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November 2017

FCC Chairman Pai asks: Is social media a net benefit to American society?

Is social media a net benefit to American society? Given the increasingly important role that social media plays in our daily lives, this is a question that all of us, including groups like the Media Institute, need to grapple with. Now, I will tell you up front that I don’t have an answer. And I won’t touch on particular policy issues, like social media’s role in elections. What I have in mind is something broader. With that, let me suggest two trends that I believe have lowered our discourse—and how social media has enabled each. First: Everything nowadays is political.

Majority of Voters Support Net Neutrality Rules as FCC Tees Up Repeal Vote

As the Federal Communications Commission moves forward with plans to repeal Obama-era net neutrality rules, a new Morning Consult/Politico poll shows bipartisan support for keeping the regulations in place. Fifty-two percent of registered voters in a Nov. 21-25 poll said they support the current rules, which stipulate that internet service providers like Comcast Corp., AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.

Why Trump Wants to Toss Obama’s Net Neutrality Rules: QuickTake

[Commentary] The internet is a set of pipes. It’s also a set of values. Whose? The people who consider it a great social equalizer, a playing field that has to be level? Or the ones who own the network and consider themselves best qualified to manage it? It’s a philosophical contest fought under the banner of “net neutrality,” a slogan that inspires rhetorical devotion but eludes precise definition. Broadly, it means everything on the internet should be equally accessible — that the internet should be a place where great ideas compete on equal terms with big money.

Ajit's Shell Game

[Commentary] I’ve got bad news for everyone who is working overtime to protest Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s campaign to eliminate net neutrality: You are being tricked. Pai is running a kind of shell game, overreaching (“go ahead and run all the paid prioritization services you want, Comcast!”) so that we will focus our energies on the hard-to-pin-down concept of net neutrality—the principle of internet access fairness that he has vowed to eliminate.

Former FCC and DoJ Staffer Jon Sallet Pens "Antitrust is Law Enforcement"

Submitted by benton on Wed, 11/29/2017 - 14:29

Jon Sallet is the new Benton Senior Fellow. Jon's work focuses on policies to preserve and protect internet openness, to advance competition more broadly, including through antitrust, and to support Federal Communications Commission actions to protect privacy, security, and broadband deployment. Jon was the FCC General Counsel/Acting General Counsel (2013-2016), and Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Litigation, Antitrust Division, US Department of Justice (2016-2017). 

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