Facebook initially mounted an aggressive legal offensive against federal regulators who sought to fine the tech giant billions of dollars for privacy abuses, arguing in newly revealed documents that the company did not harm consumers or profit from mishandling users’ data — and that it would have prevailed in court if it had come to that.
House Science Committee Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai expressing concern about the potential interference of planned urban 5G networks with existing weather satellite sensors. The sensors, mounted aboard polar-orbiting satellites, are used to discern the presence and properties of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere.
NDIA reviews what the term smart communities entail and how local government leaders are cementing divides if they fail to include strategies for digital inclusion and digital equity in their smart community plans. While there is a common misconception that the digital divide is a rural problem, three-fourths of the twenty million American households who still lack home broadband or mobile data connections live in urbanized areas, not in remote rural regions; and they are very likely low-income. There is still an urban digital divide and smart communities could make it worse.
Maybe the answer to fixing social media isn’t trying to change companies with business models built around products that hijack our attention, and instead work to create a less toxic alternative. Nonprofit public media is part of the answer.
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