Lauren Frayer

With growing criticism over misinformation in search results, Google is taking a harder look at potentially "upsetting" or "offensive" content, tapping humans to aid its computer algorithms to deliver more factually accurate and less inflammatory results. The humans are Google's 10,000 independent contractors who work as what Google calls quality raters. They are given searches based on real queries to score the results, and they operate based on guidelines provided by Google.

On March 14 they were handed a new one: to hunt for "Upsetting-Offensive" content such as hate or violence against a group of people, racial slurs or offensive terminology, graphic violence including animal cruelty or child abuse or explicit information about harmful activities such as human trafficking, according to guidelines posted by Google. The goal: to steer people with queries such as "did the Holocaust happen" to trustworthy websites and not to websites that engage in falsehoods or hate speech.

TPRC (the Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy) and the Benton Foundation are pleased to announce the Charles Benton Junior Scholar Award to recognize a scholarship in the area of digital inclusion and broadband adoption. This special honor will be awarded at the TPRC Conference for the next three years beginning in 2017. Junior scholars (those currently enrolled in a degree program or no more than three years from receipt of most recent degree) are invited to submit. The Charles Benton Junior Scholar Award recipient will be presented with a $1,500 cash prize at the TPRC conference.

Applicants are invited to submit any/all of the following for consideration: (1) an original empirically-based research paper pertaining to the area of digital inclusion and/or broadband adoption, (2) a policy proposal for digital inclusion and broadband adoption with a discussion of the justification, and/or (3) an essay on a topic dealing with digital inclusion and/or broadband adoption. The deadline for application is May 30, with notifications being made July 1.

President Donald Trump unveiled a budget plan that calls for a sharp increase in military spending and stark cuts across much of the rest of the government including the elimination of dozens of long-standing federal programs that assist the poor, fund scientific research and aid America’s allies abroad. Trump’s first budget proposal, which he named “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” would increase defense spending by $54 billion and then offset that by stripping money from more than 18 other agencies.

While there are major cuts in President Donald Trump's "America first" budget, including a 16% cut in funds for the Department of Commerce, the document says the White House will continue to support the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), at least as far as "representing the United States interest at multi-stakeholder forums on internet governance and digital commerce." The budget also says it "supports the commercial sector’s development of next generation wireless services by funding NTIA’s mission of evaluating and ensuring the efficient use of spectrum by Government users." The budget did not break out cuts for the Federal Communications Commission, but they are part of a category that averages close to a 10% hit.

The budget would propose eliminating future federal support for the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney outlined the President's budget in a conference call with reporters. Asked whether CPB's funding [$421 million] would be eliminated, Mulvaney shot back "yes" immediately, then finessed his answer a bit, but essentially only on a technicality. "No, I'm, sorry, I was too quick with that," he added. "We propose ending funding, but technically what you will see is it's elimination, but you'll see an amount of money in the budget necessary for us to unwind our involvement in CPB, but it will see a zero next to it; the policy is we're ending federal involvement with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."

Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), made the following statement regarding the President Donald Trump's proposed elimination of federal funding for public media:

“There is no viable substitute for federal funding that ensures Americans have universal access to public media’s educational and informational programming and services. The elimination of federal funding to CPB would initially devastate and ultimately destroy public media’s role in early childhood education, public safety, connecting citizens to our history, and promoting civil discussions – all for Americans in both rural and urban communities. Public media is one of America’s best investments. At approximately $1.35 per citizen per year, it pays huge dividends to every American. From expanding opportunity, beginning with proven children’s educational content to providing essential news and information as well as ensuring public safety and homeland security through emergency alerts, this vital investment strengthens our communities. It is especially critical for those living in small towns and in rural and underserved areas. Viewers and listeners appreciate that public media is non-commercial and available for free to all Americans. We will work with the new Administration and Congress in raising awareness that elimination of federal funding to CPB begins the collapse of the public media system itself and the end of this essential national service.”

PBS and our nearly 350 member stations, along with our viewers, continue to remind Congress of our strong support among Republican and Democratic voters, in rural and urban areas across every region of the country. We have always had support from both parties in Congress, and will again make clear what the public receives in return for federal funding for public broadcasting. The cost of public broadcasting is small, only $1.35 per citizen per year, and the benefits are tangible: increasing school readiness for kids 2-8, support for teachers and homeschoolers, lifelong learning, public safety communications and civil discourse.

