With communities all across the country exploring ways to overcome the digital divide, and with Congress sending clear signals about the importance to address rural disconnect, now is an opportune time to help policymakers and practitioners understand the benefits of pursuing new infrastructure, public policies, and training programs. For us, that process begins with understanding where the current state of knowledge is clear and where it falls short.

Broadband benefits: What we don't know. Though there is a lot of excitement around broadband’s potential to reshape the economy, save the planet, or increase life expectancy, the technology is still in its early days and there is so much we don’t yet know. For one, we’re eager to see what effect the technology has on wealth generation and inequality. It’s imperative researchers continue to study whether the digital divide is another contributing factor to the rising income inequality seen all across the country. Given the wide range of technologies qualifying as broadband, we also don’t yet have standards around what universal broadband adoption would even look like. We’re left to wonder: Does broadband adoption at different speeds result in radically different outcomes What is the minimum speed that should count in setting a universal standard? Do wireless and wireline adoption result in the same outcomes? And will the benefits look different across different geographies and socioeconomic groups? Over the coming months, we’ll be exploring these questions in more detail. Relying on interviews with experts, number-crunching, and as much reading as we can handle, we hope to make clear the case for equitable broadband access across the United States so that everyone can enjoy its benefits.

T-Mobile and Sprint filed their opposition to calls for a formal comment period on proposed changes to their planned merger, saying petitioners already have had plenty of time to comment and it’s time for the Federal Communications Commission to act. The August 9 filing came after the Wireless Internet Services Providers Association (WISPA) on August 8 filed a request for a public notice and review period. WISPA’s request followed one lodged by the Rural Wireless Association (RWA) and NTCA – The Rural Broadband Association. RWA and NTCA called for, among other things, details of Dish’s agreement to be made available under the FCC’s protective review orders, at a minimum, and said there’s no immediate urgency for the FCC to act without public comment on the newer issues. WISPA also suggested that proposed changes to the rural broadband market could affect competition with smaller fixed broadband providers and eligibility for universal service high-cost funding.  

T-Mobile and Sprint are having none of it, saying “the Petitioners have articulated no credible basis that could plausibly justify yet another delay in Commission action in this proceeding."

Apparently, the White House is considering a potential Executive Order to address the ongoing-yet-unproven allegations of pro-liberal, anti-conservative bias by companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. The Executive Order would require the Federal Communications Commission to create regulations designed to create rules limiting the ability of digital platforms to “remove or suppress content” as well as prohibit “anticompetitive, unfair or deceptive” practices around content moderation. The EO would also require the Federal Trade Commission to somehow open a docket and take complaints (something it does not, at present, do, or have the capacity to do) about supposed political bias claims.

I have a number of reasons why I don’t think this EO will ever actually go out. For one thing, it would completely contradict everything that the Federal Communications Commission said in the “Restoring Internet Freedom Order” (RIFO) repealing net neutrality. As a result, the FCC would either have to reverse its previous findings that Section 230 prohibits any government regulation of internet services (including ISPs), or see the regulations struck down as arbitrary and capricious. Even if the FCC tried to somehow reconcile the two, Section 230 applies to ISPs. Any “neutrality” rule that applies to Facebook, Google, and Twitter would also apply to AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast. But this niggles at my mind enough to ask a good old law school hypothetical. If Trump really did issue an EO similar to the one described, what could the FCC actually do under existing law? I want to focus on whether, under the FCC’s existing statutory authority, it can do anything like what the descriptions of the draft EO would require. Spoiler alert: not really.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s new tech task force leader, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), wants to use her perch to hold tech companies accountable. But before Congress aims its hammer at Big Tech's power, she says lawmakers need to pass data privacy legislation and see how that changes the companies' business models and impacts competition in the market. That approach splits sharply from the Democratic-led House Judiciary Committee, which has opened a wide-ranging, bipartisan investigation into technology companies’ power and their impact on competition. The diverging priorities illustrate that while there is a broad bipartisan consensus that Silicon Valley is overdue for regulation, there’s little agreement in a divided Congress about which tech policy issues should even be the priority — let alone how lawmakers should craft such measures. Sen Blackburn's priorities:

• Help lawmakers "up their institutional knowledge" on issues like privacy, data security, competition issues, and allegations of political censorship
• For Congress to use her legislation, the BROWSER Act, as a starting point for data regulation
• Having the Federal Trade Commission continue to be in charge of enforcing privacy restrictions, even though she was disappointed by the $5 billion fine handed to Facebook

In our increasingly digitized world, it is critical to protect individuals’ privacy. As policymakers consider passing meaningful privacy legislation, civil rights protections are a critical but mostly overlooked component. To have effective privacy legislation, we must ensure that companies’ data practices do not violate individuals’ civil rights—especially when it comes to marginalized communities. Problematic commercial data practices disproportionately harm people of color—especially Black and Brown communities—women, immigrants, religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, low-income individuals, and other marginalized communities. Centering these communities in this work helps us understand exactly how high the stakes are and underscores the need for solutions that directly mitigate these harms. Without civil rights protections adapted for the twenty-first century, the discriminatory data practices adopted by online companies will continue to have long-lasting, severe consequences.