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  2. March 2016

March 2016

Mass surveillance silences minority opinions, according to study

A new study shows that knowledge of government surveillance causes people to self-censor their dissenting opinions online. The research offers a sobering look at the oft-touted "democratizing" effect of social media and Internet access that bolsters minority opinion. The study, published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, studied the effects of subtle reminders of mass surveillance on its subjects. The majority of participants reacted by suppressing opinions that they perceived to be in the minority.

This research illustrates the silencing effect of participants’ dissenting opinions in the wake of widespread knowledge of government surveillance, as revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. The “spiral of silence” is a well-researched phenomenon in which people suppress unpopular opinions to fit in and avoid social isolation. It has been looked at in the context of social media and the echo-chamber effect, in which we tailor our opinions to fit the online activity of our Facebook and Twitter friends. But this study adds a new layer by explicitly examining how government surveillance affects self-censorship.

Congress may block state laws mandating access to encrypted devices

A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress is pushing legislation to bar states from enacting their own laws that would require manufacturers to maintain the ability to unlock encrypted smartphones. State legislators in California and New York have introduced bills to effectively ban encryption on any smartphone sold in their states. That has prompted members of the US House to offer the ENCRYPT Act, which would stop states from adopting their own encryption laws. "A patchwork of 50 different encryption standards is a recipe for disaster that would create new security vulnerabilities, threaten individual privacy and undermine the competitiveness of American innovators," said Rep Ted Lieu (D-CA), who is sponsoring the federal bill with Reps Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), and Mike Bishop (R-MI). "National issues require national responses."

Encryption Is a Luxury

In 2015, a team of technology experts warned against giving law enforcement special access to encrypted communications. They explained that this special access would “undermine and reverse” the technology industry’s efforts to bolster digital security. The landmark paper addressed a conflict between technology companies and the government that had been brewing for some time. And when Apple and the FBI faced off in court seven months later, computer experts and civil-rights groups rushed to defend Apple as it resisted a federal judge’s order to circumvent its own security features.

The experts said that cooperating with law enforcement would put smartphone users at increased risk of snooping from hackers and the government.That’s certainly true for the tens of millions of iPhone users in the United States, whose devices currently protect their data with strong encryption: A concession to the government’s push for special access to encrypted data would be a tangible step backward for those users’ privacy. But for many of the remaining American smartphone users, strong data encryption was never really an option. Most Android phones don’t encrypt the data that’s stored on the device, and many come with messaging services that don’t encrypt data that’s sent back and forth between devices.

Why the Media Have Been Greasing Trump’s Wheels

[Commentary] How to explain the indispensable role of the news media in lubricating the unfathomable rise of Donald Trump? It can’t be favoritism. I venture to say that a survey of US journalists taken at the start of the primary season would have found support among the working press for the idea that Trump was a plausible, let alone desirable, presidential candidate would have been infinitesimal. Donald Trump? Really?

He was viewed as at best a mildly comic oddity, and if pressed, I suspect most journalists would have said he was little more than a vain, preening, ill-informed, self-absorbed, loud-mouthed TV celebrity. He was distinguished mainly by his wealth, iridescent hair, multiple wives, mixed record of business success, and passion for naming things after himself — in short, a curiosity who had never shown any inclination to serve the public or, for that matter, anything other than himself. So why is this? Trump moves the needle. If this was still the print age, we’d say he sells papers. The GOP primary debates draw huge audiences, largely because he’s there, spouting off, insulting his opponents, uttering the unutterable, being Donald. In short, as disheartened as I have been by the boost the news media have given Trump’s ascent, we may be entering a realm when the same notoriety is a liability, because it exposes his candidacy to a scrutiny it cannot withstand. What was catnip in the primaries may prove toxic in the general.

[Edward Wasserman is the Dean at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism]

Netflix Throttling: What (If Anything) Will the FCC Do?

Just when disputes between broadband providers and content providers about content delivery and network neutrality seemed to be over, along came the revelation about Netflix throttling of traffic to wireless customers of AT&T and Verizon. The big question now is how the Federal Communications Commission is likely to respond, or whether it will respond at all, to the Netflix throttling revelations.

When the commission imposed net neutrality guidelines early in 2015, it noted that the guidelines applied only to broadband providers – and some stakeholders argue that the commission simply may not have the authority to impose similar guidelines on content providers such as Netflix, which are sometimes known as “edge providers.” Where Netflix may be on shakier ground, however, is with regard to transparency and disclosure requirements. Reportedly, neither AT&T nor Verizon nor customers of either company were advised that Netflix was using a lower data rate for AT&T and Verizon customers. The NetCompetition e-forum author argued that Netflix could be in violation of FTC fair business rules by secretly throttling users’ streaming rates. If nothing else, the FCC may need to rethink how it investigates net neutrality complaints. “Until now, the expectation was if there was traffic throttling detected on the network, it was presumed to be the work of an ISP,” notes NetCompetition. “Now the FCC knows that is not necessarily true. “Now when an edge platform seeks to accuse an ISP of a net neutrality violation, the FCC’s investigation should responsibly cast a wider net than before we learned of Netflix’ duplicity, and investigate if an edge provider has been throttling or blocking the Internet traffic in question.”

