BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2017
We covered Friday’s FCC news in a special edition of the newsletter found at https://www.benton.org/headlines/bentons-headlines/february-5-2017-super...
INTERNET/BROADBAND
Reps. Huffman, Pocan, and Nolan Introduce New Deal Rural Broadband Act to Close Digital Divide in Rural America - press release
Here’s Exactly How the Internet Is Now Under Threat - Susan Crawford op-ed
Don't Neglect ‘Invisible Infrastructure’ - Julius Genachowski op-ed
Snap is worried that losing net neutrality could ‘seriously harm’ its business [links to Benton summary]
Why Sprint Buying a Chunk of Tidal Scares Net Neutrality Advocates [links to Benton summary]
COMMUNICATIONS & DEMOCRACY
The media botched this Trump story last week — and that’s bad for everyone - analysis
The Massacre That Wasn’t, and a Turning Point for ‘Fake News’ - analysis
The Politicization of Everything [links to Benton summary]
Most Americans oppose churches choosing sides in elections [links to Pew Research Center]
With Conflict And Drama, Trump Hooks You Like A Reality TV Show [links to Benton summary]
President Trump: ‘Any negative polls are fake news’ [links to Hill, The]
TELEVISION
Rep Lamborn Introduces Bills to Defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - press release
SECURITY/PRIVACY
How Feds Can Use Encrypted Apps -- Without Breaking the Law [links to nextgov]
Here’s how easy it is to hack Donald Trump’s phone [links to Verge, The]
Lawrence Spiwak: FCC's in quite the privacy predicament [links to Hill, The]
Protecting your critical digital assets: Not all systems and data are created equal [links to McKinsey]
An Anonymous group just took down a fifth of the dark web [links to Verge, The]
Claude Barfield -- Cybersecurity policy in 2017: How will a major debate on government surveillance play out? [links to American Enterprise Institute]
WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
OECD Mobile Broadband Penetration Rises to 95 Percent, Now Reaches 1.2 Billion [links to telecompetitor]
CONTENT
The rise of the printed tweet in American politics [links to Verge, The]
Facebook Benefiting From Mobile, Political Rhetoric In Feeds [links to MediaPost]
EDUCATION
An ‘alternative facts’ South Dakota bill sparks fears for science education in the Trump era [links to Washington Post]
HEALTH
How health apps are promising to reshape healthcare [links to McKinsey]
LABOR
Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and 94 other tech companies call travel ban ‘unlawful’ in rare coordinated legal action
MTV News Staffers Cite Trump in Seeking to Unionize [links to Benton summary]
GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS
Trump's fleeting tweets alarm archivists [links to Benton summary]
FCC REFORM
FCC Begins Review for Possible Revision or Elimination of Rules - public notice [links to Benton summary]
FTC and FCC commissioners outline agency agendas in new administration [links to Benton summary]
Ajit Pai can restore regulatory humility to the FCC - Lawrence Spiwak op-ed [links to Benton summary]
POLICYMAKERS
Is Steve Bannon the Second Most Powerful Man in the World? - Time analysis [links to Benton summary]
In Case It Wasn’t Clear Yet, Steve Bannon Is Our President. Donald Trump is just a puppet who doesn’t care about anything. [links to GQ]
Editorial: President Bannon? [links to New York Times]
Kathleen Parker: Steve Bannon is Trump’s conscience. Yikes. [links to Washington Post]
Steve Bannon Will Lead Trump’s White House [links to New Yorker]
Steve Bannon: “I’ll take it from here.” [links to New Yorker]
Senate, House Aides Said to Vie for Top NTIA Spot [links to Benton summary]
Former Obama digital aide to join Kushner's brother's firm [links to Hill, The]
FCC Wireline Chief Rejoins Covington [links to Covington]
COMMUNICATIONS AND DEMOCRACY
TRUMP AND THE MEDIA
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Jackson Diehl]
[Commentary] Communication between the Executive and mainstream media, and with it coverage of the Trump administration, has already come unhinged. The problem originates in part in the blizzard of executive orders issuing or leaking from the White House — some of them signed and others mere drafts — that officials have done little to explain to Cabinet agencies, much less the press. Then there is the already established proclivity of press secretary Sean Spicer and other spokespersons to retail brazen untruths, at the apparent urging of the boss, amid a stream of insults directed at reporters. The result is that even when the White House does something ordinary, it may be portrayed as radical and dangerous, and even when it tells the truth, it is not believed. The story of the National Security Council reorganization is a good case in point.
[Diehl is the Washington Post’s Deputy Editorial Page Editor]
benton.org/headlines/media-botched-trump-story-last-week-and-thats-bad-everyone | Washington Post
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THE BOWLING GREEN MASSACRE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Jim Rutenberg]
[Commentary] The “Bowling Green Massacre” may go down in the record of the Trump presidency as the first break in the “fake news” clouds that have cast such gloom over our fair and once (relatively) true republic. The same internet that enabled false stories to run unchecked through news feeds during the election year dispatched new white blood cells that attacked Kellyanne Conway’s “alternate facts” with “true facts” (a redundant term that I guess we’re stuck with for now). Their most effective attack was traditional reporting, in many cases from news organizations that have doubled down on fact-checking, joined by newfangled memes that accentuate the truth. The Massacre That Wasn’t showed that while Facebook, Google and Twitter take steps to combat nefarious hoaxes, they are already playing host to an organic correction movement led by ordinary users who are crowdsourcing reality. It’s early. Vigilance, and continuing improvements throughout the news business, remain necessary. But the tale of the “massacre” could be the start of something new.
