Agenda

Legal analysts are questioning the recent assertion by National Telecommunications and Information Administration head Arielle Roth that the NTIA can legally withhold federal broadband deployment funds from states that have laws enforcing net neutrality or that have enacted affordable broadband legislation similar to New York’s Affordable Broadband Act.

Netflix and Spotify share much in common. The two media companies have spent the first quarter of this century reshaping audience behaviors around on-demand streaming, and normalizing creative economies where consumers pay for subscriptions rather than music and films directly. They are known for their highly personalized recommendation feeds, built with massive pools of behavioral data extracted from users. And both companies operate with what often feels like an ambivalence towards the health of the mediums they’ve disrupted.

Digital equity advocates warned that inconsistent federal financing threatened to erase broadband adoption gains, and urged Congress to replace the lapsed Affordable Connectivity Program with a stable, long-term consumer subsidy. Moderated by Revati Prasad, executive director of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, the panel said high monthly costs remained the main reason families lose or forgo internet service. Any replacement for the ACP must function as a permanent affordability support, not a short-term emergency program, argued Prasad. 

National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Arielle Roth spoke at the Hudson Institute on Oct. 28, about the agency's broadband deployment efforts and the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Roth described BEAD as previously being weighed down by red tape and extralegal conditions that slowed down states, deterred providers, and sidelined innovative technologies, but that under the Trump administration’s reforms, BEAD is finally delivering.

On October 28, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Arielle Roth delivered remarks at the Hudson Institute. "As an alumnus of Hudson’s Center for the Economics of the Internet, I learned early on that ineffective subsidies don’t just preserve the status quo––they can distort markets, crowd out innovation, and ultimately leave Americans worse off," Roth said.

On October 29, Senior Vice President at Public Knowledge Harold Feld testified at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing regarding First Amendment freedoms. "I have been an advocate for First Amendment freedoms––especially the right of the public to hear diverse views and production of local news critical to an informed democracy––for over 25 years," he said.

At a Senate hearing on government censorship of tech platforms, a Meta executive expressed regret to Republican lawmakers for failing to speak out more against the Biden administration’s requests that it remove health and election misinformation, including satire. Google, meanwhile, held firm in its stance, saying that evaluating — and often rejecting — government content requests is business as usual.