Thursday, September 6, 2018
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Judge Kavanaugh defends his net neutrality dissent
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Facebook, Twitter get lashing on Capitol Hill
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- Daniel Lyons: Judge Kavanaugh, tech policy, and judicial review of agency decisions | American Enterprise Institute
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Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the September Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Wednesday, September 26, 2018:
- Kari’s Law NPRM – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing calls to 911 made from multi-line telephone systems, pursuant to Kari’s Law, the conveyance of dispatchable location with 911 calls, as directed by RAY BAUM’S Act, and the consolidation of the Commission’s 911 rules. (PS Docket Nos. 18-261, 17-239).
- Wireless Infrastructure Order – The Commission will consider a Declaratory Ruling and Report and Order that will clarify the scope and meaning of Sections 253 and 332(c)(7) of the Communications Act, establish shot clocks for state and local approvals for the deployment of small wireless facilities, and provide guidance on streamlining state and local requirements on wireless infrastructure deployment. (WT Docket No. 17-79; WC Docket No. 17-84)
- Enforcement Bureau Action – The Commission will consider two enforcement actions.
- Clarifying Local Franchising Authorities Regulation of Cable Operators – The Commission will consider a Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing two issues raised by a remand from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concerning how local franchising authorities may regulate incumbent cable operators and cable television services. (MB Docket No. 05-311)
- Cable Data Collection – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that eliminates the Form 325, Annual Report of Cable Television Systems, filing requirement. (MB Docket Nos. 17-290, 17-105)
- Toll Free Assignment Modernization – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that will amend the Commission’s rules to allow for use of auctions to assign certain toll free numbers and takes other actions to modernize the administration and assignment of toll free numbers. (WC Docket No. 17-192; CC Docket No 95-155)
- Satellite Earth Stations in Motion – The Commission will consider action to facilitate the deployment of and harmonize the rules concerning three types of Fixed-Satellite Service earth stations authorized to transmit while in motion: Earth Stations on Vessels, Vehicle-Mounted Earth Stations, and Earth Stations Aboard Aircraft. (IB Docket No. 17-95)
During his second day of Senate confirmation hearings, Judge Brett Kavanaugh defended his dissent in a federal court decision that upheld the Federal Communications Commission's 2015 net neutrality rules. Pressed by Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) why he disagreed with the rest of his colleagues on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that the Federal Communications Commission was within its authority to create the rules, Judge Kavanaugh said he was simply following legal precedent and wasn't looking to strip the agency of its power. As a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Kavanaugh supported a petition from the broadband industry for the full court to rehear the case that upheld the FCC's right to impose utility-style regulations on internet services. Specifically, the court in its decision said the agency had the authority to reclassify internet services as a Title II (telecommunications) service under the Communications Act. This reclassification served as the basis for the strict net neutrality rules adopted by the Obama administration in 2015. The full court denied the petition to rehear the case. It cited the so-called the US Supreme Court's Chevron doctrine, which gives expert federal agencies the discretion to interpret ambiguous statutes. But Judge Kavanaugh disagreed and wrote a dissenting opinion. Judge Kavanaugh cited the "major decisions" doctrine, which is related to Chevron. This doctrine says a court shouldn't grant deference to a federal agency if Congress hasn't spoken clearly on the subject, which he said wasn't the case with the net neutrality rules.
"It's OK for Congress to delegate various matters to the executive agencies to do rules," he said. "But on major questions of major economic or social significance, we expect Congress to speak clearly before such delegation, and that's what had not happened, in my view, with respect on net neutrality and I felt bound by precedent."
At a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, senators had no shortage of complaints for Facebook and Twitter. They decried the platforms’ vulnerability to foreign influence, their arcane handling of user data, and the perception that they buried conservative voices. Congress wanted to send a signal that Silicon Valley would no longer get a free pass — and that the laissez faire environment that has allowed them to reap billions in profits despite the vitriolic culture that social media has engendered was not guaranteed to last.
The committee had invited Larry Page, chief executive of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. But Google declined and countered by offering to send its chief legal officer, Kent Walker. The committee rejected Page’s replacement and Google submitted written testimony instead that focused on security measures. Members of the committee wanted to ask about reports that Google was working on a censored search engine for China. The company has also been criticized for its handling of YouTube, which has also been exploited for foreign propaganda. Google’s absence comes at a time when social media titans such as Facebook and Twitter are trying to be on their best behavior.
House Commerce Committee Republicans accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives. The charge drew rebukes from Democrats during a Congressional hearing that illustrated how partisan lines are increasingly being drawn on social media. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, repeatedly denied the accusations as Republicans suggested Twitter’s algorithms suppress conservative viewpoints and discriminate against Republican voices. Rep Mike Doyle (D-PA) called the idea that social media services exhibit a partisan slant a “load of crap.”
