By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-15-21 Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Mike Johnson (R-La.) have teamed up to call on Big Tech to create a rating board for apps and adopt ratings comparable to those for video games, movies, and music. While there have been ratings boards for movies, music, and video games for [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-15-21 Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) signaled this week they will be introducing an antitrust-centric bill, the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, that would prevent tech platforms from favoring their own products or services, including by disadvantaging their rivals by biasing search results in favor [...]
Programs Will Bring First Amendment to New Audiences in Washington, New York FOR RELEASE: October 15, 2021 Contact: Richard T. Kaplar The Media Institute 703-243-5700 Arlington, Va., October 15, 2021 – To mark the start of Free Speech Week (FSW) on Monday, Oct. 18, The Media Institute announced today that it intends to partner with [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-14-21 In the wake of the revelations by a Facebook whistleblower and allegations about the company’s internal research about the impact of its platforms on young people, House Energy & Commerce Committee leaders have proposed a bill that targets “reckless” use of algorithms by limiting Section 230. Former Facebook [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-14-21 Reading the regulatory handwriting on the wall, and on proposed legislation to crack down on Big Tech, Twitter has offered up its “guiding principles” for preserving an open Internet, which include not targeting only the biggest players, like Twitter, and a call for algorithmic transparency, something Congress has [...]
Participated in an amicus brief (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Coleman v. Grand, a defamation case. Plaintiff-Appellant Coleman, a prominent jazz musician, sued aspiring musician María Kim Grand in a U.S. district court concerning comments she made in a letter to friends and colleagues [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-12-21 Network-affiliated TV stations are again pushing the Federal Communications Commission to bring some over-the-top video providers under the retransmission consent regime so they will have to negotiate directly with TV stations for carriage. That push came in comments to the FCC on the agency’s latest quadrennial review of [...]
Participated in an amicus letter (with the Reporters Committee and other amici) sent to the mayor and acting city attorney of Medford, Ore., concerning the case City of Medford v. Ehrlich. The letter challenges their prosecution of Jefferson Public Radio journalist April Ehrlich, who was arrested in September 2020 by Medford police officers while lawfully [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-8-21 The Federal Communications Commission has authorized more than $163 million to 42 providers in the second round of phase one of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund broadband buildouts. The second round will cover approximately 65,000 locations in 21 states. “More help is on the way to households without broadband,” [...]
By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-5-21 The FCC has launched its latest auction (110) of midband spectrum, generally considered the sweet spot for 5G due to its propagation characteristics. The FCC is auctioning flexible licenses for 100 MHz of contiguous spectrum in the 3.45 GHz band. Acting FCC Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel had argued during [...]