Hill, The

[Commentary] For a significant segment of the globe, tyrannical governments determine what is permitted on communication networks. This is the world of Big Brother. Fearful dictators control the Internet with sophisticated firewalls. In breaking down artificial communication barriers, the will of the people becomes an antidote to tyrannical authority. It is a rival of arbitrary power. Perhaps Jean Jacque Rousseau said it best when he noted, “A little bit of agitation gives motivation to the soul, and what really makes the species prosper is not peace so much as freedom.”

[Herbert London is the president of the London Center for Policy Research.]

President-elect Donald Trump confirmed that he met with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim recently. Trump and Slim met for a private dinner Dec 17 at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's resort in Florida.

The two feuded throughout the presidential campaign. Trump had accused Slim of launching a media smear campaign against him through his ties to The New York Times and other companies. Slim denied Trump's accusations. He was also a vocal critic of Trump's promises to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump vowed Mexico would pay for. The two are now looking to open a friendly line of communication.

SoftBank will invest $1 billion in One Web, a broadband access company based in Arlington (VA), as part of a pledge to President-elect Donald Trump to invest $50 billion in American companies.

“Earlier this month I met with President-Elect Trump and shared my commitment to investing and creating jobs in the U.S. This is the first step in that commitment,” the Japanese tech giant’s CEO, Masayoshi Son, said. President-elect Trump announced after meeting with Son earlier this month that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in U.S. businesses and create 50,000 new jobs domestically. The president-elect said Son made the pledge as a direct result of his presidential election victory.

[Commentary] President-elect Donald Trump may learn that the technology firms, who at first glance have little to do with the industrial economy, will in fact play a central role in transforming and reviving the physical economy in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. For it is information technology that will power the Internet of Things, connected cars, smart infrastructure, additive 3D manufacturing, and revolutions in health care, energy, and education.

Silicon Valley might come to appreciate an administration that doesn’t strangle public financing markets with rules and costs that discourage initial public offerings (IPOs), or for that matter block other innovations in biotech, fintech, transportation, and health. Trump, in turn, might learn about the complexity and necessity of integrated global supply-chains, the importance of cross-border data flows, the positive-sum virtues of free and open trade, and the heroic achievements of immigrant technologists and entrepreneurs, who create far more jobs than they could ever take.

[Bret Swanson is president of the technology research firm Entropy Economics LLC and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute’s Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy.]

Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler and Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI) traded barbs Dec 15 in the wake of Chairman Wheeler’s announcement that he would step down. During the last FCC open meeting of 2016, Chairman Wheeler said he had made clear his intentions to depart from the agency after the Obama administration ends. “This is in keeping with the commitments I have made since March that I would cooperate with the new administration to ensure a smooth transition,” he said. Chairman Wheeler, a Democrat, said Senate Republicans ignored his offer to step down in exchange for the reconfirmation of FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, also a Democrat. And he particularly singled out Sen Johnson, saying the senator made it “pretty clear” that he wanted to create a 2-1 GOP majority in the FCC. Sen Johnson disputed Chairman Wheeler's words.

[Commentary] Computer science is one of the fastest-growing industries in America, and yet computer science education does not receive the same treatment as foreign language or math and is largely absent from the national K-12 curriculum. This precludes many US citizens from considering the field as a viable career path and has led to a shortage of US-born workers. By providing for the voluntary nationwide adoption of K-12 computer science curriculum, the incoming administration can ensure the employment of the next generation of American innovators. It is a potent way for President-elect Trump to deliver on his promise of greater jobs and better wages for the American people.

[Paula Stern is former chairwoman of the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and founder and chairwoman of The Stern Group Inc]

Facebook is rolling out new features to combat fake news on its platform, including flagging disputed stories, following a wave of criticism at the social media giant. The new tools include a streamlined reporting process to identify fake news, flagging those stories, improved sharing analytics and steps to tackle spammers. The changes were introduced by Facebook vice president of product management Adam Mosseri. “We believe in giving people a voice and that we cannot become arbiters of truth ourselves, so we're approaching this problem carefully,” Mosseri wrote. “We've focused our efforts on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain, and on engaging both our community and third party organizations." Under the changes, users will now have an option to report news stories they believe are fake by checking a box.

A coalition of tech entrepreneurs and investors called for a “safeguarding of civil liberties”, ahead of a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.

In the letter, startup founders, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists say civil liberties are “inextricably linked with our global competitiveness and success.” Citing “recent incidents of harassment in diverse communities that could lead to a brain drain of much needed talent,” the business leaders pledged to “protect people from the erosion of their civil liberties;” to “refuse to contribute skills or platforms to any effort that infringes on civil liberties by any government agency;” and to “accept a responsibility to partner with communities where the effects of rapidly changing technologies have hurt all Americans.” The letter -- signed by the leaders of Shift, Comfy, HelloVote, Willpower Labs, Kiva and The Westly Group, among others -- argues that preservation of such liberties is essential for the advancement of American business. Top officials from major tech organizations such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Tesla are expected to attend the tech meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower in New York. Jobs will likely be the focal point of the conversation.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-SD) has made himself into an indispensable player in debates over the future of technology policy and its ripple effects around the economy.

His education on technology issues began when he unexpectedly became the committee’s ranking member after then-Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) left the Senate to become the head of the conservative Heritage Foundation. When he became chairman in 2014, Thune said in a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute that lawmakers should work to free up government-owned spectrum — the invisible frequencies that carry signals to mobile devices — for private use. Chairman Thune released a bill to carry through that pledge, though it did not make it out of Congress. He’s found bipartisan ground on a bill to reauthorize the Federal Communications Commission, which would give Congress another chance to weigh in on the goings-on at the agency. That bill, however, also failed to make it through Congress. “He knows the facts, he knows the background, he knows where the policy challenges are and he knows what needs to be done,” said Andy Halataei, senior vice president for government affairs at the Information Technology Industry Council. “And I think the other thing that gives us confidence is the way he conducts the debate is that it’s usually pretty open, transparent, it’s pretty thoughtful and it lends itself to a bipartisan result.” Even some who disagree with Thune sing his praises.

[Commentary] The unexpected presidential election of a very successful builder and value creator determined to spur economic and employment growth, coupled with a reelected Republican-controlled Congress, has already created significant growth opportunity by signaling a completely new business and investment environment for industry regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. This change in business outlook is as different as night and day.

As a result, these forward-looking companies are already putting into motion new investments in infrastructure and growth opportunities that will create jobs. First, for the next four years starting Jan. 20, the FCC will shift from being extremely regulatory and openly hostile to private investment in infrastructure and proprietary content creation, to being highly deregulatory and supportive of private investment, and value and job creation. Second, Republican FCC commissioners were vehemently opposed to the FCC’s creation of an un-bounded Title II “Standard for Future Conduct” that has empowered FCC enforcement staff to unilaterally make up new rules of the game as they go along and play “gotcha-enforcement” after-the-fact. Third, in the months ahead, a comprehensive tax reform package is expected to pass into law that will lower America’s corporate tax rates from 35 percent to roughly 15 percent. This is one of the most pro-growth, pro-investment, pro-employment, policies any new government could enact. Finally, concerning merger review, the Republican FCC commissioners, and Republicans in general, believe that the FCC has abused its unbounded and unpredictable public interest test in the FCC’s redundant merger review process; and that the FCC was wrong in administratively whipsawing established antitrust precedent in high-fixed cost industries like communications from three market competitors required, to four – after the fact.

[Cleland is president of Precursor LLC, a consultancy for Fortune 500 companies, and chairman of NetCompetition, a pro-competition e-forum supported by broadband interests]