By Drew Harwell, washingtonpost.com, 7-13-23 A group of college professors is suing Texas for banning TikTok on public-university computers and phones, saying it has undermined their ability to teach students and to research one of the world’s most popular apps. Texas last year joined more than two dozen other states in banning the app [...]

By Cat Zakrzewski, washingtonpost.com, 7-13-23 The Federal Trade Commission has opened an expansive investigation into OpenAI, probing whether the maker of the popular ChatGPT bot has run afoul of consumer protection laws by putting personal reputations and data at risk. The agency this week sent the San Francisco company a 20-page demand for records [...]

By Cat Zakrzewski, washingtonpost.com, 7-4-23 A federal judge on July 4 blocked key Biden Administration agencies and officials from meeting and communicating with social media companies about “protected speech,” in an extraordinary preliminary injunction in an ongoing case that could have profound effects on the First Amendment. The injunction came in response to a [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 6-28-23 Video streamers and other edge providers are fighting a multi-front war in Washington lately, as Congress applies pressure on the FCC to apply good-faith negotiation rules to over-the-top content providers, as it does traditional video providers, and as hundreds of rural broadband providers and associations call on the [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 6-26-23 The Biden Administration has figured out where it will be allocating $42.45 billion in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program subsidy money among the states and territories. Legislators were already touting their states’ shares even as the funding allocation was being announced. Congress provided $65 billion in [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 6-22-23 Anna Gomez, President Joe Biden's nominee for the open Democratic seat on the Federal Communications Commission, told a Senate Commerce Committee nomination hearing panel June 22 she supports reclassifying internet access as a Title II telecommunications service. Currently, the FCC classifies internet access as an information service under [...]

By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 6-22-23 Congress continues to press the Federal Communications Commission on the issue of regulating streaming services as it does MVPDs, and it looks like a majority of commissioners and potential commissioners support at least a new look at the issue. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel suggested at a House oversight [...]

By Ted Johnson, Deadline Hollywood, 6-15-23 The Senate Judiciary Committee revived the prospects for a long-proposed bill that would bolster print and broadcast news outlets in their negotiations with tech giants. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 15 in a 14-7 vote. The bill would create a [...]

By Cat Zakrzewski and Cristiano Lima, washingtonpost.com, 6-14-23 European Union lawmakers on June 14 took a key step toward passing landmark restrictions on the use of artificial intelligence, putting Brussels on a collision course with American tech giants funneling billions of dollars into the burgeoning technology. The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved the E.U. AI [...]