New York Times

For decades, news organizations have refrained from releasing early results in presidential battleground states on Election Day, adhering to a strict, time-honored embargo until a majority of polls there have closed. Now, a group of data scientists, journalists and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is seeking to upend that reporting tradition, providing detailed projections of who is winning at any given time on Election Day in key swing states, and updating the information in real time from dawn to dusk. The plan is likely to cause a stir among those involved in reporting election results and in political circles, who worry about both accuracy and an adverse effect on how people vote. Previous early calls in presidential races have prompted congressional inquiries.

How much are people willing to spend for streaming music?

For years, thanks to rigid pricing structures at streaming services, the answer has been stuck at $10 a month or nothing. But that model may soon be challenged by two giants of online media: Amazon and Pandora Media. Both companies are set to introduce new versions of their streaming services in coming weeks, charging as little as $5 a month, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the process was ongoing. The plans will put pressure on incumbent players like Spotify and Apple Music and offer the music industry a major test regarding the value of streaming music — including the crucial question of whether discounts will be enough to entice people to pay anything when virtually every song is also available free.

[Commentary] Anyone who has followed this election carefully would be forgiven for thinking that voters have diverged into two separate realities. But it’s too soon to declare that we have entered a “post-fact” apocalypse, especially when we consider where people get information about politics. New research shows that the great majority of people learn about political news from mainstream, relatively centrist media sources, not ideological websites or cable channels. However, relatively small numbers of partisans, especially Republicans, are heavy consumers of a highly polarized media diet. This dynamic helps explain why there is so much concern about “echo chambers,” even though most people don’t confine themselves to one. This, then, is the paradox of echo chambers: Few of us live in them, but those who do exercise disproportionate influence over our political system.

[Brendan Nyhan is a professor of government at Dartmouth College.]

The parent company of Fox News said that it had settled a lawsuit with its former anchor Gretchen Carlson, who said that Roger Ailes had sexually harassed her when he was chairman of the network. A 21st Century Fox Corporation news release did not specify a settlement amount, but a person briefed on the settlement said that it amounted to $20 million, and that Ailes was responsible for a portion of the payment. The person also said Fox News was in settlement talks with other women at the network. The company apologized for the behavior, saying, “We sincerely regret and apologize for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve.”

Five of the world’s largest tech companies are trying to create a standard of ethics around the creation of artificial intelligence. While science fiction has focused on the existential threat of AI to humans, researchers at Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and those from Amazon, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft have been meeting to discuss more tangible issues, such as the impact of AI on jobs, transportation and even warfare. Tech companies have long overpromised what artificially intelligent machines can do. In recent years, however, the AI field has made rapid advances in a range of areas, from self-driving cars and machines that understand speech, like Amazon’s Echo device, to a new generation of weapons systems that threaten to automate combat.

The specifics of what the industry group will do or say — even its name — have yet to be hashed out. But the basic intention is clear: to ensure that AI research is focused on benefiting people, not hurting them, according to four people involved in the creation of the industry partnership who are not authorized to speak about it publicly.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld restrictive laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that will halt the growth of municipal broadband networks. While the decision directly affects only those two states, it has cast a shadow over dozens of city-run broadband projects started nationwide in recent years to help solve the digital divide.

In siding with the states, the court hobbled the boldest effort by federal officials to support municipal broadband networks. While the court agreed that municipal networks were valuable, it disagreed with the Federal Communications Commission’s legal arguments to pre-empt state laws. Now, cities like Wilson (NC) fear they have little protection from laws like those in about 20 states that curb municipal broadband efforts and favor traditional cable and telecom firms. City officials say cable and telecom companies that have lobbied for state restrictions will be encouraged to fight for even more draconian laws, potentially squashing competition that could lead to lower prices and better speeds to access the web. “This is about more than North Carolina and Tennessee,” said Deb Socia, executive director of Next Century Cities, a nonprofit coalition of cities exploring broadband projects. “We had all looked to the FCC and its attempt to pre-empt those state laws as a way to get affordable and higher-quality broadband to places across the nation that are fighting to serve residents and solve the digital divide.”

Using both conventional media and covert channels, the Kremlin relies on disinformation to create doubt, fear and discord in Europe and the United States. The flow of misleading and inaccurate stories is so strong that both NATO and the European Union have established special offices to identify and refute disinformation, particularly claims emanating from Russia.

[Commentary] There was a time, not that long ago, when paper and pencil were all that homework required. But as Anthony W. Marx notes, that time has passed. In urban areas, rural areas and everywhere in between, students who lack Internet service at home have difficulty doing their nightly schoolwork. Many of them cobble together whatever connectivity they can, picking up free Wi-Fi signals in front of libraries, in school parking lots, and at fast-food restaurants. Credit them with creativity and resilience. But getting homework done should not be this hard. Solving this problem will take a mix of initiatives.

Already the Federal Communications Commission has updated its program supporting connectivity in low-income households to include broadband. Many broadband providers have low-cost offerings, and we need to ensure that schools and students are aware of them. We also need federal policies to increase unlicensed spectrum, which is used to support Wi-Fi. Finally, we need to keep tabs on local efforts — from outfitting school buses with wireless service to lending out library hot spots — and make sure that successful programs are copied elsewhere.

[Commentary] The Internet is the 21st century’s marketplace, politically and economically; it’s where the next generation will do business and exchange ideas. That’s why it’s critical that Congress resist partisan efforts to gut the Federal Communications Commission’s recent action modernizing its Lifeline program to support broadband. For more than 30 years, the Lifeline program has enjoyed bipartisan support and helped low-income households buy telephone service. Beginning in December, barring hostile actions from Congress, qualifying households will be able to use their Lifeline dollars to offset the cost of broadband. Our children deserve access to this century’s public square.

[Michael Copps is a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission appointed by President George W. Bush, and a special adviser to Common Cause.]

Facebook, in the years leading up to the 2016 election, hasn’t just become nearly ubiquitous among American Internet users; it has centralized online news consumption in an unprecedented way. According to the company, its site is used by more than 200 million people in the United States each month, out of a total population of 320 million. A 2016 Pew study found that 44 percent of Americans read or watch news on Facebook. These are approximate exterior dimensions and can tell us only so much. But we can know, based on these facts alone, that Facebook is hosting a huge portion of the political conversation in America.

The Facebook product, to users in 2016, is familiar yet subtly expansive. Its algorithms have their pick of text, photos and video produced and posted by established media organizations large and small, local and national, openly partisan or nominally unbiased. But there’s also a new and distinctive sort of operation that has become hard to miss: political news and advocacy pages made specifically for Facebook, uniquely positioned and cleverly engineered to reach audiences exclusively in the context of the news feed.