The Federal Communications Commission held its monthly open meeting on July 10. We gave a preview of the meeting a few weeks back. There were eight items in total in the action-packed agenda, but we’re going to unpack a few of the actions that are especially relevant to open, affordable, high-capacity broadband in the U.S. 

Broadband availability data is collected from broadband providers at the census block level, which is the smallest geographic unit used by the Census Bureau for data tabulation. In collecting and reporting these data, it is assumed that if a single home in a census block has access to broadband (however defined), then every home in the census block has broadband. Plainly, this “all-in assumption,” as I will call it, overstates broadband availability to some degree, and this overstatement is the source of much discontent and debate—so much so that some have even gone so far as to describe these data as “fake news.” While the all-in assumption certainly overstates broadband availability to some extent, to date there has been no effort to quantify the magnitude of the overstatement.

Americans have complicated views about the role social media companies should play in removing offensive content from their platforms. A sizable majority of U.S. adults (66%) say social media companies have a responsibility to remove offensive content from their platforms, but just 31% have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in these companies to determine what offensive content should be removed. A further twist: Nearly half (48%) say that in thinking about the kind of language people use, it is “hard to know what others might find offensive.” Opinions about the role social media companies should play in addressing offensive content are divided by partisanship, gender and age. Republican men – particularly younger men – stand out for their view that social media companies do not have a responsibility to remove offensive content from their platforms.

Overall, about half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (52%) say social media companies have a responsibility to remove offensive content from their platforms. A much larger share of Democrats and Democratic leaners (77%) say social media companies have this responsibility. Partisan differences are smaller when it comes to Americans’ confidence in social media companies’ abilities to determine what offensive content should be removed: Majorities in both parties (76% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats) have little or no confidence in social media companies in this regard.

Tensions over 5G have come to a head within the Trump administration, prompting Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to convene a high-level White House meeting to hammer out policy disputes between government agencies. The  July 11 meeting, led by President Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow, included high-level attendees such as Commerce Department official Earl Comstock and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, as well as multiple officials from Defense, State and Education. Comstock has been at the center of disagreements over how to repurpose airwaves for commercial 5G services, in addition to being at odds with several officials, particularly Kudlow, on a number of other issues