On April 10, 2019, in a 232-to-190 vote divided along party lines, the House of Representatives voted to approve the Save the Internet Act (HR 1644). In doing so, Democrats made good on a promise that became a rallying cry in many progressive circles during the 2018 election: restore net neutrality. For the first time ever, net neutrality legislation has cleared the House of Representatives. The Save the Internet Act would repeal the Federal Communications Commission's Restoring Internet Freedom Order adopted in 2017. House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA) said the bill would give the “FCC the authority to protect consumers now and in the future.” Full House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-OR) blasted the bill as “another plank in [Democrats’] socialist agenda.”

Led by Sen Patty Murray (D-WA) -- the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee -- a group of Senate Democrats introduced new legislation aimed at closing the growing digital divide in communities across the country. The Digital Equity Act of 2019 creates new federal investments targeted toward a diverse array of projects at the state and local level that promote “digital equity”— a concept defined by the National Digital Inclusion Alliance as the “condition in which all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy and economy.” The  the Digital Equity Act of 2019strengthens federal support for efforts to help ensure students, families, and workers have the information technology capacity needed to fully participate in society by creating an annual $125 million formula grant program for all 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico to fund the creation and implementation of comprehensive digital equity plans in each State, as well as an additional annual $125 million competitive grant program to support digital equity projects undertaken by individual groups, coalitions, or communities of interest. Finally, the legislation tasks the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) with evaluating digital equity projects and providing policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels with detailed information about which projects are most effective.

The legislation was cosponsored by Sens Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Angus King (I-ME), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Gary Peters (D-MI), and Jack Reed (D-RI) and a companion bill will also be introduced in the House of Representatives.

The Digital Equity Act of 2019 is endorsed by the Alliance for Community Media, American Library Association, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, Broadband Connects America, Center for Law and Social Policy, Center for Media Justice, Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, Coalition on Adult Basic Education, Common Cause, Consortium for School Networking, Competitive Carriers Association, Free Press Action Fund, International Society for Technology in Education, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, National Coalition for Literacy, National Collaborative for Digital Equity, National Congress of American Indians, National Consumer Law Center on behalf of their low-income clients, National Digital Inclusion Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, National League of Cities, National Parent Teacher Association, New America's Open Technology Institute, Next Century Cities, NTEN, Public Knowledge, Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, State Educational Technology Directors Association, and the Urban Libraries Council.

Facebook spent 3 hours detailing its efforts to fight misinformation, highlighting points of improvement but leaving unanswered the overarching question of whether users are safer than they were 2 years ago. Facebook is getting better at both detecting and removing some types of content, with a particular focus on efforts to subvert democratic elections. But other types of negative content remain prevalent on Facebook. Facebook's pledge to shift toward private, encrypted conversations is likely to make it harder for the company to monitor and remove objectionable content. Facebook executives acknowledged the issue but declined to offer any specifics on how the company will deal with it.

When it comes to false information, in most cases Facebook isn't looking to remove it, though it is working to keep such information from being viewed and shared as broadly.

British authorities arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in response to an American extradition request, and a US federal court unsealed an indictment charging him with a single count of conspiracy to hack a classified Defense Department computer.  Assange was taken into custody by British police after Ecuador rescinded his asylum at its embassy in London, ending a media-saturated standoff that lasted nearly seven years. British authorities originally sought custody of Assange for jumping bail after Sweden requested his extradition in a separate case stemming from sexual assault allegations. In an indictment unsealed hours later, Assange was accused of conspiring in 2010 with Chelsea Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst then known as Bradley Manning, and others to illegally obtain secret US military and diplomatic documents whose dissemination could be used to injure the United States. Outside court, one of Assange’s attorneys, Jennifer Robinson, said Assange would fight extradition to the United States. She called the action against him “a dangerous precedent for all news media.” 

The New York Times Company is pressing a judge to order the Federal Communications Commission to turn over information about comments submitted in the 2017 net neutrality proceeding. “The logs will likely reveal the true extent of the fraud that infected the net neutrality rulemaking,” the newspaper argues in court papers filed April 10 with US District Court Judge Lorna Schofield in the Southern District of New York. “In the wake of Special Counsel’s Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies for interfering with U.S. elections and the U.S. political system, the public interest in understanding how these cloud-based automated bots are being used to influence an array of U.S. political activities -- including the agency notice-and-comment process -- is exceptionally high.” The Times is seeking IP addresses, timestamps and user-agent headers — which could provide information about commenters' browsers — for all public comments regarding net neutrality submitted between April 26, 2017 and June 7, 2017.