BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2017
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
Chairman Pai's Silence -- Was It Good For You?
Former-President Bush: The only way to pass along civic values is to live up to them. [links to Washington Post]
Charles Blow: President Trump Isn’t Hitler. But the Lying … [links to New York Times]
ELECTIONS & MEDIA
CIA director distorts intelligence community’s findings on Russian interference [links to Benton summary]
President Trump suggests FBI may have ‘paid for’ dossier alleging Russia ties [links to Washington Post]
Google will testify before Intelligence Committees Nov 1 [links to Hill, The]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Innovators in Digital Inclusion: Axiom - research
Connecting every San Francisco resident, business to fiber-optic internet would cost up to $1.9 billion
Google Fiber is now in Louisville thanks to new fiber deployment strategy
Lacking Broadband Service to Blame for North Carolina County’s Business Woes [links to Mountaineer, The]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
Op-ed: No Good Decision to Come from Microsoft Case at Supreme Court [links to New York Times]
Book excerpt: why governments should protect us from big tech [links to Guardian, The]
Tech companies are hindering criminal investigations, under outdated Stored Communications Act of 1986 [links to CNN]
The Guardian view on internet security: complexity is vulnerable [links to Guardian, The]
FCC Announces The Second Meeting Of The Communications Security, Reliability, And Interoperability Council Scheduled For October 26, 2017 At FCC Headquarters [links to Federal Communications Commission]
SURVEILLANCE
Senate Intelligence Committee to debate in secret a bill that would renew a powerful spy tool
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Hurricane Maria Communications Status Report for Oct. 19 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
CONTENT
Smartphones Are Weapons of Mass Manipulation, and Tristan Harris Is Declaring War on Them
Senators press Apple to explain removal of apps in China [links to Hill, The]
Verizon’s streaming TV service reportedly delayed until spring 2018 at the earliest [links to Verge, The]
YouTube’s messy fight with its most extreme creators [links to Vox]
The Incredibly Technical History of Digital Rights Management [links to Vice]
TELECOM
FCC Shouldn’t Give Up on Reforming Inmate Phone Services - FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny op-ed
TELEVISION
FCC will soon lift a freeze on making major modifications to TV stations' coverage areas [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Verizon sees more signs of pay-TV cord cutting [links to USAToday]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
FCC Seeks Public Comment on Mobility Fund Phase II Challenge Process Procedure and Technical Implementation [links to Federal Communications Commission]
OWNERSHIP
With consent from Brazil, AT&T has only one regulatory hurdle left before it can gobble Time Warner
Tribune Media Shareholders Approve Sinclair Deal [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Sinclair-Tribune Critics Launch Ad Campaign [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
Silicon Valley’s Tech Giants Are Headed for a Reckoning: How Facebook and Google became mercenaries—and now casualties—in the information war. [links to Vanity Fair]
James Pethokoukis: Uncle Sam is not going to smash Silicon Valley [links to American Enterprise Institute]
Bronwyn Howell: Are three mobile networks necessarily less competitive than four? [links to American Enterprise Institute]
JOURNALISM
Todd Gitlin: The News Media’s Challenge in Our Constant State of Emergency [links to Moyers and Company]
Journalists, your local librarian is a powerful ally [links to Local News Lab]
ADVERTISING
The ad industry is changing—here’s what publishers can expect [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
CHILDREN & MEDIA
The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Age Zero to Eight 2017 - research [links to Benton summary]
TRANSPORTATION
Amid a historic spike in US traffic fatalities, federal data on the danger of distracted driving are getting worse. [links to Bloomberg]
POLICYMAKERS
President Trump Nominates Simons, Chopra for FTC - press release
Chairman Pai Names Johnson the New FCC General Counsel - press release [links to Benton summary]
COMPANY NEWS
Verizon’s Ellis: Fiber is a key growth component for our wireline business [links to Fierce]
In lawsuit, Charter accuses its employees of cutting cables 125 times during strike [links to Ars Technica]
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
CHAIRMAN PAI’S SILENCE
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Robbie McBeath]
Last week we shared A New Salvo in President Trump’s Offensive on the Free Press, to tell you about how President Donald Trump took to twitter to threaten to revoke the broadcast licenses of NBC. After six days of silence, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai this week finally made a statement on the matter. But his response was inadequate for many and demonstrated a troubling pattern with Pai’s views on freedom of the press.
