Benton’s weekly digest recaps the biggest (or most-overlooked) communications stories of the week. See https://www.benton.org/benton-weekly-digest
US Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco will hear net neutrality case
The US Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation randomly selected the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to hear the consolidated challenges to the Federal Communications Commission's repeal of net neutrality rules. A dozen challenges [including one filed by the Benton Foundation] have been filed by 22 state attorneys general, public interest groups, internet companies, a California county and the state’s Public Utilities Commission seeking to block the Trump administration’s repeal of landmark rules designed to ensure a free and open internet from taking effect. The suits were filed in both the Ninth Circuit and District of Columbia appeals court. Of the Ninth Circuit court’s 24 active judges, 18 were appointed by Democratic presidents and six by Republican President George W. Bush. There are six current vacancies and President Donald Trump has nominated two candidates.
The White House Office of Management and Budget still must sign off on some aspects of the FCC reversal before it takes legal effect. That could take months.
Remarks of Commissioner Clyburn, "The FCC's War on the Poor", at Voices for Internet Freedom Coalition
[Speech] The last time we spoke, you kindly permitted me to go off-script, to talk about how the Federal Communications Commission is proposing to destroy the Lifeline program. Now that proposed rollback is centerstage, along with my key priority, inmate calling service reform. But, I am heartened that the public outcry about the majority’s assault on Lifeline is coming from nearly every corner. And while it may be clear to those assembled here, that the FCC needs to pump the brakes on gutting Lifeline, what it does need to hit the gas on is inmate calling services reform. During the previous Administration, the FCC acted—amid fierce resistance—to rein in egregious rates and ancillary charges for inmate calling services. But amid a half-hearted defense in the courts in 2017 and then a voluntary remand, we now have no comprehensive federal rules on the books protecting inmates and their families from a regime that puts families in the poorhouse and ossifies the cradle-to-prison pipeline. Even now, some areas of the country have rates as high as $24 for a 15-minute call and in 2017, during a Congressional hearing, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai promised Sen Cory Booker (D-NJ) that he would act. We are all still waiting.
Why Low-Income Communities Are Building Their Own Internet Networks
With major telecommunication companies not offering broadband in poorer neighborhoods, community organizers are training locals to manage and implement their own networks to create equity and opportunities. In Detroit (MI), the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) is stepping up to meet that need. In 2016, the Detroit Community Technology Project–a nonprofit founded in 2014 to train community organizers in setting up neighborhood-level internet access–launched EII to increase internet access in three particularly underserved neighborhoods in Detroit, and to educate those very community members who will benefit from the internet in installing and managing it. Diana Nucera directs the DCTP, which the Detroit-based company Allied Media Projects sponsors with funds from the Obama administration’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The big question at the time of DCTP’s founding was “whether Detroit was even worth saving,” Nucera says. “People were more interested in the devastation of Detroit than in its resiliency.”
From AT&T to Cable One: Who has the highest data caps in wireline, wireless and cable?
In this report, we consider which carriers have implemented data caps and how large those caps are. Each provider is ranked by the size of the data cap they offer and the charge they incur for exceeding it. Service provider groups that have no caps are ranked according to company size. Wireless: Given the fact that wireless operators are using spectrum, a resource that has its limitations, the large wireless operators have taken the approach of quietly dumbing down connections, or throttling a connection after a user goes beyond their monthly allotment. But consumers should be aware that the wireless operators’ “unlimited” data plans aren’t exactly limitless. Several major wireless carriers cap high-speed data usage. Not content to go with the flow of other operators, T-Mobile offers the most generous data allowance at 50 GB for unlimited data. After T-Mobile, the data allowances for unlimited data plans drops to 23 GB from Sprint and then an average of 22 GB for AT&T, Verizon and US Cellular. Similarly, several of the top wireless operators will also slow down a user’s speed if they exceed the limits on lower speed packages. AT&T and US Cellular will slow all data usage to a 128 Kbps (2G speed) for the rest of the billing cycle.