Zero-Rating Harms Poor People, Public Interest Groups Tell FCC

The nation’s largest Internet service providers are undermining US open Internet rules, threatening free speech, and disproportionately harming poor people by using a controversial industry practice called “zero-rating,” a coalition of public interest groups wrote in a letter to federal regulators on March 28. Companies like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T use zero-rating, which refers to a variety of practices that exempt certain services from monthly data caps, to undercut “the spirit and the text” of federal rules designed to protect network neutrality, the groups wrote. The letter, which was signed by the Center for Media Justice, the Open Technology Institute, Free Press, and dozens of other groups, increases the pressure on the Federal Communications Commission to address zero-rating, which has become the latest battlefront in the decade-long war between policymakers, industry giants, and consumer advocates over how best to ensure Internet openness.

Zero-rated plans “distort competition, thwart innovation, threaten free speech, and restrict consumer choice—all harms the rules were meant to prevent,” the groups wrote. “These harms tend to fall disproportionately on low ­income communities and communities of color, who tend to rely on mobile networks as their primary or exclusive means of access to the Internet.” The groups point the finger at several industry giants, including AT&T, which offers a "sponsored data plan” that allows wireless customers to access certain services that don’t count against monthly data limits; T-Mobile and its "Binge On" plan, which exempts some video services from data caps, while counting others against the monthly limits; and Comcast, which exempts its "Stream TV" service from monthly data caps, while counting rival services against the limit.

FCC faces pressure on Lifeline

An unlikely union of industry lobbyists and consumer groups is warning the Federal Communications Commission against changes to a phone subsidy program. Critics say that if the overhaul goes through as planned, many poor Americans who receive free phone service through the program will drop out. Even the White House is expressing concern. The late lobbying scrabble has caught the agency's attention ahead of a vote scheduled for March 31. In recent days, the FCC has given strong hints it is open to changes, and officials have asked for recommendations in private meetings. There could be a “drastic reduction in Lifeline participation because many eligible subscribers simply won't have the ability or means to make monthly payments,” former Democratic Rep Henry Waxman, now a lobbyist, told FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.

Calls to change that plan are coming from a number of diverse groups that are often at odds over other FCC actions. They include the wireless industry, groups representing senior citizens, advocates for people with disabilities and public interest groups like FreePress. “Free Press is not in the habit of accepting without healthy skepticism any telecommunications carriers’ cost and pricing claims. Nevertheless, the record evidence in the docket is mounting,” the group’s policy director Matt Wood wrote after a call with agency officials.

Byron Allen Asks FCC to Vet Comcast-NBCU Condition

Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios, Inc. (ESI) and The National Association of African American-Owned Media (NAAAOM) took the latest shot in its ongoing battle with Comcast over carriage of minority-owned and targeted networks. That came in the form of a petition to the Federal Communications Commission asking it to investigate what they called Comcast's "failed" promise, codified in a condition of the merger with NBC Universal, to add majority-controlled African American-owned media networks.

They want the FCC to do a critical and detailed investigation into Comcast's claims of compliance, suggesting the conclusion will be that Comcast had not and that it will impose "penalties commensurate with the seriousness of its misconduct." The petition takes aim at the nets Comcast has added, saying the company has not supplied sufficient information to determine whether they are indeed majority owned and controlled, and suggesting they are not. ESI also claims Comcast never negotiated in good faith for its content. The two networks Comcast added per the initial part of its condition were Aspire and Revolt. ESI was passed over, but the petition says that move was inexplicable, saying that while ESI meets the criteria for an independent, minority-owned net, the other two do not. The main point they are trying to make is that white-owned network programming contracts need to be publicly reviewed. They say that while Comcast is spending $10 billion per year on licensing cable nets, Magic Johnson's Aspire does not receive licensing fees from Comcast, which ESI says is discriminatory. It also takes aim at what it says is the FCC's failure to enforce the memorandum of understanding (MOU) requiring addition of the networks and says Commission Mignon Clyburn should be "leading the charge" on that oversight, given that she had said when the merger was approved that she would be “watching closely with my large megaphone in my hand.”

Why Charter Succeeded With FCC Where Comcast Failed

[Commentary] Abandon all hope ye who enter here" is written above the gates of hell in Dante's Inferno. And for many broadcasters, multichannel video programming distributors, and telecommunication companies, it might as well be inscribed above the Federal Communications Commission's Portals. In The Divine Comedy, there are nine circles of suffering for unrepentant souls—limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery. Here in Washington, there are just as many layers of suffering. For any company seeking regulatory redemption, merger review can be a painful and protracted purge. Just ask Comcast.

The FCC has all but approved Charter Communications' $56 billion merger with Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Brighthouse Systems, which will make it the nation's second largest cable company behind Comcast. This is no small feat. We all remember that it was Charter's initial bid to buy TWC in 2014 that spawned Comcast's move on TWC for $45 billion. That deal failed when Comcast abandoned the effort in the face of well-organized opposition. Thus, Charter should be applauded for its adroit ambulation through the Portals to close a very big deal. So why did it succeed? There are a few reasons, but none more telling than that it was willing and able to make a deal with the devil. In other words, Charter did anything and everything necessary to keep its merger intact, including co-opting critics, kowtowing to threats, and making promises that will be hard to keep. But then again, facing a $2 billion breakup penalty can bring urgency and creativity to even the stodgiest companies.

[Adonis Hoffman is Chairman of Business in the Public Interest and adjunct professor in Communication, Culture & Technology at Georgetown University]

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