Ownership

Facebook and Twitter have each agreed to appear before US lawmakers and testify publicly as part of a congressional probe into Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election. Google has also been invited to testify at that hearing, scheduled before the Senate Intelligence Committee on November 1, but the search giant did not immediately comment on its plans Oct 4.

The rare appearance in front of one of the most powerful panels on Capitol Hill could prove to be a uniquely uncomfortable one for the country’s top technology companies. Facebook and Twitter, at least, are set to face tough questions -- for the first time, in the open — about the Russian-backed accounts and advertisers that took advantage of their platforms to spread misinformation ahead of Election Day. For now, though, Facebook and Twitter have not yet shared whether their chief executives — Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, respectively — would testify in front of Senate investigators.

Newsroom employees at The Los Angeles Times are trying to form a union, setting up a potential clash with the newspaper’s parent company, Tronc. After months of organizing, the committee behind the push for a union drafted a one-page letter laying out its reasoning and left printouts on employees’ desks the night of Oct 3.The unsigned letter calls for improved working conditions, higher pay, more generous benefits and protections for staff members against “unilateral change by Tronc.” The letter also says “a majority of the newsroom” had signed union cards supporting representation by the NewsGuild, which represents 25,000 reporters, editors, photojournalists and other media workers at news organizations across the United States.

We’re trying something new in our next two Fiber cities. When we begin serving customers in Louisville (KY) and San Antonio (TX), we’ll focus on providing superfast Internet - and the endless content possibilities that creates - without the traditional TV add on.

If you’ve been reading the business news lately, you know that more and more people are moving away from traditional methods of viewing television content. Customers today want to control what, where, when, and how they get content. They want to do it their way, and we want to help them. For our existing markets with TV as a part of their product offerings, nothing is changing -- although more and more of you are choosing Internet-only options from Google Fiber. We’ve seen this over and over again in our Fiber cities. Louisville and San Antonio -- our superfast Internet service will be there soon. We’re excited to see what you do with Google Fiber in your own way.

Reps Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) and Emanual Cleaver (D-MO), two black lawmakers, sharply rebuked Twitter this week for serving as “an avenue to spread racism and bigotry” — and threatened regulation if the tech industry as a whole doesn’t identify and suspend the accounts behind those messages. The calls for action came in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sent on Oct 3.

For them, the tipping point appears to be reports that Russian agents sought to stir political unrest ahead of the 2016 presidential election by stoking racial tensions, even running ads targeting groups like Black Lives Matter. “As a result of the far-reaching nature of Twitter’s technology, we have seen an effort to undermine our democracy, create or fan flames of racial divisions, and spread hate speech that can ultimately cumulate into violence,” the two Democratic lawmakers wrote. “We are disturbed by the ease in which foreign actors were able to manipulate your platform to advance anti-American sentiments that both exacerbates racial tension and ultimately threatens our democracy,” they continued. “More importantly, we are disappointed by the silence from you and others in your industry on ways to counter such blatant manipulation of this medium to build racial animosity, the consequences of which are quite literally life threatening.”

Hurricane Maria has had a catastrophic impact on communications networks in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The Federal Communications Commission has been doing a lot to assist with repair and restoration—and that work continues. That’s why I am proposing that the FCC use its Universal Service Fund to help with these efforts. Responding to natural disasters has consumed the bulk of the FCC’s time and attention this season. But there are other important areas under our jurisdiction, and we’ll cover some of them at our upcoming meeting on October 24.

[Commentary] To shed light on the motivations of the tech elite, I and my co-authors at Stanford Graduate School of Business, David Broockman and Neil Malhotra, released the findings from a political survey of over 600 tech company founders. Our results revealed a group that was largely supportive of Democrats and redistribution through higher taxation. That is, they seemed to defy the stereotype of hyper-libertarian big business and the results were received with considerable confusion.

In this post, I’d like to show how these seemingly contradictory beliefs are unified (based on the data). All of the policies supported by the Valley make a lot more sense in the context of their core belief: a radical optimism in the future. “I tend to believe that most Silicon Valley people are very much long-term optimists,” said LinkedIn founder and Hillary Clinton supporter Reid Hoffman. “Could we have a bad 20 years? Absolutely. But if you’re working towards progress, your future will be better than your present.”

