Vox

Google is demoting misleading and offensive content in its search by updating algorithms and offering users new ways to report bad results. The change follows increased attention to flaws in top search results, including the promotion of fake news — and deliberately misleading or false information formatted to look like news — during the 2016 presidential election.

Google said it has updated its algorithms to better prioritize “authoritative” content. Content may be deemed authoritative based on signals such as affiliation of a site with a university or verified news source, how often other sites link to the site in question and the quality of the sites that link. “We’ve adjusted our signals to help surface more authoritative pages and demote low-quality content, so that issues similar to the Holocaust denial results that we saw back in December are less likely to appear,” writes Ben Gomes, Google’s executive in charge of search, in a blog post published today. Additionally, users can now flag autocomplete features and highlighted results that are offensive, false or otherwise problematic. “We plan to use this feedback to help improve our algorithms,” writes Gomes.

Large tech companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft focused some of their lobbying dollars in Washington over the past three months on combating President Donald Trump, as he eyed major changes to the US tax code and imposed new restrictions on foreign immigrants. Both issues feature prominently on many companies’ first-quarter lobbying reports. In total, five of the industry’s biggest names — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft — spent a combined $13.3 million to influence regulators in the nation’s capital between Jan. 1 and March 31, records show.

Facebook specifically revealed it devoted a portion of its $3.2 million in spending during that period to fighting President Trump’s executive order limiting travelers and refugees from some Muslim-majority countries. The social giant, like many in Silicon Valley, has blasted the order publicly and signed onto legal briefs challenging the administration’s actions. Google, too, spent some of its $3.5 million in lobbying on “legislative responses” to Trump’s travel ban.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai visited executives at Facebook, Oracle, Intel and other tech giants in Silicon Valley on April 17, as he considers how he might rethink and replace the agency’s hotly contested network neutrality rules. Speaking to reporters April 20, Chairman Pai stressed he’s been “consistent” in his view that he “favor[s] a free and open internet and that I oppose Title II,” a reference to the portion of law that Democrats tapped in order to subject the likes of AT&T, Comcast and Verizon to utility-like regulation. “Outside of the context of any pending proceeding, I’ve been simply soliciting thoughts on how to secure the online consumer protections that people have talked about,” Chairman Pai said. A spokesman for Chairman Pai did not immediately respond to a request for more details about the meeting. Chairman Pai himself did not provide further information about his consultations when asked at a press conference following a series of votes April 20 that relaxed regulations on the telecom industry.

Facebook announced what it’s calling “Tether-tenna technology,” essentially a small, unmanned helicopter that will provide Wi-Fi access to crisis zones when existing Wi-Fi towers are down or damaged. The helicopter-drone, which is roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, is literally tethered to a fiber line and a power source on the ground, which enables the chopper to stay airborne for days at a time. (Facebook says its goal is to keep it up for weeks or months.)

The Tether-tenna technology is still in early testing, which means it isn’t being deployed to actual disaster areas just yet, said Yael Maguire, head of Facebook’s connectivity lab. Maguire — whose team also built Facebook’s internet-beaming drone, Aquila, and is laying hundreds of miles of fiber cable in Africa to increase access to the internet there — estimates that one helicopter could connect “in the neighborhood of thousands to tens of thousands of people.” The Aquila drone hasn’t been deployed yet either; the aircraft was damaged after it crashed upon landing during a test flight last summer.

Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA), a congressman in his first term representing California’s 17th district, is quick to denounce President Donald Trump. But he also doesn’t mince words about President Trump’s FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai. “I think he’s one of the worst picks possible in government,” Rep Khanna said of Chairman Pai. “Did you see the Charter decision? It’s appalling.” The “Charter decision” refers to a recent unanimous FCC vote ruling that Charter Communications would not have to expand high-speed internet access into areas already covered by competitors like Comcast.

“I don’t know as much about technology as some of the people I represent, but I know this: We invented the internet, we invented a lot of broadband,” Rep Khanna said. “Why are we paying five times more than people in Europe? The reason is, it’s basically a monopoly here.” “[Pai] is carving up the map, no competition,” he added. “And the people who suffer the most are — actually — Trump voters, in rural America! They’re the ones whose prices go up. They’re the ones who have to think, ‘Do I subscribe to the internet or not? Do I get fast service?’ He has been a mouthpiece for telecom companies in one of the most economically concentrated industries in the country.”

