December 2015

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2015

INTERNET/BROADBAND
   Home Broadband 2015 - Pew research
   Home broadband adoption: Modest decline from 2013 to 2015 - Pew research
   Charter Plans $14.99 Low-Income Broadband Post Merger
   Competition and community savings - Christopher Mitchell op-ed
   Facebook ‘Accidentally’ Asks US Users to Support Free Basics in India
   China's Internet conference is all about censorship - San Jose Mercury News editorial [links to Benton summary]

WIRELESS
   How should the FCC classify text messages? - AEI op-ed [links to Benton summary]

CONTENT
   Protecting the First Amendment in the Internet Age - op-ed
   What was fake on the Internet this week: Why this is the final column - Caitlin Dewey analysis

ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
   Sen Sanders data controversy spotlights powerful gatekeeper - analysis
   Democrats' Data Breach Exposes Risks of the Political Data Beast [links to AdAge]
   Sen Sanders Wins Back DNC Data Access After Day of Clashes [links to Bloomberg]
   Sen Sanders’s campaign dominates online conversation about Sanders

JOURNALISM
   A Citizen's View: The Responsibility of the Media in a Democratic Society - op-ed [links to Benton summary]
   The funny, the weird, the elaborate, the terrible – 33 media errors from 2015 [links to Poynter]

PRIVACY/SECURITY
   Tech companies are slamming a proposed UK terrorism law. Here’s why. [links to Washington Post]
   Apple says surveillance push risks paralysing global tech sector [links to Financial Times]
   Apple believes bill creates ‘key under doormat for bad guys’ [links to Financial Times]
   Op-ed: Encryption backdoors are killers of the innovation economy [links to Christian Science Monitor]
   Juniper faces questions about spying code planted in software [links to IDG News Service]
   Is Facebook’s photo-tagging system violating privacy law? [links to Verge, The]
   Nursing Home Workers Share Explicit Photos of Residents on Snapchat [links to ProPublica]

DIVERSITY
   Why start-ups need diversity from the start [links to USAToday]

PATENTS
   Apple agrees to pay Ericsson a portion of its iPhone revenue in patent deal [links to Reuters]

AGENDA
   Republican Congress Sets Low Expectations for 2016 Lawmaking [links to Wall Street Journal]

COMPANY NEWS
   More Rural Service Provider Consolidation: Shawnee to Buy Moultrie [links to telecompetitor]
   CenturyLink wants to consolidate ILEC operations in states where it has multiple operating companies [links to Benton summary]
   FairPoint's quality of service settlement gets Vermont's approval [links to Fierce]
   Windstream announces gigabit Internet trial for Lexington [links to Lexington Herald Leader]

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS?
   Why Your Parents Are So Bad At Tech [links to Fast Company]

