Ernestina Herrera de Noble, Media Mogul in Argentina
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 2017
Net neutrality and Congressional hearings on tap today https://www.benton.org/calendar/2017-06-20
NEWS FROM THE SUPREME COURT
Supreme Court strikes down social media ban
Supreme Court strikes down law banning offensive trademarks
Editorial: Free Speech at the Supreme Court [links to New York Times]
Editorial: SCOTUS Protects Unpopular Speech [links to Wall Street Journal]
Editorial: It's not the government's job to say if 'Slants' is too offensive. Or 'Redskins' [links to Los Angeles Times]
CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
Does It Matter if Millions of People Send Comments to the FCC? - Scott Wallsten editorial
BROADBAND/TELECOMMUNICATION
Facebook and Twitter being used to manipulate public opinion [links to Guardian, The]
Ensuring a Future for Detecting Internet Disruptions - New America
Cable lobby tries to stop state investigations into slow broadband speeds
Charter, NCTA, ACA urge FCC to bring utilities to heel on pole attachments
Google Fiber says microtrenching, self-installation will enhance network installation [links to Fierce]
The Time Is Now for San Francisco Municipal Fiber, Says Report [links to Government Technology]
NETWORK NEUTRALITY
Rep Pelosi Sends Letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Opposing Proposal to Unravel Net Neutrality - press release
Who Speaks for Whom on Net Neutrality? - op-ed [links to Benton summary]
AEI: Set free the next wave of internet innovation [links to American Enterprise Institute]
JOURNALISM
Boris Epshteyn, a former Trump surrogate, now defends him as a Sinclair TV pundit
White House reporters fume over off-camera briefings [links to Benton summary]
Megyn Kelly Interview With Alex Jones Draws 3.5 Million Viewers, Less than America's Funniest Home Videos Rerun [links to New York Times]
Drive-by journalism in Trumplandia [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
OWNERSHIP
Amazon and Whole Foods: Game Changer - analysis
Why Amazon Buying WholeFoods Will Attract Serious Antitrust Scrutiny - editorial [links to Scott Cleland]
Rep Ro Khanna, A Silicon Valley Congressman, Takes On Amazon
Comcast ranked No. 4 in U.S. as corporate backer of start-ups [links to Philadelphia Inquirer]
FTC and Two State Attorneys General Challenge Proposed Merger of DraftKings and FanDuel [links to Federal Trade Commission]
Investment Group Challenges Chicago Tribune in Effort to Buy Sun-Times [links to New York Times]
WIRELESS
Nonprofit Coalition Letter Urges FCC to Reject Cellular Industry Effort to Upend Historic Spectrum Sharing Framework - New America press release
This World Wi-Fi Day, let's celebrate the progress we've made - FCC Commissioner O'Rielly op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Verizon Wireless Beats Back T-Mobile for PC Magazine’s Fastest U.S. Mobile Network Title [links to PC Magazine]
A T-Mobile/Sprint merger would be ‘operationally daunting’: Moody’s [links to Fierce]
Op-ed: Don’t leave mobile out in real estate infrastructure spend [links to Fierce]
CYBERSECURITY
A Republican contractor’s database of nearly every voter was left exposed on the Internet for 12 days, researcher says [links to Benton summary]
FTC Offers Comment on Process Aimed at Improving Security of Internet of Things Devices [links to Federal Trade Commission]
PRIVACY
California Broadband Internet Privacy Bill a Model for the States - editorial
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Setting the Record Straight on Broadband Privacy – Myths & Facts [links to Center for Democracy and Technology]
Feds and States Must Work Together on Consumer Privacy [links to Center for Democracy and Technology]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Text to 911 Poses Technology, Funding and Political Challenges
FirstNet and AT&T Advance Nationwide Broadband Network for Public Safety; Release Buildout Plans for States and Territories [links to FirstNet]
NYU Wireless part of team awarded NIST grant to study mmWave for first responders [links to Fierce]
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
A GOP voter-targeting firm was doing massive data analysis on Reddit [links to Verge, The]
CONTENT
Common Sense Media’s New Rating for TV and Movies Tries to Combat Gender Stereotypes [links to New York Times]
Time Warner Signs $100 Million Deal With Snap for Shows and Ads [links to Wall Street Journal]
Move Over, Bitcoin. Ether Is the Digital Currency of the Moment. [links to New York Times]
DIVERSITY
Op-ed: It’s Bias That Hobbles People of Color, Not Lack of a Leadership Pipeline [links to Chronicle of Philanthropy]
CABLE
FCC OKs Emailed Annual Cable Sub Notices - Public Notice [links to Benton summary]
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
President Trump tells tech CEOs that Washington needs to 'catch up with the revolution'
POLICYMAKERS
Former-Commissioner Michael Copps: ‘Maybe the Worst FCC I’ve Ever Seen’
Spicer searching for candidates to take over White House briefing [links to Benton summary]
What’s the latest with the U.S. Digital Service? [links to Medium]
Op-Ed: Behind The Media Surge Against Bernie Sanders [links to Huffington Post]
PHILANTHROPY
Inside Ford’s Billion-Dollar Bet on Mission Investing [links to Chronicle of Philanthropy]
COMPANY NEWS
Comcast Launches Advanced Advertising Group [links to Multichannel News]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
After Terror Attacks, Britain Moves to Police the Web [links to New York Times]
21st Century Fox Faces a Showdown with British Regulators [links to Benton summary]
NEWS FROM THE SUPREME COURT
SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN SEX OFFENDER SOCIAL MEDIA BAN
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Mark Sherman]
The Supreme Court struck down a North Carolina law that bars convicted sex offenders from Facebook, Twitter and other popular sites. The justices ruled unanimously in favor of North Carolina resident Lester Packingham Jr. His Facebook boast about beating a traffic ticket led to his conviction for violating a 2008 law aimed at keeping sex offenders off internet sites children might use. The court rejected the state’s argument that the law deals with the virtual world in the same way that states keep sex offenders out of playgrounds and other places children visit. “In sum, to foreclose access to social media altogether is to prevent the user from engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion.