benton.org/headlines/chairman-pais-silence-was-it-good-you | Benton Foundation
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
AXIOM
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Matthew Kopel]
Axiom is more than just a technology and broadband services provider. The company -- along with AETC -- is leading a digital equity movement in Maine which it plans to take national in the years ahead. The key to its national push is the recently-announced National Digital Equity Center (NDEC). NDEC, as a part of the AETC nonprofit arm, will seek to engage communities all over the country to provide the expertise needed to mobilize broadband technologies through digital inclusion, literacy efforts, education, resource planning, funding research, and infrastructure leveraging and stakeholder engagement.
benton.org/headlines/innovators-digital-inclusion-axiom | Benton Foundation
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CONNECTING SAN FRANCISCO
[SOURCE: San Francisco Examiner, AUTHOR: Joshua Sabatini]
San Francisco is on the verge of becoming an internet connectivity leader by asking the marketplace to help create a fast network on a scale never before achieved by a major U.S. city. The cost to create a fiber-optic network connecting every home and business in San Francisco to the internet would cost up to $1.9 billion, according to a new city-hired consultant report released today. And the best way to get there is through a public-private partnership. “The opportunity The City is about to present to the private sector is unprecedented,” reads the report by Maryland-based consultant Columbia Telecommunications Corporation in partnership with financial advisory firm IMG Rebel. “There has never before existed in any American community an opportunity for a private entity to lease fiber or broadband infrastructure to reach 100 percent of the homes and businesses in the community,” the report says.
benton.org/headlines/connecting-every-san-francisco-resident-business-fiber-optic-internet-would-cost-19 | San Francisco Examiner | read the report
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GOOGLE FIBER IN LOUISVILLE
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Google Fiber has begun taking signups in Louisville, Kentucky, after a tumultuous process involving lawsuits filed against the local government by incumbent broadband providers. AT&T and Charter both sued the metro government in Louisville and Jefferson County in an attempt to stop a new ordinance designed to give Google Fiber easier access to utility poles. The lawsuits haven't stopped the new ordinance, as AT&T's was thrown out of court and Charter's is still pending. But instead of hanging wires on utility poles, Google Fiber ended up burying the cables with a "microtrenching" strategy that is quicker than traditional underground fiber deployment. While it has been more than two years since Google Fiber announced that it would build in Louisville, it has only been a few months since construction began. "Louisville is the fastest we’ve ever moved from construction announcement, which happened in May, to signing up customers," a Google Fiber executive said. Residents in the Portland, Strathmoor and Newburg neighborhoods of Louisville can now sign up for service. Google Fiber is also providing a gigabit connection at the Neighborhood House, a community center for children and families living in poverty.
benton.org/headlines/google-fiber-now-louisville-thanks-new-fiber-deployment-strategy | Ars Technica
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SURVEILLANCE
FISA LEGISLATION
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Ellen Nakashima]
The Senate Intelligence Committee is planning on Oct 24 to debate in secret a bill that would reauthorize a powerful surveillance authority without imposing any new restraints on the FBI’s ability to search and use the communications of Americans gathered under that law in national security and criminal prosecutions. The bill, drafted by Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC), would enshrine the FBI’s right to use emails and other data collected from US tech companies without individualized warrants in cases related to terrorism, espionage and serious crimes such as murder and kidnapping. The legislation is aimed at revising a law often referred to as Section 702, a portion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amended in 2008. It authorizes the government to gather the communications of foreign targets located overseas, a process that may incidentally sweep up the emails, phone calls and texts of Americans. The law is due to expire at the end of 2017.
benton.org/headlines/senate-intelligence-committee-debate-secret-bill-would-renew-powerful-spy-tool | Washington Post
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CONTENT
SMARTPHONE MANIPULATION
[SOURCE: Technology Review, AUTHOR: Rachel Metz]
If, like an ever-growing majority of people in the U.S., you own a smartphone, you might have the sense that apps in the age of the pocket-sized computer are designed to keep your attention as long as possible. You might not have the sense that they’re manipulating you one tap, swipe, or notification at a time. But Tristan Harris thinks that’s just what’s happening to the billions of us who use social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, and he’s on a mission to steer us toward potential solutions—or at least to get us to acknowledge that this manipulation is, in fact, going on. Harris, formerly a product manager turned design ethicist at Google, runs a nonprofit called Time Well Spent, which focuses on the addictive nature of technology and how apps could be better designed; it pursues public advocacy and supports design standards that take into account what’s good for people’s lives, rather than just seeking to maximize screen time. He says he’s moving away from Time Well Spent these days (his new effort is as yet unnamed), trying to hold the tech industry accountable for the way it persuades us to spend as much time as possible online, with tactics ranging from Snapchat’s snapstreaks to auto-playing videos on sites like YouTube and Facebook.
