Editorial

Michael Pack, the alt-right filmmaker installed by President Donald Trump to run US foreign broadcasting operations, remains on course to dismantle the independent journalism that has been their calling card. Apparently, Voice of America sources say Pack is refusing to renew the visas of foreign-born journalists who are vital to its mission of producing news reports in 47 languages. Pack has also frozen all VOA contracts, under which some 40 percent of its staff are employed.

Within a 48-hour period this week, many of the world’s internet giants took steps that would have been unthinkable for them even months earlier. Taken independently, these changes might have felt incremental and isolated — the kind of refereeing and line-drawing that happens every day on social media. But arriving all at once, they felt like something much bigger: a sign that the Wild Wild Web — the tech industry’s decade-long experiment in unregulated growth and laissez-faire platform governance — is coming to an end.

Access to the internet is a basic human right, the United Nations declared in 2016. But, as the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted, it is a right that is still denied to billions of people at a time when connectivity has never been more important. For professional classes in rich countries with good internet access and the ability to work from home, the crisis has been made infinitely easier thanks to Zoom video calls and Amazon deliveries. It has been a far more precarious existence for those who have manual jobs and children at home with no internet access.

With expanded unemployment benefits set to expire at the end of July, many parents will have no choice but to return to work by September. Even for parents who can work from home, home schooling is often a crushing burden that’s destroying careers, mental health and family relationships.

T-Mobile and Sprint completed their merger on April 1. And now — no surprise to the deal’s opponents — the merged company is already reneging on some of conditions regulators imposed to approve the deal. Most recently T-Mobile has moved to overturn several conditions imposed by the California Public Utilities Commission, including at least one the company specifically promised Atty. Gen.

Far too many Americans are cut off from access to affordable high-speed Internet even as more of our core systems go digital. Unchecked, the result will be an America even more unequal than the one we see today. The United States has failed in the equitable delivery of this public good. The disparity will almost certainly lead to further inequity. No American should suffer the indignity of searching for Internet. Starbucks WiFi is not a social safety net.

For decades, US government-funded foreign broadcasting has distinguished itself from that of undemocratic nations with its commitment to quality journalism and editorial independence.

The digital future has long been talked about but the pandemic has brought it a big step closer. For millions, technology has been a lifeline in a new, socially-distanced reality. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. For the companies, the crisis has not only cemented their market power but provided an opportunity to show that they can be responsible corporate citizens.

The digital divide was a problem before the pandemic. Now it’s an existential problem for students who can’t access live-streamed classes, for the ill who can’t virtually consult with a doctor, for isolated individuals who can’t find human connection on their laptop screens. The burden, as ever, disproportionately falls on the low-income, rural and nonwhite. There’s more the government can do today, and there’s an opportunity to lay the groundwork for the days to come.

Broadband already powers much of our modern lives, but COVID-19 has acted as an accelerant, a fuel of sorts that has driven many essential activities online. The most significant way to move the dial for Americans without broadband is by changing policy at the federal, state and local level, not only for more funding but to remove roadblocks so that broadband can reach rural and underserved Americans faster.