Op-Ed

[Commentary] Democratic governments concerned about new digital threats need to find better algorithms to defend democratic values in the global digital ecosystem. Democracy has always been hard. It requires an exquisite balance between freedom, security and democratic accountability. This is the profound challenge that confronts the world’s liberal democracies as they grapple with foreign disinformation operations, as well as home-grown hate speech, extremism, and fake news. Fear and conceptual confusion do not justify walking away from liberal values, which are a source of security and stability in democratic society. Private sector and government actors must design algorithms for democracy that simultaneously optimize for freedom, security, and democratic accountability in our digital world.

[Eileen Donahoe is Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford University, and former U.S. ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council]

[Commentary] Amid the avalanche of Title II comments were comments filed by eleven Democratic members of Congress—several of whom sit on the House Commerce Committee—who claim their background working on telecommunication issues over the years gives them the “unique ability to provide input on the actual meaning and intent” of both the Communications Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996. A simple review of the plain text of these statutes and the substantial case law interpreting them, however, appear to raise doubts about that claim.

Let’s start with the Congressmen’s central argument that the FCC “fundamentally and profoundly misstates the law” because the FCC’s notice of proposed rulemmaking (NPRM) “takes an impermissibly narrow view” of the Communications Act’s “public interest” standard. “Any action the FCC takes based on the analysis contained in the proposal,” they claim, “will be legally flawed and contrary to the law.” The problem with this argument is that regardless of how one views the “public interest” standard, application of this standard is irrelevant to the fundamental legal question raised in the NPRM. The Congressmen next argue that by reversing reclassification, the FCC “would remove the statutory privacy rules that can protect broadband users before they are harmed.” Again, this argument is legally inaccurate. The Democrat lawmakers’ third major legal argument is that the FCC is improperly focusing on whether the 2015 Open Internet Order depressed investment in broadband infrastructure. Every serious attempt to analyze the data indicates that the prospect of Title II regulation has reduced investment in broadband infrastructure, and by a significant amount.

At some point, we all hope that Congress will step up and pass some sort of Open Internet legislation to put this debate to bed. If that effort is to be successful, then it is incumbent on Members of Congress to bring greater focus, insight and analytical rigor than they demonstrated in this particular filing.

[Lawrence Spiwak is the President of the Phoenix Center for Advanced Legal & Economic Public Policy Studies]

[Commentary] I have longtime friends who believe that the public interest requires the Federal Communications Commission to strictly limit the ownership of multiple TV stations. I genuinely understand and respect their opinions. But, my personal experience over 40 years in the industry suggests that TV ownership limits intended to enhance diversity may, in fact, prevent the creation of meaningfully diverse competitors.

Some of my longtime friends seem to oppose repeal of the TV station ownership rules because one beneficiary of repeal might be Sinclair Broadcasting Company, a company widely believed to have conservative views. But these same friends would be the first to insist that Federal licensing decisions cannot — must not — be based on political views. I have not always been on the same page with Sinclair, particularly during a business dispute over the first round of Fox affiliation renewals. But, Sinclair has emerged as a genuine television industry leader, especially on technology issues. And, for all we know, the next beneficiary of deregulation could be Tegna, Scripps, George Soros or Tom Steyer. And that is what free markets, competition and diversity are all about. My real world experience with the television ownership rules leaves no doubt that consumers will be well served by their repeal.

[Preston Padden is the former president of the ABC Television Network and EVP of parent, the Walt Disney Company.]

[Commentary] Broadband infrastructure is only a prerequisite for adequate digital inclusion, not a sustainable solution in itself. Research examining the economic impacts of broadband access in rural regions in the US found a stark difference in economic outcomes when ‘access’ was defined as the availability of broadband infrastructure versus ‘access’ being defined as the adoption of a residential broadband connection. Broadband infrastructure alone provided only minimal economic benefits to households and regions, while increased broadband adoption was linked to individual-level and community-level economic improvements.

The cost of fixed broadband subscriptions is often cited as the single most important factor in hindering broadband adoption in areas where the infrastructure is available. However, research suggests that while affordability is certainly key, there are also other factors that should be considered. One well-cited cross-country analysis of cultural factors affecting broadband adoption lists lack of understanding of the services and content that can be accessed online as one reason individuals in the US may not adopt high-speed broadband, as well as an actual insufficiency in online content relevant to a particular community. To truly equalize the digital playing field, we need to carefully consider the factors affecting individuals’ ability to gain high-speed broadband access once the infrastructure becomes available in their geographic region. The findings cited here speak to the importance of investments in educational programs and services addressing digital literacy, content creation, and other aspects critical to sustainable broadband adoption.

[Jana Wilbricht is a Ph.D. Candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Michigan, and worked with NDIA during the summer 2017 as a research fellow of the Consortium on Media Policy Studies (COMPASS).]

