The Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday voted 14-12 along party lines to advance the nomination of controversial telecom lawyer Nathan Simington to the FCC. If confirmed by the full Senate, President-elect Joe Biden will begin his term with the FCC evenly split between Democrats and Republicans — which could hamper his goal of restoring net neutrality rules.
On Twitter Tuesday night, Trump took aim at Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which protects companies that can host trillions of messages from being sued into oblivion by anyone who feels wronged by something someone else has posted — whether their complaint is legitimate or not. He wrote: “If the very dangerous & unfair Section 230 is not completely terminated as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), I will be forced to unequivocally VETO the Bill.”
In something of a blast from the past for those who have followed the peripatetic course of New York Post-related waivers, Fox Television Stations has asked the FCC for a permanent waiver of the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule for WWOR Secaucus, N.J. It already has a permanent waiver to own WNYW New York, dating back to 1993, but only a temporary waiver to own WWOR, which it bought in 2001.
The SenateCommerce Committee plans to vote Wednesday on the nomination of Nathan Simington for the Republican FCC seat being vacated by Michael O’Rielly at year’s end, according to a group opposed to his confirmation. If Simington is confirmed by the full Senate, still an open question, the FCC will be at 2-2 when chairman Ajit Pai leaves Jan. 20, putting pressure on the Biden Administration to nominate, vet, and confirm a third Democrat so they have a majority.
A federal judge partially accepts a complaint from Stan Kroenke’s Altitude Sports over a negotiating impasse with Comcast over a regional sports network.
The chairman says “It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve at the Federal Communications Commission, including as chairman … over the past four years. I am grateful to President Trump for giving me the opportunity to lead the agency in 2017, to President Obama for appointing me as a commissioner in 2012, and to Senate Majority Leader McConnell and the Senate for twice confirming me.”
Exclusives
The FCC will soon shift to Democratic control, and speculation has already begun about who will assume the chairmanship under the Biden administration. Jessica Rosenworcel, the senior Democrat on the commission, is widely considered to be one of the leading candidates to succeed Ajit Pai in the powerful regulatory post. She has been vetted twice and would likely have a smooth path to confirmation, which would be a key consideration assuming the Senate remains in Republican hands.
A looming vacancy on the Federal Trade Commission has created a dilemma for the agency as it decides how to pursue its expected antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, contributing to a delay in the launch of the case, three people familiar with the discussions said. While the five commissioners had been expected to file the suit by the end of this month, the agency’s commissioners are now grappling with the prospect that Republican Chairman Joseph Simons’ likely departure before the next administration could lead to 2-2 splits in future votes.
Turns out Jan. 19 will be an inauguration day of sorts — inaugurating the Supreme Court’s first consideration of an appeal of the FCC’s media ownership rule deregulation. It will be the fourth oral argument of the January session, with one hour of argument scheduled, though that could spill over depending on how the arguments and Justices’ questioning goes.
The halcyon days of an adoring Washington are unlikely to return for America’s tech companies when Biden takes the oath of office in January, with mounting legislative and regulatory challenges to the industry — including stronger enforcement of antitrust laws — nearly certain to outlast the tenure of President Donald Trump.
Bytedance, the parent company of TikTok, was granted another 7-day extension from the U.S. Treasury on Wednesday afternoon to divest from its American assets. TikTok was given a two-week extension earlier this month to have its divestment plan approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, but that was set to expire on Friday.
The FCC is seeking comment on a National Association of Broadcasters petition to clarify the application of the FCC’s ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) rules to multicast streams. Those are the extra channels broadcasters got in the switch to digital.
The FCC’s Video Division yesterday issued a Notice of Apparent Liability to WUTB Baltimore for airing a commercial for a Hot Wheels product in eight showings of the program Team Hot Wheels. The commission has, for almost 30 years, had a policy against what they term “program-length commercials” — programs that feature characters who are also featured in a commercial that runs during the program.
Gray’s brief argues that the FCC’s modernized rules should finally be allowed to take effect because the agency issued them in full compliance with its obligations under Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
FCC nominee Nathan Simington reached out to Fox News this summer in an attempt at “engaging” host Laura Ingraham to support President Donald Trump’s quest to make it easier to sue social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, according to emails obtained by Politico.
The FCC ruled unanimously Tuesday night that Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen improperly bid on $12 billion worth of wireless spectrum back in 2015, and received a $3-plus billion discount through a government program designed to benefit small businesses. Ergen bid on the spectrum not through Dish Network, a massive satellite and soon-to-be 5G carrier, but through an outfit known as Northstar Wireless, which he has a stake in.
The new administration will likely expand broadband access, review media ownership rules and focus on “governing instead of de-governing” the airwaves.
The FCC has voted to speed up the program access, program carriage and retransmission consent complaint resolution process. That came at its virtual November public meeting Wednesday (Nov. 18). The vote was unanimous.
In the last few days, two defamation cases filed against media companies by the Trump campaign have been dismissed – one on the merits and one by agreement of the parties. This includes the suit filed by the campaign against Northland Television, the licensee of a rural Wisconsin television station. That station was perhaps the smallest TV station to air an ad by a non-candidate group, Priorities USA, that the Trump campaign alleged was misleadingly edited to assert that the President had labeled the coronavirus a “hoax.”
A global coalition for the protection of online content has gotten a crystal clear ruling from a U.S. district court against an unauthorized streamer. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), whose members include the major legal content producers and streamers, from Amazon, AMC Networks and Apple TV to Viacom, Walt Disney Productions, and Warner Bros., said it has secured a permanent injunction against Crystal Clear Media (CCM).
The FCC has weighed in with the Supreme Court in defense of its order deregulating local broadcast ownership and in opposition to a lower court’s invalidation of that order. The crux of the FCC’s argument is that the lower court repeatedly prevented the commission from repealing or modifying rules it had concluded were no longer in the public interest.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter testified Tuesday about their platforms, misinformation and the 2020 election.
President-elect Joe Biden has tapped his FCC transition team and it includes several FCC vets including one of the leading candidates for the chairmanship, former commissioner and acting chair Mignon Clyburn. Leading the Biden FCC transition team is John Williams, senior counsel at House Judiciary.
The FCC has extended its existing COVID-19-related waivers related to the Lifeline phone/broadband communications subsidy through Feb. 28, 2021. The waivers deal with the program’s “recertification, reverification, general de-enrollment, usage and income documentation requirements.” Without the extensions, those waivers would have expired Nov. 30.
Reflections On The Pai FCC Chairmanship
With the presidential election behind us (and make no mistake, it’s over), scholars are beginning to consider what tech policy under a Joe Biden administration may look like. But before getting there, it’s worthwhile to reflect on how Ajit Pai’s chairmanship has shaped the FCC and the future of tech policy.
President-elect Joe Biden’s return to “normalcy” will include restoring the daily press briefing — and at least two women are under consideration to lead the new post-Trump show, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Kate Bedingfield is seen as having the inside track to become either White House communications director or press secretary. Symone Sanders could be offered the role of incoming press secretary, or slot into another position before winding up “at the podium” down the line, Biden aides and other people in and around the transition say.
It probably won’t show up on Judge Judy’s newly announced court series for IMDbTV, but the multimillion dollar legal battle between Judith Sheindlin and Rebel Entertainment Partners is turning into even more of a bareknuckle brawl. With a history of indirect litigation over the past few years, both sides are now directly flinging terms like “vicious” and “baseless character assassination” at each other — and that’s just the polite stuff.
The suit fails because Trump hasn’t shown actual malice on the part of an author who wrote that Trump’s campaign was soliciting Russia’s help in 2020.
