Vice

Voters are quickly becoming accustomed to the barrage of conversational, sometimes annoying and mostly unregulated text messages sent by political campaigns, often asking whether they can “count on your vote” while offering quick reminders on elections and initiatives. Peer-to-peer texting platforms can be a useful political tactic. They allow campaigns to get in touch with tens of millions of people, and the method was partially pioneered by Sen Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) campaign.

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.

With the Federal Communications Commission preparing its latest report of the state of broadband in the States, the focus has shifted once again to whether the current definition of broadband is currently fast enough. Especially on the upstream side of the aisle, where 3 Mbps is starting to look notably last-generation in the face of symmetrical, gigabit connections. And once again, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is hoping to keep the broadband definition bar set at ankle height.

After Congress repealed Federal Communications Commission rules that required internet service providers to get permission from customers before collecting their data and selling it to advertisers. ISPs Comcast and Verizon assured everyone that they had no intention of selling their customers’ internet histories. In the wake of that repeal, about half of the country’s states chose not to take the ISPs at their word, and began crafting their own legislation to restore the FCC’s rules within their borders.

Twitter appears to have adjusted its platform to no longer limit the visibility of some prominent Republicans in its search results, a problem that the company said was a side effect of its attempts to clean up discourse on its platform. Those affected included RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, Republican Reps. Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, along with Andrew Surabian, Donald Trump Jr.’s spokesman and former Special Assistant to the President. The profiles did populate when entering a full search but not not in the more visible search menu.