Axios
Commissioner Clyburn keeps up the fight as she nears end of FCC tenure
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission says every route should be pursued to restore network neutrality rules, from the courts to Congress. But she didn't say which she thought would be most likely to succeed because she thinks "it's important for all of the sectors and these points and these avenues to be addressed," she said.
House Commerce Chairman Walden warns Big Tech: Step up or be regulated
House Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) launched an attack on the market power of large tech companies. "I’m not looking for a lot of regulation, I’m looking for responsibility," Chairman Walden said. "If responsibility doesn’t flow, then regulation will." Chairman Walden raised multiple areas for possible regulation:
Axios Poll: Public wants Big Tech regulated
A majority of Americans are now concerned that the government won't do enough to regulate how US technology companies operate, according to an Axios-SurveyMonkey poll. Across the board, concern about government inaction is up significantly — 15 percentage points — in the past three months. In a previous Axios-SurveyMonkey poll in November, just after Facebook, Google and Twitter testified before Congress, only about four in 10 Americans were concerned that the government wouldn't do enough to regulate the tech companies. Now that number has jumped to 55 percent.
Everyone says they'll be first with 5G
When it comes to the four major carriers, everyone says they are going to be first with 5G. It's always a race to be first with a new generation of technology (and to claim being first, which isn't always the same thing.) The stakes are extra high — both within the U.S. and on the global stage, with China, Korea, Japan and others all looking to be ahead of the game. Expect even more noise (and therefore more confusion) when the cellphone industry's big conference, Mobile World Congress, starts Feb. 26 in Barcelona, Spain.
George Soros may invest more in fighting Big Tech
Billionaire investor George Soros launched a brutal attack on big online platform companies at 2018’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. Now, his influential organization is "certainly examining new ways" to tackle the growing power of tech giants. With a global reach and an annual budget of more than a billion dollars, the Open Society Foundations has the ability to significantly shape the growing debate over the power of Big Tech.
What We Heard From Four FTC Nominees
The Senate Commerce Committee convened a hearing for the president’s nominees to serve as Federal Trade Commissioners:
eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar is the Money Behind the Center for Humane Technology (Axios)
Submitted by benton on Wed, 02/14/2018 - 10:20Bill Gates: tech companies inviting government intervention (Axios)
Submitted by Robbie McBeath on Tue, 02/13/2018 - 11:36Big tech red flags continue to be ignored
Researcher and technologist Aviv Ovadya, one of the first to identify the fake news catastrophe in early 2016, says he is worried about an “Information Apocalypse,” which could lead to “reality apathy,” or people just giving up on finding the truth because it is too indistinguishable from misinformation. Critics continue to explore the adverse impacts of automated content and platform abuse: