Free Press
Eighty Civil-Society Groups Urge Senate to Confirm President Biden's Nominees to FCC and NTIA
80 civil-rights, media-justice, community-media, workers-rights and consumer-advocacy groups sent a letter urging Senate leadership to swiftly confirm Jessica Rosenworcel as chairwoman and Gigi Sohn [Senior Fellow and Public Advocate at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society] as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, and Alan Davidson as the director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Advocacy Groups Urge FTC to Act Against Data Abuses and Discrimination
45 civil-rights, media-democracy and consumer-advocacy groups called on Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan to initiate a rulemaking to safeguard privacy, promote civil rights and set guardrails against the abuse of data online. Discriminatory and abusive data practices are prevalent across the digital economy, the groups wrote
Request for Notice of Inquiry into History of Systemic Racism in FCC Policy and Licensing
Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a racial reckoning has taken place in our country that has forced public and private institutions — including the media — to acknowledge their histories of racism. Reps.
Free Press Rebuts USTelecom's Latest Flawed and Misleading Claims on Broadband Prices
Today’s USTelecom update is just more of the same grossly misleading and inaccurate analysis of broadband prices first seen in a prior report released last year. This new report, like the earlier versions, falsely asserts that the broadband prices internet users pay are declining.
Price Too High and Rising: The Facts About America’s Broadband Affordability Gap
The facts on pricing and profits for the US broadband industry, the varying ways to measure prices, the important differences between these methods, and how certain methods can be used to obfuscate the reality of what is happening in the market and at the kitchen table. Government and industry data note the strength and weaknesses in each form and highlight how the ISP industry and its apologists use this kind of data to mislead. Some of our findings include:
Free Press and Access Now Urge the FCC to Get the Emergency Broadband Benefit to People in Need
Free Press and Access Now filed reply comments with the Federal Communications Commission urging strong and rapid implementation of the Emergency Broadband Benefit program.
Free Press and Access Now Urge FCC To Make Emergency Broadband Benefit Easily Accessible
Free Press and Access Now filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission urging strong and rapid implementation of the Emergency Broadband Benefit program established by Congress in the latest pandemic relief package. The EBB program offers a monthly benefit of up to $50 to low-income families and those financially impacted by the COVID-19 emergency. The benefit would help cover the cost of any broadband plan offered by participating internet providers.
Ajit Pai's Broadband Legacy: Haste and Waste
The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is looking more and more like one of the most wasteful projects in Federal Communications Commission history. Critiquing the FCC for awarding more than $2 billion to unproven companies using questionable technologies to serve questionable areas is fully valid. So is raising concerns about awards to a bankrupt incumbent. These two critiques can coexist. Yet FCC Chairman Pai views them as the bread of a “job well done” policy sandwich.