BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2017
Today's Event -- Measuring Cleveland's Digital Divide: New Research on Digital Equity & Inclusion, the Cleveland Foundation -- https://www.eventbrite.com/e/measuring-clevelands-digital-divide-new-res...
ELECTIONS
Department of Homeland Security tells 21 states about Russian hacking during 2016 election
President Trump says it’s a ‘hoax’ that Russian sources purchased ads on Facebook
How a Russian Outlet Sought to Reach American Voters on Twitter
Russia denies use of Facebook ads in 2016 election [links to Benton summary]
President Obama tried to give Zuckerberg a wake-up call over fake news on Facebook
9 ways Zuckerberg says Facebook will get better at protecting elections [links to Fast Company]
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
How the national anthem — and subverting it — became a pregame tradition in America [links to Washington Post]
Fueled by Trump’s Tweets, Anthem Protests Grow to a Nationwide Rebuke [links to New York Times]
Defying Trump, Athletes Intensify Debate on Race and Protest [links to New York Times]
Here’s What NFL Fans Think of Trump’s Comments and Anthem Protests [links to New York Times]
Lawyers say Trump’s free speech shows contempt for free speech [links to Washington Post]
Editorial: Everybody loses in the Trump-NFL brawl over the national anthem [links to Wall Street Journal]
Op-Ed: How Trump is helping to save our democracy [links to Washington Post]
Analysis: Colbert, Kimmel and the Politics of Late Night [links to New York Times]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Democratic Sens ask FCC to delay network neutrality repeal
Crying Wolf on Waste, Fraud, and Abuse for Low-Income Americans - New America analysis [links to Benton summary]
Top 5 and bottom 5 US metro areas for broadband subscription - analysis [links to Benton summary]
The purchase of Internet subscriptions in Native American households - research
Electric Co-op Broadband Report: Feasibility Studies Are Essential [links to telecompetitor]
Verizon’s FiOS Deployment In Boston Is Fiber-To-The-B.S. - HuffPost op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Microsoft, Facebook and Telxius complete the highest-capacity subsea cable to cross the Atlantic [links to Microsoft]
EDUCATION
FCC Seeks Comment on E-rate Category Two Budgets - public notice [links to Benton summary]
OWNERSHIP
T-Mobile, Sprint close to agreeing on deal terms, apparently
A merger between Sprint and T-Mobile might not face many hurdles at the Trump administration
A T-Mobile/Sprint Merger Would Destroy Wireless Competition, Kill Jobs and Harm Low-Income Families - press release
T-Mobile plus Sprint: If you're a customer, here's why a merger would matter [links to USAToday]
Leading the Legal War Against Fox [links to Benton summary]
Why Big Tech is Clashing with Internet Freedom Advocates [links to Benton summary]
5 issues driving the push to crack down on tech giants [links to Benton summary]
PRIVACY/SECURITY
Another court tells police: Want to use a stingray? Get a warrant [links to Ars Technica]
Op-ed: We’re under constant threat of cyberattack, and Congress isn’t prepared to do anything about it [links to Washington Post]
Should the US Require Companies to Report Breaches? [links to Wall Street Journal]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Hurricane Maria Communications Status Report for Sept. 24 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
Hurricane Maria Communications Status Report for Sept. 23 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
Hurricane Maria Communications Status Report for Sept. 22 [links to Federal Communications Commission]
Emergency Alert Test Filing Deadline Postponed to November [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
For Puerto Ricans Off the Island, a Struggle to Make Contact After Maria [links to Benton summary]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
Verizon kicking people off network for using just a few gigabytes a month [links to Ars Technica]
ADVERTISING
What We Do and Don’t Know About Facebook’s New Political Ad Transparency Initiative [links to ProPublica]
Why Facebook Will Struggle to Regulate Political Ads [links to Wired]
Op-Ed: I Helped Create Facebook's Ad Machine. Here's How I'd Fix It [links to Wired]
JOURNALISM
Jimmy Kimmel Wasn’t the First Host to Get Serious About Politics [links to New York Times]
In paywall age, free content remains king for newspaper sites [links to Benton summary]
