Congress

The Senate intelligence committee said on Wednesday it would hold a hearing next week to look at how social media companies are responding to foreign influence operations, with testimony expected from top executives of Twitter, Facebook and Alphabet.

A group of 103 members of Congress have filed an amicus brief in support of Mozilla et al.’s challenge to the FCC’s network neutrality reg rollback. Many of those are also opposing the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court because of his views on FCC net neutrality regulation and authority.

Democratic lawmakers are putting heat on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai over a recent inspector general report that found the agency falsely claimed it had suffered a cyberattack that briefly took down its electronic comment system amid the backlash over its repeal of net neutrality.

In a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai sent Tuesday, Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), the top Democrats on the House committee overseeing the FCC, said that the commission should look into the possibility that Sinclair had conspired with Tribune Media, which it’s trying to acquire.

The Senate Intelligence Committee announced Wednesday it will question executives from Facebook and other social media companies on Sept. 5 in the wake of Facebook’s revelation of a new disinformation campaign aimed at […]

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday to take testimony from Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube unit and Twitter on whether social media companies are filtering content for political reasons, the committee chairman said.

House Democratic leaders Frank Palone (D-N.J.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) want the General Accountability Office to look into the impact of various local broadcaster sharing agreements on competition, localism and diversity. Hill Dems have been critical of Sinclair’s inclusion of such agreements with stations it is spinning off to secure government approval of its efforts to buy Tribune TV stations, suggesting it is using the agreements to continue to control stations it is supposed to be divesting.

A dozen senators wrote to the FCC today to urge the agency to investigate Sinclair Broadcast Group and pause its proposed merger with Tribune Media.

Facebook’s chief executive will appear before a House committee on April 11. He is also expected to appear before at least one Senate committee.

President Donald Trump signed the $1.3 trillion spending bill Friday that includes an additional $1 billion for spectrum repack expenses, averting a government shutdown and ending a panic that briefly gripped official Washington. A few hours after stunning even his closest advisers by tweeting that he was “considering a VETO“ of the bill, he held a news conference to say he would begrudgingly support it “as a matter of national security.“

The $1.3 trillion appropriations bill has passed the House on Thursday and the Senate early Friday morning. Among its many provisions, it allocates an additional $1 billion for spectrum repack expenses — above and beyond the $1.75 billion already allocated.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) introduced legislation on Wednesday to prohibit internet providers from blocking or slowing content, in an effort to restore some of the net neutrality rules repealed by the FCC in December.

A House Democrat introduced a bill today that would allow media outlets to band together to negotiate for better terms with giant tech platforms that have been dominating the market for online ad revenue. Rep. David Cicilline’s (D-R.I.) Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would grant a temporary antitrust waiver for news publishers to collectively negotiate with companies like Facebook and Google.

The House on Tuesday voted to reauthorize the FCC, passing the bipartisan Ray Baum Act, legislation that includes increasing the funds available to broadcasters to offset costs incurred by the spectrum repack. Legislators working on a federal government “omnibus” spending bill will decide how just much additional will be provided for the repack beyond $1.75 billion that was in the original repack legislation. The bill also aims to boost the development of 5G networks. 

Both the House and Senate Commerce Committees have agreed to bring the FCC reauthorization bill, “Ray Baum’s Act,” to the House floor for a vote next on March 6. The bill includes the repack fund that will compensate radio stations, translators, and LPTVs for costs related to displacement and reduced power while TV stations are “repacked” on the spectrum, and adds elements of the Senate’s Mobile Now Act promoting the development of 5G networks.

Congressional Democrats today introduced a long-promised resolution aimed at undoing the FCC’s repeal of the net neutrality rules. Spearheaded by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the measure would reverse the FCC’s December decision to repeal the Obama-era regulations. It would do so via the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to nix agency rules, within 60 days of their publication in the Federal Register, by a simple majority vote.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stacey Dash, the actress turned conservative political commentator, has filed paperwork to run for a congressional seat in Southern California. Documents submitted Monday to the Federal […]

Lawmakers are concerned that advances in video manipulation technology could set off a new era of fake news. Now legislators say they want to start working on fixes to the problem before it’s too late. Technology experts have begun to sound the alarm on the new software, which lets users take existing videos and make high-quality altered video and audio that appears real. The emergence of the technology opens up a new world of hoaxes driven by doctored audio or video, and threatens to shake faith in the media even further.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved a bill reauthorizing funding for the FCC and allocating additional funds to TV and radio stations affected by the FCC’s incentive auction, which repurposes broadcast airwaves for wireless providers. It would also implement a number of process reforms aimed at making the agency run more efficiently.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees, on Monday introduced the Journalist Protection Act to make a federal crime of certain attacks on those reporting the news.

New Jersey’s two U.S. senators charged Secaucus-based WWOR with failing to live up to its federal mandate to cover its hometown state, and have asked FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to ensure that the Fox-owned station fulfill its legal obligations to “devote itself to meeting the special needs of its … community (and the needs of the Northern New Jersey area in general).”

The Senate Commerce Committee voted to confirm Commissioner Brendan Carr for a full five-year term at the FCC. The panel advanced the nomination in a 14-13 party-line vote on Thursday. Carr, a Republican, was nominated and confirmed in August to a partial term that was set to expire later this year.

The Senate’s Wednesday Commerce Committee hearing, which featured tough questioning of execs from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, comes amid growing government scrutiny over misuse of social media platforms and questions about what the companies are doing to prevent it.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) issued a long denunciation of President Donald Trump on the Senate floor Wednesday and defended the American free press. “It is past time to stop excusing, or ignoring, or worse, endorsing these attacks on the truth,” said Flake. “For if we compromise the truth for the sake of our politics, we are lost.”

U.S. Senate Democrats said today they will force a vote later this year on the FCC’s reversal of landmark Obama administration net neutrality rules and will try to make it a key issue in the 2018 congressional elections. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the issue will be a major motivating factor for young voters the party is courting.

A Senate bill that would reverse the FCC’s decision to repeal net neutrality received its 30th co-sponsor on Monday, ensuring it will receive a vote on the Senate floor. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) announced her support for the bill on Twitter, putting it over the top of a procedural requirement to bypass committee approval.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) on New Year’s Day called for a revival of “shared facts” in politics and the media. Sasse released a video saying that the country’s system of government “will not work” without a shared understanding of the value of the First Amendment.

The Open Internet Preservation Act, introduced Tuesday by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or throttling legal content, applications or services.

Lawmakers on the House and Senate’s top antitrust committee say Congress should take a closer look at Disney’s $52 billion bid to buy 21st Century Fox.

Democrats are trying to pressure the at the 11th hour to call off its planned Thursday vote to scrap its net neutrality regulations. Today, 39 senators sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to call off his “reckless” proposal to eliminate the Obama-era regulations.

Sen. Claire McCaskill has written FCC Chairman Ajit Pai voicing concerns about the “negative impact” on the St. Louis media market from the proposed merger of Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tribune Media. “If the Sinclair-Tribune transaction is approved as proposed it would leave three stations in the hands of one company, including two of the top four stations in the market,” she wrote.

Twenty-seven senators are calling on the FCC to delay its vote on repealing its net neutrality rules next week, citing concerns over the possibility that the agency’s public comment file may be filled with fake comments.