regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Election Commission, apparently.

The coronavirus pandemic is boosting momentum for major broadband legislation, highlighting the widespread lack of high-speed internet in US homes at a time when it has become more essential than ever. Leading lawmakers of both parties say the long-delayed issue of closing the so-called digital divide is gaining new prominence, as Washington weighs initiatives to help speed economic recovery and improve US competitiveness. “Having affordable broadband—it’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” said House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA).

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is pushing to strip out sweeping legal protections for online content in the new trade pact with Mexico and Canada, in what would be a blow for big technology companies. Internet firms lobbied hard to include the immunity language in the trade agreement, seeing it as a way to extend to Mexico and Canada the broad umbrella of legal protection they enjoy in the US.

Congressional antitrust investigators are scrutinizing plans by Google to use a new internet protocol because of concerns that it could give the company a competitive advantage by making it harder for others to access consumer data. Investigators for the House Judiciary Committee asked Google for information about its “decision regarding whether to adopt or promote the adoption” of the protocol, which the company said is aimed at improving internet security.

The Third US Circuit Court of Appeals threw out changes to broadcast media ownership rules approved by the Federal Communications Commission in 2017, saying the agency should have looked more closely at potential impacts on minority ownership. The court  said it agreed with public-interest groups that “the Commission did not adequately consider the effect its sweeping rule changes will have on ownership of broadcast media by women and racial minorities.” The court will vacate and remand “the bulk of” the FCC’s actions over the last three years for further consideration by the agency.

Bad blood between the the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department's antitrust division -- entities investigating the giants of the tech industry -- has grown more intense with the delivery of a letter from one agency to the other that might be considered the equivalent of a brushback pitch. Both agencies assert authority to investigate whether US companies are violating antitrust law by squeezing out competition.

State attorneys general are formally launching separate antitrust probes into Facebook and Alphabet’s Google unit starting the week of Sept 9, putting added pressure on tech giants already under federal scrutiny. New York Attorney General Letitia James said that her office was organizing a bipartisan, multi-state probe into social media company Facebook. “We will use every investigative tool at our disposal to determine whether Facebook’s actions may have endangered consumer data, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, or increased the price of advertising,” she said.

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission is examining Facebook’s acquisitions as part of its antitrust investigation into the social-media giant—to determine if they were part of a campaign to snap up potential rivals before they could become a threat. Facebook disclosed the FTC’s antitrust investigation in its earnings announcement recently, but provided few details.

Apparently, Facebook uncovered emails that appear to connect Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to potentially problematic privacy practices at the company. Within the company, the unearthing of the emails in the process of responding to a continuing federal privacy investigation has raised concerns that they would be harmful to Facebook—at least from a public-relations standpoint—if they were to become public. The potential impact of the internal emails has been a factor in the tech giant’s desire to reach a speedy settlement of the investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.

State attorneys general are preparing for their own investigations into big tech platforms including Google and Facebook, based on concerns that largely mirror those driving probes by the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and Congress. Several state attorneys general and aides said a core group of AGs has been discussing how to address antitrust-related concerns around big tech companies for some months.