5G Preemption Is Coming
The Federal Communications Commission will vote on an order at its March 22 meeting eliminating the need for federally mandated historic preservation and environmental reviews when deploying small cells, meaning states and localities without such rules will be out of luck. But proponents of local self-reliance see it as phase one in transferring the management of public rights of way and the leasing of access from counties and cities over to the wireless industry. Phase two would be the FCC’s adoption of the industry-leaning Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee’s recommendations that local governments be allowed only 30 days to make permitting decisions and leases over and above the cost of the permitting process be limited. Still the wireless industry has managed to circumvent many such ordinances at the state level through the passage of preemptive laws. “Nobody’s grandfathering you in,” said Gerry Lederer, partner at the law firm Best Best & Krieger. “So win the battle at the state level, and then get to developing your ordinances.” Lederer argued the industry can’t support state legislation at the same time it wants to have those conversations because—particularly with the emphasis President Donald Trump’s infrastructure proposal places on public-private partnerships—local governments are seeing their ability to leverage ownership of rights of way slip away. Counties and cities need to be able to obtain fair compensation through leases as they enter public private partnerships. Instead, local government has been painted as a barrier to wireless deployment in the industry’s recent FCC and state legislative wins. “What we’re seeing around the country is this false narrative,” Lederer said. “Allow us access to the rights of way and government property for reduced prices, and we will build out to rural America.”
To get rural kids online, Microsoft wants to put Internet access on school buses
Microsoft is looking to turn school buses into Internet-enabled hotspots in an experiment that’s aimed at helping students in rural Michigan do their homework. The company wants to use empty TV airwaves to beam high-speed Internet signals to buses in Hillman (MI) as they travel to and from school, according to regulatory filings submitted Wednesday to the Federal Communications Commission. “The proposed deployment would help … by providing high-speed wireless Internet access on school buses as they complete their morning and afternoon routes,” the filing reads. “This will allow students without suitable connections at home to complete assignments that require broadband Internet access while they are on their way to and from school.” Microsoft needs special government permission for the demo because it plans to operate wireless equipment at a power level that could otherwise interfere with other communications. But, it said, the equipment will shut off automatically if the buses stray outside the designated test area. Partnering with a regional Internet provider to place broadband base stations along the bus routes, Microsoft said it plans to install special radio antennas on the buses that can communicate with the base stations over the empty gaps between TV channels. If approved, the project would become the company’s eighth pilot for the “TV white spaces” technology in as many months.
Sen Duckworth and Others Introduce Inmate Calling Technical Corrections Act
[Press release] Sens Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Rob Portman (R-OH), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the Inmate Calling Technical Corrections Act to strengthen the nation’s criminal justice system by helping families keep in touch with incarcerated family members, which studies have shown can help reduce recidivism rates and thereby save taxpayer dollars. This targeted legislation would address long-standing concerns regarding predatory inmate calling rates at prison facilities across the US and would affirm the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to address a market failure to protect family, clergy, and counsel who communicate with prisoners, inmates and detainees. This legislation also makes clear that the obligations of fairness in inmate communications apply to all individuals, including those living with a disability.
Specifically, this legislation:
- Ensures consumers receive just and reasonable charges for all intra- and interstate inmate calling, drawing on the existing standard in Section 202 of the Communications Act.
- Ensures just and reasonable rates apply regardless of technology used, like video visitation services and other advanced communications services. This also ensures that the needs of inmates with disabilities is addressed.
- Permits the FCC to use its traditional procedures and authority to address unjust and unreasonable inmate calling rates.
Consumer Alert: Protect Yourself Against 'Neighbor Spoofing', Scam Callers Placing Phone Calls That Appear To Be Local
The Federal Communications Commission is warning consumers about “neighbor spoofing” scams where thieves manipulate caller ID information in ways that make calls appear to have been placed locally. In general, scammers use such spoofing to increase the likelihood that consumers pick up the phone and to increase the consumer’s trust in the call.
Sinclair's new media-bashing promos rankle local anchors
"This is so manipulative." That's an anchor at a local TV station owned by Sinclair, describing the company's latest mandate, a promotional campaign that sounds like pro-Trump propaganda. Internal documents call the new initiative an "anchor delivered journalistic responsibility message." But the staffers who shared the documents with CNN say the promos are inappropriate -- yet another corporate infringement on local journalism. "At my station, everyone was uncomfortable doing it," a local anchor said. Other local anchors also said the promos were a source of dismay in their newsrooms. As scripted, the promos decry "fake stories" from national news outlets -- echoing President Donald Trump's inflammatory rhetoric about "fake news." The promos are supposed to start airing on local stations later in March. The instructions sent to station news directors say that the 60- and 75-second spots should run frequently "to create maximum reach and frequency."