benton.org/headlines/supreme-court-strikes-down-sex-offender-social-media-ban | Washington Post | The Hill
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SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN LAW BANNING OFFENSIVE TRADEMARKS
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: David Savage]
The Supreme Court extended trademark protection to words and names that may be offensive, ruling June 19 that the 1st Amendment right to free speech allows an Asian American band to call itself the Slants. The unanimous decision will also likely preserve the trademarked and controversial name of the Redskins, Washington’s pro-football team. In recent years, such trademarked names have come under attack as racially offensive. But in June 19’s decision, the high court struck down part of a 1946 federal law that barred trademarks that may “disparage” people or groups. The justices said this provision violates “a bedrock 1st Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. He said trademarks are “private speech,” not the government speaking. And as such, the law may not punish words or expressions simply because they are offensive. “We have said time and time again that the ‘public expression of ideas may not be prohibited merely because the ideas are themselves offensive to some of their hearers,’” Justice Alito said in the case of Matal vs Tam.
benton.org/headlines/supreme-court-strikes-down-law-banning-offensive-trademarks | Los Angeles Times
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CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
DOES IT MATTER IF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE SEND COMMENTS TO THE FCC?
[SOURCE: Technology Policy Institute, AUTHOR: Scott Wallsten]
[Commentary] The 2015 Open Internet Order received 3.7 million comments total, and the current rulemaking has received almost 5 million to date. Counting is easy. Knowing what that count means is not...Despite the rhetoric, few in DC have much incentive to want the issue to go away. Millions of comments to the Federal Communications Commission also represent millions of fundraising opportunities. Groups arguing all sides of the issue financially benefit from the ongoing argument. Congress, meanwhile, probably will not weigh in before the 2018 election regardless of what the Federal Communications Commission does because that would mean giving up a campaign issue likely to be lucrative to members on both sides of the aisle. Thus, in the end, I suspect that millions of comments mostly mean that even after the current rulemaking is resolved, we will be stuck with this issue at least until sometime after the 2018 election and probably longer. Setting aside politics, it still remains the case that if the issue is to take into account broader public opinion then Congress is the only institution that can resolve it and, regardless of broad interest, only legislation has a chance of leading to a stable solution. Then, we can all finally move on to something else.
[Scott Wallsten is President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute]
benton.org/headlines/does-it-matter-if-millions-people-send-comments-fcc | Technology Policy Institute
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BROADBAND/TELECOMMUNICATION
CABLE LOBBY TRIES TO STOP STATE INVESTIGATIONS INTO SLOW BROADBAND SPEEDS
[SOURCE: ars technica, AUTHOR: Jon Brodkin]
Broadband industry lobby groups want to stop individual states from investigating the speed claims made by Internet service providers, and they are citing the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules in their effort to hinder the state-level actions. The industry attempt to undercut state investigations comes a few months after New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a lawsuit against Charter and its Time Warner Cable (TWC) subsidiary that claims the ISP defrauded and misled New Yorkers by promising Internet speeds the company knew it could not deliver. NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and USTelecom, lobby groups for the cable and telecom industries, in May petitioned the Federal Communications Commission for a declaratory ruling that would help ISPs defend themselves against state-level investigations. The FCC should declare that advertisements of speeds "up to" a certain level of megabits per second are consistent with federal law as long as ISPs meet their disclosure obligations under the net neutrality rules, the groups said. There should be a national standard enforced by the FCC instead of a state-by-state "patchwork of inconsistent requirements," they argue.
