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Donald Trump asked Rupert Murdoch to name picks for FCC chair

Newscorp CEO Rupert Murdoch may have a significant influence in the next four years of American telecommunication policy. According to a new report from New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman, President-elect Donald Trump has asked the conservative Australian broadcast titan to submit names of his preferred candidates for chair of the Federal Communications Commission. There’s no guarantee Trump will follow Murdoch’s recommendations, but the news suggests Murdoch already wields significant influence in the incoming administration. Apparently, Murdoch is also lobbying for further conditions on AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner, potentially because he sees the new conglomerate as a threat to his holdings.

Canada declares ‘high-speed’ internet essential for quality of life

Canada has recognized the obvious and declared high-speed broadband internet access a “basic telecommunications service” that every citizen should be able to access.

Previously, only landline telephone services had received this designation from the country’s national telecoms regulator, CRTC, and the change is supported by a government investment package of up to $750 million to wire up rural areas. “The future of our economy, our prosperity and our society — indeed, the future of every citizen — requires us to set ambitious goals, and to get on with connecting all Canadians for the 21st century," said CRTC chair Jean-Pierre Blais. “These goals are ambitious. They will not be easy to achieve and they will cost money. But we have no choice.” As part of declaring broadband a “basic” or essential service, the CRTC has also set new goals for download and upload speeds. For fixed broadband services, all citizens should have the option of unlimited data with speeds of at least 50 megabits per second for downloads and 10 megabits per second for uploads — a tenfold increase of previous targets set in 2011. The goals for mobile coverage are less ambitious, and simply call for “access to the latest mobile wireless technology” in cities and major transport corridors. The CRTC estimates that some two million Canadian households, or 18 percent of the population, do not currently have access to their desired speeds.

Facebook introduces live audio streams in partnership with the BBC

A year into its expensive investment into live video, Facebook is adding an audio option. The company said that the feature, which is first being made available to publishers, is designed to complement video streams with a lower-bandwidth option.

Initial partners include Britain’s LBC radio, the BBC World Service, Harper Collins, and authors Adam Grant and Britt Bennett. It will be made available to everyone in 2017. Listening to live streams on iOS will require that you have Facebook open on your mobile device the entire time, Facebook said — a feature that seems likely to limit engagement among listeners. Android users can close the app and continue to listen.

Google just dodged a privacy lawsuit by scanning your emails a tiny bit slower

Google tentatively agreed to a series of changes in the way it collects data from Gmail, as part of a proposed settlement in Northern California District Court. If the court approves the settlement, Google will eliminate any collection of advertising-specific data before an email is accessible in a user’s inbox.

The result likely won’t be noticeable to users, but it represents a real change to the way Google’s systems work, brought about after a voluntary settlement rather than a legal ruling. The case, called Matera vs. Google, began in September 2015, when plaintiffs alleged the email scanning violated California and federal privacy law, calling it “the twenty-first-century equivalent of AT&T eavesdropping on each of its customers’ phone conversations, or of the postal service taking information from private correspondence.” The suit was specifically brought on behalf of non-Gmail users, who haven’t agreed to have their emails scanned under Google’s Terms of Service.

Sprint owner SoftBank says it’ll invest $50 billion in US under Trump

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son made a surprise appearance at Trump Tower where he appears to have worked out a deal with the President-elect to invest $50 billion in the US over the next four years and create 50,000 new jobs. Details of the planned investment are basically nonexistent, but it’s more than likely that it involves Sprint, which represents SoftBank’s main presence in the US. Sprint has been struggling since its acquisition by SoftBank in 2012, falling into fourth place among wireless carriers, behind T-Mobile, and cutting jobs in the face of rocky financials. "I just came to celebrate his new job. We were talking about it. Then I said I would like to celebrate his presidential job and commit, because he would do a lot of deregulation,” Son said. “I said this is great. The United States would become great again.” It wasn’t stated what Trump offered, aside from a lighter regulatory environment, to entice SoftBank.

