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FCC Publishes Net Neutrality Repeal; Some Changes Go Into Effect April 23, 2018
This is a summary of the Commission’s Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order (‘‘Restoring Internet Freedom Order’’) in WC Docket No. 17–108, adopted on December 14, 2017 and released on January 4, 2018. The full text of this document is available at https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-17-166A1.pdf Effective date: April 23, 2018, except for amendatory instructions 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8, which are delayed as follows. The FCC will publish a document in the Federal Register announcing the effective date(s) of the delayed amendatory instructions, which are contingent on OMB approval of the modified information collection requirements in 47 CFR 8.1 (amendatory instruction 5). The Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order will also be effective upon the date announced in that same document.
Net Neutrality Challenges Can Begin This Week
Thursday, Feb 22, will be the red letter day for court and congressional challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's Dec 14 decision to roll back network neutrality rules and reclassify Internet service providers out from under Title II common carrier regulations. The FCC Has delivered the final Restoring Internet Freedom order to the Federal Register, which has just signaled it would be publishing that order on Feb 22. That means the repeal will take place on or about April 23. But the lawsuits to overturn the repeal can get started in Feb or in early March. Publication of the final text of the decision signals that lawsuits challenging the rule rollback can be filed, as well as triggering the FCC's determination of the date when the rules go into effect--challenges can begin even before that effective date. That doesn't necessarily mean the rules will go into effect soon. The FCC said in the order that it would not release an effective date until the Office of Management and Budget approves the new reporting requirements of the enhanced transparency rules and that, too, has been published in the Federal Register, which has not happened yet. That reporting requirement is central to enforcement of net neutrality in the absence of bright-line rules, since the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department will rely on what ISPs say they are doing to decide whether that is unfair or deceptive or anticompetitive.
Millions Could Lose Service if FCC 'Reforms' Lifeline Program
[Editorial] The Benton Foundation has joined literally hundreds of organizations that are asking the Federal Communications Commission to ensure Lifeline voice and broadband service for low-income households, with minimal disruption to the people who depend on the program for a consistent connection to the world via their telephone or internet connection. We're asking that the FCC:
- Keep the focus of Lifeline on people, not networks
- Save Lifeline voice service for all consumers, not just for those in rural America
- Avoid rationing Lifeline which will hurt the poor and hurt the country
- Continue to allow free service packages
The future belongs to the connected. Any changes to Lifeline should connect more, not less, people to the essential communications networks of today. [Benton Executive Director Adrianne Furniss]
Groups Mass Against Lifeline Changes
The Federal Communications Commission is getting major pushback on its vote to revamp the Lifeline communications subsidy program. Over 200 organizations, including the ACLU, American Library Association, the Benton Foundation and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, have written FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to reject his own proposal. Initial comments were due Feb. 21, with reply comments due in March. They argue the proposed changes, which could include capping the fund and targeting it to facilities-based providers, would debilitate a program meant to assist low-income residents, including minorities, seniors, veterans and the disabled. "We strongly oppose the proposed changes, which would exacerbate the digital divide and devastate families enrolled in Lifeline," they told the FCC.
FCC Chairman Pai's Plan Will Take Broadband Away From Poor People
[Op-ed] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has portrayed the Lifeline program and the people who benefit from it as hopelessly corrupt. Now he is proposing to make changes that will, for all intents and purposes, destroy the program. He aims to severely reduce both the supply of and demand for Lifeline-supported services. Chairman Pai proposes to make the Lifeline subsidy available only to those companies that own their facilities, like the wires, towers, and other infrastructure that make up networks. The problem here? Seventy-five percent of Lifeline customers get their service from businesses that resell the capacity of companies like Sprint and T-Mobile. By eliminating 75 percent of the supply of Lifeline service, making the process for subscribing more burdensome and leaving open the possibility that some Lifeline-eligible subscribers won’t see a dime, demand will decline. This in turn could reduce the budget even further. This cycle could repeat year after year until there is little or no Lifeline budget at all. When asking your member of Congress to save network neutrality, ask him or her to save Lifeline, too. [Gigi Sohn is a Mozilla fellow and former counselor to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Amina Fazlullah is a Mozilla fellow, policy advisor to the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and formerly the director of policy at the Benton Foundation.]
President Trump: Broadband Buildout Situation 'Intolerable'
President Donald Trump took issue with the speed of broadband buildouts to rural American and to anchor institutions, calling it an "intolerable" situation, though suggesting as with many other things that it was a problem he had inherited. In the President's Economic Report to the Congress released Feb 21, he suggested the broadband ball had been dropped on prior watches. "President Clinton promised to connect 'every classroom, every library, and every hospital in America,' to the Internet by 2000," he wrote. "Decades later, 39% of rural Americans still lack high-speed broadband. And a quarter of America’s K-12 students lack adequate Internet connectivity at school. It is intolerable to continue pretending that this is the best America can offer to our students. My Administration is working to expand accessibility and expedite the process of bringing the Internet to hard-to-reach areas." The President has said rural, particularly farmers' access to broadband was key, and has proposed using $50 billion in federal funds for rural infrastructure, though without earmarking any of that specifically to broadband--he want to leave it up to states to decide how to prioritize the funds.
The Father Of The Internet Sees His Invention Reflected Back Through A 'Black Mirror'
In 1984, two men were thinking a lot about the Internet. One of them invented it. The other is an artist who would see its impact on society with uncanny prescience.First is the man often called "the father of the Internet," Vint Cerf. Between the early 1970s and early '80s, he led a team of scientists supported by research from the Defense Department. While Cerf and his colleagues were busy inventing, the young aspiring science fiction writer William Gibson was looking for a place to set his first novel. Somehow Gibson was able to imagine the potential scale of it — all those computers connected together. Gibson says he didn't need to try a computer or see the Internet to imagine this future. "The first people to embrace a technology are the first to lose the ability to see it objectively," he says.