benton.org/headlines/cable-lobby-tries-stop-state-investigations-slow-broadband-speeds | Ars Technica | B&C
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POLE ATTACHMENTS
[SOURCE: Fierce, AUTHOR: Daniel Frankel]
The cable industry’s top lobbying groups filed comments related to an April Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) intended to spur deployment of fiber wireline services. “Attachers face problems in obtaining access to poles, ducts, and conduit for two primary reasons. First, many utilities oppose mandated access to these facilities and have little, if any, incentive to provide access on a reasonable basis,” said the American Cable Association. “The second problem attachers face is that the Commission’s complaint process has proven to be of little value to attachers, especially smaller entities, in addressing all but the most serious and substantial attachment problems,” ACA added.
benton.org/headlines/charter-ncta-aca-urge-fcc-bring-utilities-heel-pole-attachments | Fierce
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NETWORK NEUTRALITY
REP PELOSI LETTER TO PAI RE: NN
[SOURCE: US House of Representatives, AUTHOR: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)]
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai opposing the FCC’s proposal to reclassify broadband as a service under Title I of the Communications Act. Minority Leader Pelosi also requested a public hearing in San Francisco (CA) on the FCC’s harmful plan to dismantle consumer protections on the internet. “Consumers should be able to use the internet on the device they want, using the apps and services they want without their internet provider standing in the way. I support the current rules because they are in place to protect consumers, and I oppose your efforts to eliminate them,” she wrote. "I was...dismayed to learn you are likely to disregard the millions of public comments filed in the record. The Administrative Procedures Act prohibits the FCC from disregarding comments. You have made confusing statements that you will both give less weight to comments that are not of sufficient quality, and that you will err on the side of including suspicious comments in the agency’s deliberation, even when dozens among a particular batch of comments have sworn that their name and address were used fraudulently. I therefore ask that you clarify your policy on how the agency will consider comments in the record. Finally, if you believe that online public comments are coming from 'astroturf' sources and are of questionable integrity, then you must hear directly from the public in official hearings outside of Washington, DC. "
benton.org/headlines/pelosi-sends-letter-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-opposing-proposal-unravel-net-neutrality | US House of Representatives | The Hill
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JOURNALISM
BORIS EPSHTEYN
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Paul Farhi]
TV station powerhouse Sinclair Broadcast Group raised a few eyebrows in April when it hired Boris Epshteyn as its chief political analyst. Epshteyn, after all, was a combative TV surrogate for President Trump during the presidential campaign and briefly was a Trump administration press aide, raising an obvious question: How independent would his political analysis be? The answer, judging from Epshteyn’s first few weeks on the job, seems to be not very. In his initial pieces for Sinclair, the owner of the largest string of TV stations in the nation, Epshteyn has played much the same role he did during the presidential campaign — as a Trump booster and defender. His “Bottom Line With Boris” segments have echoed positions taken by Trump himself, especially the president’s distaste for the news media.
benton.org/headlines/boris-epshteyn-former-trump-surrogate-now-defends-him-sinclair-tv-pundit | Washington Post
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OWNERSHIP
AMAZON AND WHOLE FOODS
[SOURCE: Diffusion Group, AUTHOR: Joel Espelien]
Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods is the M&A deal of the year, with the potential to massively reroute consumer retail spending. The spillover effects of economic disruption at this scale – both positive and negative – are beyond anyone’s capacity to predict. That said, only a fool would claim that Amazon is not having society-wide impacts, including exacerbating the age-old tension between labor and technology capital.
benton.org/headlines/amazon-and-whole-foods-game-changer | Diffusion Group
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REP KHANNA TAKES ON AMAZON
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Alexis Madrigal]
An interview with Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA).
Freshman Congressman Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA), who represents the South Bay, including a big chunk of Silicon Valley, said that the Amazon-Whole Foods deal shows why the government should think differently about mergers. “This as a case study for how we think about antitrust policy,” he said. “It’s the particulars here.” Rep Khanna said that recent antitrust cases have turned on the question of whether a merger would, in point of fact, immediately raise prices for consumers. Drawing on the work of Matt Stoller and Lina Khan at the New America Foundation, he traced that very narrow test to Robert Bork’s The Antitrust Paradox, which was a move away from decades of more expansive thinking about industry concentration. In this interview, Khanna calls for a “reorientation” of antitrust decision making to look at a much broader set of concerns, including the effect that a merger could have on jobs, wages, innovation, and small businesses. Whether he can get traction for this idea might be a bellwether for how well the populist wave in US politics can translate into policy reprioritization.