How Facebook and Google Help Camouflage Fake News

The fake news problem we’re facing isn’t just about articles gaining traffic from Facebook timelines or Google search results. It’s also an issue of news literacy — a reader’s ability to discern credible news. And it’s getting harder to tell on sight alone which sites are trustworthy.

On a Facebook timeline or Google search feed, every story comes prepackaged in the same skin, whether it’s a months-long investigation from The Washington Post or completely fabricated clickbait. While feed formatting isn’t anything new, platforms like Google AMP, Facebook Instant Articles, and Apple News are also further breaking down the relationship between good design and credibility. In a platform world, all publishers end up looking more similar than different. That makes separating the real from the fake even harder.

AT&T just declared war on an open internet (and us)

Nov 28, AT&T made a dim prophecy official by announcing that its new DirecTV Now streaming service would be zero rated: it won’t count against its customers’ data caps. Zero rating isn’t new — T-Mobile has been writing the manual on how to get away with it — but now it’s finally happening at a scale that matters. And AT&T’s version is much worse than T-Mobile’s.

AT&T’s zero rating model is pretty much the nightmare scenario that Internet advocates and pro-competition observers have been warning us about. That’s because AT&T owns DirecTV, and is now giving DirecTV Now privileged access to AT&T’s wireless Internet customers. The corruption is so obvious here that it doesn’t need a fancy network neutrality metaphor — AT&T is clearly favoring a company it now owns over competitors. And that’s just the beginning of where AT&T is screwing us. The company stands to reap massive tolls on the other end of that “most favored nation” deal with DirecTV, because it also offers something called “sponsored data” to other companies that want the same kind of privileged access to AT&T customers. So, for example, if Netflix wants to compete fairly with DirecTV, it would need to pay AT&T to exempt its video traffic from data caps. This is what Internet service providers really want the Internet to look like: a bundle of premium services that run up the cost of access to their networks.

Building Tools for Digital Activism

An interview with one of the Black Lives Matter movement's most prominent voices, DeRay Mckesson.

With his now-iconic blue vest, DeRay Mckesson, now the interim chief of Human Capital for Baltimore City Public Schools, has balanced using his platform online and off in order to draw attention to matters such as public safety and law enforcement reform. He has protested against police violence in places like Ferguson (MO); Baton Rouge (LA), and Charleston (SC). Through Campaign Zero, he and other BLM activists designed a policy plan calling for police reform. He even ran for Baltimore mayor in 2016, and though he lost, he drew widespread attention to his effort to bring BLM to the halls of government, where real change happens.

Trump is turning Twitter into a state disinformation machine

Donald Trump used Twitter to make outrageous claims during the entire 2016 election, and he’s still making them after winning the presidency. He is now turning Twitter into a state-media machine capable of quickly and widely spreading disinformation.

In the middle of a rant about the Electoral College, President-elect Trump tweeted a preposterous claim: that millions of people voted illegally in the election he just won. (He also trashed democratic norms before the election, saying it would be rigged and that he would not accept the results if he lost.) President-elect Trump made the false claim about illegal voting in the middle of saying there should be no vote recount in Wisconsin. President-elect Trump has given no indication that he will restrain his careless speech or improve his standards for evidence. He has used Twitter to tweet and retweet false and misleading information at a volume that has challenged the bandwidth of fact checkers. In many cases the fact-checkers don’t get a word in before the false claim. When President-elect Trump becomes President, his Twitter account won’t just be the ramblings of a private citizen — it will be the remarks of the chief executive of the US government. And if his Twitter account is the most open part of his administration, the platform could effectively become the White House press office.

Tim Wu on advertising, Donald Trump, and Google's central tragedy

A Q&A with Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia University.

