Civic Engagement

Following reports that the New York State Attorney General has issued subpoenas in its investigation into millions of fraudulent comments submitted to the Federal Communications Commission, Sens Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Ed Markey (D-MA), wrote the FCC Inspector General to urge him to open an investigation into the agency’s handling of potential fraud in the net neutrality rule-making process.

Apparently, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood subpoenaed more than a dozen telecommunications trade groups, lobbying contractors, and Washington advocacy organizations, seeking to determine whether the groups submitted millions of fraudulent public comments to sway a critical federal decision on internet regulation.

In the leadup to the Federal Communications Commission's historic vote in Dec 2017 to repeal all network neutrality protections, 22 million comments were filed to the agency. The FCC did nothing to try to prevent comment stuffing and comment fraud, and even after the vote, made no attempt to help the public, journalists, policymakers actually understand what Americans actually told the FCC about the repeal of the 2015 Open Internet Order. This report aims to help make that clear. This report used the 800,000 comments identified as semantic standouts from form letter and fraud campaigns.

A coalition of Puerto Rican advocates, racial- and social-justice organizations, and media and telecommunications experts urged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to appoint an independent commission to examine the causes for the communications failures in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria in 2017. In a letter delivered to Chairman Pai on the one-year anniversary of the storm making landfall in Puerto Rico, groups including the Center for Media Justice, Color Of Change, Collective Action for Puerto Rico, Defend Puerto Rico, Free Press, the National Hispanic Media Coalit

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai provided details to Congress on the commission’s effort to overhaul its much-maligned online commenting system. “The Commission is moving forward with the procurement steps for this project,” Chairman Pai wrote in an Aug. 31 letter responding to lawmaker questions.

“I write as a football fan,” read the letter to the Federal Communications Commission, “to strongly urge you to maintain the FCC’s current broadcast rules.” There may have been thousands of bogus, identically worded letters generated on the National Football League’s behalf, posted in 2014 to the FCC’s website from scores of “fans." These supposed fans opposed an FCC move to repeal the sports blackout rule, a rule that banned cable and satellite providers from showing home games that weren’t sold out when the NFL blocked local TV broadcasts of those games. The decades-old blackout rule aime

I’m alarmed at the state of our news. Fake news, “real” news, just about all news—the made-up stuff that comes without corroboration and from God knows where; the infotainment masquerading as news from media outlets that should know better; and the tweets and mistruths that spew forth daily from the White House that attempt, with considerable success, to determine what the rest us will talk about on that particular day. Over time, a society deprived of real news and information will begin to make decisions that work against its better interests.

President Donald Trump unblocked some additional Twitter users after a federal judge in May said preventing people from following him violated individuals constitutional rights.  US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled on May 23 that comments on the president’s account, and those of other government officials, were public forums and that blocking Twitter users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

More than 100 Facebook employees have joined Mr. Amerige to form an online group called FB’ers for Political Diversity. The aim of the initiative is to create a space for ideological diversity within the company. The new group has upset other Facebook employees, who said its online posts were offensive to minorities.

There are few more sought-after politicians in the United States at the moment than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In June, at 28 years old, by making a play from the left, she pulled off a stunning primary victory over Joe Crowley, who had represented New York in Congress since 1999—first from the 7th district, then the 14th. Wherever she goes, Ocasio-Cortez brings a media deluge.  A couple weeks ago, feeling mobbed by reporters, she decided to make two “listening tour” stops—one in the the Bronx and another in Queens, open to the public but not to the press.