Jared Kushner Sought To Sell Newspaper To Trump’s Political Enemies
Just days before heading to a West Wing job, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was secretly engaged in talks to sell his struggling news organization, the New York Observer, to Clinton megadonor and Univision chair Haim Saban and Hillary Clinton ally David Brock — a progressive media figure with aspirations to turn the news outlet into “the Breitbart of the left.” After the 2016 election, Kushner and Observer Media chair Joseph Meyer reportedly sought to offload the paper to Trump allies, including American Media, the parent company of the National Enquirer, one of the media publications that portrayed Trump in a positive light during the campaign. But according to two sources, Kushner and Meyer found more attractive suitors in Hillaryland. In the days after the election, Observer Media executives took part in discussions with Saban and Brock. Apparently, Kushner did not initiate the talks and largely recused himself after an initial discussion, though he did not have any apparent reservations about selling to his father-in-law’s sworn enemies. Ken Kurson, then editor-in-chief of the Observer, confirmed that he and Meyer spoke with Saban on the phone that winter. In January 2017, Kurson met Brock one-on-one at the Greenwich Hotel, where the pair discussed the potential acquisition.
FCC Signals Second Tranche of Repack Bucks
The Federal Communications Commission's Incentive Auction Task Force and the Media Bureau said that there would be an additional allocation coming from the $1.75 billion incentive auction repack fund. The FCC says it has now received both verified and unverified expenses that total $1.95 billion, so it was time to dip into the fund once more, which will come in the next 4-6 weeks, or perhaps in time for broadcasters to celebrate the infusion at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in early April. The FCC signaled there would be multiple allocations following its almost $1 billion initial allocation last October to cover expenses related to moving to new channels after the auction. It has also signaled that the $1.75 billion would not be enough. The FCC said the new money was coming even though most eligible entities--TV stations and some cable operators--are not yet close to exhausting their initial allocation. That was because it said a number looked like they would soon reach or in some cases exceed that initial outlay.
Judge to President Trump: Muting, not blocking followers, may end suit
A judge recommended that President Donald Trump mute rather than block some of his critics from following him on Twitter to resolve a First Amendment lawsuit. US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald suggested a settlement as the preferred outcome after hearing lawyers argue whether it’s constitutional for Trump to block some followers. “Isn’t the answer he just mutes the person he finds personally offensive?” she asked. “He can avoid hearing them by muting them.” The hearing stemmed from a lawsuit filed in July by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and seven people rejected by Trump after criticizing the Republican president. Lawyers on both sides said they saw merit to the judge’s suggestion but would need to consult with clients. "It’s not a perfect solution, but certainly, it is a pretty good one,” said Katherine Fallow, a Knight institute lawyer.
Inside President Trump’s private meeting with the video game industry — and its critics
Republican lawmakers and conservative media critics pressed President Donald Trump to explore new restrictions on the video-game industry, arguing that violent games might have contributed to mass shootings like the recent attack at a high school in Parkland (FL). In a private meeting at the White House, also attended by several video-game executives, some participants urged President Trump to consider new regulations that would make it harder for children to purchase those games. Others asked the president to expand his inquiry to focus on violent movies and TV shows too. President Trump himself opened the meeting by showing “a montage of clips of various violent video games,” said Rep Vicky Hartzler (R-MO). Then, Rep Hartzler said the president would ask, “This is violent isn’t it?”
Most major outlets have used Russian tweets as sources for partisan opinion
[Commentary] In a new study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, we look at how often, and in what context, Twitter accounts from the Internet Research Agency—a St. Petersburg-based organization directed by individuals with close ties to Vladimir Putin, and subject to Mueller’s scrutiny—successfully made their way from social media into respected journalistic media. We searched the content of 33 major American news outlets for references to the 100 most-retweeted accounts among those Twitter identified as controlled by the IRA, from the beginning of 2015 through September 2017. We found at least one tweet from an IRA account embedded in 32 of the 33 outlets—a total of 116 articles—including in articles published by institutions with longstanding reputations, like The Washington Post, NPR, and the Detroit Free Press, as well as in more recent, digitally native outlets such as BuzzFeed, Salon, and Mic (the outlet without IRA-linked tweets was Vice). The bulk of IRA embeds in our study occurred after, not during, the election; in fact, only 5 percent of the stories with IRA embeds were about the election. Instead, most of the stories covered hot-button social and political issues, such as racism and healthcare—a finding consistent with analyses showing the Russian campaign’s interest in sowing discord in the US.
