BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2017
Today's Event -- Oversharing? How Much Should Government be Telling Us About Cybersecurity Risks?, New America -- https://www.benton.org/node/253958
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Make America First in Broadband Again
Gov. Haslam unveils Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act
The New FCC Chairman Could End Net Neutrality - The Ringer [links to Benton summary]
One town’s quest to join tech revolution – and what it says about digital inequality
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
Live From the White House, It’s Trump TV - NYT
Professionalism, Propaganda, and the Press - The Atlantic analysis
Sam Waterston: The danger of Trump’s constant lying [links to Washington Post]
Commentary: The Press Deserves Freedom, Not Privilege [links to Wall Street Journal]
Trump, Breitbart, and the rejection of multicultural democracy [links to Vox]
The Information War Has Begun - danah boyd op-ed [links to Benton summary]
The Rise (And Possible Untimely Fall) Of Rogue Government Twitter [links to Benton summary]
Everything Is Terrible But This Will Make You Feel Better (We Hope) [links to Free Press]
Fasten your seatbelt, Peter Thiel, it’s going to be bumpy for Trump in Silicon Valley! [links to Vox]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
With Trump, Twitter transition stirs confusion
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
Presidential Executive Order on Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs
Trump wants to scrap two regulations for each new one adopted
President Trump’s executive order on regulatory costs imperils the rest of his regulatory agenda [links to Washington Post]
IMMIGRATION
Trump immigration order causes alarm among Europeans [links to Benton summary]
Why Trump’s travel ban is so harmful to the tech economy [links to Washington Post]
Why the tech industry was right to be indignant about the refugee order [links to American Enterprise Institute]
Trump’s immigration order deprives U.S. of exports and technology talent [links to Brookings]
Canada CEOs Urge Trudeau to Take Rejected U.S. Tech Workers [links to Bloomberg]
Unlike most of the tech industry, the four telecom giants have been silent on Trump’s travel ban [links to Benton summary]
Trump’s Next Immigration Move to Hit Closer to Home for Tech [links to Bloomberg]
Trump’s Travel Ban Disrupts Meeting of ICANN, the Internet's Governing Body [links to Vice]
Amazon CEO and Washington Post Owner Jeff Bezos comes out against immigration order [links to Hill, The]
The tech firms fighting Trump's travel ban with cash [links to CNN]
Google employees are staging a walkout over Trump’s immigration ban [links to Verge, The]
ALA opposes new administration policies that contradict core values [links to American Library Association]
Computer & Communications Industry Association Slams Immigration Order [links to Benton summary]
The A-to-Z Guide to Silicon Valley's Backlash Against Trump's Immigration Ban [links to nextgov]
#DeleteUber: how social media turned on Uber [links to Guardian, The]
JOURNALISM
Some of the New York Times’ best stories aren’t in the Times — they’re on Twitter [links to Vox]
Interactive Advertising Bureau Chief Takes Aim at Fake News [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
TBS' Samantha Bee Slates Alternative WHCA Dinner [links to Multichannel News]
How the Federal Trade Commission could (maybe) crack down on fake news [links to Benton summary]
In Smaller Cities, Protest Coverage Is Up to Local TV [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
It’s time for journalists to stop pretending ‘objective’ means ‘mindless’ [links to Washington Post]
What makes a good FOIA request? We studied 33,000 to find out. [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
FBI request for Twitter account data may have overstepped legal guidelines [links to Reuters]
Scott Cleland: Congress should undo FCC’s dysfunctional Internet privacy rules [links to Hill, The]
Hackers hit D.C. police closed-circuit camera network, city officials disclose [links to Washington Post]
Online Security Survey: Six in Ten Americans are Data Breach Victims [links to telecompetitor]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION
State Planning, Preparation for FirstNet on the Rise as We Look Toward 2017 [links to FirstNet]
CONTENT
RIP, “Six Strikes” Copyright Alert System [links to Ars Technica]
Neutralising internet tax disparities - AEI op-ed [links to Benton summary]
POLICYMAKERS
Chairman Ajit Pai Appointed as the FCC Defense Commissioner [links to Federal Communications Commission]
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
MAKE AMERICA FIRST IN BROADBAND AGAIN
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Adrianne Furniss]
I sent a letter to President Donald Trump and leaders both in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission. Just as ten years ago when Benton Foundation Founder Charles Benton called on then-President George W. Bush to develop a national broadband strategy, I am asking for Federal leadership to create a Make America First in Broadband Again Plan and ensure that we will extend the benefits of broadband – and the opportunities it delivers – to all Americans. The Make America First in Broadband Again Plan should:
Extend broadband to Americans too long ignored and left behind.
