Nancy Scola

Jessica Rosenworcel is the boss—chair of the Federal Communications Commission, the 1,600-employee agency that has oversight of how the country communicates, from FM radio to broadcast television to the wires that make up the U.S.’s internet infrastructure.

In the weeks since Elon Musk took over the platform, his erratic leadership and bewildering choices have alienated many of Twitter’s power users, a core crop of whom are part of the American political establishment. But leaving a communications channel that’s become central to how Washington works won’t be easy. Washington takes Twitter very seriously. Twitter is a place where all the worlds that make up Washington — the politicians, the policy experts, the press, academics, activists, and others — gather.

President Donald Trump’s crackdown on Twitter may have an unintended effect — hampering the marketing of some of his administration’s signature efforts, from Army recruiting to anti-vaping campaigns.

As the federal government shifts into an all-hands-on-deck fight to battle coronavirus, President Donald Trump and his White House have increasingly called on tech companies to lend a hand.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a legal challenge from Public Knowledge, The Greenlining Institute and other groups to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai’s 2017 rollback of certain Obama-era requirements for phone companies angling to transition off of legacy copper networks. “This is a victory for American consumers, who will benefit from faster fiber deployment and the increased availability of next-generation services,” Chairman Pai said. He has touted the deregulation as critical for allowing the transition to more advanced, IP-based networks.

House committee leaders are still unable to strike a final deal on key privacy issues and are instead opting to release a discussion draft as bipartisan talks continue. House Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chairwoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is spearheading those talks in the chamber. She will release a draft bill as early as next week that will not address hotly contested issues over whether a national standard should override state laws or enable consumers to sue companies over privacy violations.

Facebook is considering restricting politicians' ability to use highly detailed demographic and personal information to narrowly target would-be voters with ads, policy chief Nick Clegg confirmed in a possible shift in the social network's broadly permissive policy on political advertising. Clegg declined to discuss any other changes, saying the company is still in the decision-making process.

Thought things are tough for the tech industry in Washington now? Building Democratic frustration with the industry could bring a bigger crackdown if the 2020 election puts the party back in control of the White House. Look no further than the Federal Trade Commission — and its two Democrats — to see those dynamics at play. In a series of unusually blunt dissents in recent cases involving Facebook and Google, FTC Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter argued for much tougher financial penalties for companies that break their promises and abuse their users’ privacy.

President Donald Trump’s vow to scour “the dark recesses of the internet” came as deadly gun violence provoked ire over fringe online platforms like 8chan, an anonymous message board that has hosted a racist manifesto linked to Aug 3's deadly shooting in El Paso (TX). But any effort to curb dangerous extremism online will run into a host of obstacles:

The Democratic anger over Facebook is the most potent sign yet of the peril Silicon Valley faces if the party regains full power in Washington: Investigations could become more intrusive, and the online industry could face punishments that have never realistically been on the table — including a ban on the kind of behavior-based advertising that supplies Facebook's fortune. Such repercussions could go even beyond the backlash that tech is experiencing under the Trump administration.