[Josephine Lukito and Chris Wells are the lead authors of this study, which was produced by a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication.]
The spread of true and false news online
We investigated the differential diffusion of all of the verified true and false news stories distributed on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. The data comprise ~126,000 stories tweeted by ~3 million people more than 4.5 million times. We classified news as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications. Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news than for false news about terrorism, natural disasters, science, urban legends, or financial information. We found that false news was more novel than true news, which suggests that people were more likely to share novel information. False news reached more people than the truth; the top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth rarely diffused to more than 1000 people. Whereas false stories inspired fear, disgust, and surprise in replies, true stories inspired anticipation, sadness, joy, and trust. Contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate, implying that false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.
How Russian Trolls Crept Into the Trump Campaign’s Facebook Messages
A review of the private Facebook messages, as well as interviews with the Trump campaign operatives who were targeted by Russians, reveal that Trump’s team was susceptible to Moscow’s interference campaign. It preyed on unsuspecting staff members who were more interested in capturing the enthusiasm of supporters of their unorthodox nominee and did not envision the seemingly far-fetched possibility that Russians might enlist them as unwitting players in a scheme to undermine American democracy.
New federal rules on Facebook and Google ads may not be in place for 2018 midterms
Proposed Federal Election Commission rules aimed at preventing foreign influence on US elections through better disclosure of online political ad sponsors may not take effect before the 2018 midterms, Chairwoman Caroline Hunter said. “The commission has been reluctant to change the rules of the game in the middle of the election season, so that would be something we would want to seriously consider,” she said. A delay by the FEC would probably leave the task of providing more transparency about who is seeking to shape public opinion online in the hands of tech companies. Facebook, Google and Twitter have all promised clearer labeling of political ads that run on their sites after revelations that they hosted content from Russian operatives aimed at stoking social and political unrest in the 2016 presidential race. However, the industry has indicated limited support for more regulation by the FEC, urging the commission to adopt rules that apply to all digital platforms.
Russian Trolls Tried to Torpedo Mitt Romney’s Shot at Secretary of State
Weeks after Donald Trump was elected president, Russia-backed online “trolls” flooded social media to try to block Mitt Romney from securing a top job in the incoming administration, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. The operatives called the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, then a contender for secretary of state, a “two headed snake” and a “globalist puppet,” promoted a rally outside Trump Tower and spread a petition to block Romney’s appointment to the top diplomatic job, according to a review of now-deleted social-media posts. The revelation comes alongside a new report, in the New Yorker, that alleges the Kremlin pressured then-President Elect Trump to consider a candidate more favorable to Russian interests. President Trump ultimately appointed former Exxon Mobil Corp. chief Rex Tillerson, who has said he has a “very close relationship with” Russian President Vladimir Putin, to lead the department. Romney is a Russia hawk, saying during the 2012 campaign that the country was the US’s “No. 1 geopolitical foe.”
This is What The White House Science And Tech Office Has Been Up To
President Donald Trump has yet to name a director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy but that doesn’t mean the office hasn’t been working on the administration’s tech priorities. The office released a rundown of the Administration’s tech achievements to date in which OSTP staff had a hand, touching on: artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, education, government technology, health tech, and space exploration.
UK's Ofcom opens net neutrality probe into Vodafone and Three
Ofcom has launched an investigation into whether Three and Vodafone, the UK telecoms operators, are “throttling” certain services on their networks in contravention of European Union rules on net neutrality. The investigation could have a profound impact on how telecoms groups across Europe manage traffic, and whether they continue to offer customers unlimited access to certain types of content — such as social media apps or music streaming services — on top of normal data usage restrictions. Net neutrality rules are designed to ensure that all types of traffic are treated equally by internet service providers. The UK watchdog said it would look at how Vodafone and Three handle categories of traffic that place a particular burden on their networks, especially when their customers are roaming overseas, and whether they are slowing down services.
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org) and Robbie McBeath (rmcbeath AT benton DOT org) -- we welcome your comments.
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