Op-Ed

John Kruzel at PolitiFact recently rated as “Half True” the claim that Verizon’s throttling of the data service it provided to the Santa Clara County Fire Prevention District (FPD) during the Mendocino (CA) fires demonstrated the danger of repealing the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality regulations. The claim should have been rated “Mostly False” to “Pants on Fire,” because the experts on whom Kruzel relied ignored critical facts and analysis.

In the roughly 21 months since he took the oath of office, President Donald Trump has sunk far below the already-low bar he set for himself in his ugly campaign. As I see it, there are five main fronts of this assault on our democracy. First, there is Donald Trump’s assault on the rule of law. Second, the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt. Third, the president is waging war on truth and reason. Lesley Stahl, the 60 Minutes reporter, asked Trump during his campaign why he’s always attacking the press.

In Aug it was reported that T-Mobile was asking the small operators that resell T-Mobile's excess network capacity (Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)) to write letters and opinion pieces in support of the company's proposed $36 billion merger with Sprint. By helpfully suggesting talking points to resellers —including Mint Mobile, Republic Wireless, and Ting, all of which lease access from the Big Four network operators (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile) in order to sell phone and data services to customers, T-Mobile is following the usual "air of inevitability" merger playbook

It is frequently asserted that universal broadband access is an efficient means for people to secure not just access to the web but also education, jobs, and health care. But beneath this narrative’s egalitarian veneer, and politicians’ bromides about the virtue of participating in the “digital economy,” rest many of the canards about bootstrapping that helped cause these inequities in the first place.

The most powerful false-news weapon in history is around the corner. The media industry has only a short time to get ahead of it. If technology continues its current advance, we may soon face totally convincing videos showing events that never happened — created so effectively that even experts will have trouble proving they’re fakes. “Deep fake” video will be able to show people saying, with the authentic ring of their own voices, things they never said. It will show them doing things they never did, by melding their images with other video or creating new images of them from scratch.

Public Knowledge joined 17 other organizations (including the Benton Foundation) to form the Broadband Connects America coalition. The Coalition is comprised of a wide range of consumer, rural, and social justice organizations committed to closing the digital divide.

When you build services that connect billions of people across countries and cultures, you’re going to see all of the good that humanity can do, and you’re also going to see people try to abuse those services in every way possible.

I’m alarmed at the state of our news. Fake news, “real” news, just about all news—the made-up stuff that comes without corroboration and from God knows where; the infotainment masquerading as news from media outlets that should know better; and the tweets and mistruths that spew forth daily from the White House that attempt, with considerable success, to determine what the rest us will talk about on that particular day. Over time, a society deprived of real news and information will begin to make decisions that work against its better interests.

Most critiques of the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, focus on his positions on a woman’s right to choose, his extreme deference to presidential power, or his views on sensible gun laws.

State attorneys general (AGs), for better or worse, are increasingly important actors in tech policy. The internet is a greenfield regulatory opportunity, and in the tech policy realm, AGs are flexing their muscle on online privacy, net neutrality, and data security.