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That Time Telco Lobbyists Sent Me All Their Talking Points About Trying To Shift The Blame To Internet Companies
It's not every day that big telco lobbyists email me their internal documents about how they're going to try to shift all the negative press about themselves and try to flip it onto internet companies. But it did happen. A USTelecom executive emailed a 12-page document of talking points, asking the recipients to "review the document for accuracy and other thoughts" in order to help USTelecom President Jonathan Spalter for when he goes on C-SPAN.
We Need To Shine A Light On Private Online Censorship
[Commentary] In the wake of ongoing concerns about online harassment and harmful content, continued terrorist threats, changing hate speech laws, and the ever-growing user bases of major social media platforms, tech companies are under more pressure than ever before with respect to how they treat content on their platforms—and often that pressure is coming from different directions. There is a clear need for hard data about specific company practices and policies on content moderation, but what does that look like?Part of the answer to these questions can be found by looking to the growing
No, The Death Of Net Neutrality Will Not Be Subtle
[Commentary] Even among folks that support network neutrality, there's pretty clearly a contingent that still believes the damage caused by the repeal of the rules will somehow be subtle. Because the net neutrality debate in recent years wandered into more nuanced and quirky areas like interconnection and zero rating, they believe the ultimate impact of the repeal will likely be modest.
Comcast's Biggest Lobbyist Dodges Lobbying Rules By Pretending He's Usually Not Lobbying
[Commentary] Comcast’s David Cohen is a lobbyist in all the ways you'd expect a lobbyist to be, from hob knobbing with regulators and fund raising for President Barack Obama, to penning a litany of awful editorials about bad policy in papers nationwide.
Every month or so Cohen can be found busily pretending the US broadband market is competitive, or pretending that the United States' mediocre showing in every meaningful global broadband stat actually means we're leading the world at broadband. Yet despite spending the lion's share of his time lobbying, Cohen doesn't have to follow the disclosure rules for lobbyists -- and hasn't since 2007 -- because he's able to simply pretend he doesn't spend much time lobbying, by asserting that he spends less than 20 percent of his time lobbying, thereby disqualifying him from the title.
By technically not being a lobbyist while being a very obvious lobbyist, Cohen is also allowed to dance around Obama's rules prohibiting lobbyists from having close ties to the Administration.
[March 7]