Tim Wu is perhaps best known for coming up with the phrase "net neutrality." In his last book, The Master Switch, Wu traced the history of modern communications and media consolidation. In his new book, The Attention Merchants, Wu delves into the history of advertising, propaganda, and media. Wu writes a history that begins with Benjamin Day’s idea to sell his paper, The New York Sun, for less than the cost of production and make up the difference through advertising; now, ads are even displayed in public schools. Many media companies — including this one — aim to attract the attention of readers or viewers. That attention is then directed, at least theoretically, toward the ads the company serves. That model has expanded, however, with companies that consider themselves the tech sector — like Google or Facebook — borrowing the media model of serving ads to a captive audience, either through search results or through your social media feed. I spoke to Wu about the long view on advertising, the role of propaganda in politics, and the rise of celebrity culture.

President-elect Trump is about to control the most powerful surveillance machine in history

The US intelligence agencies are among the most powerful forces to ever exist, capable of ingesting and retaining entire nations’ worth of data, or raining down missiles on targets thousands of miles away. As of January 20th, all that power will be directly answerable to President-elect Donald Trump.

It’s still early, but a picture is starting to emerge of how the president-elect could use those powers — and it’s not a pretty sight. Since the September 11th attacks, the US government gives the president almost unlimited discretion in matters of national security, with few limitations or mechanisms for oversight. That includes National Security Agency surveillance, as well as the expanding powers of the drone program. And from what President-elect Trump has said on the campaign trail, his targets for using those powers may cut against some of America’s most important civil rights. The crown jewel of that system is the NSA, and there’s reason to think it will grow even more secretive and voracious in the Trump Administration. President-elect Trump’s current transition team includes two of the NSA’s foremost defenders — Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA) and former congressman Mike Rogers — a move that suggests the agency will be moving toward more invasive collection and less transparency than ever before.

Facebook reportedly had a fake news fix, but was too afraid to use it

A new report says Facebook shelved an update that would have suppressed fake news from going viral on the social network. High-ranking Facebook executives were briefed on an update that identified fake news and hoaxes, but the tool was never released in fears of “upsetting conservatives.” The tool, which heavily affected right-wing media, was reportedly killed following revelations that the company’s human-curated Trending Topics team often favored liberal topics. Facebook then fired the team in place of an algorithm, which instead regularly surfaced fake news onto Trending Topics. It also updated the news feed to favor stories about friends and family over clickbait headlines and spam.

Still, Zuckerberg maintains that “99 percent of what people see [on Facebook] is authentic.” The CEO claimed that fake news worked both ways — with inaccurate stories shared on both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — though a report earlier in 2016 cites that right-wing media published misleading information 38 percent of the time compared to left-wing media’s 20 percent.

AT&T will start throttling mobile video streams starting 2017

AT&T announced a new feature for its data plans called Stream Saver that will effectively throttle mobile video streams starting sometime in 2017. Touted as a “free and convenient, data-saving feature,” AT&T will cap what it says are most video streams to 480p by default. To watch video in high definition, consumers will have to opt-out using the myAT&T app or on the company’s website. AT&T says there is no charge to use the feature.

It sounds innocuous right now, and in most cases having a data-saving tool you can toggle on and off at will is a good thing. (AT&T killed overage fees in August, so it no longer has a vested interest in letting customers exceed their limit.) Yet Stream Saver could pave the way for AT&T to start enabling the potentially net neutrality-violating exemption features championed by T-Mobile and its Music Freedom and Binge On initiatives.

Could Facebook actually be good for you?

People who are well liked on Facebook may also be healthier, according to a study that linked people’s activity on the social network to their lifespans. This could be another blow against the increasingly unstable position that digital media is inherently dangerous. The study looked at the association between the Facebook use of 12 million people between the ages of 27 and 71 and their longevity, using records from the California Department of Public Health. Led by William Hobbs — who at the time was a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego — the researchers found that Facebook activity that indicated a rich offline social life tracked with improved longevity. They published their results Oct 31 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Specifically, they found that people who received a lot of friend requests tended to live longer, but there was little association between longevity and sending friend requests. Posting photos was also linked with reduced mortality in the study. And moderate levels of online-only behavior like sending messages also appears to track with a longer life. The study supports previous research that associated a robust, real-world social network with improved health. The study, however, covered just one state and one social network. And it looked at correlation, not causation. “We cannot say that spurring users to post more photos on Facebook will increase user longevity,” the authors write in the paper. In fact, it’s just as likely that the association goes the reverse direction: these findings could mean that healthier people have the energy and time for richer offline social lives that bleed into their online lives.

