Daily Digest 1/27/2025 (Carollyn Aurilla Chatham)

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
Table of Contents

Agenda

Here’s How President Trump Shifted Policy in His First Week  |  Read below  |  Michael Shear, Erica Green, David McCabe  |  New York Times
     See also: 5 ways Project 2025 appeared in Trump’s presidential directives  |  Washington Post
                     Trump’s Early Actions Mirror Project 2025 Plan He Once Dismissed  |  Bloomberg
Watch the Trump administration play DEI whac-a-mole on this government agency's GitHub page.  |  404 Media
Musk Plan for Retooling Government Takes Shape, but Big Questions Loom  |  New York Times
Trump 2.0 will probably give a big helping hand to fixed-wireless access  |  Read below  |  Mike Dano  |  Light Reading
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Announces Additional Agency Leadership  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  Federal Communications Commission

Broadband 2025: Building the Future Faster  |  Read below  |  Letter  |  US Telecom

State/Local Initiatives

Benton Foundation
Free Geek, Devices, and Digital Equity  |  Read below  |  Caroline Stratton  |  Analysis  |  Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
Healey-Driscoll Administration Awards More Than $12.6 Million to Expand Internet in 96 Massachusetts Cities and Towns  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  Massachusetts Broadband Institute
Kansas broadband developers complain to Senate about allocation of state, federal grants  |  Read below  |  Tim Carpenter  |  Kansas Reflector
Spectrum Launches Gigabit Broadband, Mobile, TV and Voice Services in McMinn and Meigs Counties  |  Read below  |  Press Release  |  Charter Communications

Platforms/AI/Social Media

Meta’s Free-Speech Shift Made It Clear to Advertisers: ‘Brand Safety’ Is Out of Vogue  |  Wall Street Journal
Meta to Increase Spending to $65 Billion This Year in A.I. Push  |  New York Times

How the TikTok ban brought Americans and Chinese closer  |  Washington Post

The Supreme Court’s TikTok ruling is an ominous turn for online speech  |  Vox
It’s not conspiratorial to be worried about social media’s rightward swing  |  Vox
Verizon sees dollar signs in AI networking opportunity  |  Fierce
U.S. Department of Education’s AI Toolkit and Nondiscrimination Resources Provides Lasting Guidance for Educators on AI and Civi  |  Center for Democracy & Technology

Surveillance/Privacy

Border enforcement agencies have spent billions assembling surveillance tools to track and find people  |  New York Times

Policymakers

President Trump fires independent inspectors general in Friday night purge  |  Politico
President Trump Announces Appointments to the White House Offices of Communications, Public Liaison, and Cabinet Affairs  |  White House
The 199 Most Elon Musk Things Elon Musk Has Ever Said  |  Politico

Stories From Abroad

CMA secures important changes from Google to tackle fake reviews  |  UK Competition and Markets Authority
Today's Top Stories

Here’s How President Trump Shifted Policy in His First Week

Michael Shear, Erica Green, David McCabe  |  New York Times

President Trump’s blunt message after a whirlwind week of executive orders and presidential proclamations may boil down to this: Take me at my word. During four years in political exile after his first term, President Trump vowed to radically reshape American life, culture and politics if he got another chance. His first week has demonstrated that he will seek to do just that — and fast — as he races to make good on the promises that vaulted him back into power. After declaring in his inaugural address that he would usher in a “colorblind” and “merit-based” society, President Trump ordered federal agencies to immediately purge the concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion — or D.E.I. — from the federal government’s policies, programs and practices and targeted civil rights protections for government contractors. Right after he was sworn into office, President Trump rescinded a 2023 executive order that established guardrails around artificial intelligence. On Jan 23, President Trump issued an executive order directing his staff to come up with a plan to pursue policy that would “sustain and enhance America’s global A.I. dominance.” The president also issued an executive order to establish a group that would come up with policy proposals related to cryptocurrency, an industry President Trump has personal investments in. President Trump intervened in the battle over the future of TikTok. Officials in Washington fear that the immensely popular video app could pose a national security threat. Congress passed a law last year that forces TikTok’s owner ByteDance to sell the app or face a ban from working with app stores and cloud providers. 

