Reporting

AT&T Business is offering a new broadband service for residence locations that features symmetrical speeds of 1-Gig. AT&T is calling the service "AT&T Home Office Connectivity" and its now available across 21 states via the company's fiber and copper lines. The service includes an internet access line as well as the required equipment that AT&T Business will retain ownership of.

Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr slammed social media and their Sec. 230 exemption from liability for how they handle third-party content--both taking it down and leaving it up. Tucker Carlson asked Commissioner Carr why the White House and Congress had not done anything about the exemption. Commissioner Carr cited the reports that the President's executive order would be "addressing some of these issues," then went off on social media himself.

A draft of an executive order President Donald Trump is expected to sign on May 28 would seek to limit the broad legal protection that federal law currently provides social-media and other online platforms. The draft order would make it easier for federal regulators to hold companies such as Twitter and Facebook liable for curbing users’ speech, for example by suspending their accounts or deleting their posts. The executive order would mark the Trump administration’s most aggressive effort to take action against social-media companies, which the president has threatened to do for years.

In Virginia, as in other states, school officials are racing to reach families by publicizing discounted offers from Internet providers, extending school Wi-Fi into parking lots, and distributing hotspot devices. And schools trying to do more face a major hurdle: long-standing laws that effectively bar county governments and public school systems from providing Internet directly to families.

SpaceX and OneWeb have asked for US permission to launch tens of thousands of additional satellites into low Earth orbit. SpaceX's application to launch 30,000 satellites—in addition to the nearly 12,000 it already has permission for—is consistent with SpaceX's previously announced plans for Starlink. OneWeb's application to launch nearly 48,000 satellites is surprising because the satellite-broadband company filed for bankruptcy in March.

Tensions between President Donald Trump and Twitter escalated as he threatened to "strongly regulate" or shut down social media platforms, which he accused of silencing conservative viewpoints. President Trump's threat came the day after Twitter added a fact-check warning to his tweets claiming that mail-in ballots are fraudulent. "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices," President Trump tweeted the morning of May 27. "We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.

The US Court of Appeals in Washington rejected claims that social media giants conspired to suppress conservative views online. The court affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit by the nonprofit group Freedom Watch and the right-wing YouTube personality Laura Loomer, who accused the companies of violating antitrust laws and the First Amendment. The organization didn’t provide enough evidence of an antitrust violation, and the companies aren’t state entities that can violate free speech rights, a three-judge panel held in a decision only four pages long.

A subsidiary of Matanuska Telephone Association has finished construction of the first overland fiber-optic cable connecting Alaska to not-Alaska. Having the cable means Alaska is no longer solely dependent upon a series of subsea cables for high-speed Internet and telephone service. Alaska’s subsea cables are vulnerable to earthquakes, and an overland connection offers a “geographically divers

The days of Dish and T-Mobile playing nice may be coming to an end. On March 13, during the height of the coronavirus crisis, Dish lent its portfolio of 600 MHz spectrum to T-Mobile at no cost for 60 days in order to bolster wireless capacity during the pandemic. Recently, T-Mobile asked Dish for an extension of its 600 MHz spectrum loan until June 30. T-Mobile says the continued use of Dish’s spectrum is necessary to support the needs of customers who are still working and learning from home.

Twitter for the first time applied a fact-checking notice to a tweet from President Donald Trump, hours after the company denied a widower’s request to delete the president’s posts circulating conspiracy theories about his wife’s death. Twitter applied the fact-checking notices to two tweets from the president about the potential for fraud involving mail-in ballots. With a small label—“Get the facts about mail-in ballots”—and a link to more information, Twitter alerted its users that those claims were unsubstantiated.