Trump campaign using targeted Facebook posts to discourage black Americans from voting

While the Trump campaign continues to flounder weeks before Election Day, a new report is providing some inside information on the candidate's strategy, including an unorthodox use of Facebook. Businessweek explains how the Trump team has quietly organized a data enterprise to sharpen its White House bid. The campaign is meanwhile attempting to depress votes in demographics where Hillary Clinton is winning by wide margins. In one move, the Trump campaign reportedly created a cartoon animation with Clinton repeating her now-infamous line about "super predators," pairing it with the text, "Hillary Thinks African Americans are Super Predators."

Businessweek reports that the Trump campaign is planning to use the ad in so-called "dark" Facebook posts — targeted, paid posts — to convince black voters not to come out for Election Day. Certainly there's nothing new about political ads trashing an opponent — but using Facebook to target the opposition's supporters is a different strategy. As Businessweek points out, there's no widely available evidence that such a plan will work. It may even backfire, unintentionally convincing some Americans to vote instead. But, the data the Trump campaign has built may be the foundation for a Trump project launching well past Election Day.

The new AT&T could control the path from the cable box to your phone

This weekend saw one of the biggest corporate acquisitions in years as AT&T reached a deal to purchase Time Warner for more than $80 billion. If approved, the deal would create a massive new joining of the telecom and media business, along the lines of AOL-Verizon (combined in May of 2015 ) and Comcast-NBCUniversal.

But AT&T's new conglomerate has a unique combination. Comcast has a bundle of cable channels and a fiber network — a scary combination for many — but it doesn't have a wireless business (at least not yet). Verizon has a wireless business and a web empire, but it doesn't have any TV channels. The newly formed AT&T conglomerate would be the only company with the means to build a direct pipeline from Game of Thrones to your smartphone — which could be a powerful and frightening force in the years to come. If the future of the media business is mobile video, zero-rating could give carriers frightening new powers — and no one would benefit more than the newly joined AT&T-Time Warner conglomerate. For now, content companies are holding most of the cards — but that only means AT&T’s new powers are more likely to appear as a bonus rather than a restriction.

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs aims to transform 16 cities into tech-friendly laboratories

Cities across the country are clamoring for technological upgrades to transform themselves from cities of the past into “smart cities” of the future. Sidewalk Labs says it will help over a dozen cities do just that. Sidewalk Labs will join forces with national advocacy group Transportation For America (T4A) to help 16 cities better prepare themselves for innovations like self-driving cars and ride-sharing apps, as well as share information with each other to find out what works and what doesn’t.

The 16 cities that were selected are: Austin, TX; Denver, CO; Boston, MA; Centennial, CO; Chattanooga, TN; Lone Tree, CO; Los Angeles, CA; Miami-Dade County, FL; Madison, WI; Minneapolis / St. Paul, MN; Nashville, TN; Portland, OR; Sacramento, CA; San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; and Washington, DC.

Verizon is now selling unlimited data in 30-minute increments

Verizon has a new unlimited mobile data offering with some significant strings attached. PopData is essentially a pay-as-you-go unlimited option that costs $2 for every 30 minutes or $3 for every 60 minutes. Think of it like a microtransaction or in-app purchase in a mobile game, where you can’t enjoy the full benefits of a product you ostensibly already own or pay for without ponying up a few extra bucks. Of course, PopData isn’t quite as insidious as it sounds upfront.

There does appear to be some legitimate reasons to want unfettered data access for a short amount of time. For instance, perhaps you know you’ll be downloading large files to your phone like numerous Spotify playlists, or maybe you want to enjoy an uninterrupted stream of a sports game or Netflix movie without having to worry about your data cap. But there’s no telling really whether this is a good or bad deal, as it complicates how we think of the value of data by blending a monthly bucket metaphor with that of a time-based subscription system. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if customers could simply pay for unlimited data every month. Yet Verizon — unlike AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint — does not offer customers a standard unlimited plan, and the company has made an effort to kick users off their grandfathered plans in the past.