In response to President Trump's proposal to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services in his FY2018 budget, American Library Association (ALA) President Julie Todaro issued the following statement:

"The President's proposal to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services in his FY2018 budget just released, and with it effectively all federal funding for libraries of all kinds, is counterproductive and short-sighted. The American Library Association will mobilize its members, Congressional library champions and the millions upon millions of people we serve in every zip code to keep those ill-advised proposed cuts from becoming a Congressional reality. Libraries leverage the tiny amount of federal funds they receive through their states into an incredible range of services for virtually all Americans everywhere to produce what could well be the highest economic and social "ROI" in the entire federal budget. America's more than 120,000 public, school, college and university and many other libraries aren't piles of archived books. They're trusted centers for technology, job counseling, retraining, veterans services, entrepreneurship, education, teaching and learning and free inquiry at the core of communities in every state in the country – and in every Congressional district. And they’re staffed by the original search engines: skilled and engaged librarians."

The Federal Trade Commission could be facing big changes under President Donald Trump. President Trump must fill three vacant commissioner seats and decide on a chairman — moves that Republicans hope could push the regulatory agency in a business-friendly direction. The agency’s primary role is to police companies for deceptive practices and to review high-profile mergers to determine if they are in consumers’ best interests.

President Trump himself is no stranger to the FTC, having had his own run-ins with its regulators as a businessman. In 1988, he agreed in a settlement with the FTC to pay a $750,000 fine for failing to disclose a stock purchase in a planned merger. And in recent years, students of the now-defunct Trump University filed complaints with the FTC alleging the school misled and overcharged them. In 2016, Trump agreed to a $25 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit against the school.

A White House adviser said that the Trump Administration will develop metrics to track federal agencies’ implementation of a federal cybersecurity framework. Thomas Bossert, an adviser to President Trump on homeland security and counterterrorism, said that the new administration will require agencies and departments to abide by the framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and report back to the White House on their adoption and implementation of the cybersecurity recommendations. The aide said the move is part of a larger effort by President Trump to treat the entire federal network as its own entity and safeguard it from cyber threats.

“We’re going to go through a thoughtful approach that requires federal departments and agencies to adopt and implement cybersecurity framework developed by NIST and any subsequent iteration of that document,” Bossert said. “They’re going to be required to produce for us a report.” The report will be submitted to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the White House, and will serve as a “scorecard” to assess agencies’ cybersecurity efforts, Bossert said.

San Francisco’s (CA) access to high-speed fiber optic internet service may increase under a proposal to — for the first time — begin permitting the installation of fiber wiring using more cost-effective micro-trenching. Supervisor Mark Farrell, who is also leading an effort for a citywide broadband network, introduced legislation that would for the first time have Department of Public Works grant micro-trenching city permits beginning Jan. 2, 2018. Such permits would allow internet service providers to install at a much lesser cost infrastructure to grow their customer base.

“It is difficult for many small service providers to enter the market and compete to deliver service,” Farrell said. “We have great small internet service providers that are fighting for a piece of the pie in our city to deliver services to our residents but they are denied because of cost and other prohibitions.” The Department of Public Works would “issue permits to excavate that allow the permittee to use micro-trenching to install a fiber-optic cable in the sidewalk portion of the public right-of-way, subject to any orders, regulations, or standard plans and specifications the Department may adopt.”

The Free State Foundation, a free market think tank focused on communications and content rights issues, has told the Federal Communications Commission it needs to scrap its new privacy rules for Internet service provider data collection and sharing—or at least amend them to square with the Federal Trade Commission's approach to regulating edge provider collection and sharing. That came in comments in opposition from ISPs, advertisers and others, who asked the FCC to reconsider the new broadband privacy framework adopted by a Democratic-led FCC back in October over the dissents of both Republicans, which includes current FCC chair Ajit Pai.

In its comments, Free State said the framework was both beyond the FCC's legal authority and arbitrary. "The Commission's imposition of intrusive privacy rules on ISPs – but not on non-ISPs that also collect personal information and data, and much more of it – is contrary to the principle that laws should be applied equally to all, absent compelling reasons to the contrary," it said. The FCC rules require opt-in consent from consumers for collecting and sharing a broad category of "personally sensitive" information, including app use and web surfing histories, neither of which are opt-in for edge providers under FTC oversight.