Sinclair Submits Remade Tribune Deal to FCC
Sinclair has submitted its new proposal to purchase Tribune stations, taking into account the deregulatory media ownership changes the Federal Communications Commission made in December 2018 to allow for more local station ownership, including allowing smaller-market duopolies and the ownership of more than one top station in a market in some circumstances. The plan includes divestitures of WGN-TV Chicago (IL) and WPIX-TV New York, and KSWB-TV San Diego (CA) to come under the FCC's 39 percent ownership cap. Sinclair does not own stations in either New York or Chicago. Apparently, Sinclair has told the Department of Justice it would sell certain stations and is still discussing other spin-offs, but in order to achieve a timely closing it is submitting the plan to the FCC so it can start making its case-by-case evaluation of the markets where Sinclair wants to own two of the top four.
The Case Against Google
Google has succeeded where Genghis Khan, communism and Esperanto all failed: It dominates the globe. Though estimates vary by region, the company now accounts for an estimated 87 percent of online searches worldwide. Now, Google and the other tech titans understand that the landscape is shifting. They realize that their halos have become tarnished, that the arguments they once invoked as a digital exception to American economic history — that the internet economy is uniquely self-correcting, because competition is only a click away — no longer hold as much weight....If you love technology — if you always buy the latest gadgets and think scientific advances are powerful forces for good — then perhaps you ought to cheer on the antitrust prosecutors. Because there is no better method for keeping the marketplace constructive and creative than a legal system that intervenes whenever a company, no matter how beloved, grows so large as to blot out the sun. If you love Google, you should hope the government sues it for antitrust offenses — and you should hope it happens soon, because who knows what wondrous new creations are waiting patiently in the wings.
Abusing Section 1
[Press release] In recent weeks, former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has pontificated about the current Commission’s lack of action on the issue of Internet network security. At the risk of engaging, I find it necessary to call out the gibberish in his recent writings. In essence, Wheeler’s views reaffirm that he is unwilling to read the law and follow basic principles of statutory construction. While he dabbles with other arguments, Wheeler’s central case centers on Section 1 of the Communications Act of 1934 as providing some universal authority over all communications activity, especially cybersecurity. There are a multitude of problems with this reading. I’ll go about fulfilling my obligations at the Commission under the limits and boundaries that Congress established, even if that means missing out on the chance to get our mittens in the middle of cybersecurity. However, if Congress passes a statute providing the Commission with authority over this issue, I will fully implement any new authority given the Commission. [FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly]
Chairman Pai Announces visit to Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands in March
[Press release] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai will visit Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands from March 7–10 to meet with local leaders and communications service providers and review the status of communications restoration efforts after the 2017 hurricane season. He will be accompanied by members of the Commission’s Hurricane Recovery Task Force. This serves as a follow-up to his trip to Puerto Rico last November. It is part of the Commission’s ongoing effort to learn lessons from 2017’s hurricane season and apply those lessons to future disasters while continuing to support the ongoing recovery.
Conservatives say they've lost thousands of followers on Twitter
Conservative Twitter users are speaking out about a loss in followers after Twitter reportedly suspended thousands of accounts. Twitter has yet to announce the purge, but there is speculation that the action was part of the social media giant's effort to get rid of suspected Russian bots. Conservatives say they have been targeted in the purge. Some users are also claiming they were locked out of their accounts. By the morning of Feb 21, the hashtag "#TwitterLockOut" was trending on Twitter.
How to fix Facebook: Make users pay for it
[Op-ed] The indictments brought by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III against 13 individuals and three organizations accused of interfering with the US election offer perhaps the most powerful evidence yet that Facebook and its Instagram subsidiary are harming public health and democracy. The best option for the company — and for democracy — is for Facebook to change its business model from one based on advertising to a subscription service. Facebook’s advertising business model is hugely profitable, but the incentives are perverse. Using a variety of psychological techniques derived from propaganda and the design of gambling systems, Facebook grabs and holds user attention better than any advertising platform before it. Intensive surveillance enables customization for each of its 2.1 billion users. Algorithms maximize engagement by appealing to emotions such as fear and anger. Facebook groups intensify preexisting beliefs, increasing polarization. Facebook could implement a subscription model with no customer acquisition cost because 223 million adults in the United States already use Facebook, roughly equal to cable and satellite television. With the accelerating trend toward cord cutting, Facebook is ideally positioned to win the battle for customers who get their media services over the Internet. [Roger McNamee is a managing director at Elevation Partners and was an early investor in Google and Facebook.]
Congressional Democratic leadership Want to Boost FBI Budget to Fight Russia's Election Interference
Congressional Democratic leadership wants to boost the FBI's budget in March's government funding bill to help fight Russian interference in the 2018 midterm elections. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), as well as top Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees, sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) urging them to support the increase. They are asking for a $300 million increase in the FBI's budget to help target and counteract the influence of Russian and other foreign officials. They also want additional money for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress has until March 23 to pass the mammoth spending bill, known as an omnibus.
FCC Eliminates Hard-Copy Rules Requirement
As expected, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to eliminate the requirement that broadcasters and cable operators keep paper copies of the FCC's regulations on hand, the latest in a series of actions to whack away at regulations FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has said are part of a regulatory underbrush allowed to grow for too long. A vote was scheduled for the Feb 22 FCC meeting, but was voted on circulation Feb 20 and removed from the agenda for the meeting. The FCC gave the National Association of Broadcasters some love in the release announcing the adoption of the change. "We agree with NAB that, given licensees’ ability today to immediately access FCC rules via the Internet, requiring broadcasters to retain hard copies of the rules is no longer necessary," said the order.