The Trump administration’s other war on the media | February 14, 2017

Opinion | Net Neutrality | Digital Divide | Journalism

By  Katrina vanden Heuvel

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai in Washington in 2013. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)

The Trump administration’s unrelenting attacks on the media and assault on reality have been well covered by journalists and media outlets that find themselves in the new administration’s crosshairs. Yet while the White House’s insistence on “alternative facts” may be more visibly ominous, there is another growing threat to the independent media that also demands our attention. 

Despite his crusade against the press, Trump’s contempt does not seem to apply to the massive conglomerates — such as Comcast and Verizon — with so much influence over what the American people watch on television and read on the Internet. And at a time when extreme commercialization has helped drive the decline of accountability journalism, Trump and his recently appointed Federal Communications Commission chairman, Ajit Pai, have signaled their intention to exacerbate the problem. Read more...

The great Internet Slowdown: Join tomorrow’s protest against the FCC’s new net neutrality rules | ExtremeTech

Tomorrow,
September 10, will mark the first great Internet Slowdown — a protest
by some of the web’s largest companies over the FCC and US government’s
handling of net neutrality. All across the web, on sites such as Reddit,
Netflix, and WordPress, a spinning “loading…” icon will appear,
reminding everyone that internet slow lanes — where some websites load
more slowly than others if you don’t pay your ISP some extra money — are
a real possibility unless we write to our country’s lawmakers now. Let me state this clearly: The end of net neutrality would be bad for everyone on the internet except your ISP.



The Internet Slowdown
is being arranged by Battle for the Net, a fairly large concerted
effort of organizations and people who are trying their best to support
net neutrality. Battle for the Net appears to be an off-shoot of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit that popped up during the battle against SOPA and PIPA.
Some fairly big companies and organizations have joined the Battle for
the Net, including the EFF, ACLU, Kickstarter, Tumblr, Vimeo,
iFixit, and Reddit. On September 10, many of these companies — and some
other latecomers, such as Netflix — will be displaying a “spinning wheel
of death” to symbolize how the FCC’s proposed net neutrality rules
would create internet fast lanes and slow lanes. Read more...

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Schools Should Be Teaching Kids How to Use the Internet Well - Abigail Walthausen - The Atlantic

Randy Snyder/AP Photo

During this year’s State of the Union
address, President Obama championed the goal of increasing bandwidth in
schools across the country. The following day, a group of CEOs wrote an open letter encouraging
the chairman of the FCC to “act boldly to modernize the E-rate program
to provide the capital needed to upgrade our K-12 broadband connectivity
and Wi-Fi infrastructure.” These calls to action were answered
with pledges from business leaders amounting to $750 million dollars,
an influx of money that should help provide more enriching learning
environments for students across the country.  

As schools begin to plan for the benefits of
improved connectivity, it is important to consider the responsibility of
giving students guidance in becoming productive citizens of the web.
New curricula must acknowledge the many-headed hydra that is social
media: Its forms range from the mundane
distraction to be overcome to the 21st century communication skill to be
mastered. Integration of conscious social media use as well as policies
that provide more free and unfiltered Internet access are two ways of
modeling best practices and actively teaching Internet skills within
schools. Read more...

Related articles

• The Lecture is Dead...Again. (businesseducationinsider.com)
• Are university lectures dinosaurs or sharks? Innovation in higher education (wetwiring.wordpress.com)
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Court Strikes Down FCC’s Net Neutrality Mandate

In a ruling that could have serious implications for the way Internet access is regulated in the United States, the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this morning that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not have the authority to impose so-called ‘net neutrality’ rules on Internet service providers (ISPs).

This morning’s ruling finds that the FCC overstepped its bounds as a regulator in putting those rules in place. If the ruling stands, it would open the door for ISPs to work with content providers to provide faster access to their content, creating what some worry could become a two-tier Internet, with large providers who can afford to pay for preferential treatment forming a top tier while other online resources make do with leftover bandwidth. Read more...

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