LABOR
Op-ed: Fighting hard — and losing — the gender discrimination battle in the tech world [links to Washington Post]
Op-Ed: No, the gender gap in tech isn't set in stone [links to Los Angeles Times]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
Kushner used private email to conduct White House business
What we know about Jared Kushner’s private email account [links to Washington Post]
Public Knowledge Calls for Court to Protect Rights to Access the Law - press release [links to Benton summary]
AGENDA
Deletion of Agenda Items From September 26, 2017 Open Meeting - press release [links to Benton summary]
POLICYMAKERS
FCC Announces Chairs of Working Groups for Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment - public notice
Sen Warren lifts hold on Makan Delrahim, President Trump’s antitrust nominee [links to Reuters]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
American journalist and her mother murdered by suspected Assad regime agents in Turkey [links to Hill, The]
Uber stripped of London license due to lack of corporate responsibility [links to Benton summary]
Catalunya: Freedom of Expression Under Attack [links to Public Knowledge]
68 Things You Cannot Say on China’s Internet [links to New York Times]
ELECTIONS
ELECTION HACKS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Sari Horwitz, Ellen Nakashima, Matea Gold]
The Department of Homeland Security contacted election officials in 21 states to notify them that they had been targeted by Russian government hackers during the 2016 election campaign. In June 2017, DHS officials said that people connected to the Russian government tried to hack voter registration files or public election sites in 21 states, but this was the first time that government officials contacted individual state election officials to let them know their systems had been targeted. Officials said DHS told officials in all 50 states whether their systems had been attacked or not. In only a handful of states, including Illinois, did hackers actually penetrate computer systems, according to US officials, and there is no evidence that hackers tampered with any voting machines. State elections officials in Alabama, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington were told they were targeted.
benton.org/headlines/department-homeland-security-tells-21-states-about-russian-hacking-during-2016-election | Washington Post
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TRUMP SAYS 'HOAX' THAT RUSSIAN SOURCES PURCHASED ADS ON FACEBOOK
[SOURCE: Vox, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
Federal officials across the US government are investigating whether Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election by purchasing ads on social networks like Facebook. But President Donald Trump on Sept 22 dismissed the matter as a “hoax.” Only a day earlier, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that foreign governments had used his company’s website to spread misinformation in the United States and around the world. So far, his company has pinpointed about 3,000 ads purchased by Russian sources ahead of Trump’s Election Day win. Despite the evidence, President Trump tweeted on Sept 22: "The Russia hoax continues, now it's ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?"
benton.org/headlines/president-trump-says-its-hoax-russian-sources-purchased-ads-facebook | Vox
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HOW RUSSIAN OUTLET SOUGHT TO REACH AMERICAN VOTERS ON TWITTER
[SOURCE: Foreign Policy, AUTHOR: Jenna McLaughlin]
Before Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had even wrapped up their respective bids to secure the nomination for president, Kremlin-funded media outlet RT was plotting to promote its election coverage in the United States. RT hoped to take over at least two Twitter accounts or handles for its media coverage: @NotHillary and @NotTrump. Their goal, RT told Twitter’s advertising department, was to use the accounts to push their 2016 election coverage, but neither handle or username has any identifying information tracing the owner back to the Russian government-funded media organization. Twitter denied the request. The company declined to comment on the record on the specific accounts “for privacy and security reasons.” RT says that the company’s interest in the dormant accounts was part of an ultimately doomed project to take advantage of a unique moment in American political history.
