The Verge

The FCC is having a terrible month, and consumers will pay the price

[Commentary] Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is setting a record pace for deregulating the communications industries. Believe it or not, things are about to get worse in Nov. Starting with the FCC’s open meeting on Nov 16, the agency is poised to approve or propose no fewer than four decisions that will deregulate consolidated industries, remove consumer protections, and widen the digital divide:

US Said to Seek Sale of CNN or DirecTV in AT&T-Time Warner Deal

Apparently, the Justice Department has called on AT&T and Time Warner to sell Turner Broadcasting, the group of cable channels that includes CNN, as a potential requirement for approving the companies’ pending $85.4 billion deal. The other possible way for the merger to win approval would be for AT&T to sell its DirecTV division, apparently.

No one’s ready for GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will go into effect on May 25th, and no one is ready — not the companies and not even the regulators. After four years of deliberation, the GDPR was officially adopted by the European Union in 2016. The regulation gave companies a two-year runway to get compliant, which is theoretically plenty of time to get shipshape. The reality is messier. Like term papers and tax returns, there are people who get it done early, and then there’s the rest of us.

Facebook’s self-defense plan for the 2018 midterm elections

Facebook has a four-part plan to protect its platform from malicious attacks during the 2018 US midterm elections:

A new bill could finally ban predatory inmate phone costs

March 8, a bipartisan group of US Senators introduced the Inmate Calling Technical Corrections Act that aims to restore federal authority to crack down on what prison reform advocates call the “usurious,” “abusive,” and “exploitative” business practices of a small handful of companies that dominate the $1.2 billion US prison phone industry. For Sen Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who introduced the bill, addressing the problem of predatory prison phones rates is a practical, as well as moral, imperative.

How women helped build the internet, and why it matters

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, a new book from journalist and musician Claire L. Evans, offers a rougher and more complicated version of the history of the internet. 

Reddit, Tumblr, and Others will fight for net neutrality with protests Feb 27

Along with organizations Fight for the Future, Demand Progress, and Free Press Action Fund, companies including Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, and Medium are participating in a day of online and offline protests on February 27th. The protest — called Operation: #OneMoreVote — will call upon businesses, web users, and more to “flood lawmakers with phone calls and emails from constituents.” 

Conservatives say they've lost thousands of followers on Twitter

Conservative Twitter users are speaking out about a loss in followers after Twitter reportedly suspended thousands of accounts. Twitter has yet to announce the purge, but there is speculation that the action was part of the social media giant's effort to get rid of suspected Russian bots. Conservatives say they have been targeted in the purge. Some users are also claiming they were locked out of their accounts. By the morning of Feb 21, the hashtag "#TwitterLockOut" was trending on Twitter.