Washington Post

State governments are becoming pivotal players in the battle over net neutrality. Gov Phil Murphy (D-NJ) this week became one of the latest to adopta new strategy, signing an executive order that effectively forces Internet service providers (ISPs) that do business with the state to abide by strong net neutrality rules. Rather than directly regulating the broadband industry, the executive order imposes procurement obligations on state agencies.

British lawmakers grilled Silicon Valley social media giants over the presence of “fake news” and Russian influence on their platforms in Washington (DC).  The British parliament members asked Twitter, Facebook and YouTube representatives pointed questions during a special US hearing over how hoax content disseminated from their websites may have swayed the 2016 British "Brexit" referendum on leaving the European Union.   The tech representatives downplayed those concerns, citing internal data they said found that accounts linked to Russians did not heavily use their platforms in the same w

[Commentary]  As communities across the United States wait to learn how high-speed mobile networks will figure in a long-promised infrastructure plan, some cities are already attracting private investment in next-generation 5G networks. They are doing so by finding new ways to collaborate with network and equipment providers, creating a set of “best practices” that other local governments can follow. Forward-thinking officials at the federal, state and local levels are hurrying to update their processes, looking for new approaches that maximize community value and minimize delay.

The Chicago-based owner of the Los Angeles Times is expected to announce it is selling the newspaper in a surprise move that probably spells the end of its long-troubled relationship with Southern California’s leading news outlet. The buyer is Patrick Soon-Shiong, a Los Angeles-area physician and a major shareholder of the paper’s current parent company, Tronc. Soon-Shiong is the billionaire founder and chief executive of NantHealth, based in Culver City (CA). He will also buy its sister newspaper, the San Diego Union-Tribune.

US presidents are held up as examples on the world stage. For the past several decades, they have aggressively pushed for human rights and free press, while critiquing countries that don’t share these values. Past presidents have pushed for free press — regardless of the type of coverage they receives. President Donald Trump shifted this rhetoric. His willingness to dismiss negative news coverage as “fake” appears to have opened the door for leaders of other countries to follow suit.

In December 2017, the White House took down the popular “We the People” petitions website with the promise that it would be restored by “late January.” Now petitions.whitehouse.gov has relaunched. A number of petitions have signature totals that surpass the 100,000 threshold used during the Obama years to initiate a formal response, but the White House has not responded to a petition since President Donald Trump took office.