Op-Ed

[Commentary] The more we debate Title II versus Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, the more it is clear that everyone wants the same outcome: we all want an open internet. The issue is determining which path will best enable the internet to be most accessible to Americans for opportunity, innovation and entrepreneurship, with the requisite transparency and privacy protections. Let’s end this debate once and for all.

A bipartisan Congress should put its differences aside to create a federal law that governs the internet. The solution to this is problem is not whether we go with Title I or Title II — the solution lies in “Title X,” a new law that will expressly set out the rules of the road for the entire internet ecosystem. The simple fact is — and I think most of us agree — that we do not want anyone to arbitrarily block or slow content on the web. We do not want discrimination in the flow of traffic on the internet. We want transparency in how our internet usage is impacted by Internet service providers (ISPs), edge providers and the government. Further, as we build out these digital networks, every community must be free of digital and infrastructure redlining.

Title X would be a law that harmonizes the ecosystem that has nurtured the innovation and led to the U.S. becoming a global leader in speed, access and adoption, while ensuring strong consumer protections — across all platforms and regardless of their provider. If ever we needed an X factor, we need it now, if we are to maximize the power and the promise of the internet.

[Kim Keenan is the president and CEO of Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council]

[Commentary] A new Broadband Access Coalition of internet service providers has joined forces with consumer, schools and health care advocacy groups to petition the Federal Communications Commission to open up the airwaves for spectrum best suited to a new, superfast broadband service for the whole of America.

This new approach does not rely solely on fiber, which is costly and difficult to deploy, but instead harnesses wireless broadband. This technology can be deployed at up to one tenth the cost of laying new fiber cabling to homes, with far fewer disruptions and project delays. It can also bring new superfast Wi-Fi services to areas that have no or little choice over their broadband provider. 94 percent of our internet traffic traverses Wi-Fi and home or business broadband connections – not more expensive cellular airwaves. The coalition’s petition proposes to open up new wireless spectrum for improving broadband services cost-effectively. This spectrum can provide great coverage in underserved rural areas, and can stimulate new competitive Internet Service Providers to enter the market and connect dense suburban areas. Unfortunately, the mobile industry is lobbying to secure this new spectrum band for its own exclusive use. The new wireless approach means consumers no longer have to be tethered to any physical infrastructure. Unlike challenging other traditional utilities, action doesn’t require consumers to overhaul their homes – all they have to do is make their voices heard.

[Fink is the CPO and Co-Founder of Mimosa Networks]

[Commentary] Recent statement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions mark a serious intervention in a delicate, decades-long balancing act between the federal government and professional journalists.

A change in the policy about press subpoenas could have grave consequences for the government and press alike. A subpoena is the legal tool that forces an individual to testify or produce evidence. When subpoenas are issued to journalists (or their communications providers) in leak investigations, it is most often for the purpose of identifying a leaker: Match the relevant reporter’s telephone records to an individual with access to the classified information — or better yet, force the reporter to testify directly as to the source — and you’ve got your leaker. But you’ve also compromised the press’s ability to protect their sources, undermining their ability to do their job. Reporters who refuse to reveal their sources in compliance with such subpoenas risk contempt charges.

While the Constitution limits government intrusion on the freedom of speech and of the press, the law does not offer absolute protection for journalists against revealing their sources. Congress has not enacted robust protections and the Supreme Court has not interpreted the First Amendment as itself embodying such a privilege — nothing approximating a broad “press privilege” relieving reporters from revealing sources. Such a privilege is protected at the state level in nearly all states. But no such privilege has been recognized uniformly at the federal level.

[Murillo is a third-year student at Harvard Law School, where she is an editor of the Harvard Law Review]

[Commentary] More than 15 million comments have been filed with the Federal Communications Commission on its Restoring Internet Freedom docket, which focuses on the concept of net neutrality, and specifically Title II regulations imposed in 2015 under the previous administration. While this colossal number includes many sentiments – including an unsettling number of foreign and some 6 million fake comments – it does not contain significant representation from poor, minority and senior Americans. Media and communications scholars have documented that online activism is the province of the digital elite and largely aligns with race and class. Herein lies an unsettling problem.

"Digital democracy" has been promoted to enable underrepresented consumers to become more politically involved. This seems intuitive, but the reality is that digitization can, if anything, exacerbate the problem of these individuals not participating. The reality is that Title II ignores and hurts underserved communities. It prohibits a free market for data which allows these individuals to enjoy free and reduced price content and offerings. It has cost the nation some $35 billion annually in lost participation from content-side actors and advertisers which would otherwise support internet access to these groups. It is also responsible for deterring the creation of some 750,000 jobs.

[Roslyn Layton is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy.]

[Commentary] There is no doubt that public concern about the vitality of free speech and political debate on American college campuses has legitimate causes. However, the current round of attacks – from the extreme right and left — is a pretext. It is part of a broader assault on the idea of the university itself: on its social functions, on the fundamental importance of advanced knowledge and enlightened debate, on the critical role of science and expertise in public policy and on the significance of intellectuals and serious thought leaders more generally.

