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Children and preteens are more connected to the Internet than ever, which means retailers are looking for new ways to market — and sell — directly to young shoppers on their phones, tablets and laptops. Gone are the days of blanket television ads, marketing experts say. Instead, companies are flocking to Snapchat, YouTube Kids and other mobile apps to reach children with personalized messages. Nearly half of 10- to 12-year-olds have their own smartphones, according to Nielsen. By the time they’re teenagers, 95 percent of Americans have access to a smartphone.

Reps Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate whether Sinclair Broadcast Group broke laws by allegedly influencing ad sales at rival Tribune Media, another potential setback in the TV station owners’ effort to merge.

Tech companies are assessing their roles in protecting their users as officials in Washington debate whether the government should take a firmer hand in safeguarding Americans’ privacy.

An explosion of new digital options for kids' entertainment has pulled children's attention away from live TV to instant, on-demand programming, bringing with it new challenges for producers, policymakers and parents. TV networks are trying to modernize in order to keep up with kids' viewing habits. And a recent Federal Communications Commission proposal would relax kids' TV rules to let traditional broadcasters compete with digital channels, like Netflix, Amazon or YouTube, that do not have to follow those rules.

At least three groups that Facebook banned recently for spreading disinformation shared similar names and traits with Twitter accounts that had been linked publicly to Russia earlier this year, underscoring the challenges of swiftly shutting down a foreign influence campaign even once strong hints emerge of who is behind it. Facebook’s handling of the situation underscores the nation’s struggles to respond to credible reports of disinformation two years after the first signs that Russians were seeking to manipulate the 2016 presidential election.

Political strategists say recent moves by Facebook to secure its powerful advertising engine are hampering their ability to communicate with Hispanics and Spanish-speaking audiences ahead of the midterm elections.

The Trump administration is exploring some sort of national privacy proposal amid efforts by the European Union and California to impose their own data requirements on the tech industry. “Companies are finding themselves squeezed on both sides," said Daniel Castro, vice president of Washington-based think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Internet giants balked at California's new rules and think Europe's GDPR is a mess, but they also know the industry is developing a reputation for being obstructionist.

Several examples of major non-political news stories recently show that collective bias by the mainstream media goes beyond politics, seeping into issues of race, climate, and terrorism. The financial pressures being put on newsrooms often push journalists to cover what they think will get a lot of pickup, argues Jennifer Grygiel, assistant professor of communications at Syracuse University.

Apparently, the Justice Department is investigating whether television station owners violated antitrust law in ways that inflated local television advertising prices. The probe has examined whether Sinclair Broadcast Group, Tribune Media Co,  and other independent TV station owners coordinated efforts when their ad sales teams communicated with each other about their performance, potentially leading to higher rates for TV commercials. Companies like Sinclair and Tribune own dozens of local TV stations that carry programming from national broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

Facebook can no longer block minorities or other groups from seeing advertisements, according to an agreement with Washington state. Facebook signed a binding agreement to modify its advertising platform so third parties can’t discriminate based on ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, according to Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Facebook must make the changes nationwide within 90 days, according to Ferguson’s office. Will Castleberry, Facebook vice president of state and local policy, said the company worked closely with Ferguson’s office to reach the agreement.