August 21, 2017 (Bannon Out)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 2017
Today's Event -- Community Broadband Workshop (Des Moines), NTIA -- https://www.benton.org/calendar/2017-08-20--P1W
CHARLOTTESVILLE
Can Communications Unite Us? Lessons from Charlottesville
Tech’s Swift Reaction To Hate Groups Was Years In The Making
Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression - EFF editorial
The walls are closing in on tech giants [links to Axios]
Where Is the Line? Charlottesville Forces Media and Tech Companies to Decide - NYT analysis [links to Benton summary]
Can Silicon Valley Disrupt Its Neo-Nazi Problem? [links to Benton summary]
Gab, the right-wing Twitter rival, just got its app banned by Google [links to Ars Technica]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
The FCC’s Net Neutrality Decision and Stock Prices - analysis [links to Benton summary]
LRG: Cable Industry Now has 64% Market Share of Broadband Subscribers [links to Benton summary]
SECURITY/PRIVACY
President Trump announces move to elevate Cyber Command [links to Benton summary]
President Donald Trump on the Elevation of Cyber Command - press release [links to Benton summary]
While Congress kills internet privacy, states take a stand for users - The Hill op-ed [links to Benton summary]
Turning To VPNs For Online Privacy? You Might Be Putting Your Data At Risk [links to National Public Radio]
CONTENT
Facebook Can’t Fix Our Political Divide With an Algorithm [links to Vice]
Facebook wants to bring ticket sales and bigger retailers inside its Marketplace [links to Vox]
JOURNALISM
Poll: Voters Trust Local News Outlets More Than National Ones [links to Morning Consult]
YouTube adds ‘breaking news’ section to homepage and mobile apps [links to Verge, The]
Google wants to help news publishers turn readers into paying customers [links to Verge, The]
EDUCATION
Do Laptops Help Learning? A Look At The Only Statewide School Laptop Program [links to National Public Radio]
LABOR
When it comes to free speech, employers have the upper hand [links to Minnesota Public Radio]
DIVERSITY
NYT’s botched boba story stereotyped Asian culture [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
TELEVISION
Must We Feud Over Network Rep Rule Again? - TVNewsCheck editorial [links to Benton summary]
PHILANTHROPY
Sheryl Sandberg donated $100 million of Facebook stock to her nonprofits and other charities [links to Vox]
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
FCC Pledges Openness – Just Don’t Ask to See Complaints
POLICYMAKERS
Stephen Bannon Out at the White House After Turbulent Run
Bannon Returns to Breitbart News
Conservatives react with fury to Bannon's departure [links to Hill, The]
Ann Coulter blames media for Bannon ouster [links to Hill, The]
With Bannon out, will Breitbart News go to war with the Trump administration? [links to Vox]
Arts council members call for President Trump to step down in their resignation letter [links to Benton summary]
Icahn steps down as regulatory adviser to Trump [links to Hill, The]
STORIES FROM ABROAD
Chinese 'cyber-court' launched for online cases [links to BBC]
CHARLOTTESVILLE
LESSONS FROM CHARTLOTTESVILLE
[SOURCE: Benton Foundation, AUTHOR: Robbie McBeath]
This week, a white supremacist terrorist killed counter-protester Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia. In his initial response, the President of the United States condemned violence “on many sides.” Three days later, President Donald Trump spoke with reporters, again assigning “blame on both sides” in remarks that, according to the New York Times, “buoyed the white nationalist movement...as no president has done in generations.” Much has been written, and will be written, about the President’s choice of words, the timing of his remarks, and the effects all of this will have on our Republic. The incidents this past weekend will be an indelible, dark mark in our nation’s history. At Benton, we believe that communications policy -- rooted in the values of access, equity, and diversity -- has the power to deliver new opportunities and strengthen communities to bridge our divides. These values are vital in a political climate swelling with hate and intolerance.
benton.org/headlines/can-communications-unite-us-lessons-charlottesville | Benton Foundation
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TECHS SWIFT REACTION TO HATE GROUPS WAS YEARS IN THE MAKING
[SOURCE: Fast Company, AUTHOR: Sean Captain]
While tech’s crackdown on violence-inciting white nationalist sites came rapidly following the turmoil in Virginia, it took years of cajoling by activists and advocates to get Silicon Valley ready for action. “We put out our first report about cyberhate in 1985,” says Brittan Heller, director of technology and society for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). In 2012, the ADL inaugurated its Working Group on Cyberhate. “This was one of the first bodies to get organizations across the tech industry to talk about these issues,” says Heller. The ADL doesn’t publish a list of its members, but Heller says it includes “all the major tech companies like Facebook and Google, Apple and Microsoft, Twitter.” In 2014, the Working Group put out best-practice guidelines for tech companies to handle online hate—like clearly explaining terms of service for users and providing mechanisms for people to report abuse. That same year, the Southern Poverty Law Center began its Silicon Valley push. “In 2014, we decided that we needed to at least make an effort to work with the tech companies to de-monetize hate,” says Heidi Beirich, director of SPLC’s Intelligence Project.
