Digital Content

President Donald Trump, your tweets are definitely being used against you in the court of law. The latest example is the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which decided that Democratic attorneys general for 16 states can launch a court battle to try to force the Trump Administration to keep paying Obamacare subsidies that help make insurance more affordable for millions of lower-income people. The judges said it makes sense for states to launch a court fight to keep Obamacare subsidies because Republicans who don't like these subsidies are in power and because President Trump has tweeted he'd like to get rid of them. The lawsuit, the judges said, is "timely in light of accumulating public statements by high-level officials.”

This is becoming a pattern: Judges, when deciding how to rule in politically sticky situations, pull up Twitter and see what the president has said about it. In June, a federal appeals court ruled not to reinstate the president's' travel ban because he failed to prove the travel ban is so necessary for public safety that it's okay for it to temporarily curtail people's liberties. The court cited one of the president's tweets.

Unlimited data plans are slowing down mobile speeds for Verizon and AT&T customers, according to data released by mobile network measurement company OpenSignal.

Verizon and AT&T reinstated their unlimited plans in February to compete with T-Mobile and Sprint, which have long offered unlimited data plans, and have since seen a deluge of demand. Greater data demand — either more data usage or more customers — means slower speeds. Think of it as increased traffic on a highway. Verizon and AT&T also have nearly double the subscribers of T-Mobile and Sprint, so changes in their offerings hit their networks harder. Carriers have long supported greater leeway to manage their networks as part of the US government’s fierce debate over net neutrality. T-Mobile’s unlimited plan often limits video streaming quality in a bid to ease the burden on its network; others like Verizon recently have tested similar tools to improve speeds. To staunch advocates of open internet rules, however, these techniques violate the spirit of federal safeguards meant to ensure all web traffic is treated equally. Both Verizon and AT&T saw a notable decline in speeds after introducing unlimited plans.

Sens introduced bipartisan legislation that would create a legal framework allowing law enforcement to access Americans' electronic communications in servers located in other countries. The International Communications Privacy Act from Sens Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Chris Coons (D-DE) would also require law enforcement to notify other countries of such data collection on their citizens in accordance with their laws. The bill also allows law enforcement to get communications regarding foreign nationals in certain instances.

“The potential global reach of government warrant authority has significant implications for multinational businesses and their customers. Failing to address this issue in a reasonable, comprehensive way will only continue to cause problems between American businesses and the U.S. government,” Sen Hatch said. Tech companies offered quick praise for the bill after its release.

The likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google are about to go to war with the Congress over the most unlikely of causes: Human trafficking. A new bill by Sen Rob Portman (R-OH)— backed by 19 other lawmakers from both parties — would open the door for state attorneys general and victims alike to take legal action against social networks, review websites, advertisers and others that don’t do enough to combat users who post exploitative content. But the proposal is already drawing opposition from Silicon Valley, where tech companies want to put an end to human trafficking — but don’t want to do so in a way that also subjects them to new lawsuits.

The fight centers on a website for classified ads called Backpage, which investigators — in Congress and elsewhere — long have alleged is a haven for illegal prostitution and underage exploitation. For years, though, Backpage has dodged significant scrutiny with the help of a portion of federal law that generally spares website owners from being held liable for the third-party content posted by their users. The legal shield is known as Section 230, and it’s part of the Communications Decency Act. And for many in Silicon Valley, it’s something of a holy grail: They claim the 1996-era rules allowed the internet to evolve without fear of lawsuits. To that end, Sen Portman and his allies want to weaken that shield just a little bit, ensuring “that websites that facilitate sex trafficking can be held liable and that victims can get justice,” they said in a statement. Their proposal would give state attorneys general new power to prosecute offenders, while allowing victims to sue those websites — and potentially others, like the ad networks that support them.

Fifteen state attorneys general have teamed up with a pro-Hollywood group to launch a campaign aimed at dissuading the public from visiting file sharing sites. To be sure, it's true that ads and other content on piracy sites can infect unsuspecting visitors with malware. But these attorneys general, in conjunction the Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA), really want you to know that visiting pirate sites can ruin both your life and your family's life. The scary black-hooded hacker on their video messages says it all. "Hackers use pirate websites to infect your computer and steal your ID and financial information, or even take over your computer's camera without you knowing it," the top cops from the states say in the PSAs. The PSAs are appearing on social media, radio, and television this summer.

