In sent a letter to Congressional leadership on behalf of our 200+ member municipalities, Next Century Cities said that since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the United States, Americans have faced profound disruptions and been inundated with illustrations of why broadband is essential. Aside from schools and businesses having to embrace digital platforms, local governments found a way to stay operable while providing real-time health and safety updates for their residents in the face of a national emergency. Essential employees, on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, turned to social media to share the seriousness of COVID-19 and need for protective equipment. Religious ceremonies and funerals, once marked with vast communal gatherings, used livestreams to reach congregants. All who were able to adapt shared something in common: the ability to get online.

As Virginians have been adapting to a new way of life during the coronavirus outbreak, high-speed internet access has become a necessity, now more than ever. The coronavirus emergency has only exacerbated the burden of internet insecurity and the consequences of inadequate access for rural Americans. That is why, in April, I wrote a letter to House and Senate leadership advocating for the inclusion of rural connectivity capabilities in future coronavirus stimulus packages, including key legislation that I have put forward in Congress. In March, I introduced the Serving Rural America Act. The legislation would create a pilot grant program at the Federal Communications Commission authorizing $500 million over five years to expand broadband service to unserved areas of the country. On June 1, as part of my First District Broadband Task Force, I hosted a virtual fireside chat with FCC Chairman Pai and local government leaders, tribal leaders and key Virginia broadband stakeholders to discuss the FCC’s work on rural broadband buildout, the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), which provides $20.4 billion for rural broadband, and what we can do to help close the digital divide.

I have and will continue to work vigorously to pass the Serving Rural America Act as well as facilitate the many other measures to bring greater service to the underserved in our region.

Approximately 1,900 individuals and organizations wrote to Congress endorsing draft legislation to connect students and library patrons at home during the coronavirus pandemic. The draft proposal, the “Remote Learning During COVID-19 Act,” would appropriate $5.25 billion to an emergency fund to connect the millions of families who don’t have internet at home. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (SHLB) Coalition, the State E-rate Coordinators Alliance (SECA), and Funds For Learning (FFL) drafted the proposal based on a needs analysis, which found that 7.15 million families do not have home internet access. Furthermore, the analysis determined that $5.25 billion is needed to close this education gap.

Twitter introduced a new feature that prompts users to read links to articles before sharing them. When users try to post links without opening them, a message appears, saying “Headlines don’t tell the full story, want to read this before Retweeting?” Limited to only Android users for now, the new feature is part of a series of overhauls, including fact-checking tweets from President Donald Trump, the company is making to support “healthy conversations.” But making the feature work requires a level of tracking, and risk, that users likely aren’t aware of. Aram Zucker-Scharff, an ad tech engineer, detailed in a Twitter thread that the platform now keeps tabs on all the links users click, complete with a URL and a timestamp.