July 2017

FCC CONFIRMATION HEARING

FCC CONFIRMATION HEARING
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Kevin Taglang]
On July 19, 2017, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing to examine the nominations of Ajit Pai, Jessica Rosenworcel, and Brendan Carr for seats on the Federal Communications Commission. On March 7, President Donald Trump nominated Pai, the FCC’s current chairman, for a second five-year term ending June 30, 2021. Rosenworcel is nominated for a term that would end June 30, 2020. Carr, the current general counsel at the FCC, has actually been nominated for two terms, one expiring June 30, 2018 and the second ending June 30, 2023. Carr served as legal adviser to then-FCC Commissioner Pai for three years before Pai was named chairman and appointed Carr as general counsel. Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) characterized the hearing as both an examination of the nominees and a FCC oversight hearing, “fulfilling a commitment I’ve made to hold regular, biannual oversight hearings of the Commission.” His opinions of the nominees: “In my view, the FCC will be in very good hands when all three of these nominees are confirmed.” [more at the URL below]
benton.org/headlines/independence-net-neutrality-and-e-rate-are-thorny-issues-fcc-confirmation-hearing | Benton Foundation
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NET NEUTRALITY

NN DYING WITH A WHIMPER
[SOURCE: Vox, AUTHOR: Aja Romano]
Prior to the July 12 protest, news outlets were warning their readers to “prepare to be assaulted” by the extent of the protest, after major players like Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon announced their participation in the Day of Action. But as many of those same news outlets have since pointed out, the aforementioned major players barely did anything to promote the protest where it counted: on their most visible and highly trafficked homepages and within their mobile apps. “If you blinked, you missed yesterday’s net neutrality protest,” Recode declared, while Politico hedged that it “may have flown under some radars.” Protests in support of net neutrality have occurred almost semiannually since 2010, with major events taking place in 2012 and 2014 to comment on pending regulations. The 2012 net neutrality blackout, which successfully campaigned against the restrictive Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), was particularly notable because major websites like Wikipedia, Reddit, Tumblr, and Google went dark or displayed prominent site interruptions for the full day. These stances were dramatic — especially compared with the mild, unintrusive efforts made during the July 12 protest.
benton.org/headlines/net-neutrality-dying-whimper | Vox
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NN: THE SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUE OF OUR TIME
[SOURCE: Public Knowledge, AUTHOR: Willmary Escoto]
[Commentary] The internet plays a critical role in the dissemination of information and services specifically tailored for people of color and other marginalized groups, including LGBT people, because it provides the opportunity for us to tell our own stories and to organize for racial and social justice. That empowerment relies on an open internet and net neutrality...If you want to weigh in on net neutrality and the Federal Communications Commission’s role in implementing it, you can contribute by submitting a comment no later than August 16th. As the United States transitions towards this internet-based communications network revolution, we must remain focused on the right goals: ensuring that the internet is affordable and accessible for all, not just the privileged. Digital social justice demands no less.
benton.org/headlines/net-neutrality-social-justice-issue-our-time | Public Knowledge
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OWNERSHIP

HAS TRUMP TURNED CNN INTO A HOUSE OF EXISTENTIAL DREAD?
[SOURCE: Financial Times, AUTHOR: Sarah Ellison]
After relentless attacks from President Donald Trump and his allies, a series of journalistic problems, and in the shadow of a possible merger, the network’s CEO, Jeff Zucker, is feeling the heat. “I think there’s a real chance that Zucker is being forced out,” said one employee. “That’s going to blow up this organization like nothing in the history of CNN.”
benton.org/headlines/has-president-trump-turned-cnn-house-existential-dread | Financial Times
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PRIVACY/SECURITY

WARRENTLESS REQUESTS TO TRACK CELLPHONES, INTERNET USE GREW SEVENFOLD IN DC IN 3 YEARS
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Spencer Hsu]
Sealed law enforcement requests to track Americans without a warrant through cellphone location records or Internet activity grew sevenfold in the past three years in the District, new information released by a federal judge shows. Details about the growth come as the US Supreme Court weighs whether to rein in such rapidly expanding demands. Legal experts said the disclosure appears to mark a first, and that neither the Justice Department nor private companies have previously made public such specific data about how often law enforcement agencies seek those court orders. The summary data gave counts of requests by year from 2008 through 2016 made in criminal cases handled by the Justice Department or US attorney’s office for the District. Details about each individual case, such as the name of a suspect or what records were sought, were not disclosed. The requests were made under a 1986 statute that enables law enforcement agencies to obtain court orders requiring ¬communication service providers to turn over records about individual customers. The orders do not apply to information about telephone calls, such as the time, date, duration and numbers dialed, which can be obtained in other ways. Instead, the requests seek individuals’ Internet connection records or cellphone tower records. Those records exclude the content of communications but can be highly valuable to investigators seeking to establish a history or pattern of movement, conduct or relationships. The information requests can include Internet browsing logs and activity; the time, date, size, sender and recipient of email, instant or social media messages, or other transaction records; as well as computer identification numbers and information about websites that a user accessed.
benton.org/headlines/court-warrantless-requests-track-cellphones-internet-use-grew-sevenfold-dc-three-years | Washington Post
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JOURNALISM