[Commentary] I spent my career at Microsoft trying to imagine what technology could do, and still I wasn’t prepared for smartphones and social media. Like many parents with children my kids’ age, I didn’t understand how they would transform the way my kids grew up — and the way I wanted to parent. I’m still trying to catch up. For other parents trying to decide how to do their job in a way that feels right despite the bewildering array of changes brought on by smartphones and social media, I want to share some of the resources that have helped me and my friends. Hopefully, these tips can spark conversation and help parents become resources for each other:
Learn about the issue
Unplug
Have Tough Conversations
Advocate for your kids
Make a Plan
[Melinda Gates is a businesswoman and philanthropist. She is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation]

[Commentary] The rise of what we might call “cheap speech” has fundamentally altered both how we communicate and the nature of our politics, endangering the health of our democracy.

The path back to a more normal political scene will not be easy. In the old days, just a handful of TV networks controlled the airwaves, and newspapers served as gatekeepers for news and opinion content. A big debate back in the 1980s and earlier was how to enable free expression for those who did not own or work for a media company and wanted to get a message out. It seems cheap speech, despite its undeniable benefits, has come with a steep price for our democracy.

[Richard L. Hasen is the Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at UC Irvine]

[Commentary] The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) built on the efforts of another New Deal project. The Tennessee Valley Authority was among the very first creations of President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration. The TVA had several purposes, including navigation improvements and flood control, but among its biggest was generating electricity for some of the poorest sections of the country. Everyone knows about the high-speed internet deficit, so why hasn’t anything like a TVA for the internet been created?

One answer is that Congress has been controlled by politicians who have vilified all government programs and who do not want to create new ones. The bigger problem is that the very people who would benefit from rural broadband keep voting for those same politicians and things are even worse at the state level. Dozens of rural communities have tried to set up internet co-ops, on the model of the REA, but in response nearly two dozen states have passed laws making it nearly impossible to do so. Most of these states are controlled by the same kind of anti-government legislators who run Congress and all of them have been lobbied heavily by the same telecommunication companies that have abandoned rural internet users. But as long as rural Americans keep sending those politicians to Washington, or to the statehouse, rural America is going to remain stuck in the dial-up age.

[Steven Conn is the W. E. Smith Professor of History at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio]

[Commentary] To distract you while they smother network neutrality, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and acting Federal Trade Commission Chair Maureen Ohlhausen have offered confident assurances that the FTC can step into the role abdicated by the FCC and protect net neutrality with its antitrust and consumer protection enforcement authority. It sounds plausible (plus most people aren’t entirely sure what the FTC does), so you nod along, but don’t fall for it; it’s a ruse. The FTC would be far more limited in how it can protect net neutrality, because:

1) The FTC is prohibited from enforcing its laws against common carriers, like telephone companies
2) The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has broadly interpreted that law to mean that the FTC can’t act against even the non-telephonic services of telephone companies, like broadband
3) Even if the 9th Circuit decision gets reversed, the FTC can’t use antitrust law to protect individual websites and content providers
4) It’s doubtful whether net neutrality could be enforced through the FTC’s other enforcement tool, consumer protection laws

[Anant Raut is the former counsel to the assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, as well as a former FTC attorney. He is currently a visiting fellow at Public Knowledge]

[Commentary] The desirability of regulations applicable to broadband internet service should be measured against their impact on investment, competition, and consumer welfare. If the regulations cause more harm than good, it’s time to revise them. This type of analysis is going on now at the Federal Communications Commission as the agency examines the desirability of continuing to apply what is called “Title II regulation” to the internet. Title II regulation, whose name comes from Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, was applied to the Internet two years ago by the agency at the behest of the previous Chairman. But the new Chairman has concluded tentatively that Title II regulation should be eliminated based on the test outlined above, and as a result, the agency is expected to decide soon whether to do so.

Go! Foton agrees with the new FCC chairman that Title II regulation does more harm than good. We therefore welcome the FCC’s action to examine the implications of Title II internet regulation and ultimately roll it back.

[Dr Simin Cai is Chief Executive officer at Go! Foton]

[Commentary] While plenty of media commentators and politicians lauded the efforts of Boston politicians and the Boston Police Department to keep the peace Aug 19 during a extreme-right-wing rally and massive counter protests, they failed at protecting the media’s right to cover a newsworthy event. Reporters were not able to actually cover the program of the event because authorities enforced a barrier of up to 50 yards around the speakers’ platform, preventing reporters from entering. Journalists were blocked from witnessing and reporting on the very reason for the massive crowds. The precautions ostensibly were designed for public safety—to keep those participating in the protest and counter protests apart from one another—but statements from law enforcement suggest the nature of the rally played a role.

At minimum, the city should have provided for a limited number of reporters to access the event, which was held in a public place. Instead, police acted as a sort of private door guard for the protest organizers, blocking access to all but a handful of people supporters vouched for at the gates. A group of about 20 people, including white-nationalist and neo-Nazi speakers, took part in the so-called “Free Speech” rally.

[Sarah Betancourt is a Boston-based reporter who focuses on public policy writing.]