Category: Federal Communications Commission

  • A nonprofit democracy watchdog group has filed a complaint to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) alleging that a Philadelphia-based Fox News affiliate station should not have its license renewed because it disseminated false information relating to the 2020 presidential election. The organization, the Media and Democracy Project (MAD), filed its complaint on July 3, alleging that a “good…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.



  • Do you have a friend, maybe an ex-girlfriend or an ex-boyfriend, who won’t stop texting you? Then you know how annoying it is, and difficult it is, once they have your number, to block them.

    What if that same person turns into a stalker and starts sending you an unstoppable stream of messages from different phone numbers? Creepy! What do you do? Who do you call? Local police, FCC, FBI, your Attorney General?

    That is, essentially, what politicians are currently doing when they spam targeted voters without their permission by simply obtaining their number and using peer-to-peer (P2P) text messaging from a random ten-digit phone number (10DLC).

    Currently, it is impossible to unsubscribe from political P2P text messages. Even if you block one number, the messages keep coming at you from another – over and over again.

    Last week the FCC took significant steps toward blocking text messages from scammers and spammers. In the first ruling of its kind, the government decided to force wireless carriers to block messages from invalid and unused numbers that many of today’s spammers use in these nefarious activities.

    Unfortunately, this ruling still allows politicians to blast text messages to your phone as it does not hold political campaigns to the same standard regarding spamming voters.

    Wait. What? Why? How Come?

    It’s all based on how our government evolved its rulemaking around new technologies while playing catch-up to clever developers designing new hacks to create end-run around current rules to scam consumers. So while the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Act states that you can’t blast unwanted messages to consumers using an auto-dialer, some technologists created mobile phone apps to skirt these rules by crowdsourcing their activities through peer-to-peer (P2P) to volunteer proxy sending these messages instead of an autodialer. Unfortunately, in 2020 The P2P tech providers created the P2P Alliance that successfully lobbied the Trump Administration to roll back the specifically added protections against political spam messaging that the Obama Administration put in place in 2015.

    Currently, there are no significant consequences for political campaigns, their data vendors, or peer-to-peer software providers to prevent them from continuously spamming voters.

    This is not a partisan issue. All 50 states’ Attorneys General pushed for this new ruling as they are all receiving consumer complaints too. And it’s only getting worse. According to the FCC, text message spam has become a “pervasive consumer threat” as complaints have skyrocketed sixfold (from around 3,300 in 2015 to 18,900 in 2022). Almost certainly, you, too, have noticed the increase in spam messages yourself, or you know someone who has been duped, phished, misled, and scammed by these tactics.

    Nonetheless, these companies claim that P2P text should be permissible because it “enables two-way text communication” and requires a person to manually send each text message through this software.

    The P2P companies are not worried about the new FCC rules as they are currently advertising their spamming software to any campaign that wants to buy. One ad reads, “One Person can Send 13,000 Texts Hourly Guaranteed. 1.2¢ Per Text Segment, Including Picture MMS. No Blocking! Double the Speed of Anyone Else.”

    Screenshot of ads selling P2P texting services

    It’s time for the FCC to weigh in and rule that these messaging apps are not being used for having personal conversations when users can send 13,000 text messages in an hour from a computer program that uploads voter file lists to an app.

    I understand that politicians love this technology. It’s fast, extremely accurate, and super easy to target voters on the only device that is with them almost 24 hours a day. It’s become easy to match a list of donors’ cell phone numbers and blast out urgent messages to help raise critically needed campaign contributions. But this same technology is being used to target and spam voters with misinformation and disinformation. We saw this happen in 2012 and again in 2022’s Kansas statewide abortion-rights ballot initiative, where voters received inaccurate information from an unknown cell number to dissuade a group of targeted voters. We will only see more of this type of misleading spam messages in the upcoming elections if the FCC doesn’t take action by closing these loopholes and protecting American voters from last-minute voter suppression campaigns being run through our mobile phones.

    In other words, just because big data technology allows political operatives to match a voter file with cell phone numbers to quickly target and reach millions of registered Democrats, Republicans, or Independents with spam messages on their cell phones doesn’t mean we should allow this type of abuse.

    These P2P tech companies are violating your privacy and misusing your personal data by claiming that these messages resemble personal text messages and are not actually auto-dialed robotic spam. So the FCC needs to do more to make sure politicians are not spamming the same voters they claim to represent. It’s time the FCC creates a permanent text message do-not-text list that applies to political campaigns and P2P messaging that has real teeth and consequences for those that violate the rules.

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.



  • More than five dozen advocacy organizations on Friday implored U.S. President Joe Biden to swiftly select a Federal Communications Commission candidate who will serve the public interest, not the telecommunications industry.

    The coalition’s letter stresses that a fifth commissioner is urgently needed to end the current 2-2 deadlock and enable the FCC to “increase digital equity and media diversity, bolster online privacy and safety protection, and reassert its rightful authority over broadband to ensure everyone in the United States has access to this essential service.”

