By Jessica Campisi and Chris Mills Rodrigo, The Hill, 10-17-19 Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Oct. 17 defended his company’s controversial decision of allowing politicians to post political ads with misleading or false claims on its platform, saying it’s “something we have to live with.” “People worry, and I worry deeply, too, about [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 10-16-19 With the dissenting vote of Democrat Geoffrey Starks joining that of Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel earlier in the day, the FCC has now voted 3-2 to approve the T-Mobile-Sprint merger. The Republican majority had voted earlier to approve, giving the deal the necessary votes, but the Democrats had [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 10-8-19 FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks says only when the FCC and the nation does more to diversify media voices can broadcasting be said to uphold its responsibilities to the First Amendment and a free press. That was the gist of his speech at The Media Institute's annual Free [...]
By Anick Jesdanun, AP, washingtonpost.com, 10-3-19 U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other U.S., U.K. and Australian officials are pressing Facebook to give authorities a way to read encrypted messages sent by ordinary users, re-igniting tensions between tech companies and law enforcement. Facebook’s WhatsApp already uses so-called end-to-end encryption, which locks up messages so that [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 10-1-19 In a victory for ISPs, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has unanimously upheld most of the Republican-led FCC's deregulation of Internet access in the 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom (RIF) order. The court said the FCC was reasonable in reclassifying [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-23-19 Washington was abuzz Monday (Sept. 23) after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit vacated the FCC's most recent effort to deregulate broadcast ownership, which the FCC under various, usually Republican, chairs, has been trying to do for most of the past two decades. The [...]
By Diane Bart, Reuters, 9-6-19 Two groups of U.S. state attorneys general on Friday announced separate antitrust probes of large tech companies such as Alphabet’s Google and Facebook. The first probe, led by New York and including seven other states and the District of Columbia, focuses on Facebook. The second, announced by Texas and likely to [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-5-19 FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to "modernize" more media ownership rules at the FCC's September meeting, according to Pai, who has periodically taken out the regulatory weed whacker he promised to clear out some bureaucratic underbrush. The commission is scheduled to issue a tentative agenda Sept. [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-4-19 Turns out YouTube and parent Google will pay $170 million to settle allegations it violated children's privacy laws, the largest-ever fine for such a violation, with the government saying that YouTube does indeed contain child-directed content. That is according to the Federal Trade Commission on Sept. 4. [...]
By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Online, 9-4-19 The FCC's new KidVid rule revamp takes effect Sept. 16, the FCC said this week, except for the reporting requirements that must still get approval from the Office of Management and Budget. The effective date was 30 days after the rule changes – adopted in July – [...]