President Donald Trump complained about the news coverage he has received related to the alleged pipe bomber, saying a different standard was applied to then-President Barack Obama when nine black worshipers were killed at a church in Charleston (SC) during his tenure. “I was in the headline of The Washington Post, my name associated with this crazy bomber,” President Trump said. “They didn’t do that with President Obama with the church, the horrible situation with the church — they didn’t do that.” President Trump also asserted that a different standard was applied by the media when James Hodgkinson, a supporter of Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT), shot House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and others at a congressional baseball practice in 2017. “Bernie Sanders had a fan who shot a very good friend of ours, Steve Scalise — and other people. He was a total maniac. Nobody puts his name in the headline — Bernie Sanders in the headline with the maniac,” President Trump said. 

As mainstream social-media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit try to push racist commentary and hate speech off their platforms, those conversations are finding homes in other corners of the web. They are happening on Discord, a chat service for videogamers, and message boards such as 4chan. Gab was founded explicitly to be a haven for free commentary, no holds barred. Discord says its rules prohibit harassment, threatening messages and calls to violence, and it has shut down accounts over those issues. Grappling with such web speech is proving challenging. It is thrusting an array of companies—from web hosts to payment processors—into the position of being arbiters of free speech. And it has left law-enforcement officials struggling to keep track of hate-filled conversations in remote parts of the web as they search for early tipoffs to tragedy.

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. The NY Attorney General has identified at least 14 groups of interest to the investigation including trade groups and political firms that have a previous track record of concerning practices in their effort to thwart net neutrality. The FCC has repeatedly shown a disinterest in investigating these fraudulent comments, potentially undermining the public trust and casting a continued shadow over the agency’s rule-making process.

“Despite concerns that the rule-making process was subverted by fraudulent comments and manipulated by special interests, including possible Russian interference, the FCC has seemingly ignored the issue, failed to provide answers to Congress, and dismissed public concerns,” wrote the Sens.  “In order to resolve lingering questions, we ask that your office investigate the FCC’s handling of the fraudulent comments and look into its cooperation with other investigations into the matter.”

Over the past several years the Federal Communications Commission has brought sweeping changes to Lifeline, the telecommunications aid program for low-income households. These changes are designed to shift the program’s focus from telephone service to broadband service. Though few would question the need to narrow the digital divide, many (including me) have criticized the way the commission has chosen to do so. This blog post focuses on one oft-overlooked aspect of the Lifeline transition: the paternalism inherent in the decision to phase out voice-only service as an option for Lifeline recipients. The phase-out of voice-only service reflects the commission’s view that low-income households should look forward to broadband networks, rather than backward to telephone networks, to meet their telecommunications needs. While the agency is free to decide which platforms are worth subsidizing, this paternalism does a disservice to low-income consumers. 

[Lyons is an associate professor at Boston College Law School]

The American job market, by a lot of measures, seems very healthy. The unemployment rate is low and, though labor-force participation has been at historically-low levels, recent employment numbers indicate that more people are coming back to the job market. But there are some Americans who have not benefitted from the improving job picture. Even among those with jobs, wage growth – especially for those whose pay is middle-income or less – has been weak, while upper-income workers have fared better. There are, however, well-paying job opportunities for those on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum for so-called middle-skill jobs. These are jobs that generally do not require a college degree and pay a living wage. Roughly half of all job openings in the United States fall into the middle-skill category and most (82%) of them require digital skills – and wages are better as a result. Unfortunately, many people who fit the middle-skill demographic also exhibit low levels of “digital readiness” – which means they have deficiencies in digital skills and lower home-broadband adoption rates. A logical solution to the mismatch in skills and job openings is better job training. There is good news and bad news on this front.

[John B. Horrigan is Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute]

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) led ten of his colleagues in expressing concerns about the Federal Communication Commission proposal to alter the terms of governing agreements between Local Franchising Authorities (LFA) and cable operators. Currently, towns and cities across the country are permitted to require as part of cable franchise agreements that cable operators meet demonstrated community needs by setting aside channels for public, educational, or governmental (PEG) stations. However, the Commission’s proposal would permit cable companies to assign a value to these channels, and then subtract that amount, and the value they place on any other in-kind contributions, from the franchise fees the cable operator pays the local community.  “Our constituents watch PEG channels to monitor local government proceedings, hear the latest news from nearby college campuses, and consume other locally produced programming including emergency alerts and directives,” write the Sens in their letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. “We fear this proposal will result in a dire drop in resources for PEG channels throughout the nation.”