[Gregory Ferenstein is the editor of The Ferenstein Wire]

[Commentary] Are tech firms too smart? Some people seem to think so, and their proposed restrictions on tech companies could hurt customers. The questions of whether and how tech firms should be allowed to leverage their knowledge are at the core of some recent regulatory proposals, which I describe below. The proponents of more regulations appear to believe that the world would be a better place if tech companies benefitted less from what they know. My concern here isn’t with privacy issues, but with at least three erroneous beliefs underlying these proposals:
Belief 1: The race for knowledge is bad for competition
Belief 2: What you know belongs to others
Belief 3: All “innovations” should be promoted identically

[Mark Jamison is the director and Gunter Professor of the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, was a member of the Trump FCC Transition team]

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the following items are tentatively on the agenda for the October Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Tuesday, October 24, 2017:

Support for Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands – The Commission will consider an Order to clarify the use of high-cost universal service support and permit forward funding of support to aid in reconstruction of telecommunications networks damaged by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. (WC Docket No. 10-90)

Exemption to Calling Number Identification Service – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would enable law enforcement and security personnel to obtain quick access to blocked Caller ID information needed to investigate threatening calls. It also would amend the Commission’s rules to allow non-public emergency services, such as private ambulance companies, to obtain blocked Caller ID information associated with calls requesting assistance. (CC Docket No. 91-281)

Nationwide Number Portability – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Notice of Inquiry that proposes to amend the Commission’s rules as well as seeks comment on industry models to move toward complete nationwide number portability to promote competition between all service providers and increase network routing efficiencies. (WC Docket No. 17-244; WC Docket No. 13-97)

Promoting Investment in the 3550-3700 MHz Band – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would seek comment and propose changes to the Priority Access License rules in the 3550-3700 MHz (3.5 GHz) band to increase incentives for investment, encourage more efficient spectrum use, and promote faster and more widespread network deployments. (GN Docket No. 17-258)

Hearing Aid Compatibility and Volume Control – The Commission will consider a Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration on hearing aid compatibility (HAC) that would update the volume control standard for wireline telephones, extend wireline HAC requirements to cover telephones used with advanced communications services, adopt a volume control rule for wireless handsets, and delete from the Commission’s rules an obsolete wireless HAC standard. (CG Docket No. 13-46, WT Docket Nos. 07-250, 10-254)

Part 43 Reporting Requirements for U.S. Providers of International Services – The Commission will consider a Report and Order that would: (1) eliminate the Traffic and Revenue Reports and (2) streamline the Circuit Capacity Reports. (IB Docket Nos. 17-55 and 16-131)

Elimination of Main Studio Rule – The Commission will consider a Report and Order eliminating the rule that requires each AM, FM, and television broadcast station to maintain a main studio located in or near its community of license. (MB Docket No. 17-106)

Updates to Rules Governing Ancillary/Supplementary Services and Broadcast Public Notices – The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that seeks comment on updates to Section 73.624(g) of its rules, which imposes certain reporting obligations for broadcasters relating to the provision of ancillary or supplementary services, and Section 73.3580, which requires public notice of the filing of broadcast applications, including through newspapers. (MB Docket Nos. 17-264, 17-105)

Companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon dominate their markets, and have deep pockets and armies of lobbyists. That, combined with historical precedent, gridlock in Congress, and the Donald Trump White House’s aversion to regulation in general, means passing new laws or rules to rein them is going to be a tough battle, some government and industry veterans say.

As the internet and tech industry in the US has grown in the past two decades, not only has federal rule-making not kept pace, but the government hasn’t adapted to oversee it. In recent years, tech companies from Airbnb to Uber to Google have poured money into lobbying in Washington DC and now have sizable in-house and outside teams that regularly meet with Congress, fund think tanks, and try to influence how lawmakers, federal employees, and the general public see the industry. The industry’s total lobbying spending jumped from $1.2 million in 1998 to $59.2 million in 2016, and it’s on pace to meet or beat that amount in 2017.

The European Union will order Amazon to pay several hundred million euros in back taxes on Oct 4. The EU’s enforcement arm, the European Commission, opened up an investigation three years ago into a partnership between Amazon and Luxembourg that allowed the e-commerce giant to shield some of its assets from taxation. The fine would be the latest action Europe has taken to try to rein in American tech giants. In a similar move in 2016, the EU ordered Apple to pay 13 billion euros in back taxes. The company allegedly benefited improperly from tax laws in Ireland.