benton.org/headlines/rep-ro-khanna-d-ca-silicon-valley-congressman-takes-amazon | Atlantic, The
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WIRELESS
SPECTRUM SHARING FRAMEWORK
[SOURCE: New America, AUTHOR: Press release]
A broad-based coalition of nonprofit groups [including the Benton Foundation] filed a letter calling on the Federal Communications Commission to reject a proposal from the cellular industry, filed by CTIA on June 16, to re-open and revise the rules finalized more than a year ago for a new Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) that opens a large frequency band of unused Navy spectrum for small area, high-capacity broadband innovation. The coalition represents consumers, public institutions and small business users of broadband, and includes the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, Next Century Cities, Engine, the R Street Institute, the American Library Association and the National Hispanic Media Coalition. The coalition asks the FCC to instead move rapidly to complete implementation of this historic innovation in spectrum policy, which opens unused military spectrum for sharing with Priority Access Licenses that are available for small areas (census tracts) and short terms, thereby making them more useful and affordable to smaller operators and to venues for indoor use.
benton.org/headlines/nonprofit-coalition-letter-urges-fcc-reject-cellular-industry-effort-upend-historic | New America | read the letter
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PRIVACY
CA BROADBAND INTERNET PRIVACY BILL
[SOURCE: Consumer Federation of America, AUTHOR: ]
[Commenary] On June 19, California Assemblymember Ed Chau introduced a bill to give people in that state the broadband privacy rights that they lost in Congress. This legislation has all of the key elements that are needed to protect broadband users’ privacy. States have long recognized the importance of protecting privacy. There’s no federal law that requires commercial websites to post their privacy policies, but California and Delaware require it. There are state laws protecting the privacy of e-book users, and on biometrics, monitoring of employees’ e-mail, data security, and much more. The California Broadband Internet Privacy Act is another example of states leading the way. Consumer Federation of America strongly endorses it.
benton.org/headlines/california-broadband-internet-privacy-bill-model-states | Consumer Federation of America
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
TEXT TO 911
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
The ability to send text messages to 911 anywhere in the US could enhance public safety answering points’ (PSAPs’) ability to respond to emergency situations – and could be particularly important when the person contacting the PSAP is unable to place a traditional phone call. But although some PSAPs already support text to 911 capability, the capability is far from ubiquitous, and achieving it more broadly will require addressing technology, funding and political issues. Telecompetitor learned more about those issues in a recent interview with executives from NGA911, one of several companies that has developed technology to support text to 911. “911 is a national brand implemented at the municipal level — in most cases, with no state coordinating agency,” said NGA911 CEO Don Ferguson.People “have the perception that it’s consistent but that’s very far from the truth,” he said.
benton.org/headlines/text-911-poses-technology-funding-and-political-challenges | telecompetitor
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GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
GOVERNMENT AND TECHNOLOGY
[SOURCE: The Guardian, AUTHOR: Olivia Solon]
President Donald Trump called for “sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology” during the first meeting of the American Technology Council. Eighteen of America’s leading technology executives – including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google parent Alphabet – convened at the White House for the summit. “Government needs to catch up with the technology revolution,” said President Trump. “America should be the global leader in government technology just as we are in every other aspect, and we are going to start our big edge again in technology – such an important industry.” The tech leaders spent four hours meeting officials including Vice President Mike Pence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross before meeting with the president. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, was also present. They discussed modernizing the government’s technological infrastructure, cutting fraud and government costs and improving services for taxpayers. The White House believes these measures could save up to $1 trillion over 10 years.
benton.org/headlines/president-trump-tells-tech-ceos-washington-needs-catch-revolution | Guardian, The | Washington Post | recode | Bloomberg | The Hill | USA Today
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POLICYMAKERS
MAYBE THE WORST FCC I’VE EVER SEEN
[SOURCE: Moyers and Company, AUTHOR: Michael Winship]
A Q&A with former Federal Communications Commission member Michael Copps. CBS CEO Les Moonves said it best: “I don’t know if Donald Trump is good for the country. but he’s damn good for CBS.” The election was just a glorified reality show and I do not think it was an aberration. Until we get that big picture straightened out and we get a civic dialogue that’s worthy of the American people and that actually advances citizens’ ability to practice the art of self-government — that informs citizens so they can cast intelligent votes and we stop making such damn-fool decisions — we’re in serious trouble. To me, that remains the problem of problems, it remains at the top of the list. Journalism continues to go south, thanks to big media and its strangulation of news, and there’s not much left in the way of community or local media. Add to that an internet that has not even started thinking seriously about how it supports journalism. You have these big companies like Google and Facebook who run the news and sell all the ads next to it, but what do they put back into journalism? It isn’t much. I don’t think right now that commercial media is going to fix itself or even that we can save it with any policy that’s likely in the near-term, so we have to start looking at other alternatives. We have to talk about public media — public media probably has to get its act together somewhat, too.
benton.org/headlines/former-commissioner-michael-copps-maybe-worst-fcc-ive-ever-seen | Moyers and Company
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