benton.org/headlines/techs-swift-reaction-hate-groups-was-years-making | Fast Company
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FUTURE OF FREE EXPRESSION
[SOURCE: Electronic Frontier Foundation, AUTHOR: Jeremy Malcolm, Cindy Cohn, Danny O’Brien]
[Commentary] In the wake of Charlottesville, both GoDaddy and Google have refused to manage the domain registration for the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. Subsequently Cloudflare, whose service was used to protect the site from denial-of-service attacks, has also dropped them as a customer, with a telling quote from Cloudflare’s CEO: “Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.” We agree. Even for free speech advocates, this situation is deeply fraught with emotional, logistical, and legal twists and turns. All fair-minded people must stand against the hateful violence and aggression that seems to be growing across our country. But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with. Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group. In the Civil Rights Era cases that formed the basis of today’s protections of freedom of speech, the NAACP’s voice was the one attacked. Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t. For any content hosts that do reject content as part of the enforcement of their terms of service, we have long recommended that they implement procedural protections to mitigate mistakes. These are methods that protect us all against overbroad or arbitrary takedowns.
benton.org/headlines/fighting-neo-nazis-and-future-free-expression | Electronic Frontier Foundation | C-Net|News.com
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
FCC PLEDGES OPENNESS – JUST DON'T ASK TO SEE COMPLAINTS
[SOURCE: Wired, AUTHOR: Klint Finley]
Shortly after Ajit Pai was named chair of the Federal Communications Commission in February, he said he wanted the agency to be “as open and accessible as possible to the American people." Six months on, the agency is falling short of Pai’s lofty goal in some key areas. Critics are especially concerned about the FCC’s handling of complaints from the public about internet providers and the causes of a May 7 outage of the public-comments section of the agency’s website. "Chairman Pai promised to make the FCC more transparent, but the early returns aren't looking good," said Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR). "The FCC seems more concerned with helping Big Cable than living up to his promise." Many complaints about a lack of transparency at the FCC relate to the commission’s plan to reverse some of its net-neutrality rules, which prohibit internet providers from favoring some forms of traffic over others. The FCC’s proceeding failed to mention that the agency has received more than 47,000 informal complaints about alleged net-neutrality violations since the rules took effect in 2015.
benton.org/headlines/fcc-pledges-openness-just-dont-ask-see-complaints | Wired
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POLICYMAKERS
BANNON OUT AT WH AFTER TURBULENT RUN
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Maggie Haberman]
Stephen Bannon, the embattled chief strategist who helped President Donald Trump win the 2016 election but clashed for months with other senior West Wing advisers, is leaving his post. “White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve’s last day,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “We are grateful for his service and wish him the best.” Apparently, earlier on Aug 18, the president had told senior aides that he had decided to remove Bannon. But a person close to Bannon insisted that the parting of ways was his idea, and that he had submitted his resignation to the president on Aug. 7, to be announced at the start of this week. But the move was delayed after the violence in Charlottesville (VA). The loss of Bannon, the right-wing nationalist who helped propel some of President Trump’s campaign promises into policy reality, raises the potential for the president to face criticism from the conservative news media base that supported him over the past year.
benton.org/headlines/stephen-bannon-out-white-house-after-turbulent-run | New York Times | Washington Post
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BANNON RETURNS TO BREITBART NEWS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Michael Grynbaum, Jeremy Peters]
Stephen Bannon, who left his post on Aug 18 as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, has resumed his role as chairman of Breitbart News, the provocative right-wing website that propelled him to national fame. Hours after his departure from the White House was announced, Bannon led the evening editorial meeting of his former publication, Breitbart said on its website. “The populist-nationalist movement got a lot stronger today,” the editor in chief of Breitbart, Alex Marlow, said in a statement. Bannon’s previous tenure as chairman of Breitbart coincided with the site’s move to the epicenter of the nationalist brand of right-wing conservatism that swept Trump into office last year. His return to the site is likely to reinvigorate Breitbart’s role as a gathering spot for Trump’s most ardent populist supporters.
benton.org/headlines/bannon-returns-breitbart-news | New York Times | The Hill
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