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INTERNET/BROADBAND

HOME BROADBAND 2015
[SOURCE: Pew Internet, Science and Tech, AUTHOR: John Horrigan, Maeve Duggan]
Three notable changes relating to digital access and digital divides are occurring in the realm of personal connectivity, according to new findings from Pew Research Center surveys. First, home broadband adoption seems to have plateaued. It now stands at 67% of Americans, down slightly from 70% in 2013, a small but statistically significant difference which could represent a blip or might be a more prolonged reality. This change moves home broadband adoption to where it was in 2012. Second, this downtick in home high-speed adoption has taken place at the same time there has been an increase in “smartphone-only” adults – those who own a smartphone that they can use to access the internet, but do not have traditional broadband service at home. Today smartphone adoption has reached parity with home broadband adoption (68% of Americans now report that they own a smartphone), and 13% of Americans are “smartphone-only” – up from 8% in 2013. Some of the most significant changes in these adoption patterns are taking place among African Americans, those with relatively low household incomes and those living in rural areas. Third, 15% of American adults report they have become “cord cutters” – meaning they have abandoned paid cable or satellite television service. Many of these cord cutters say that the availability of televised content from the internet and other sources is a factor in their move away from subscription television services.
benton.org/headlines/home-broadband-2015 | Pew Internet,Science and Tech
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DECLINE IN HOME BROADBAND ADOPTION
[SOURCE: Pew Internet, Science and Tech, AUTHOR: John Horrigan, Maeve Duggan]
Broadband adoption in the United States has experienced a modest decline in recent years, falling from 70% in 2013 to 67% in 2015. These changes in home broadband adoption are concentrated among lower- to middle-income households, rural households and African Americans. There has also been a drop in home broadband adoption among parents of children under the age of 18. 68% of Americans now have a smartphone, an increase from 55% two years ago. This increase in smartphone adoption has compensated for the downturn in home broadband adoption in two ways:
More Americans are more likely to have both means of online access (in other words, a smartphone as well as home broadband service) than was the case two years ago. As of July 2015, 55% of adults report having both a smartphone and a home broadband subscription, up from 47% in 2013.
More Americans are “smartphone-only” in 2015 than was the case in 2013. Today 13% of adults rely on their smartphone for online access at home (that is, they have a smartphone but no home broadband subscription), compared with 8% in 2013.
The consequence is that the “advanced internet access” picture, which we define as having either a smartphone or a home broadband subscription, has changed little between 2013 and 2015. Today 80% of American adults have either a smartphone or a home broadband connection, a small change from 2013, when 78% had one of these two access means.
benton.org/headlines/home-broadband-adoption-modest-decline-2013-2015 | and Tech,Pew Internet,Science
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CHARTER PLANS $14.99 LOW-INCOME BROADBAND POST MERGER
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Andrew Burger]
Charter Communications announced it will launch a new fast-broadband service for low-income Americans within six months of concluding its pending merger with Time Warner Cable and acquisition of Bright House Networks. Charter expects the service will be available throughout its service territories within three years of close. The low-income broadband service will offer the highest speeds of any comparable offering, delivering speeds of 30/4 Mbps for $14.99 per month, Charter claims. Charter provided further details of the new low-income broadband offering as follows:
Eligible customers will also be able to receive promotional video service and phone bundle offerings
The service comes with a modem at no extra cost and free self-install
Eligible subscribers include families with students who participate in the National School Lunch Program and seniors 65 and older who receive Supplemental Security Income program benefits
Also eligible are current Charter service subscribers who meet either of the above two criteria
Ineligible are those with Charter/TWC/BHN broadband subscriptions within 60 days of sign-up
Those eligible do not need to undergo a credit check, but they must clear any bad debts with Charter, TWC and BHN.
benton.org/headlines/charter-plans-1499-low-income-broadband-post-merger | telecompetitor
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COMPETITION AND COMMUNITY SAVINGS
[SOURCE: Pioneer Press, AUTHOR: Christopher Mitchell]
[Commentary] Minnesota has just one more month to achieve its goal of high speed Internet access available to every resident and local business. In 2010, the Legislature set a 2015 goal for universal Internet access at speeds just under the current federal broadband definition. But the state never really committed to anything more than a token effort and will fall far short. Rather than allowing communities to decide locally on the best strategies to improve Internet access, Minnesota discourages them by requiring a supermajority vote before a community can offer telephone service. This requirement particularly harms Greater Minnesota, where mobile phones are far less reliable and telephone service plays a more important public safety role. The state should be lessening barriers to investment, not maintaining them at the behest of large cable and telephone companies. Local government strategies will play an important role in ensuring our communities can thrive in the digital age.
[Christopher Mitchell is director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance]
benton.org/headlines/competition-and-community-savings | Pioneer Press
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FACEBOOK ASKS US USERS FOR SUPPORT
[SOURCE: Revere Digital, AUTHOR: Kurt Wagner]
Ahead of a public hearing on network neutrality, Facebook has been asking its user base in India to throw some support behind the company’s Internet.org initiative, CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pet project to bring the Internet access to the entire world. On Dec 21, it started asking its US users to do the same — by mistake. Facebook rolled out notifications encouraging users to “send a message to TRAI to support digital equality,” with a link to a blank email that included the subject, “I Support Free Basics in India.” (TRAI is the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the independent regulatory body holding the public debate.) The notification caught the attention of a few users who were curious why Facebook was using its notifications tab to push its political agenda, especially one in India. A spokesperson claims that it wasn’t intentional. “Hundreds of millions of people in India use the Internet every day and understand the benefits it can bring. This campaign gives people the opportunity to support digital equality in India.”
benton.org/headlines/facebook-accidentally-asks-us-users-support-free-basics-india | Revere Digital
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CONTENT

