Research

Millions of households subscribe to cable, satellite, and telephone companies—known as multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs)—for television, which is generally delivered via a set-top box attached to a television. Congress directed Federal Communications Commission to adopt regulations to assure a commercial market for devices to access MVPDs, and in February 2016, FCC proposed a rule intended to do so. Many industry stakeholders raised concerns about the proposal's potential effects, and FCC did not issue the proposed rule. This report examines: (1) the role of set-top boxes in accessing video programming content and (2) views of selected stakeholders and experts on the need for FCC regulation regarding set-top boxes and FCC's analysis of such need.

GAO analyzed data from a media research group regarding the video market and interviewed 35 industry stakeholders including 12 MVPDs, 5 video content producers, 3 device manufacturers, 12 industry associations, and others; GAO selected stakeholders based on comments filed with FCC on its 2016 proposed rule. GAO also interviewed 11 industry analysts and experts selected based on industry coverage and publications.

GAO recommends that FCC conduct a comprehensive analysis of how recent industry changes related to video services affect consumer choice for devices to access video services. The FCC agreed with GAO's recommendation and provided technical comments that GAO incorporated as appropriate.

Mentioning the public interest just once, the Federal Communications Commission adopted its 20th wireless competition report this week. As mandated by law, each year the FCC is tasked with reviewing the competitive market conditions with respect to commercial mobile services (voice, messaging and wireless broadband) including the number of competitors, an analysis of whether any competitors have a dominant share of the market, and a statement of whether additional providers or classes of providers would be likely to enhance competition. Each year, the headline-grabbing decision before the FCC is whether or not there is “effective competition.” This week, for the first time in eight years, the FCC concluded that there is “effective competition.”

While broadband internet access has increased over time, there remains a digital divide in access to and adoption of high-speed internet. Closing this gap must be a priority, and will take a substantial federal investment to do. There are still 34 million residents that do not have at least one broadband provider in their community. While nearly all of Connecticut has access to high-speed internet, more than one third of Mississippi’s residents lack access. At local levels, the disparities get larger. In more than 200 counties, no one has access to broadband internet. Congress must prioritize rural broadband expansion in any national comprehensive infrastructure plan debated in the 115th Congress.

Further, Congress needs to work on closing the gap in at-home internet usage. All Americans can benefit from having the internet in their homes, giving them better access to educational, health, and career-related resources. Bridging this gap will require improving competition to bring consumer costs down and expanding efforts to subsidize home broadband subscriptions.

Propaganda and other forms of “junk news” on Twitter flowed more heavily in a dozen battleground states than in the nation overall in the days immediately before and after the 2016 presidential election, suggesting that a coordinated effort targeted the most pivotal voters, researchers from Oxford University reported. The volumes of low-quality information on Twitter — much of it delivered by online “bots” and “trolls” working at the behest of unseen political actors — were strikingly heavy everywhere in the United States, said the researchers at Oxford’s Project on Computational Propaganda. They found that false, misleading and highly partisan reports were shared on Twitter at least as often as those from professional news organizations.

But in 12 battleground states, including New Hampshire, Virginia and Florida, the amount of what they called “junk news” exceeded that from professional news organizations, prompting researchers to conclude that those pushing disinformation approached the job with a geographic focus in hopes of having maximum impact on the outcome of the vote. The researchers defined junk news as “propaganda and ideologically extreme, hyperpartisan, or conspiratorial political news and information.” The researchers also categorized reports from Russia and ones from WikiLeaks — which published embarrassing posts about Democrat Hillary Clinton based on a hack of her campaign chairman’s email — as “polarizing political content” for the purposes of the analysis.

President Donald Trump is not "fit to serve as president," American voters say 56 - 42 percent, and voters disapprove 57 - 36 percent of the job he is doing as president, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released Sept 27. The anti-Twitter sentiment remains high as voters say 69 - 26 percent that Trump should stop tweeting. No party, gender, education, age or racial group wants to follow the Tweeter-in- Chief. Voters say 51 - 27 percent they are embarrassed to have Trump as president.