benton.org/headlines/smartphones-are-weapons-mass-manipulation-and-tristan-harris-declaring-war-them | Technology Review
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TELECOM
FCC SHOULDN'T GIVE UP ON REFORMING INMATE PHONE SERVICES
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, FTC Commissioner Terrell McSweeny]
[Commentary] There is one aspect of criminal justice reform that the current administration has tragically ignored: the broken market for inmate calling services. Inmate calling is a horribly malfunctioning system that not only adversely impacts inmates and their families, but our society as a whole. Providers of inmate calling services compete and win business not based on being the lowest-cost bidder, as is customary for most requests for proposals to governmental agencies. Rather, they win contracts based on which of them is willing to pay the most in kickbacks (they call them “commissions”) to those correctional facilities. The result is not the lowest cost service for inmates and their families, but instead, rates for phone calls that have been as high as $14 per minute. The FCC should end the practice of picking and choosing, ignoring and punting, while an unarguably dysfunctional market regime preys on the most vulnerable. The FCC can and should adopt targeted rules to address the costs of interstate calls. States and localities can and should reform their practices to cap rates and eliminate kickbacks. And Congress can and should enact a legislative solution that provides a firm legal foundation for further inmate calling reforms. Private litigation could also attack these practices, and some lawsuits have already been filed. But policymakers should also work to help new services and technologies enter the marketplace, to increase competition and lower prices. There is no good policy reason why an inmate’s family should have to use the most antiquated and expensive systems to communicate with loved ones when viable alternatives exist. The time to act is now.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-shouldnt-give-reforming-inmate-phone-services | Wired
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OWNERSHIP
ATT/TIME WARNER DEAL
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Meg James]
AT&T has secured the blessing of Brazilian regulators for its $85-billion takeover of Time Warner, moving the blockbuster deal closer to the finish line. The company said Brazil’s antitrust authority, the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica, had signed off on AT&T’s application to acquire the media company which owns CNN, HBO, TBS, Cartoon Network and Hollywood’s biggest film and television studio, Warner Bros. Now, AT&T must win approval from the US Department of Justice before it can finalize the merger. The government’s review slowed over the summer because the Senate’s approval of President Trump’s appointment of Makan Delrahim as chief of the Justice Department’s anti-trust division was made in late September. The Justice Department and AT&T continue to negotiate conditions for the merger, according to knowledgeable people who do not want to be identified discussing the sensitive process. AT&T earlier had received approval from regulators in Chile and Mexico. Brazilian regulators concluded that AT&T would not be required to divest any assets.
benton.org/headlines/consent-brazil-att-has-only-one-regulatory-hurdle-left-it-can-gobble-time-warner | Los Angeles Times
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POLICYMAKERS
FTC NOMINEES
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: Press release]
President Donald Trump announced his intent to nominate Rohit Chopra and Joseph Simons to the Federal Trade Commission. After confirmation, Simons would serve as FTC chairman.
Rohit Chopra of New York is nominated for the remainder of a seven-year term expiring September 25, 2019. Mr. Chopra is currently a Senior Fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, where he focuses on consumer protection issues facing young people and military families. From 2010-2015, he served at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as Assistant Director, where he oversaw the agency’s work on student financial services issues. The Secretary of the Treasury also appointed him as the agency’s student loan ombudsman. In 2016, Mr. Chopra served as Special Adviser to the Secretary of Education. Prior to his government service, he was an associate at McKinsey & Company, where he served clients in the financial services and consumer technology sectors. Mr. Chopra holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s in business administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship. He resides in New York.
Joseph Simons of Virginia, for a seven-year term beginning September 26, 2017, and upon confirmation designate chair. Mr. Simons is currently a partner and co-chair of the Antitrust Group at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. His previous clients include many tech or tech-related firms, such as MasterCard, Microsoft, Sharp and Sony, the Washington Post reports. He has also represented companies in the defense, music, software, telecom and transportation industries. He was previously in charge of antitrust enforcement at the Federal Trade Commission, serving as Director of the Bureau of Competition from 2001 until 2003. Among his accomplishments, Mr. Simons was responsible for overseeing the re-invigoration of the FTC’s non-merger enforcement program. Under his leadership, the Bureau initiated over 100 investigations and produced more non-merger enforcement actions in one year than in any other year in the prior two decades or since. Mr. Simons is also a co-developer of “Critical Loss Analysis,” a technique for market definition that has been incorporated into the Department of Justice and FTC Merger Guidelines, as well as applied in numerous court decisions. Mr. Simons received his A.B. in Economics and History from Cornell University in 1980 and his J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center in 1983.
benton.org/headlines/president-trump-nominates-simons-chopra-ftc | White House, The | Washington Post | LA Times
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