Trump 2.0 will probably give a big helping hand to fixed-wireless access

Mike Dano  |  Light Reading

Although there's nothing concrete yet on the topic from Trump 2.0, Washington insiders are growing more hopeful that the new US president will push through regulations that will help 5G network operators deploy more cell towers for services like fixed wireless access (FWA). That would undoubtedly please big 5G carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile as well as smaller players like C Spire, which are already offering FWA service to millions of customers. A focus by President Donald Trump on fixed wireless could also represent a blow to fiber operators like AT&T, which are hoping to use federal programs like the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) effort to subsidize their fiber buildouts. However, Trump has not yet made any concrete decisions about BEAD specifically or wireless in general. Indeed, the wireless topic wasn't important enough for him to address it in his flurry of first-day executive orders.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr Announces Additional Agency Leadership

Press Release  |  Federal Communications Comission

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced the appointment of additional FCC leadership positions. 

  • Tom Sullivan, Acting Chief of the Office of International Affairs.
  • Ira Keltz, Acting Chief Engineer, Office of Engineering and Technology.
  • Catherine Matraves, Acting Chief of the Office of Economics and Analytics.
  • Katie Gorscak, Acting Director of the Office of Media Relations.

Free Geek, Devices, and Digital Equity

Caroline Stratton  |  Analysis  |  Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

Free Geek, a nonprofit organization located in Portland, Oregon, offers digital navigation as a core service, in alignment with its mission to “sustainably reuse technology, enable digital access, and provide education to create a community that empowers people to realize their potential.” Importantly, Free Geek is a computer refurbisher, facilitating access to free and affordable devices—a critical component of digital inclusion. Refurbishing computers enables the organization’s digital navigator work in two critical ways. First, Free Geek digital navigators can easily connect the people they serve with devices. Second, a stream of refurbished devices that Free Geek sells to the public offers a source of revenue that is significant to sustaining the organization and offering digital navigation services. Digital navigation at Free Geek formally began during the pandemic; however, the organization had been engaged in many of these navigation activities for nearly a decade. Free Geek had long granted computer hardware to individuals and organizations. Doing this work attuned the organization to the role it might play in the digital equity ecosystem in Portland, as well as to the needs of the people receiving a computer, many perhaps for the first time.

Healey-Driscoll Administration Awards More Than $12.6 Million to Expand Internet in 96 Massachusetts Cities and Towns

Press Release  |  Massachusetts Broadband Institute

The Healey-Driscoll administration and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) announced $12,671,242 to expand internet in locations unserved and underserved by broadband in 96 cities and towns across the state. MBI awarded the funds to two internet service providers, Comcast Cable Communications Management and Verizon New England, through the second round of the Broadband Infrastructure Gap Networks Grant Program, which deploys broadband infrastructure in areas that currently it. The Gap Networks program aligns with the goals of the federal Internet for All initiative, which aims to connect every community across the country to reliable high-speed internet.

Kansas broadband developers complain to Senate about allocation of state, federal grants

Tim Carpenter  |  Kansas Reflector

A major broadband provider and a coalition of smaller developers complained about lack of transparency at the Kansas Department of Commerce in awarding millions of dollars in state and federal funding to upgrade internet service in underserved areas of the state. Concerns about the Department of Commerce’s grant-making process were shared with the Kansas Senate’s budget committee by a Cox Communications lobbyist and the executive director of Communications Coalition of Kansas, which represents locally owned rural internet companies and cooperatives. Megan Bottenberg, a lobbyist with Cox Communications, said the company extended its services during the past five years from 92 communities to 119 communities largely through private investment. Cox received a grant to bring broadband to 1,300 homes in Shawnee and Jackson counties on the wrong side of the digital divide, but the company was unsuccessful with 67 other grant proposals. Bottenberg said in some cases Cox had a better cost-per-location rate than companies that won the funding.

Spectrum Launches Gigabit Broadband, Mobile, TV and Voice Services in McMinn and Meigs Counties (TN)

Press Release  |  Charter Communications

Spectrum announced the launch of Spectrum Internet, Mobile, TV and Voice services to more than 3,100 homes and small businesses across McMinn and Meigs Counties (TN). Spectrum’s multi-year Rural Construction Initiative is an investment of approximately $9 billion – partly offset by over $2 billion in government support funding – that will ultimately connect approximately 1.75 million new homes and small businesses across the country.

Broadband 2025: Building the Future Faster

Letter  |  US Telecom

Six concrete actions that can be taken quickly to speed up connectivity to all in America:

  1. Champion the Networks of the Future
  2. Secure and Reform Universal Service
  3. Put the Pedal to the Metal on Broadband Deployment
  4. Review All Legacy Regulations with Fresh, Modern Eyes
  5. Break the Federal Permitting Log Jam
  6. Model Efficient, Effective Government on Cybersecurity

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Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and Zoe Walker (zwalker AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.


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Kevin Taglang

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Benton Institute
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