ISSUE WITH IDENTIFYING ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM MEDIA OUTLETS
[SOURCE: Columbia Journalism Review, AUTHOR: Susan McGregor]
[Commentary] Fakes in the world of print publishing are relatively easy to discredit if not always to spot. Inconsistencies, errors, and—perhaps most importantly—widely accessible originals, make the job of persuasively forging content a significant challenge. In digital publishing, however, even maintaining original content cannot be taken for granted. Being able to identify genuine digital material is “a huge issue,” says David Schulz, a prominent First Amendment lawyer and director of the Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School. Given the increasing sophistication of fake digital content, Schulz asks, “How do you prove something was ‘out there’? How do you prove it’s authentic?” If reputable news organizations digitally sign their content, it would increase the difficulty of creating fake news by raising doubts about material that isn’t similarly authenticated. Likewise, developing such a standard would support archives that can withstand attempts to reauthor history. Although the technical challenge is substantial, it’s also one that is important to take on, as new organizations strive to rebuild public trust and set their work apart from that of content mills and fake news factories.
[Susan McGregor is Assistant Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and Assistant Professor at Columbia School of Journalism.]
benton.org/headlines/huge-issue-identifying-original-content-media-outlets | Columbia Journalism Review
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COURTS

BILL REINING IN CHEVRON DEFERENCE INTRODUCED
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
In what is being billed as a bicameral effort, a group of Republican Sens and Reps—including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), have introduced a bill, the Separation of Powers Restoration Act, that takes aim at the Chevron deference accorded federal agency expertise. “For too long, unelected bureaucrats have relied on Chevron to expand their own authority beyond what Congress ever intended. This has weakened our system of checks and balances and created a recipe for regulatory overreach," said Chairman Grassley of the bill. "The Constitution’s separation of powers makes clear that it is the responsibility of Congress, as the People’s representative, to make the law. And it’s the job of the courts—not the bureaucracy—to interpret the law. This bill helps to reassert those clear lines between the branches. By doing so, it makes the government more accountable to the People and takes a strong step toward reining in the regulators.” The bill would only tweak the language in the US code on judicial review of agency actions, but it makes a big difference. The issue of Chevron has often come up regarding how the Federal Communications Commission exercises its regulatory authority. Chevron is the deference that has been accorded agencies—per Supreme Court precedent—to interpret vague statutes.
benton.org/headlines/bill-reining-chevron-deference-introduced | Broadcasting&Cable
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STORIES FROM ABROAD

EU COURT TO RULE ON RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN OUTSIDE EUROPE
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Nick Kostov, Sam Schechner]
The European Union’s top court is set to decide whether the bloc’s “right to be forgotten” policy stretches beyond Europe’s borders, a test of how far national laws can—or should—stretch when regulating cyberspace. The case stems from France, where the highest administrative court on July 19 asked the EU’s Court of Justice to weigh in on a dispute between Alphabet's Google and France’s privacy regulator over how broadly to apply the right, which allows EU residents to ask search engines to remove some links from searches for their own names. At issue: Can France force Google to apply it not just to searches in Europe, but anywhere in the world? The case will set a precedent for how far EU regulators can go in enforcing the bloc’s strict new privacy law. It will also help define Europe’s position on clashes between governments over how to regulate everything that happens on the internet—from political debate to online commerce. France’s regulator says enforcement of some fundamental rights—like personal privacy—is too easily circumvented on the borderless internet, and so must be implemented everywhere. Google argues that allowing any one country to apply its rules globally risks upsetting international law and, when it comes to content, creates a global censorship race among autocrats.
benton.org/headlines/eu-court-rule-right-be-forgotten-outside-europe | Wall Street Journal
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July 2017

July 20, 2017 (New from the FCC Confirmation Hearing)

Investors put a low valuation on the pipes that connect us to the internet

Creative Coalition Praises Congress for Moving to Pass Budget Without Eliminating NEA Funding

Media Consolidation Is in the Air, and John Malone Is Fanning It

Cable TV upheaval prompts a wave of media merger talks

Amazon Lures Publishers to New Social Network by Paying Them to Post

Apple wants to change the way doctors and patients talk to each other — by giving everyone an iPad

The Sinclair Revolution Will Be Televised. It’ll Just Have Low Production Values

Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook overshadowing the future of the web

Bill Reining In Chevron Deference Introduced