Digital Content

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Sens Todd Young (R-IN), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) introduced the bipartisan Future of AI Innovation Act, which lays the foundation to maintain U.S. leadership in the global race to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies. The legislation promotes strong partnerships between government, business, civil society, and academia to advance AI research.

County Health Rankings & Roadmaps' (CHR&R) 2024 National Findings Report highlights the importance of civic infrastructure and spaces to connect and be informed, with a focus on access to local news, broadband internet and public libraries. CHR&R calls attention to structural barriers like policies, laws and practices that can create obstacles to forms of participation such as voting and worker unionizing. Key findings include:

The Federal Communications Commission will vote on reimposing Title II authority over broadband at its April 25 meeting. Here are just a few of the things that can happen after the FCC reintroduces Title II regulation:

There’s a common complaint among high school students across the country, and it has nothing to do with curfews or allowances: Internet filters are preventing them from doing online research at school. School districts must block obscene or harmful images to qualify for federally-subsidized internet access under the Children’s Internet Protection Act, passed by Congress nearly 25 years ago. But the records, from 16 districts across 11 states, show they go much further. Some of the censorship inhibits students’ ability to do basic research on sites like Wikipedia and Quora.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is set to vote on April 25 to restore its authority over the companies we pay to get online, and reinstate federal net neutrality protections that were jettisoned by the Trump administration in 2017.  Net neutrality protections are supposed to ensure that we, not the internet service providers (ISPs) we pay to get online, get to decide what we do online.

A pending bill in the California state legislature, the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), would create a “link tax” that would require Google to pay for simply connecting Californians to news articles. We have long said that this is the wrong approach to supporting journalism. If passed, CJPA may result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers. By helping people find news stories, we help publishers of all sizes grow their audiences at no cost to them. CJPA would up-end that model.

On April 25, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will—for the seventh time in 20 years—address the issue of net neutrality.

House Innovation, Data and Commerce Subcommittee Chairman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), together with Representatives Kathy Castor (D-FL), Erin Houchin (R-IN), and Kim Schrier (D-WA) have introduced the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). This comprehensive legislation will provide kids and parents with the safeguards, tools, and transparency they need to better protect against serious online threats to children’s health and emotional wellbeing.

Reps. Tim Walberg (R-MI) and Kathy Castor (D-FL) introduced Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). The bipartisan, bicameral COPPA 2.0 modernizes and strengthens the only online privacy law for children, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Attorney General Merrick Garland signed a final rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to ensure the accessibility of web content and mobile applications (apps) for people with disabilities. This final rule clarifies the obligations of state and local governments to make their websites and mobile applications accessible.