Google and Facebook building super high-speed cable between LA and Hong Kong

Google and Facebook are working together to lay a nearly 8,000-mile cable between Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

The fiber-optic cable will have a bandwidth of 120 terabits per second, which Google says makes it the highest-capacity route between the US and Asia. It’ll double the current record, which is held by a cable that Google is also a partner on. The new cable should allow Google and Facebook to offer faster and more reliable service to visitors on the other side of the Pacific. The companies will likely each get a certain chunk of the cable’s total capacity and lease out the remaining space to others; but so far, they haven’t announced the specifics.

Most Comcast customers now have a 1TB home internet data cap

Comcast's home internet data caps are going live for a majority of customers starting November 1st.

Called the "Xfinity Terabyte Internet Data Usage Plan," the cap restricts the amount of data you consume in your home to 1TB per month regardless of the speed of your plan. Comcast claims 99 percent of customers use less than 1TB per month, but it does now offer an unlimited option for $50 more per month. Comcast says it will never throttle customers who go over the cap, but it will automatically add 50GB to your plan at a cost of $10. The company will continue to charge you $10 in 50GB intervals up to $200 a month. To notify customers, the company will use in-browser, email, and text notifications starting at the 50 percent point, and a usage meter is available on your online account. Comcast says customers will get two grace months every year, meaning you won't be charged unless you exceed the cap a third time in any given 12-month period.

You can vote online for potential presidential debate questions

For the next presidential debate, you'll be able to vote online for questions that could be asked of the candidates. The debate's organizers announced that they're working with the Open Debate Coalition to source questions online through the new site presidentialopenquestions.com. At the site, people can submit and vote on questions for the candidates. The top 30 questions will be eligible for consideration — although there's no guarantee that even a single question from the website will make it on air. This is the first time the Commission on Presidential Debates has considered questions submitted by online voting, and it seems to be viewing it more as an experiment than a true part of the second debate. The next presidential debate, on October 9th, will use a town hall format, with half its questions coming from "citizen participants" and half from the moderators.

Can virtual reality help us talk politics online?

The more remote someone feels, the less human they seem. This is the driving force behind large parts of what is wrong with communicating on the Internet, and it often makes talking about politics on the internet a special kind of hell. But virtual reality, theoretically, can make people on opposite sides of the globe feel like they’re talking face-to-face. And this election season, a VR social network called AltspaceVR is testing whether this feeling of connection can bring its users together during a bitterly divided campaign.

FCC complaints from Olympics viewers

The Verge made a Freedom of Information Act request to the Federal Communications Commission for complaints related to the 2016 Olympics. The grievances, 18 of which were shared in the FCC’s response, fall into three buckets: inadequate closed captioning, discrimination of non-cable subscribers, and what else, sexual indecency. The issue of NBC failing to properly handle closed captioning is a serious one, and something we intend to explore further. But the FCC complaints are largely technical, focusing on the specifics of when, where, and how long closed captioning was poorly handled or completely absent from broadcasts.

The silliest, saddest, and most political complaints pertained to the human body, and how much of it should be shown. From a viewer in New York City: "Last night 08/06/16 NBC Olympic coverage included video of naked women which was inappropriate for a the wider audience." From a viewer in Norman (OK): "NBC's coverage of the Olympic opening ceremony displayed numerous examples of people's buttocks for the viewing pleasure on my children 9 and 5. This seems highly inappropriate for a recorded program meant to be watched by a general audience."

AT&T lets customers stream AT&T-owned DirecTV with zero data cost

AT&T is getting into the messy business of zero-rating, offering wireless data subscribers the opportunity to stream video from the DirecTV mobile app with no data costs at all. According to update notes from the latest version of the app, users can "stream DirecTV on your devices, anywhere — without using your data."