    The message to Biden comes after Gigi Sohn removed herself from consideration last week, citing the “legions of cable and media industry lobbyists, their bought-and-paid-for surrogates, and dark money political groups with bottomless pockets” who distorted her “over 30-year history as a consumer advocate into an absurd caricature of blatant lies.”

    “We call on you to immediately put forth a new nominee—specifically, one who has a history of advocacy for the public interest and is free of industry conflicts of interest.”

    Sohn, the new letter states, “was eminently qualified to serve as a commissioner. But after 16 months of organized and well-funded attacks by dark-money groups—which were carried out by lobbyists, enabled by complicit elected leaders, and amplified in partisan media—Sohn made the understandable decision to withdraw from consideration.”

    Organizations behind the letter—including Common Cause, Demand Progress Education Fund, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, Free Press Action, Our Revolution, Public Knowledge, Revolving Door Project, and RootsAction.org—were outraged over both the telecom industry smear campaign against Sohn and top Democrats’ refusal to fiercely defend the nomination. Her withdrawal has sparked fears that Biden will choose an industry-friendly candidate.

    “Now, we call on you to immediately put forth a new nominee—specifically, one who has a history of advocacy for the public interest and is free of industry conflicts of interest; demonstrates a clear commitment to championing the rights of low-income families and communities of color; and supports Title II oversight and laws that ensure the FCC the authority to prevent unjust discrimination and promote affordable access,” the coalition wrote to Biden.

    “We ask you to actively press the Democratic majority in the Senate to swiftly confirm your nominee,” the groups added. “We cannot permit senators to prevent forward progress any longer at the behest of the very corporations the FCC is meant to regulate.”

    Free Press Action president and co-CEO Craig Aaron similarly argued in a Common Dreams opinion piece last week:

    We must oppose and reject any return to business as usual that furthers industry capture of the FCC.

    Instead, we need to demand an independent candidate with public-interest bona fides and a clear commitment to racial justice and civil rights. They must show they’re willing to stand up to lies. They must be unequivocal in their support for restoring the FCC’s authority, and making sure that the internet is open, affordable, available, and reliable for everyone. They must demonstrate a commitment to engaging the public, not just meeting with lobbyists.

    Sohn’s defeat also “has implications that go far beyond the FCC,” Aaron noted. “The Republicans and their Democratic enablers are setting out markers for who’s allowed to serve in government.”

    “They made clear that public servants will be pilloried while ex-corporate lobbyists sail through,” he wrote. “Women and LGBTQIA+ folks—Sohn would have been the first lesbian to serve as an FCC commissioner—will be slandered. Tweeting about police violence can be disqualifying (in the Senate, retweets do equal endorsements). Questioning the propriety of Fox News—even as it’s being exposed for aiding and abetting election lies and insurrection—is unacceptable. A basic understanding of U.S. history and racism may be disqualifying.”

    Sohn “deserved better,” Aaron tweeted. “But I hope we—and the White House and Democratic Party, especially—can learn so it doesn’t happen again.”

    This post was originally published on Common Dreams.

  • Federal Communication Commission Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel testifies during an oversight hearing to examine the Federal Communications Commission on Capitol Hill on June 24, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

    After many months of waiting, the Biden White House has tapped Jessica Rosenworcel to be Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair and Gigi Sohn for the fifth and final seat on the five-person commission. Until these vacancies are filled, the agency will remain deadlocked at two-two, Democrats vs. Republicans. Now that there’s daylight for a clear majority, action at the FCC is urgent to protect an open internet, make it more affordable to everyone and address the disgraceful lack of diversity in ownership of U.S. media.

    Questions about who would take these key leadership positions had swirled around Washington, D.C., all year. Taking this much time to name anyone beats even the longest delay in recent memory: Back in 1977, President Jimmy Carter managed to at least nominate a new chair by mid-September of that year.

    In the interim, the Biden administration had repeatedly stated that ensuring people have access to high-speed internet is a priority. The delay in naming a permanent chair to the FCC as well as a fifth commissioner has hobbled the agency’s ability to ensure that U.S. broadband is open and affordable to everyone.

    To do so, the FCC needs to return to its authority under Title II of the Communications Act to regulate internet access like the essential utility it is. Now the White House has given the FCC the leadership and votes it needs to get the job done — and it’s incumbent on the Senate to confirm Rosenworcel and Sohn as soon as possible.

    The stakes were clear even before Biden took office. The Trump administration’s disastrous decisions gutting the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband and repealing net neutrality rules in late 2017 marked a cultural moment. Without net neutrality protections, powerful companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon are free to take from internet users the ability to choose where we go and whom we connect with online. People demonstrated outside of Verizon stores — since Verizon was a former employer of Donald Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai — in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in the days leading up to the repeal. My media reform advocacy group, Free Press and our allies — including Democratic FCC commissioners and lawmakers — assembled on a cold December morning with dozens of activists outside the FCC to protest the decision and call for the return of protections.

