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February 2017

Tennessee, Virginia municipal broadband proposals reignite debate

[Commentary] Municipal broadband continues to be a hotbed of debate, one that's coming to a head again in Tennessee and Virginia. Each of these states has proposed changes in the laws that govern municipal-run networks. But the question is whether their proposals are a step forward or just another way to protect incumbent telco and cable companies' hold on the broadband market.

In both of these states, incumbent telecom and cable companies like AT&T, CenturyLink and Comcast would like to retain their upper hand. Incumbents continually make two main arguments about municipal broadband: Government-run companies get an unfair advantage and other municipal provider efforts have failed. While there’s no shortage of failed municipal broadband providers like Bristol Virginia Utilities (BVU), there are a number of success stories like Danville (VA), Longmont (CO), and the emerging Roanoke Valley Authority. The new debates that have emerged in Tennessee and Virginia aren’t just about giving consumers the highest speed, but providing connectivity for day-to-day activities like doing school work.

Innovation Fund Open Call: Resist and Rebuild

We are excited to announce the 6th Open Call for the New Media Ventures Innovation Fund! New Media Ventures is a seed fund and network of investors and donors financing media and technology startups that build advocacy movements, create new narratives and drive civic engagement. Over the past 6 years, we have financed such powerful social change startups as Upworthy, responsible for making social good content go viral, and SumOfUs, a 10 million member movement for corporate accountability. The New Media Ventures Innovation Fund finances early-stage, for-profit and nonprofit startups with $50K, participation in NMV’s startup support program and access to NMV’s network of angel investors. We are particularly interested in projects in the following categories:
Organizing newly politicized people. This could include organizations that are effectively blending national reach via digital tools with local impact via on-the-ground organizing but also best-in-class technology that can help organizations do that work.
Building better media. We are looking for ways to burst filter bubbles, fight fake news and dark influence. We also want to hear about new business models that reward quality and engagement, solutions that elevate new voices with more diverse perspectives, and creative distribution strategies.

Fake news did not change result of 2016 election: study

Fake news did not change the result 2016 presidential election, according to a study by researchers at Stanford and New York University. The study shows that fake news stories favorable to Republican nominee Donald Trump far outnumbered similar stories about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. But only 8 percent of voters actually read those stories, and even fewer recall or believed what they were reading, researchers said. Favorable but fake Trump news was shared 30 million times on Facebook during the campaign, while fake pro-Clinton news was shared about 7 million times.

"Our data suggest that social media were not the most important source of election news and even the most widely circulated news stories were seen by only a small fraction of Americans,” lead researchers Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow wrote. In order for fake news to have a real effect on the election, it would have had to have been as persuasive as 36 television ads, the study concludes. Fake news became so prominent in 2016, Politifact named it "the lie of the year," a dubious award usually reserved for humans. "Because of its powerful symbolism in an election year filled with rampant and outrageous lying — PolitiFact is naming Fake News the 2016 'winner.'”

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