The time has come to defend the university vigorously, even as we insist on seeking to open it up further: to new ideas, to even more vigorous debate, to more students who have never had the opportunity for advanced education, to engagement with the world, and to the public more generally for whom the idea that college is a public good needs stressing, and demonstrating, today more than ever.

[Nicholas B. Dirks is former chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley.]

[Commentary] The mainstream media has suddenly discovered Sinclair. Oh no! cry the media watchdogs -- this company known formally as Sinclair Broadcast Group has a conservative slant to its newscasts. That's a no-no, say the watchdogs, even though many sources of news on TV seem to have a slant these days. But the problem isn't the slant, of course. It's the conservative slant.

Sinclair is in the media watchdogs’ crosshairs because it is the largest single owner of local TV stations in the United States in terms of the number of properties the company owns. Many of the stations have local news. I have seen these “too-powerful” arguments arise time and time again over the course of my 34-year career covering television. As a result, I have come to the conclusion that a company such as Sinclair could own a million stations and the commentaries of Boris Epshteyn would not be any more influential or watched by a bigger audience than any number of other commentators from MSNBC to Fox News Channel.

[Commentary] Many tech execs that I know hate and do not trust our government, but are starting to come to the conclusion that a president, senator and congressmen and congresswomen need to have a greater grasp of how technology will shape our world and country, and be tech-savvy enough to keep America moving forward now. I am told behind the scenes that some very high-powered, forward-thinking tech execs who really understand how technology is going to drive so many major things tied to America’s growth and world position are starting to contemplate running for office in many states around America. Their goal would be to gain a stronger position of influence when it comes to the role government must play in guiding how technology is applied and integrated into all of our business and personal lives fairly and equally.

I have no clue whether Zuckerberg will or will not eventually move into politics, but I am willing to bet that as more and more tech execs understand the magnitude of what has to be called the great tech revolution of this century, we will see some of them trying to find a greater way to influence our current politicians, and we’ll even see some begin to run for office in order to influence our government from within as much as possible.

[Tim Bajarin is the president of Creative Strategies Inc.]

We’ve heard lots about Silicon Valley’s toxic culture this summer — its harassing venture capitalists, its man-child CEOs, its abusive nondisparagement agreements. Those stories have focused on how that culture harms those in the industry — the women and people of color who’ve been patronized, passed over, pushed out and, in this latest case, told they’re biologically less capable of doing the work in the first place. But what happens in Silicon Valley doesn’t stay in Silicon Valley. It comes into our homes and onto our screens, affecting all of us who use technology, not just those who make it. It’s bad enough for apps to showcase sexist or racially tone-deaf jokes or biases. But in many cases, those same biases are also embedded somewhere much more sinister — in the powerful (yet invisible) algorithms behind much of today’s software.

[Commentary] How much is being lost in economic benefits because fixed broadband connectivity is not ubiquitous? A 2017 study by Ohio State University Swank Program on Rural-Urban Policy estimated the economic benefits of providing broadband access to unserved households in Ohio. To calculate these estimates, the Ohio State study used customer surplus – what a consumer is willing to pay for a service compared to what they are actually paying. In other words, consumer surplus is the average amount of value a consumer receives from Internet service above and beyond the price.

The most conservative of scenarios, which assumes full access but only 20 percent adoption, would generate an impact of $4.5 billion per year or $43.8 billion over fifteen years in the US. In non-metropolitan counties, this same scenario would yield $2.3 billion annually or $22.7 billion over fifteen years.

[Dr. Roberto Gallardo is Assistant Director & Community & Regional Economics Specialist of the Purdue Center for Regional Development at Purdue University.
Dr. Mark Rembert is the Graduate Research Associate at the Swank Program on Rural-Urban Policy at the Ohio State University.]

[Commentary] The network neutrality issue has reignited a debate that is as old as the Internet. Once limited to tech-savvy users with access to networked computers at academic institutions, laboratories and government agencies, the Internet has become a fundamental part of nearly everybody’s life. Billions of new users have come online over the past two decades. But the commercial interests that have enabled their entry have also threatened the core values of openness, freedom of expression and access that were so critical to the Internet’s early pioneers.

During the 1990s, public policies dramatically transformed the Internet by encouraging its privatization. As is true today, these changes sparked activism as individuals grappled with the tension between the technology’s commercial potential and its democratic ideals. The net neutrality debate is not just a reiteration of the same debate, however. It has forced Internet companies and users to confront the consequences — both positive and negative — that two decades of privatization have wrought on our digital public sphere. Commercialization has brought the digital world to the masses. But as a result, a handful of companies wield great influence over what we see online, and we are bombarded by spam, ads, and other costs of a profit-driven space.

[Carly Goodman is a historian of immigration and American foreign relations. She is a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow and communications analyst at the American Friends Service Committee.]