Ownership

Who owns, controls, or influences media and telecommunications outlets.

What Big Tech Wants Out of the Pandemic

Long before the coronavirus pandemic, the tech industry yearned to prove its indispensability to the world. Its executives liked to describe their companies as “utilities.” They came by their self-aggrandizement honestly: The founding fathers of Big Tech really did view their creations as essential, and essentially good. In recent years, however, our infatuation with these creations has begun to curdle.

Internet Archive Will End Its Program for Free E-Books

The nonprofit has said its National Emergency Library was a public service to people unable to access libraries during the pandemic, but publishers and authors accused it of theft.

Dish Is Seeking Better Terms on Boost Deal With T-Mobile

When Dish Network Chairman Charlie Ergen forged a deal to acquire Boost from Sprint -- the takeover target of T-Mobile US -- the hope was it would lead to a new nationwide wireless carrier.

Public Knowledge Stands with Civil Rights Groups by Refusing Facebook Funding

Public Knowledge announces that it will not accept funding from Facebook for any of the organization’s programs or initiatives. The decision follows a June 1 meeting between Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and civil rights leaders to discuss the company’s choice to leave up without moderation comments made by President Donald Trump, including one in which he posted, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” in reference to protests over George Floyd’s death. Twitter, meanwhile, labeled the content with a disclaimer that it “glorified violence.”

Open Technology Institute is declining further funding from Facebook

As the country confronts its long, deeply rooted history of racism, we must all acknowledge our own role in racist systems and make changes to ensure we are part of the solution, rather than the problem. With over 2.6 billion users, Facebook has a clear responsibility to reckon with its role in these systems or risk continuing to facilitate oppression that imperils Black lives. Despite repeated calls to action from inside and outside the company, Facebook has long struggled with this responsibility.

Ending Our Click-Bait Culture: Why Progressives Must Break the Power of Facebook and Google

This memo briefly explains how Facebook and Google have come to dominate modern communications networks, what that means for American democracy, and how to fix it.

Roadmap for an Antitrust Case Against Facebook

Facebook has a monopoly in social media and/or social networks, whether considered in lay or legal or economic terms. This paper applies an economic and competition policy lens to the following premise: in a competitive market, Facebook’s constituents would enjoy the best social network Facebook can provide.

FCC Issues Declaratory Ruling To Promote Broadcast Internet Services

The Federal Communications Commission took important steps to foster the growth of next-generation data services enabled by the transition of digital television (DTV) to the ATSC 3.0 standard. That standard expands the potential ancillary and supplemental uses of broadcast spectrum for new and innovative services, such as autonomous vehicles, smart agriculture, or telemedicine, that will complement the nation’s burgeoning 5G network.

Freedom Is Not Free License: Freedom House’s Flawed Measurement of “Internet Freedom”

Every year, the advocacy group Freedom House releases a survey and analysis of Internet and digital media freedom around the world.

Black Technologists Hope New Conversations About Race Spark Overdue Change

Protests around the country in the wake of the killing of George Floyd while in police custody are reigniting discussion of black representation in the technology sector. Despite yearslong efforts by companies to diversify their tech workforces, black people accounted for 7.8% of people in core information-technology occupations in the U.S., according to CompTIA, an IT trade group. Several black tech executives said they hope the current attention on racial disparities will bring change, and in turn, expand the participation of blacks in technology in ways they haven’t seen before.