December 2024

U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) bipartisan legislation, the TAKE IT DOWN Act, passed the Senate unanimously and now moves to the House for consideration. The TAKE IT DOWN Act, which Sen. Cruz introduced with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), would criminalize the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including AI-generated NCII (commonly referred to as “deepfake revenge pornography”), and require social media and similar websites to have in place procedures to remove such content within 48 hours of notice from a victim.

Sens Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) announced that their bipartisan Access to Capital Creates Economic Strength and Supports (ACCESS) Rural America Act, unanimously passed the U.S. Senate. The legislation expands access to broadband in rural areas by easing the burden of regulatory costs for smaller broadband providers that rural communities rely on. The ACCESS Rural America Act provides regulatory relief to rural telecommunications service providers by allowing them to submit streamlined financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A change of administration brings a change to the Federal Communications Commission as the majority swings from Democratic to Republican. I’ve always maintained a regulatory wish list, and the following are my hopes for what we’ll see out of the new FCC. These aren’t predictions—just my own list of hopes.