PROTECTING THE FIRST AMENDMENT IN THE INTERNET AGE
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: David Post]
[Commentary] The war on Internet free speech -- spurred by the use of Internet social media by the Islamic State and other radical groups for disseminating propaganda and for recruitment -- is heating up. University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner has now joined their ranks as well, with a more thoughtful (and therefore even more distressing) argument for greater speech curbs. Terrorist groups, he notes, have become increasingly adept at using Internet social media platforms to “lure young men and women to their mission … without having to risk capture on US soil,” creating a “radicalization echo chamber” that has “given rise to a historic and unprecedented danger from foreign radicalization and recruitment.” Posner then suggests that “there is something we can do to protect people from being infected by the ISIS virus by propagandists”: Do we really want government agents deciding which Internet sites “glorify, express support for, or provide encouragement for ISIS”? That slope is far too slippery for me. Posner suggests that “those who regard free speech as fundamental need to consider whether legal principles that arose centuries ago make sense in the age of Snapchat.” I decline the invitation.
[David G. Post is a Sr. Fellow at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute]
benton.org/headlines/protecting-first-amendment-internet-age | Washington Post
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WHAT WAS FAKE ON THE INTERNET: FINAL COLUMN
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Caitlin Dewey]
[Commentary] We launched “What was Fake” in May 2014 in response to what seemed, at the time, like an epidemic of urban legends and Internet pranks: light-hearted, silly things, for the most part, like new flavors of Oreos and babies with absurd names. Since then, those sorts of rumors and pranks haven’t slowed down, exactly, but the pace and tenor of fake news has changed. Where debunking an Internet fake once involved some research, it’s now often as simple as clicking around for an “about” or “disclaimer” page. And where a willingness to believe hoaxes once seemed to come from a place of honest ignorance or misunderstanding, that’s frequently no longer the case. There’s a simple, economic explanation for this shift: If you’re a hoaxer, it’s more profitable. Frankly, this column wasn’t designed to address the current environment. This format doesn’t make sense. Essentially, institutional distrust is so high right now, and cognitive bias so strong always, that the people who fall for hoax news stories are frequently only interested in consuming information that conforms with their views -- even when it’s demonstrably fake. the sort of readers who would unskeptically share such a far-fetched story site are exactly the readers who will not be convinced by The Washington Post’s debunking.
benton.org/headlines/what-was-fake-internet-week-why-final-column | Washington Post
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ELECTIONS AND MEDIA

SEN SANDERS DATA CONTROVERSY SPOTLIGHTS POWERFUL GATEKEEPER
[SOURCE: Politico, AUTHOR: Nancy Scola]
At the heart of the Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) data mess is a firm that functions as the digital plumbing of the Democratic Party: NGP VAN. Democrats are nearly wholly dependent on it, which is why the breach -- the company says it’s the first in its nearly 20-year history -- and the Sanders campaign’s subsequent cutoff from the system is so rattling the party. While Sen Sanders may have defused the flap by apologizing to front-runner Hillary Clinton during Dec 19’s debate for his campaign’s viewing and downloading of her voter data information, the extent of the damage done to both campaigns isn’t yet clear. If nothing else, it’s reminded Democrats of the risks of leaning so heavily on one private company to provide its technology infrastructure. Nearly every Democratic campaign across the US uses NGP VAN in some fashion, though critics say that's due in some part to the fact that the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties force candidates do so as part of the package of receiving party support. The arrangement leaves it up to the Democratic Party to decide which campaigns get access to the software, giving it an enormous gatekeeping power of which the Sen Sanders' campaign felt the force during its temporary suspension of access to the data file.
benton.org/headlines/sen-sanders-data-controversy-spotlights-powerful-gatekeeper | Politico
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SEN SANDERS'S CAMPAIGN DOMINATES ONLINE CONVERSATION ABOUT SANDERS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: James Hohmann]
The Democratic debate may not necessarily have been in prime time on Dec 19, but it still generated more than 400,000 mentions online. Unlike most of their GOP counterparts, the official Twitter feeds of the two leading Democratic candidates continue to be major drivers of their own social media conversation. During the Saturday debate, for example, all five of the top Hillary Clinton-related Tweets came from the campaigns. This is particularly true of Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose campaign delivered all of the most frequently retweeted mentions of the night.
benton.org/headlines/sen-sanderss-campaign-dominates-online-conversation-about-sanders | Washington Post
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