Reporting

Toshiba, the huge but struggling Japanese conglomerate, traded some of its size for financial security by selling off most of its profitable microchip business. It was not the way the company, which has long been accused of being bloated and directionless, had hoped to slim down.

Toshiba said it had signed a deal to sell 60 percent of the microchip unit, Toshiba Memory Corporation, to a group of international investors that includes Bain Capital and Apple. The deal, which followed months of tumultuous negotiations, will net Toshiba about $14 billion. In addition to Apple, investors include three other American businesses: Seagate Technology and Kingston Technology, two data storage companies, and a venture capital arm of Dell, the computer maker. The South Korean semiconductor maker SK Hynix, and Hoya, a Japanese manufacturer of optical equipment, were also named as investors. Toshiba itself will retain just over 40 percent of the unit, one of the world’s largest producers of the flash memory chips used to store data in smartphones and other digital devices.

Most of Australia’s newspapers, radio stations and television broadcasters are controlled by only a handful of owners, like Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, making it one of the most concentrated media markets in the developed world. Soon, even more Australian media properties could be in fewer hands.

New legislation backed by Australia’s governing Liberal party would eliminate restrictions separating broadcast media from print and would allow media companies to own more outlets in a city. The legislation, which has cleared Australia’s Senate and could come before the lower house of Parliament as soon as next month, is widely expected to pass. Media owners say the rules are relics of a less digital era. Like media companies around the world, Australia’s newspaper and television station owners are contending with the rise of internet companies like Facebook and Google, which are drawing away advertising dollars, eyeballs and eardrums. But in an echo of debates raging in other countries, opponents say the changes would lead to a less diverse media market, with Murdoch’s company among those likely to benefit the most. They also contend the legislation’s backers are simply helping their political allies.

In his closed interview with the staff of the Senate intelligence committee, White House senior adviser and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner did not share the existence of his personal e-mail account, which he has used for official business. The chair and vice chair of the committee were so unhappy that they learned about the existence of his personal e-mail account via news reports that they wrote him a letter via his attorney Sept 28 instructing him to double-check that he has turned over every relevant document to the committee including those from his "'personal e-mail account' described to the news media, as well as all other e-mail accounts, messaging apps, or similar communications channels you may have used, or that may contain information relevant to our inquiry."

Mark Zuckerberg wants his company’s role in the election to be seen like this: Facebook had a huge effect on voting—and no impact on votes. If Facebook wants to be a force for good in democracy, it needs to answer some questions. Does maximizing engagement, as it is understood through News Feed’s automated analysis, create structural problems in the information ecosystem? More broadly, do the tools that people use to communicate on Facebook influence what they actually talk about?

The fake news that ran rampant on Facebook was a symptom of a larger issue. The real problem lies at the very heart of Facebook’s most successful product: Perhaps virality and engagement cannot be the basis for a ubiquitous information service that acts as a “force for good in democracy.” And if this is true, how much is Facebook willing to change?

More and more rural electric cooperatives are learning that their existing distribution networks can lend themselves to highly efficient deployment of broadband for their member-owners. Based on the distances that define rural America, one of the surest ways to effectively build a broadband network is to use an existing electric co-op infrastructure. Many co-ops have found that building out a broadband network is a productive way to serve customers, and can actually be profitable as well. But the challenges they face are numerous, and every build-out brings a new set of circumstances. With that in mind, CoBank interviewed leaders from six co-ops that have launched successful broadband initiatives in order to find out what works – and what doesn’t.

“We may have in America the best 20th-century military that money can buy, but we’re increasingly in a world where cyber vulnerability, misinformation and disinformation may be the tools of conflict,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Co-Chair Mark Warner (D-VA). “What we may have seen are the first tools of 21st-century disinformation.” He believes Russia’s use of social media to influence 2016’s election demonstrated how warfare has moved away from the battlefield and toward the internet. And the U.S. has been slow to adjust.

The DC branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is helping three anti-Trump activists fight what they say is an overly broad government demand for their personal Facebook data. In “motion to quash” court documents filed this month, ACLU lawyers argue that letting federal investigators comb through the contents of individual Facebook pages amounts to an unjustified and unconstitutional invasion of privacy. The motion concerns an ongoing case in which the DOJ has been seeking information related to protests and rioting during the January 20 inauguration of President Trump.

Despite the fact that the case has been going on for months, the activists only recently learned that the US is interested in their Facebook data. While Facebook typically tells users about government warrants, a gag order initially prohibited it from doing so in this case. Facebook challenged that order and the government ultimately agreed to allow it to disclose the warrants.

Executives from the National Association of Broadcasters met with Federal Communications Commission staffers to ask it to make as much of the $1.75 billion post-incentive auction repack funding available to broadcasters as quickly as possible. The FCC will soon start authorizing payments for the expenses broadcasters have been submitting.

In an April 13 public notice on the repack, the Incentive Auction Task Force said that after its review of initial cost estimates submitted by broadcasters, it would cap initial allocations at $1 billion, with $750 million held back. NAB says that there is no reason to withhold that much, and that a $175 million reserve should suffice. The broadcasters pointed to three things that have changed since that April public notice: 1) Vendors have expressed concern that stations' uncertainty about reimbursement has forced some of them to delay firm orders for needed equipment; 2) that the $1 billion cap dates from before the FCC had the full $1.75 billion available, and 3) that the FCC now knows that estimated costs are going to exceed, NAB says "greatly exceed," $1 billion.

The European Union is once again asking Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other web companies to crack down on hate speech and speech inciting violence and terrorism — but this time, it’s taking things a step further. The European Commission has issued guidelines for web companies to follow, and it’s warning the companies that, if they don’t comply, the Commission may pass legislation. And that legislation, of course, could lead to some huge fines. There are a handful of guidelines so far.

The Commission recommends that web companies appoint a dedicated point of contact, who law enforcement can contact when illegal content is discovered. It wants web companies to allow third-party “trusted flaggers” with “specific expertise in identifying illegal content” to come in and monitor potentially illegal posts. And it asks web companies to invest in technologies that can automatically detect potentially illegal posts and speech.The Commission would also like companies to do more to prevent illegal content from being reposted after it’s been taken down. And the Commission says time frames may need to be established for how quickly illegal content is taken down once it’s discovered. Web companies should issue public guidelines, the Commission says, so that users know how takedown requests are treated and what kind of content gets removed.

The Democratic Party is making high-speed Internet access a new plank in its economic agenda as it tries to regain trust among middle-class Americans in the country's heartland. Democratic lawmakers are calling for $40 billion in new federal funding for infrastructure projects for rural and tribal areas and other regions, whose access to fast, affordable broadband has lagged behind that of dense, urban areas. The proposal, unveiled Sept 28, would have Internet providers compete for the right to build out the networks -- local governments and cooperatives would also be eligible for funding.

Drawing parallels to the 1930s-era push for nationwide electricity, Democrats say the plan would benefit farmers, medical patients and students in the most remote and underserved areas. The effort suggests Democrats are seeking to turn Internet access into a campaign issue in upcoming midterm races. By incorporating rural broadband into the party's overarching “Better Deal” economic plan, the “digital divide” is gaining a prominence that has rarely been seen before in the party's platform.