Use broadband infrastructure investment as a catalyst for middle-class job growth.
Giving schools’ choice of broadband options to ensure no child is deprived of knowledge.
Deregulate local broadband.
Serve the veterans who have served America.
Ensure big media companies can’t bias news by putting mainstream media in the broadband fastlane ahead of unaffiliated independent content.
benton.org/headlines/make-america-first-broadband-again | Benton Foundation
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TENNESSEE BROADBAND ACT
[SOURCE: The Tennessean, AUTHOR: Dave Boucher]
More rural Tennesseans will have access to reliable broadband services through state tax breaks or grants, "deregulation" and consumer education, Gov. Bill Haslam said in introducing the latest plank of his legislative agenda. "Unfortunately today, too many of our citizens are without broadband access. In fact, 34 percent of our rural residents do not have broadband access at recognized minimum standards," Gov Haslam said. Haslam spokeswoman Jennifer Donnals said the 34 percent figure represents about 725,000 people. The announcement of the plan, officially known as the "Tennessee Broadband Accessibility Act," comes after more than a year of meeting with state leaders and "stakeholders," Gov Haslam said. Expanding broadband is not new to Tennessee or other rural states, and has been hotly debated in the past. That includes an ongoing debate in Chattanooga and elsewhere over whether municipal providers – cities and counties – should be allowed to provide service outside of their borders.
benton.org/headlines/gov-haslam-unveils-tennessee-broadband-accessibility-act | Tennessean, The | ars technica
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GREELEY, COLORADO
[SOURCE: Christian Science Monitor, AUTHOR: Kyle Spencer]
Greeley (CO) offers a lens into how wide the digital divide in the US has become, how much it is contributing to a two-tiered society, and, perhaps most important, whether it can be bridged. In wealthy school districts around the country, parents and teachers talk often about keeping computer use to a minimum. The students live in homes with multiple laptops, iPads, tablets, iPhones – iEverything. The adults worry about the students’ excessive time spent online, about the distractions of the virtual world replacing interaction with the real world. But for hundreds of poor districts across the United States, especially in modernizing agricultural communities like Greeley, the struggle is entirely different. It’s about helping students with limited tech skills be prepared for a global economy that is becoming increasingly digitized. Yet these are often the districts with the fewest resources, the districts flailing to move somehow beyond the era of the floppy disk.
benton.org/headlines/one-towns-quest-join-tech-revolution-and-what-it-says-about-digital-inequality | Christian Science Monitor
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COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
TRUMP TV
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Derek Thompson]
[Commentary] Donald Trump is not just a President who is unusually obsessed with media. He is an aspiring media mogul who happens to be president. When Steve Bannon told The New York Times that the media should “keep its mouth shut,” he was being disingenuous. President Trump doesn’t want the media to keep its mouth shut. He wants to silence his critics, co-opt their distribution, and broadcast the story of his stardom. After winning with the instincts of a media impresario, he will lead using the strategy of a media empire. President Trump is poised to enact his agenda through extraordinary means — by broadcasting an alternative reality in which he seeks a monopoly on his own narrative and facts. It is 20th-century strongman meets 21st Century Fox. In conversations with dozens of entertainment and media executives and academics from hit-making industries over the past few years, I have learned that there are three overarching rules of popular entertainment. Each applies to President Trump.
First, every successful franchise is fundamentally a hero myth.
Second, as critical as it is to write stories that move people, distribution is more important than content.