benton.org/headlines/how-russian-outlet-sought-reach-american-voters-twitter | Foreign Policy
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NEWS ON FACEBOOK
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Adam Entous, Elizabeth Dwoskin, Craig Timberg]
Nine days after Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg dismissed as “crazy” the idea that fake news on his company’s social network played a key role in the US election, President Barack Obama pulled the youthful tech billionaire aside and delivered what he hoped would be a wake-up call. For months leading up to the vote, President Obama and his top aides quietly agonized over how to respond to Russia’s brazen intervention on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign without making matters worse. Weeks after Trump’s surprise victory, some of Obama’s aides looked back with regret and wished they had done more. Now huddled in a private room on the sidelines of a meeting of world leaders in Lima, Peru, two months before Trump’s inauguration, President Obama made a personal appeal to Zuckerberg to take the threat of fake news and political disinformation seriously. Unless Facebook and the government did more to address the threat, President Obama warned, it would only get worse in the next presidential race. Zuckerberg acknowledged the problem posed by fake news. But he told President Obama that those messages weren’t widespread on Facebook and that there was no easy remedy.
benton.org/headlines/president-obama-tried-give-zuckerberg-wake-call-over-fake-news-facebook | Washington Post
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
DEMOCRATIC SENS ASK FCC TO DELAY NET NEUTRALITY REPEAL
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Harper Neidig]
A group of Democratic Sens is asking the Federal Communications Commission to delay its effort to repeal the Obama-era net neutrality regulations in order to review a trove of recently-released documents related to the proceeding. The nine senators, led by Sen Edward Markey (D-MA), wrote to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai asking if the new documents had been taken into account by the agency when deciding to roll back the rules. “Although the Commission has undertaken an historic proceeding to undo the Open Internet Order, the FCC has failed to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to comment on the tens of thousands of filed complaints that directly shed light on proposed changes to existing net neutrality protections,” the letter reads.
benton.org/headlines/democratic-sens-ask-fcc-delay-net-neutrality-repeal | Hill, The
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NATIVE AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS AND INTERNET SUBSCRIPTIONS
[SOURCE: Telecommunications Policy, AUTHOR: Peter Stenberg]
With the growing use of the Internet for information, education, job hunting, and other activities, its economic value increases. The incidence of in-home Internet subscriptions, however, varies across households, and Native American households are less likely than other American households to subscribe to Internet services. The lack of universality has, potentially, enormous consequences for households not subscribing to the Internet. Using descriptive statistics and logistic regressions we find that the growth of U.S. Internet subscriptions may have peaked and exhibited a small decline between 2012 and 2015; technology adoption has reached the third stage of the S-curve. Internet adoption in Native American households, however, may not have fully reached into the third stage. While rural-urban location is a small factor for non-Native American households, it remains a major factor for Native American households.
benton.org/headlines/purchase-internet-subscriptions-native-american-households | Telecommunications Policy
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OWNERSHIP
T-MOBILE, SPRINT CLOSE TO AGREEING ON DEAL TERMS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Greg Roumeliotis, Arno Schuertze]
Apparently, T-Mobile US is close to agreeing tentative terms on a deal to merge with Sprint, a major breakthrough in efforts to merge the third and fourth largest US wireless carriers. The transaction would significantly consolidate the US telecommunications market and represent the first transformative merger with significant antitrust risk to be agreed since the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January. The progress toward a deal also indicates that T-Mobile and Sprint believe that the US antitrust enforcement environment has become more favorable since the companies abandoned their previous effort to combine in 2014 amid regulatory concerns. The latest development in the talks between T-Mobile and Sprint comes as the telecommunications sector seeks ways to tackle investments in 5G technology that will greatly enhance wireless data transfer speeds. Once terms are finalized, due diligence by the two companies will follow and a deal is expected by the end of October, though talks may still fall through, apparently.