“This is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to the president’s misguided belief in such bias, which has been disproved time and again by legitimate researchers,” said Benton Senior Fellow and Public Advocate Gigi Sohn, a former senior official at the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration.
“It’s totally politics,” said Benton Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, a lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center. He said Republican lawmakers accused social media companies of bias but he doubted that Congress would want to create laws to monitor speech on the services. “I don’t hear any discussion that suggests there are genuine legislative solutions to problems they are talking about.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions plans to meet with state attorneys general in Sept 2018 to discuss whether tech companies may be “intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas.” The meeting will also consider whether tech platforms “may have harmed competition” with their actions, a hint that the Justice Department may be weighing antitrust action against the firms. Legal experts said the agency's announcement “clearly suggests” a willingness to intervene on behalf of conservative critics who say they are victims of discrimination by the companies. The Justice Department’s statement:
We listened to today’s Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Foreign Influence Operations’ Use of Social Media Platforms closely. The Attorney General has convened a meeting with a number of state attorneys general this month to discuss a growing concern that these companies may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.
As President Donald Trump increasingly criticizes social media companies and Google’s treatment of him, former aides said they never saw him use many of the websites he vilifies. Though President Trump mastered Twitter as a campaign tool and has used the platform to communicate with supporters for years, three former aides described President Trump as averse to email, rarely interested in surfing the web and more comfortable with paper than a computer screen. Former aides described President Trump as being not significantly different than CEOs at large companies – able to use computers and other technology but more comfortable allowing others to do that work for him. Several described printing online documents for him to read. One former aide said most of his interactions on the internet begin with a link on Twitter.
When you build services that connect billions of people across countries and cultures, you’re going to see all of the good that humanity can do, and you’re also going to see people try to abuse those services in every way possible. Our responsibility at Facebook is to amplify the good and mitigate the bad. This is especially true when it comes to elections. Key to our efforts has been finding and removing fake accounts — the source of much of the abuse, including misinformation. Increased transparency in our advertising systems is another area where we have also made progress. One of the biggest changes we’ve made over the past year is not to wait for reports of suspicious activity. Instead, we look proactively for potentially harmful election-related content, such as pages registered to a foreign entity that post divisive content to sow mistrust and drive people apart. For the US midterm elections we’re also using a new tool we tested in the Alabama Senate special election last year to identify political interference more quickly.
[Mark Zuckerberg is chief executive officer of Facebook]
Antitrust crusaders have built up serious momentum in Washington, making a strong case that big companies (especially big tech companies) are distorting the market to drive out competitors. We need a new standard for monopolies, they argue, one that focuses less on consumer harm and more on the skewed incentives produced by a company the size of Facebook or Google. Here's the case against four of the movement’s biggest targets, and what they might look like if they came out on the losing end.
For years tech companies have been getting free content moderation from journalists who have often been the ones unearthing illegal or problematic behaviour on huge platforms, with social networks only dealing with issues once they know that there’s an impending news article coming. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey noted the role that journalists play in counteracting disinformation that spreads and is incentivized on his platform.
We have this amazing constituency of journalists globally using our service every single day, and they often with a high degree of velocity call out unfactual information. We don’t do the best job of giving them tools and context to do that work, and we think there’s a lot of improvements we can make to amplify their content and their messaging so people can see what is happening with that context.
But journalists are not content moderators. It is not reporters’ jobs to work in service of cleaning up the platforms of some of the most powerful companies on the planet. Journalists are not employed by Twitter or Facebook or Google, but in reporting content to them that violates these platforms’ rules, or actively pushing back against disinformation, they are fundamentally doing valuable work for them: “We do benefit,” from journalists fighting disinformation, Dorsey said.
Significant shares of Facebook users have taken steps in the past year to reframe their relationship with the social media platform. Just over half of Facebook users ages 18 and older (54%) say they have adjusted their privacy settings in the past 12 months. Around four-in-ten (42%) say they have taken a break from checking the platform for a period of several weeks or more, while around a quarter (26%) say they have deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone. All told, some 74% of Facebook users say they have taken at least one of these three actions in the past year.
Notable shares of Facebook users ages 18 and older lack a clear understanding of how the site’s news feed operates, feel ordinary users have little control over what appears there, and have not actively tried to influence the content the feed delivers to them. When asked whether they understand why certain posts but not others are included in their news feed, around half of US adults who use Facebook (53%) say they do not – with 20% saying they do not understand the feed at all well. Older users are especially likely to say they do not understand the workings of the news feed: Just 38% of Facebook users ages 50 and older say they have a good understanding of why certain posts are included in it, compared with 59% of users ages 18 to 29.
