I want to share with you a snapshot of what the Federal Communications Commission under Chairman Ajit Pai’s leadership is doing to leverage technology to promote public safety. I hope you will leave here with an understanding of the policies that we are pursuing at the Commission. As important, I hope you will leave with an appreciation for Chairman Pai and the Commission’s commitment to improving public safety through communications technology. As the Chairman’s public safety and consumer protection advisor, I clearly have an interest in saying that public safety sits atop the Commission’s list of priorities. [But the law, the news, and Chairman Pai's travel schedule indicate] the Chairman has prioritized public safety, and we are doing everything we can to leverage technology to save lives as part of our public safety mission. Communications in times of crisis can be a matter of life-and-death importance. The FCC treats it as such. 

Twitter accounts originating in Iran masqueraded as foreign journalists and concerned US citizens in their attempt to push political messages on the social media site until they were suspended earlier in 2018. The analysis — performed by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab — reflects an attempt by some in Iran to “spread regime messaging through covert channels.” But researchers said the campaign had proved less pervasive and effective than the coordinated disinformation operation carried out by Russia, which focused its efforts instead on exacerbating social and political tensions in the United States during the 2016 election. "The scale and scope of the Russian troll farm drastically outweighed the scale and scope of the Iranian troll farm,” said Graham Brookie, the director and managing editor of the Digital Forensic Research Lab. Twitter on Oct 17 announced it would make available roughly 10 million tweets and 2 million images, live video and other content that had been created by the Iranian accounts and thousands of other, widely reported online trolls that previously had been tied to Russia.

A competitive race in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District has an alarming new element: anonymous attack ads on Facebook. The ads, which appeared on a Facebook page called “Wacky Wexton Not,” were purchased by a critic of Jennifer Wexton, a Democratic candidate trying to unseat Rep Barbara Comstock (R-VA). The person or group behind the ads is known to Facebook, but a mystery to the public. The funding disclaimer attached to the ads reads, simply, “Paid for by a freedom loving American Citizen exercising my natural law right, protected by the 1st Amendment and protected by the 2nd Amendment.” There is no other identifying information on the page. A Facebook spokesman, Andy Stone, said that the ads on “Wacky Wexton Not” were allowed under the company’s current policies, but that the company was working on improving the disclosure feature. He said Facebook did not disclose the identity of the people authorized to buy political ads in order to protect those users’ privacy.

President Donald Trump attacked the Associated Press over a headline it had on a story about comments he made on the midterm elections, saying the headline "was very different from my quote and meaning in the story." The headline on the AP story from Oct 16 reads, "Trump tells AP he won't accept blame if GOP loses House." The president took issue with that language in a tweet. "AP headline was very different from my quote and meaning in the story. They just can’t help themselves. FAKE NEWS!"  The AP reported that, during a wide-ranging interview with the president, Trump dismissed the idea that he would be to blame if Republicans lose the House in the upcoming midterms. “No, I think I’m helping people,” the President said. “I don’t believe anybody’s ever had this kind of an impact.”