    Since Biden’s inauguration, public interest groups and activists have sent letters and petitions to the White House and Senate leadership calling for the agency to get the majority it needs to repair the damage done during the Trump years.

    These shouldn’t be partisan issues, and outside of the Beltway, they aren’t. But they are inside D.C. and the FCC. Without the votes needed to restore FCC authority over broadband, the agency has been unable to take all of the bold action it needs to take. It hasn’t been able to fully stop internet service providers from cutting off people’s service during the COVID-19 pandemic, or investigate these companies’ unjust and unreasonable use of data caps to milk more money out of an emergency COVID funding program for internet subscribers.

    In addition, while the agency successfully created that new program (called the Emergency Broadband Benefit) under a pandemic-relief bill that Congress passed last year, it couldn’t require providers to accept that benefit on every plan they offer because it didn’t have the votes to do so. It implemented these new bills Congress is passing only in ways that would pass muster with the agencies’ two Republican commissioners. The short-staffed FCC also couldn’t fully guarantee its longstanding Lifeline program — which offers a subsidy to those who can’t afford the high costs of communications — would be useful for broadband, or take other transformative steps to ensure affordable high-speed internet access for low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, which are disproportionately affected by the digital divide.

    With a filled-out commission, the agency can and must do all of that and more. It must conduct the race-equity audit called for by Free Press’s Media 2070 project, MediaJustice and more than 100 organizations and community leaders. The audit would include a thorough FCC investigation of the history of racism in its media policies, and identify reparative actions the agency can take.

    The administration now faces a serious time crunch: Confirmation of FCC nominees like Rosenworcel and Sohn could take months. But we don’t have that kind of time now, thanks to how long the White House took to finalize these picks.

    Now the ball is in the Senate’s court. If it truly wants to prioritize an affordable internet, net neutrality protections and an equitable media system, it needs to confirm Rosenworcel and Sohn. The time to do so is now. Everyone can help make this happen by contacting their senators in support of quick confirmation.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • President Donald Trump, with Attorney General William Barr, speaks during a discussion in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on September 23, 2020.

    During his tenure as president, Donald Trump reportedly sought advice from his aides on how to use his executive powers to stop late-night comedy shows and hosts, including “Saturday Night Live” (SNL), Jimmy Kimmel and others, from making jokes at his expense, according to reporting from The Daily Beast.

    Trump’s displeasure and frustrations over entertainers making fun of him are no secret, as he has frequently sounded off against them through social media (until he was banned from several platforms earlier this year), both before and during his presidency. In March 2019, for example, Trump, reacting to an SNL rerun that was airing at the time, knocked the actors on the show in a series of tweets as being “not funny” and having “no talent” after they had performed skits about him and his administration in that episode.

    Trump also complained in those tweets that it was unfair that the “other side” wasn’t afforded the ability to respond to jokes about him. “Like an advertisement without consequences,” Trump said.

    “Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC [the Federal Communications Commission] look into this?” he added.

    Trump was criticized for suggesting that a federal agency should be involved in trying to limit satire on TV programs, which would amount to interfering in a form of protected speech in the United States. But it now appears that Trump actually sought to pursue the matter further, as The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday, by seeking to find out if he could use executive agencies and departments to stop or threaten comedy programs that poked fun at him and his administration.

    According to two people familiar with the matter, Trump asked his advisers in early 2019 what the courts, the FCC, and even the Department of Justice (DOJ) could do about comedians making jokes about him on television.

    Trump asked specifically about the “equal time” rule, a provision in federal election law that requires over-the-air television stations to give opposing political candidates or issue advocacy organizations the same amount of screen time. But that rule doesn’t apply to comedians who joke about political figures.

    Trump was repeatedly told, per those two sources, that satire is protected speech, and that he couldn’t stop networks from broadcasting comedians making jokes about him. According to one of those sources — a lawyer working within the White House at that time — Trump asked them if “something else can be done about it.” That person said they’d “look into it,” but never followed up on the inquiry from Trump.

    This is the second instance in as many weeks where it’s been revealed that Trump sought to overstep his authority as president in alarming ways.

    Last week, it was reported that the House Oversight Committee had obtained documents detailing how the Trump White House also sought to pressure the DOJ to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including pushing the department to look into a baseless conspiracy theory alleging that facilities in Italy used CIA satellites to change the outcomes of races in several states. The Trump administration had also drafted a legal brief it had intended to submit to the Supreme Court, demanding that justices “declare that the Electoral College votes cast” in six swing states that the former president had lost “cannot be counted” in the final tally.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Online learning works only if you can get online. Why tens of thousands of families are still caught on the wrong side of the digital divide.


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    This post was originally published on Reveal.