Securus provides technology services to prisons and jails and has been slammed by inmates’ families who say they’re charged outrageous prices to phone loved ones. The controversy has extended into video call and email services, two other places the company has staked a claim. In October, the company was hit with a $1.7 million fine for allegedly misleading the Federal Communications Commission. By May, attention shifted to another scandal, as the company took heat for enabling warrantless cellphone tracking around the country. It’s against that backdrop that Securus is now moving ahead with a merger that could further consolidate a market already criticized as woefully consolidated. The company, which already claims to service more than 1.2 million inmates in North America, has announced its intention to acquire ICSolutions, a smaller competitor in the industry. While exact market figures are difficult to come by, and Securus has pointed to a handful of smaller businesses that offer similar services, inmate advocates argue that the merger will allow two companies to effectively dominate the market. The only thing standing in the way is the FCC.
This paper considers whether common national standards for determining participants' eligibility and designating service providers in the Lifeline program are preferable to a decentralized system where state utility commissions have greater influence over these program parameters. Two recent decisions of the Federal Communications Commission, a 2016 Order and its reversal in March 2017, on the designation of Eligible Telecommunications Carriers to provide broadband Lifeline service, centered on this question. Statistical analysis of program data demonstrates that state-by-state variations in enrollment may be attributed to state-level policy actions, after controlling for alternative demographic and economic explanations. This paper concludes that national standards may reduce state-by-state variations in program participation rates.
Students heading back to school this fall that lack access to high-speed broadband will continue to rely upon libraries for homework assignments. Over the past few years, the U.S. has made significant gains in efforts to connect K-12 schools with high-speed broadband connections of 100Mbps per 1000 students. Unfortunately, students who lack broadband at home are at a significant disadvantage. While there are a number of excellent strategies to resolve this homework gap, American public libraries have been on the front lines and especially helpful for students living in rural areas with limited broadband options or from low-income families unable to pay for service. Find out more on the role libraries play in connectivity with our new infographic.
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has reappointed Edward Horowitz to the FirstNet Board and named him Chair of the Board for a two-year term. There are six seats to fill on the FirstNet Board. To ensure continuity and a quorum for the Board, three members whose terms expired last month – Neil E. Cox, Kevin McGinnis and Annise D. Parker – have agreed to extend their terms. Additional announcements on the Board’s open seats will be forthcoming. The Board’s next quarterly meeting is in December.
Horowitz is the founder and chairman of Edslink, LLC, a venture capital firm providing financial, advisory, and technology consulting services. He has served as Co-CEO of Encompass Digital Media, a provider of worldwide television channel origination, live sports and news distribution, digital media, and government services. Prior to Encompass, he was President and CEO of SES AMERICOM, a satellite operator serving the entertainment and broadcast media industries, business enterprises, and the U.S. government. Horowitz founded and served as Chairman of e-Citi, which is a unit of Citigroup, and was Senior Vice President, Viacom, Chairman and CEO of Viacom Broadcast and Interactive Media groups, and a member of the Viacom Executive Committee. Horowitz served as Chairman of the Board of Fairpoint Communications through its merger with Consolidated Communications in July 2017. He currently serves on the boards of PT Link Net, Globecomm Systems, Inc., OmniSpace LLC, and the non-profit American Management Association (AMA). Mr. Horowitz holds a B.S. in Physics from CCNY and a Masters of Business from Columbia University.
FirstNet Authority CEO Mike Poth has accepted a position in the private sector and will assist with transition efforts before leaving his position at the end of September. The Board will select a new CEO in coordination with the Department of Commerce, and in the interim, the Department and the Board will work together to appoint an Acting CEO.
Washington does not treat 911 operators with the respect they deserve. The Office of Management and Budget is responsible for a program known as the Standard Occupational Classification, which is an occupational data set that is widely used by state and federal authorities. It classifies 911 operators as “clerical workers.” This is outdated—and it needs to be fixed. 911 operators are first responders. When the unthinkable occurs, they are our first contact with public safety. Before a police radio crackles, a fire engine roars, or an ambulance races, there is a 911 professional who takes in a call and sets emergency response in motion. They deserve to be classified, like their public safety peers, as “protective service professionals.” Failing to provide them with this classification in Washington diminishes the importance of their role in crisis. It dismisses how they do everything from coordinating response from police and fire officials to providing medical assistance before paramedics arrive. In short, it is their judgment and expertise that connects us to help when we are in harm. It is time to fix this problem—and give 911 professionals the dignity of the public classification they deserve.
As international agreements come under fire from current politics, it becomes ever more important to investigate the effect of such agreements. The telecommunication sector is of special interest due to its growing importance in the digital age. International law came into play in 1998 when the Agreement on Basic Telecommunications (BTA) entered into force. It demanded far-reaching liberalization reforms and was signed and ratified by 66 countries. A difference-in-differences estimator is used to analyze if the treaty had an impact on investments in telecommunications. The analysis reveals that investments in telecommunications became significantly higher in signatory countries than in non-signatory countries after the treaty took effect.
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) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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