benton.org/headlines/t-mobile-sprint-close-agreeing-deal-terms-apparently | Reuters | The Verge | ars technica
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SPRINT/T-MOBILE MERGER MIGHT NOT FACE HURDLES AT TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
[SOURCE: Vox, AUTHOR: Tony Romm]
A potential merger of T-Mobile and Sprint could fare well with the Trump administration, which has telegraphed for months that it isn’t resolutely opposed to the combination of the country’s third- and fourth-largest wireless giants. For years, the two companies have flirted with a tie-up, and while talks became particularly serious in 2014, Sprint-owner SoftBank pulled the plug amid threats from the U.S. government that it would block the deal in its tracks. Under President Trump, however, the Federal Communications Commission has reversed course and sought to deregulate the telecom industry. And the agency’s chairman, Ajit Pai, previously has said he doesn’t “take a preexisting view as to what the optimal market structure is” when it comes to the country’s four major wireless carriers: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. “I don’t think any regulator who embraces regulatory humility and intellectual honesty about economics can say whether three or four or five [carriers] is the optimal number,” he said earlier in 2017. “What I do want to see is a competitive wireless marketplace.”
benton.org/headlines/merger-between-sprint-and-t-mobile-might-not-face-many-hurdles-trump-administration | Vox
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T-MOBILE/SPRINTER MERGER WOULD DESTROY COMPETITION
[SOURCE: Free Press, AUTHOR: Matt Wood]
No one but Donald Trump’s pals on Wall Street wants to see this competition-killing, investment-killing and job-killing merger. There is no rational justification for T-Mobile to take over Sprint and remove yet another consumer choice from the marketplace. It’s motivated by pure greed and a desire to reach deeper into people’s wallets. What’s obvious about the wireless market is that customers benefit most when the government has the wisdom to block such mergers. Competition driven by the smaller carriers is finally starting to pay off for consumers, but this merger would halt all that. The competition between T-Mobile and Sprint is particularly important for lower-income families who favor these carriers over AT&T and Verizon. Many people in these households rely on mobile as their only internet connection. If T-Mobile and Sprint merge, prices will spike and the digital divide will widen. The legal standard for approving giant mergers like this is not whether Wall Street likes it. Communications mergers must enhance competition and serve the public interest. This deal would do just the opposite: It would destroy competition and harm the public in numerous irreversible ways. So unless Ajit Pai wants his tenure at the FCC to go down as the worst for consumers in the agency’s 83-year history, the chairman should speak out and show us he’s willing to do more than rubber-stamp any harmful deal that crosses his desk.
benton.org/headlines/t-mobilesprint-merger-would-destroy-wireless-competition-kill-jobs-and-harm-low-income | Free Press
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GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS
KUSHNER EMAIL
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Josh Dawsey]
Presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition, part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business. Kushner uses his private account alongside his official White House email account, sometimes trading emails with senior White House officials, outside advisers and others about media coverage, event planning and other subjects. “Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business,” said Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner. “Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal rather than his White House address.” Aides who have exchanged emails with Kushner on his private account since President Donald Trump took office in January include former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, and spokesman Josh Raffel. In some cases, those White House officials have emailed Kushner’s account first. At times, Bannon and Priebus have also used private email accounts to correspond with Kushner and others.
benton.org/headlines/kushner-used-private-email-conduct-white-house-business | Politico | New York Times | Washington Post
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POLICYMAKERS
FCC ANNOUNCES CHAIRS OF WORKING GROUPS FOR COMMITTEE ON DIVERSITY AND DIGITAL EMPOWERMENT
[SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission, AUTHOR: Public notice]
This Public Notice serves as notice that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has appointed chairs for the three working groups for the Advisory Committee on Diversity and Digital Empowerment (ACDDE):
Henry Rivera, Senior Advisor, Emma Bowen Foundation, will chair the Broadcast Diversity and Development Working Group.
Heather Gate, Director of Digital Inclusion, Connected Nation, will chair the Digital Empowerment and Inclusion Working Group.
Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League, will chair the Diversity in the Tech Sector Working Group.
Chairman Pai previously designated Julia Johnson, President, NetCommunications, LLC, to serve as Chair of the ACDDE, and Diane Sutter, President/CEO, ShootingStar Broadcasting, to serve as Vice Chair. The ACDDE will hold its first meeting on Monday, September 25, 2017.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-announces-chairs-working-groups-advisory-committee-diversity-and-digital-empowerment | Federal Communications Commission
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