[Commentary] As wireless broadband carriers transition what was once referred to as “dumb pipes” to a richer content delivery system, the subject of net neutrality is becoming about as hot as the surface of the sun.

OTT or Over-the-Top content delivery will only continue to skyrocket through the carriers. Subscribers want their television, movies and music all on-the-go, and the continued marketing of unlimited data plans will continue that momentum. Instead of making thinly-veiled excuses or outright violation of net neutrality rules, the carriers will need to ensure network optimization for video consumption. 5G will help with lower latency and dramatically improved throughput but we are still 18 to 24 months away from a ubiquitous deployment. If the tier one global carriers don’t address it now, they will certainly suffer from subscriber loss, lower revenue and dwindling margins.

[Will Townsend is a Moor Insights & Strategy senior analyst covering wireless telecommunications and enterprise networking]

Discovery Communications has agreed to acquire Scripps Networks Interactive for $11.9 billion, combining two powerhouses of nonfiction television programming at a time of major upheaval in the cable-TV business. The tie-up is a bet that bigger is better as the television industry is upended by cord-cutting and the rise of “skinny” online TV bundles from the likes of Hulu, YouTube, Sling TV and others. The thinking is that a broader portfolio of channels that specialize in nonfiction and lifestyle programming like travel, food and nature could appeal to younger viewers and give the combined company a leg up in negotiations with advertisers and programming distributors.

The deal will create a must-buy network group for advertisers interested in targeting women and help the network command more premium ad rates. Of the top 20 US cable networks, the merged company will control four of the top five with the highest percentage of female viewers—TLC, HGTV, Investigation Discovery and Food Network. Discovery said it would be able to expand Scripps’s channels into more overseas markets, which could help generate significant additional revenue. The combined company is also touting its short-form video production, which will help it gain more viewers and ad dollars on social-media platforms. The deal could put pressure on other media companies, from AMC Networks to Viacom Inc., that must defend their turf on the cable dial.

[Commentary] Legislation or regulations requiring companies to remove content pose a range of risks, including potentially legitimizing repressive measures from authoritarian regimes. Hate speech, political propaganda, and extremist content are subjective, and interpretations vary widely among different governments. Relying on governments to create and enforce regulations online affords them the opportunity to define these terms as they see fit. Placing the power in the hands of governments also increases the likelihood that authoritarian regimes that lack Germany's liberal democratic tradition will criminalize online content critical of those governments and, ultimately, create another mechanism for oppressing their own citizens.

Instead of government intervention, civil society should recognize and build upon the efforts of platforms that address these issues, while also pressing companies to step up to do even more.

[Tara Wadhwa is the associate director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Gabriel Ng is a fellow at the Center]

Software made by foreign companies to help Chinese users skirt the country’s system of internet filters has vanished from Apple’s app store on the mainland. One company, ExpressVPN, posted a letter it received from Apple saying that its app had been taken down “because it includes content that is illegal in China.” Another posted a message on its official account that its app had been removed. A search showed that some of the most popular foreign virtual-private networks, also known as VPNs, which give users access to the unfiltered internet in China, were no longer accessible on Apple’s app store there. ExpressVPN wrote that the removal was “surprising and unfortunate.” It added, “We’re disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding China’s censorship efforts.”

A federal judge in Virginia said that a local politician had violated the First Amendment rights of a constituent because the politician briefly banned the constituent from the politician's personal Facebook account. "The suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards," US District Judge James Cacheris wrote in a suit brought by a constituent against Phyllis Randall, the chairwoman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in Virginia.

The judge didn't issue any punishment against Randall, as the Facebook ban for constituent Brian Davison only lasted about 12 hours. That said, the judge noted Randall committed "a cardinal sin under the First Amendment" by barring the constituent who posted about county corruption. What's more, the judge pointed out from the first sentence of the ruling that "this case raises important questions about the constitutional limitations applicable to social media accounts maintained by elected officials."