benton.org/headlines/massacre-wasnt-and-turning-point-fake-news | New York Times
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INTERNET/BROADBAND
NEW DEAL RURAL BROADBAND ACT
[SOURCE: House of Representatives, AUTHOR: Press release]
Reps Jared Huffman (D-CA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), and Rick Nolan (D-MN) introduced the New Deal Rural Broadband Act of 2017, an ambitious plan to connect every American home, business, and school to high-speed, reliable broadband internet that is based on Roosevelt’s New Deal rural electrification model. The legislation would expand access to broadband internet in rural communities in Huffman’s North Coast congressional district, and across the nation, through increased investments in broadband infrastructure, improved programs to support tribal communities in broadband development, and the establishment of a new Office of Rural Broadband Initiatives to better coordinate all Federal rural broadband deployment programs. The New Deal Rural Broadband Act would:
Establish a new Office of Rural Broadband Initiatives to coordinate and centralize all Federal rural broadband programs;
Authorize $20 billion for new broadband infrastructure focused on rural communities and those without adequate access;
Authorize a new Tribal Broadband Assistance Program to support tribal communities in broadband deployment;
Improve and modernize the Telecommunications Loan and Loan Guarantee Program to increase eligibility, allow greater flexibility, and break down federal agency broadband “silos”;
Authorize the Rural Utility Service (RUS) to offer broadband grants in addition to loans and loan guarantees to provide small communities with the seed funds needed to compete in loan applications or develop commercially attractive proposals and increase overall (RUS) broadband investment from $25 million to $50 million annually; and
Establish an inventory of Federal and State assets on which a broadband facility could be constructed and;
Provide land management agencies with cooperative agreement and fee retention authority for telecommunications rights-of-way to leverage public lands for broadband deployment
benton.org/headlines/reps-huffman-pocan-and-nolan-introduce-new-deal-rural-broadband-act-close-digital-divide | House of Representatives | PK
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HERE'S EXACTLY HOW THE INTERNET IS NOW UNDER THREAT
[SOURCE: Medium, AUTHOR: Susan Crawford]
[Commentary] On January 26th, I interviewed former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler at Harvard Law School, where I teach. It was the day the new administration announced his successor, who will have very different priorities. We talked about network neutrality, telecom mergers, high-speed access, and the dangers that lie ahead under the next administration. I asked, "In the Trump administration, people are talking about stripping regulatory power from the FCC, and essentially taking the agency apart (including moving jurisdiction over internet access to the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]). 'Modernizing' the FCC is the lingo being used. What’s your thought about that?" Wheeler said, "It’s a fraud. The FTC doesn’t have rule-making authority. They’ve got enforcement authority and their enforcement authority is whether or not something is unfair or deceptive. And the FTC has to worry about everything from computer chips to bleach labeling. Of course, carriers want [telecom issues] to get lost in that morass. This was the strategy all along. So it doesn’t surprise me that the Trump transition team — who were with the American Enterprise Institute and basically longtime supporters of this concept — comes in and says, 'Oh, we oughta do away with this.' It makes no sense to get rid of an expert agency and to throw these issues to an agency with no rule-making power that has to compete with everything else that’s going on in the economy, and can only deal with unfair or deceptive practices. Because we’re talking about one sixth of the economy. More importantly, we’re dealing with the network that connects six sixths of the economy."
[Susan Crawford is the John A Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School]
benton.org/headlines/heres-exactly-how-internet-now-under-threat | Medium
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INVISIBLE INFRASTRUCTURE INITIATIVE
[SOURCE: Bloomberg, AUTHOR: Julius Genachowski]
[Commentary] In his early days in office, true to his campaign promises, President Donald Trump is promoting a $1 trillion plan to upgrade the nation's aging physical infrastructure. To maximize job creation, investment and benefits to all Americans, he should also focus on our "invisible infrastructure" -- the unseen airwaves that enable wireless connections. As a start, here are some ideas the new administration should pursue as part of an Invisible Infrastructure Initiative: 1) expand the spectrum pipeline, 2) focus on government spectrum, and 3) remove barriers to expanding broadband.
[Julius Genachowski, former chairman of the FCC, is a managing director and partner at the Carlyle Group.]
benton.org/headlines/dont-neglect-invisible-infrastructure | Bloomberg
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TELEVISION
REP LAMBORN INTRODUCES BILL TO DEFUND CPB
[SOURCE: House of Representatives, AUTHOR: Press release]
Rep Doug Lamborn (R-CO) released the following statement following his introduction of two bills, HR 726 and HR 727, to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and National Public Radio (NPR): "Republicans and the new Administration need to demonstrate that we take our fiscal responsibility seriously. American taxpayers do not want their hard-earned dollars funding superfluous government programs just because that is the way things have always been done. That’s why I have reintroduced two pieces of legislation to permanently defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio. CPB received $445 million during Fiscal Year 2016, and this money could be put to better use rebuilding our military and enhancing our national security.”
benton.org/headlines/rep-lamborn-introduces-bills-defund-corporation-public-broadcasting | House of Representatives
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LABOR
LEGAL ACTION VS BAN
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Elizabeth Dwoskin]
Silicon Valley is stepping up its confrontation with the Trump administration. Technology giants Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, Uber and many others filed a legal brief opposing the administration’s contentious entry ban. The move represents a rare coordinated action across a broad swath of the industry — 97 companies in total— and demonstrates the depth of animosity toward the Trump ban. The amicus brief was filed with the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is expected to rule within a few days on an appeal by the administration after a federal judge in Seattle issued late Feb 3 a temporary restraining order putting the entry ban on hold. The brief comes at the end of a week of nationwide protests against the plan — as well as a flurry of activity in Silicon Valley, a region that sees immigration as central to its identity as an innovation hub.
benton.org/headlines/apple-facebook-google-microsoft-and-94-other-tech-companies-call-travel-ban-unlawful-rare | Washington Post | AP | Financial Times | ars technica
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