Third, the dark history of 20th-century entertainment is that media blockbusters seek to become monopolies. The White House wants to establish a political media monopoly, which seeks dominion over its own set of facts, by demonizing critical news sources (even those within the government) and promoting sycophantic alternatives.
benton.org/headlines/live-white-house-its-trump-tv | New York Times | B&C
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PROFESSIONALISM, PROPAGANDA, AND THE PRESS
[SOURCE: The Atlantic, AUTHOR: Adam Serwer]
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s senior counselor, called Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s first official press conference a “tour de force.” That’s not strange, because Trump advisers’ main rhetorical approach is to reflect their boss’ penchant for exaggeration. What’s strange is that much of the media seemed to agree. Two days earlier, reporters from mainstream outlets had panned a bizarre appearance by Spicer in which, flanked by photographs of the inauguration, he loudly berated the media, saying that the press had “engaged in deliberately false reporting” for failing to note that “this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration––period––both in person and around the globe.” While many outlets reported that Spicer had “attacked the media,” many more emphasized that Spicer’s claims about crowd size were comically wrong, and reported that Spicer was lying. Spin, obfuscation, eliding context, or even lying by omission––these are normal acts of dishonesty expected from political spokespeople. It is the job of press secretaries to put a gloss on the facts that makes their boss look good. In administrations run by both parties, this has sometimes turned into outright lying or dishonesty. Spicer’s behavior however, was so different in degree so as to be different in kind––he was demanding that reporters report that 2+2 =5, and chastising them for failing to do so. He was not merely arguing for a different interpretation of the facts, he was denying objective reality. Both Spicer and the mainstream press used that first encounter to establish the ground rules of their relationship, drawing lines for what each would allow the other to get away with.
benton.org/headlines/professionalism-propaganda-and-press | Atlantic, The
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GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE
EO ON REGULATION
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: President Donald Trump]
Regulatory Cap for Fiscal Year 2017. (a) Unless prohibited by law, whenever an executive department or agency (agency) publicly proposes for notice and comment or otherwise promulgates a new regulation, it shall identify at least two existing regulations to be repealed. (b) For fiscal year 2017, which is in progress, the heads of all agencies are directed that the total incremental cost of all new regulations, including repealed regulations, to be finalized this year shall be no greater than zero, unless otherwise required by law or consistent with advice provided in writing by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. (c) In furtherance of the requirement of subsection (a) of this section, any new incremental costs associated with new regulations shall, to the extent permitted by law, be offset by the elimination of existing costs associated with at least two prior regulations. Any agency eliminating existing costs associated with prior regulations under this subsection shall do so in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act and other applicable law.
benton.org/headlines/presidential-executive-order-reducing-regulation-and-controlling-regulatory-costs | White House, The
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TRUMP WANTS TO SCRAP TWO REGULATIONS FOR EACH NEW ONE ADOPTED
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Steven Mufson]
President Trump signed an order Jan 30 aimed at cutting regulations on businesses, saying that agencies should eliminate two regulations for each new one. The White House later released the text of the order, which added that the cost of any new regulation should be offset by eliminating regulations with the same costs to businesses. It excluded regulations regarding the military. The impact of the order was difficult to judge based on the president’s remarks. It could be difficult to implement under current law and would concentrate greater power in the Office of Management and Budget, which already reviews federal regulations. And it would add a new time-consuming requirement for any new congressional legislation on topics as varied as banking, health care, environment, labor conditions and more. President Trump said, “If you have a regulation you want, number one we’re not going to approve it because it’s already been approved probably in 17 different forms. But if we do, the only way you have a chance is we have to knock out two regulations for every new regulation. So if there’s a new regulation, they have to knock out two. But it goes way beyond that.” But experts on government policy said Trump’s formulation made little sense. “There’s no logic to this,” William Gale, a tax and fiscal policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said before seeing the executive order. “The number of regulations is not the key. It’s how onerous regulations are. This seems like a totally nonsensical constraint to me.”
benton.org/headlines/trump-wants-scrap-two-regulations-each-new-one-adopted | Washington Post
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
TWITTER AND THE TRANSITION
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Ali Breland]
The handoff of federal agencies' social media accounts to the Trump administration is sparking controversy and complicating the transition. Trump's is the first administration to take power in the Twitter age. That’s led to confusion about the rules for handing off government accounts and oversight. Twitter laid out plans for seamlessly transferring the @POTUS account from former President Obama to President Trump — and other social media platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, did the same. But for many other government agencies, there were no plans in place for how to manage communications on social media as a new president took power. Obama administration officials say that's because they largely left agencies to handle their own accounts free of political influence from the White House. They say they didn't anticipate that the next administration would want tighter controls on social media.
benton.org/headlines/trump-twitter-transition-stirs-confusion | Hill, The
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