1. Monthly archive
  2. July 2017

July 2017

Don't pin your hopes on Facebook, Google, and other massive tech companies to keep the internet a level playing field — here’s why

[Commentary] There are differences between what tech giants (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix) of the internet and their smaller counterparts are saying. More importantly, there’s a difference in how the most powerful internet companies are incentivized to act. It’s a fine line, but an important distinction for those who want the existing net-neutrality rules to stay. The protests from big tech companies themselves were more subdued than past demonstrations, and few of the major companies involved explicitly demanded the legally enforceable, Title II-based net-neutrality rules stay in place today. And that leaves the major tech firms a small but significant bit of wiggle room.

Tech giants' relatively meager actions on July 12 serve as a reminder: Net neutrality is about the small, not the big. If the (still mostly hypothetical) fears of Title II advocates come true, and ISPs are able to set tolls for access to better quality, the companies with better funding will more easily be able to pay them.

It’s our last chance to choose information independence over special interests

[Commentary] Americans’ information independence is under attack, whether it’s the repeal of network neutrality or the repeal of broadband privacy protections. The Federal Communications Commission needs to listen and serve the American people, not special interests. I am committed to protecting both your privacy and the internet as we know it. A free and open internet is essential to our democracy, economy and modern way of life.

Washington, Network Neutrality and a Potential Resolution

[Commentary] I support network neutrality and the rules as the Obama Federal Communications Commission Democratic majority promulgated. But I recognize that there may be benefits to consumers, particularly low-income consumers and the public interest that might warrant exemptions to strict network neutrality rules. We would all be better off if Congress could agree on what those rules and exceptions should look like, but repealing Title II protections will not help us get there.

Much like you have seen the FCC privacy rules replaced with nothing, having polarized the parties, and made deliberation toward compromise more difficult, the repeal of Title II rules will do the same thing....Repealing network neutrality protections without replacing them with something that has bipartisan support at the same time will poison the environment for potential philosophical resolution and compromise to the detriment of network operators, internet innovators and consumers alike.

[Daniel Sepulveda served as ambassador, deputy assistant secretary, and coordinator for communications and information policy at the State Department from 2013 through Jan. 20, 2017]

ITIF to FCC: Internet Discrimination Can Be Good

Banning all paid prioritization will not result in an internet that drives innovation and consumer welfare, an internet that has never treated content neutrally anyway. That was one of the main points from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, which filed comments on the deadline for initial comments in the Federal Communications Commission's open Internet proposal.

ITIF said that it agreed that the FCC needed to be a cop on the paid prioritization beat but on a case-by-case basis. "[T]he Internet has never been 'neutral,'” ITIF told the FCC. "[D]iscrimination can be pro-innovation and pro-consumer or anti-innovation and anti-consumer." ISPs have similarly signaled that while they pledge not to block or throttle traffic, paid prioritization can be a service differentiator and a pro-consumer business model. ITIF agrees. "Broad dictates like 'all prioritization should be banned' or 'all prioritization should be allowed' are not helpful to achieving the kind of Internet that will be central to driving innovation and consumer welfare in the decades ahead."

The threat now lurking behind Trump’s media-slamming tweets

President Donald Trump on July 16 slammed the media on Twitter before spending the afternoon at one of his golf courses and tuning in to Fox News in the evening. Here's what President Trump posted, in case you missed it: "HillaryClinton can illegally get the questions to the Debate & delete 33,000 emails but my son Don is being scorned by the Fake News Media?" "With all of its phony unnamed sources & highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting, #Fake News is DISTORTING DEMOCRACY in our country!" "The ABC/Washington Post Poll, even though almost 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time!"

Complaints about polls and unnamed sources are standard fare from President Trump, but the president's team is plotting new, targeted attacks. In a report last week on the White House's response to news about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer was this nugget from The Post's Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker: “A handful of Republican operatives close to the White House are scrambling to Trump Jr.’s defense and have begun what could be an extensive campaign to try to discredit some of the journalists who have been reporting on the matter. Their plan, as one member of the team described it, is to research the reporters’ previous work, in some cases going back years, and to exploit any mistakes or perceived biases. They intend to demand corrections, trumpet errors on social media and feed them to conservative outlets, such as Fox News.”

Journalists must enlighten, not just inform, in a world darkened by Trump

[Commentary] The Donald Trump presidency, dominated by images of decline and threat, “American carnage” and bad, bad people, has presented any number of challenges to the US press, whose instinct, after all, is to go dark itself. But President Trump has taken that impulse and supercharged it, creating yet another conundrum for reporters tasked with making sense of where we are: Is it possible, in this age, to be too bleak? Is the unremitting negativity of the news itself part of Trump’s approach to destabilizing the news business? Has this negativity in fact helped to facilitate Trump’s rise to power? Is it possible, or even plausible, to modulate the negativity in some way? New outlets should be the breeding ground, not of the type of alarming stories that create a yearning for a strong political hand, but of the knowledge of human imperfection and a way through or around it that puts a modest heroism within reach of the everyday reader.

[Lee Siegel is a New York City writer and cultural critic]

Rep Biggs: Media has 'Pavlovian' response to mention of Russia

Rep Andy Biggs (R-AZ) is slamming the media's coverage of President Donald Trump and Russia, saying news outlets have a "fixation" on the issue. Rep Biggs said the coverage is intended to “delegitimize the president.” "If you mention the word ‘Russia,' it's Pavlovian to CNN and The New York Times," Reps Biggs said. He added that he believes Trump and Republicans in Congress are making progress on areas such as immigration, regulation and boosting defense, but those stories are being overshadowed by the coverage about Russia. “We have to do a better job messaging,” he said.

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