[Commentary] A way we can protect the internet, at least in America, from both political whiplash in DC and the constant commercial overreach that threatens it. I say we treat the internet as both a unique resource and a great common engineering project, something that merits government protection.

I suggest that Congress pass a broad law setting out the national interest in protecting the internet and the general principles by which that protection would be defined. This wouldn’t be one of those famous 1,200-page bills nobody can read. It would be meant as a sort of statutory manifesto.

Then, in that same bill, Congress creates a special, permanent, nonpartisan independent commission, or even a special, narrowly focused court, to adjudicate disputes about internet issues as they arise, by interpreting the law. This would build up a body of precedent. Notice I am not suggesting the writing of any regulations, because this idea aims for the lightest touch possible. This entity would also remove the politically charged, slow-moving, compromised Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission from internet regulation.

If you don’t like this plan, come up with a better one, or a modified one. But we do need a plan. Every few years, the feds and the courts change direction or fail to answer important questions. And every day, the internet becomes more of a platform for lousy ads, for increasing the power of a few rich companies and for intrusive tracking. It’s too important to leave unprotected.

The Internet Association -- a lobbying group representing Facebook, Google, Twitter and other web giants -- told the Federal Communications Commission that the Commission shouldn’t weaken network neutrality rules — an early warning shot at the ideas contemplated by the agency’s new Republican chairman, Ajit Pai.

Under Pai’s draft plan, which he has not yet presented publicly, internet providers like AT&T, Comcast, Charter and Verizon could soon escape tough regulation: They would only have to promise in writing that they won’t block web pages or slow down their competitors’ traffic, sources have said. Such a voluntary system is a stark departure from the strict rules imposed by the Obama administration, however, and it prompted the Internet Association to tell Chairman Pai privately that it has its doubts. “The internet industry is uniform in its belief that net neutrality preserves the consumer experience, competition and innovation online,” the group said. “In other words, existing net neutrality rules should be enforced and kept intact.” The group added that net neutrality should continue to be “enforced by the expert agency, namely the FCC.”

Silicon Valley is already rebelling against a plan by Republican Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai that would cancel the government’s network neutrality rules — and perhaps leave it to telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast to decide whether to adhere to open internet principles. "I think in practice, it goes against everything we would want in strong net neutrality protections,” said Evan Engstrom, the executive director of Engine. The group works with startups on policy issues in San Francisco (CA). As a result, Engstrom said he expected a “similar level of engagement that we saw the last time around when we had to fight” — a vicious rhetorical war that drew even John Oliver into the fray. And he said the tech industry again would “do everything we can to rally the community and the public.”

To that end, one of the Valley’s lobbying voices in Washington, the Internet Association, will share its views privately with Chairman Pai at the FCC the week of April 10, apparently. The group, which represents the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter, declined to comment on the meeting. In a statement, though, a spokesman for the Internet Association said, “Internet companies are ready to fight to maintain strong net neutrality protections in any forum. ISPs must not be allowed to meddle with people’s right to access content and services online and efforts to weaken net neutrality rules are bad for consumers and innovation.”

Roku appears to be arming itself for the coming network neutrality war. Roku has hired a pair of Republican lobbyists through an outside government-affairs firm, according to a federal ethics reports, specifically to focus on net neutrality. It’s the first time the company has ever retained lobbyists in Washington, DC.

For years, Netflix had been a primary political player in this fight, as a public advocate for strong open internet rules that sparred openly with the likes of Comcast. As Netflix has struck deals with the cable giant and others to speed up its traffic, however, the streaming company has tempered its tone. Enter Roku, which, unlike Netflix, soon may find reason to be even more vocal in the debate: The company is considering whether it should launch an over-the-top pay TV service, apparently. In other words, it increasingly could find itself in direct competition with internet providers.

President Donald Trump and the broader Republican Party are moving forward on an agenda of business deregulation with a lack of concern for public opinion that, depending on how you look at it, could be seen as reckless, courageous, or horrifying. The latest and clearest example is the bill rolling back Obama-era efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to prevent cable and telecom companies from secretly selling users’ data. This was, obviously, not a major Trump campaign pledge or a headline feature of any GOP House or Senate candidate’s campaign. And a March 31 YouGov poll shows the public overwhelmingly wanted Trump to veto the bill — 80 percent of Democrats favored a veto, but so did 69 percent of independents and 75 percent of Republicans.