Report on past event

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai swung through New Orleans on to brief local technology sector leaders on how the city and Louisiana stand to benefit from what he called the "light-touch regulatory approach" in the era of President Donald Trump. Chairman Pai was joined by US Rep Steve Scalise (R-LA), who reiterated that he's a "strong supporter" of Pai's push to end rules governing net neutrality. Few specifics were given about what was discussed during the closed-door meeting with Chairman Pai and Rep Scalise.

On April 30, 1993, CERN—the European Organization for Nuclear Research—announced that it was putting a piece of software developed by one of its researchers, Tim Berners-Lee, into the public domain.  That software was a “global computer networked information system” called the World Wide Web, and CERN’s decision meant that anyone, anywhere, could run a website and do anything with it. In an era when online services were still dominated by proprietary, for-profit walled gardens such as AOL and CompuServe, that was a radical idea.

If there’s anything that coming to a gathering like Net Inclusion really brings home, it is that addressing inequity is the responsibility of everyone in the community. None of us can solve a problem like digital inclusion working on our own. It takes collaboration; a web of dedicated advocates from all over the country working on all aspects of the issue. So, I am thrilled that the third annual Charles Benton Digital Equity Champion Award honors one of our field’s great collaborators, Deb Socia. Deb is the Founding Executive Director of Next Century Cities.

The House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology held a hearing examining data prioritization and how it is critical to the internet’s function and growth. Members of the Subcommittee heard from a range of expert witnesses who testified on the how and why data is currently prioritized on the network, and potential needs for future prioritization.

Mark Zuckerberg appeared on Capitol Hill to talk about data privacy. But several lawmakers from rural parts of the country used the opportunity to ask the Facebook CEO to help bring high-speed internet access to their rural constituents. Facebook has rolled out several initiatives to bring low-cost and free broadband to hard to reach areas of the world, such as India and Africa. Now US lawmakers say they'd like to talk to Zuckerberg about focusing those efforts closer to home.

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, the last of President Donald Trump’s nominees for the Federal Trade Commission, said if selected she would keep a close eye on whether major tech companies are using anti-competitive or deceptive tactics amid growing concerns that they dominate their markets.

After more than 10 hours of grilling Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Congress is no closer to regulating the platform's privacy practices than it was when the hearings started. It's clear that lawmakers haven't coalesced around a regulatory end-goal, even though the threat remains.

After two days and more than 10 hours of questioning of Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, there was widespread consensus among lawmakers that social media technology — and its potential for abuse — had far outpaced Washington and that Congress should step in to close the gap. But the agreement largely ended there.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's appearance before Congress turned into something of a pointed gripe session, with both Democratic and Republican senators attacking Facebook for failing to protect users’ data and stop Russian election interference, and raising questions about whether Facebook should be more heavily regulated. Of specific interest were the revelations that sensitive data of as many as 87 million Facebook users were harvested without explicit permission by a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, which was connected to the Trump campaign.

[Commentary] The Senate Commerce Committee held three hearings this week on infrastructure.