"There is no upside. With an approval rating rating frozen in the mid-thirties, his character and judgement questioned, President Donald Trump must confront the harsh fact that the majority of American voters feel he is simply unfit to serve in the highest office in the land," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) will review the technical aspects of Internet of data collection and privacy. This review will result in a report with an anticipated publication date in early 2018.

In various contexts, different organizations are studying data collection practices and privacy in the Internet “ecosystem” and public discourse has suggested there is a significant gap between perceived and actual data collection practices. Much of this discourse has also been focused on one set of actors or another, without a more holistic consideration of the significant roles played by a broad cross-section of all those involved, ranging from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to edge providers, advertising networks, application developers, equipment manufacturers, and others. Often, the discussion is not sufficiently informed by technical information regarding actual practices. BITAG’s report on Internet data collection and privacy will draw on concrete, specific technical information and aims to shed light on the current state of data collection practices, including: what types of data are collected, where and how collection takes place, and for what purposes the data is used (e.g., operational, service related). The report will also investigate and report on how these practices vary across the broader Internet ecosystem; the report will discuss the roles various parts of the Internet ecosystem play in collecting data from and about Internet users, the analytic tools and methods that various stakeholders apply to the collected data, how different stakeholders use the data, and more. BITAG’s technical working group will analyze this topic and issue a report that will describe the issue in depth, highlight technical observations, and suggest appropriate best practices. The lead editors of BITAG’s report on IoT security and privacy are Jason Livingood of Comcast and Nick Feamster, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. Douglas Sicker, Executive Director of BITAG, Chair of BITAG’s Technical Working Group, Department Head of Engineering and Public Policy and a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, will chair the review itself.

A new Consumer Reports survey shows that a majority of Americans favor net neutrality rules that prevent internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking lawful online content.

One main finding was that the majority of Americans—57 percent—support the current network neutrality regulations that ban ISPs from blocking or discriminating against lawful content on the internet. Sixteen percent said they opposed these regulations, while about a quarter didn't express an opinion on the topic. An even larger majority—67 percent—said that ISPs shouldn't be allowed to choose which websites, apps, or streaming services their customers can access. Almost as many—63 percent—don't think an ISP should be allowed to modify or edit content consumers try to access on the internet. When it comes to paid prioritization deals, in which ISPs can provide faster delivery of content to companies that pay a fee for it, roughly half the respondents—48 percent—said they didn't believe such practices should be permitted, while 26 percent said they should be permitted, and 26 percent expressed no opinion.

Seven-in-ten U.S. adults say it is at least somewhat likely that their own phone calls and emails are being monitored by the government, including 37% who believe that this type of surveillance is “very likely,” according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in February. Just 13% of the public say it is “not at all likely” that the government is monitoring their communications. These views are prevalent across a number of different demographic groups, but there are some differences based on age, gender and education.

Significant theories of democratic accountability hinge on how political campaigns affect Americans' candidate choices. We argue that the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising on Americans' candidates choices in general elections is zero.

First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact 10-fold. These experiments' average effect is also zero. In both existing and our original experiments, persuasive effects only appear to emerge in two rare circumstances. First, when candidates take unusually unpopular positions and campaigns invest unusually heavily in identifying persuadable voters. Second, when campaigns contact voters long before election day and measure effects immediately---although this early persuasion decays. These findings contribute to ongoing debates about how political elites influence citizens' judgments.

The European telecoms sector has lost €100 million a day to disruptive technology companies over the past decade, says a report commissioned by Etno, the trade body that represents the region’s largest operators.

Europe’s telecoms groups have long complained about the burden of regulation on the sector, while more lightly regulated US and Asian tech companies have launched rival services offering communications and internet access — often using the infrastructure created by the national telecoms groups. The report, compiled by Accenture, warns regulatory change is required to create a competitive digital economy in Europe.