Digital Content

The sad fact is that America’s news and information ecosystem is eating away at our democracy.  And we are not paying attention, partly because neither traditional nor new media are living up to their responsibility to cover the issue. They’re not about to discipline themselves. (And how laughable it is to see expensive ads from Facebook saying that it supports updating internet regulations when, of course, they will fight to the death anything resembling real public interest oversight.) The larger point here is that successful self-government depends upon a well-informed citizenry.

Facebook has constructed a vast infrastructure to keep toxic material off its platform. At the center of it is Accenture, the blue-chip consulting firm. The two companies have rarely talked about their arrangement or even acknowledged that they work with each other, but their secretive relationship lies at the heart of an effort by the world’s largest social media company to distance itself from its content moderation practices.

For many players these days, the video game industry’s increasing reliance on online connections is an afterthought. But for the significant portion of the world without a quality Internet connection, it can sometimes feel like the game industry at large is leaving them behind. Pointing out the frustration of large day-one updates has been a feature of the gaming industry for more than a decade now.

An executive order signed by former Gov Gina Raimondo (D-RI) requires Internet service providers to comply with neutrality requirements when entering into certain public procurement contracts in Rhode Island. Lawmakers have proposed a bill to make the order a permanent law. “This is the fourth year the bill has been proposed,” said State Senator Louis DiPalma (D-RI).

The OpenVault Broadband Insights (OVBI) 2021 second-quarter report shows the percentage of subscribers with faster internet speeds is growing, and they are consuming much more data. During Q2 2021, the percentage of subscribers with 1 Gbps or faster service reached 10.5 percent compared with 4.8 percent provisioned for that speed in Q2 2020.

Google is seeking to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the Ohio attorney general seeking to declare the company's search service a public utility. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R-OH) filed the lawsuit in June, arguing Google has used its dominance to prioritize its own products in a way that “intentionally disadvantages competitors.” Google’s lawyers argue in a court motion that the company does not meet the state’s requirements to be considered a common carrier. “Ohio’s Complaint mistakenly assumes Google Search is a common carrier or public utility because Ohioans choose to use Google Searc

Media that were once free or easily accessible — including news websites, podcasts, TV shows and games — rushed to get behind paywalls during the pandemic. This accelerating trend is carving the internet into many niche audiences, Balkanizing our collective media diets. News publisher paywalls took off in 2020 and have seen sustained gains since; users are running into paywalls across a range of media, discovering they must now pay for content that was once free. Even podcasts, traditionally the most open and freely available media via RSS feeds, are moving behind paywalls. There's no clear

Sens Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced the Open App Markets Act, which would set fair, clear, and enforceable rules to protect competition and strengthen consumer protections within the app market.

Facebook's leaders know they have to demonstrate accountability to the world, but they're determined to do so on their own terms and timetable. Since the 2018 Cambridge Analytica affair, the company has moved to provide more transparency and oversight, but its limited programs often leave journalists and scholars as the de facto whistleblowers for problems on its platform. In August 2021 Facebook shut down the accounts of New York University researchers whose tools for studying political advertising on the social network, the company said, violated its rules. Facebook has become a sort of g

This paper describes the challenge of four rural broadband providers operating fiber to the home networks to recover the middle mile network costs of streaming video entertainment and quantifies the amount of the current and future shortfall. It describes the components of the rural broadband networks, policy background for their evolution, an overview of providers, and the financial calculations of cost recovery. The preliminary results show that current broadband prices are approximately $50 per month per subscriber.