Civic Engagement

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.

Disrupting traffic has long been a way for protesters to call attention to a cause. But when the cause itself is speed—in this case, Internet speed—the move takes on an extra level of defiance. That’s what one cyclist made clear when he used his bike to protest the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC voted in December to end Obama-era rules for Internet service providers.

The White House took down the popular “We The People” petitions website, started by Barack Obama’s administration, in December, with the promise that the site would be restored by “late January.” As of 3 p.m. on Jan. 31, the site, which allows citizens to post petitions that require a White House response when they meet a certain number of signatures, is still down.

[Commentary] The ability to speak and be heard is a basic human right. And the ability to communicate during a disaster is a life-and-death issue. But both are often denied to people of color. This has been the case in Puerto Rico.

Instead of talking about the substance of network neutrality, I want to use it as a launching pad to go big and discuss policymaking in the internet era. I want to talk about shortcomings in our civic infrastructure. Because we need to make some real changes if we want to give the public a fair shot at getting through to those who make decisions in Washington.

Google is testing a new tool for people to report and publish local news stories, called Bulletin. A website first spotted online Jan 25 describes Bulletin as “an app for contributing hyperlocal stories about your community, for your community, right from your phone.” It’s designed to make it “effortless” to tell “the stories that aren’t being told” via your smartphone. It’s not just for techie early adopters: “If you are comfortable taking photos or sending messages, you can create a Bulletin story!”, the site says.

Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Justice Department to expand any planned investigation into the hundreds of fake comments that appeared on the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rule to rulemakings from all agencies. In a letter, Reps Bobby Scott (D-VA), Frank Pallone Jr.

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has a lot on his plate. On top of running a critical independent federal agency, he now must do so under a cloud of hate speech and death threats directed at him and his young children. This behavior is unacceptable in any circumstance, and it is an especially sad irony that it’s being directed at a public servant who has made it his No.

The Federal Communications Commission has extended the deadline for public comments in its Lifeline proceeding. Comments now due January 17, 2018; reply comments due February 21, 2018.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai actually allowed the weight of public comments on the FCC's proposed changes to network neutrality regulations to sway (or confirm) his position, he seems to have given more credence to the "opinions" of spam-generating software "bots" than actual citizens, researchers have found. Leah Figueroa, lead data engineer at the data analytics software company Gravwell, presented a detailed analysis of the public comments submitted to the FCC regarding network neutrality.