Ownership

President Donald Trump blocked Broadcom's $117 billion hostile bid for Qualcomm, capping a remarkable series of moves by the Trump administration reflecting officials’ concerns about an intensifying arms race between the US and China over advanced technologies. While Broadcom is a Singapore-based company, the US panel that vets foreign deals said that the bid could have had implications for the US’s broader technological competition with China.

As the US government gets set to fight AT&T's proposed acquisition of Time Warner in a DC federal court, the Department of Justice March 9 submitted a trial brief that sharpens its theories on why the $85 billion merger deserves to be blocked.

The past two years have taught us that the United States needs a better handle on what social networks are doing to manipulate and prioritize information. If there’s one thing that Washington could do, it would be to provide better safeguards to ensure that these powerful tools are not used to mislead the public again. That’s part of the message from Martha Minow, longtime Harvard Law school dean and expert on the shifting media and technological landscape. Minow also casts a skeptical eye on the concentration of local media ownership by companies such as Sinclair Broadcasting.

Reddit is made up of more than a million individual communities, or subreddits, some of which have three subscribers, some twenty million. But, no matter how neutral a platform may seem, there’s always a person behind the curtain. Is it possible to facilitate a space for open dialogue without also facilitating hoaxes, harassment, and threats of violence? Where is the line between authenticity and toxicity? What if, after technology allows us to reveal our inner voices, what we learn is that many of us are authentically toxic?

[Commentary] It seems as if you are never “hard core” enough for YouTube’s recommendation algorithm. It promotes, recommends and disseminates videos in a manner that appears to constantly up the stakes. Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century. This is not because a cabal of YouTube engineers is plotting to drive the world off a cliff. A more likely explanation has to do with the nexus of artificial intelligence and Google’s business model.

[Commentary] The threats to the web today are real – from misinformation and questionable political advertising to a loss of control over our personal data. But I remain committed to making sure the web is a free, open, creative space – for everyone. That vision is only possible if we get everyone online, and make sure the web works for people. I founded the Web Foundation to fight for the web’s future. Here’s where we must focus our efforts:

[Commentary] AT&T-Time Warner: The merger is vertical in nature, whereas the Disney-Fox merger is horizontal. But AT&T-Time Warner is a key merger from which to gather clues about the Department of Justice’s antitrust enforcement priorities under the new leadership of Makan Delrahim. Again, vertical mergers historically have been treated as either beneficial to consumers or having an ambiguous or benign impact on consumer welfare. Yet the proposed vertical merger is subject to a DOJ court action to block the merger.

Politics have been at the center of the public debate about the Justice Department’s lawsuit to block AT&T’s $85 billion purchase of Time Warner. But the trial itself, starting later in March, is shaping up to be a fight focused on classic issues in antitrust law.  In court filings on March 9, the Justice Department and AT&T laid out the arguments that they plan to make in the trial. Regulators will argue that the deal will hurt competition and lead to higher prices.

Microsoft is targeting public school buses as a part of its initiative to provide rural broadband in 12 states between now and 2022. But as of right now, it’s unclear how the data of these children would be protected. Microsoft declined to comment on the record. The big question is what Microsoft will get in return for providing this broadband access, especially considering the precedent for private companies grabbing, tracking, and storing user data in exchange for public Wi-Fi. 

[Commentary] Sinclair’s behavior in trying to merge with Tribune is doing it — and the entire broadcasting industry — no favors. By dragging out this process, and by pressing for every advantage, Sinclair is making life difficult for Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, who has been broadcasters’ best friend in that job in decades.