Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) put social media regulation on an agenda for the special legislative session starting Saturday. Thursday's list includes “legislation safeguarding the freedom of speech by protecting social-media and email users from being censored based on the user’s expressed viewpoints, including by providing a legal remedy for those wrongfully excluded from a platform.” Democrats preventing a quorum over a different bill stymied the proposal in the last special session (see 2107130033).
The FCC Wireless Bureau OK'd three 900 MHz broadband segment licenses Wednesday to use a 6 MHz swath for broadband, in keeping with an order approved last year (see 2005130057). Licenses went to PDV Spectrum for markets in Illinois.
Applications for a $268 million connecting minority communities pilot are due Dec. 1, said a notice of funding opportunity posted Tuesday (see 2106140033). “NTIA knows how crucial colleges, universities and other community institutions can be when it comes to reaching vulnerable citizens and making a lasting impact,” said acting Administrator Evelyn Remaley.
Florida landlines declined 14% year over year to 1.4 million in 2020 as customers migrated to wireless and VoIP, the Public Service Commission said Monday. Residential landlines slid 13% to about 531,500 and business lines dropped 15% to about 854,700, said the annual report to the legislature. Residential landlines were down 20% for Frontier Communications, 18% for Lumen and 13% for AT&T. Business lines declined 8.5% for Lumen, 17% for AT&T and 4.3% for Frontier. Lifeline subscriptions dropped 39% to 371,180, with program participation as a portion of eligibility dropping to about 17% in 2020 from 39% in 2019. The PSC attributed flagging Lifeline participation to “decline in subscribership of one major ETC.” That was Assurance Wireless, with enrollments down nearly 189,000 (46%) year over year, a PSC spokesperson said. Competition is maintaining “reasonably affordable, reliable telecommunications services,” the PSC concluded.
The monthly Lifeline minimum service standard for mobile broadband data capacity will increase to 18 GB Dec. 1, said an FCC Wireline Bureau public notice Friday in docket 11-42. The monthly minimum service standard for mobile voice service will stay at 1,000 minutes. Monthly fixed broadband data usage will be 1,229 GB. The factors depend on the FCC not acting before then; in some past years, it has made changes. The indexed budget for 2022 will be $2.46 billion.
Facebook needs to dispel disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, which is causing vaccine hesitancy, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) wrote Thursday with a coalition of groups. “The constant barrage of inaccurate information being shared on Facebook has led to vaccination rates in the Latino community barely surpassing 15 percent,” they wrote. They urged Facebook and other platforms take “real action” in removing misinformation. Facebook deployed a comprehensive strategy against Spanish disinformation that includes the "largest online vaccine information campaign" and "removing false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines in accordance with our policies," said Vice President-State and Local Public Policy Will Castleberry in a statement. "We also use the same machine learning model approaches in Spanish as we do in English to remove misinformation that violates our policies and we have more than a dozen global fact-checking partners who review and rate content in Spanish."
Comments are due Aug. 13, replies Aug. 30 on Hughes Network Systems' request for more time to comply with its tribal engagement obligations as a recipient of Connect America Fund Phase II support through New York's New NY Broadband Program, said an FCC docket 10-90 public notice in Thursday's Daily Digest.
New York is enjoinedfrom enforcing its broadband affordability law, in a stipulated final judgment (in Pacer, docket 21-CV-02389) approved Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Denis Hurley in Central Islip, Long Island. Hurley ruled last month that ISPs would likely succeed on conflict and field preemption arguments, and granted a motion for preliminary injunction by the New York State Telecommunications Association, CTIA, ACA Connects, USTelecom, NTCA and the Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association (see 2106110064). Under the stipulated final judgment, the sides agreed to a final judgment in favor of the ISP interest plaintiffs conceding that the state law is preempted by federal law. New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) reserves the right to appeal the stipulated final judgment, declaration and permanent injunction. Her office didn't comment. For our report on the sides settling this case that may go to an appeals court, see here.
Comments are due Aug. 12, in docket 19-195 on “proposed drive test parameters and a model for the drive tests required” by the FCC of some carriers participating in the Alaska Plan (see 2107190055), said Wednesday's Federal Register.
Comments are due Aug. 27, replies Sept. 13, in docket 19-195 on the FCC rulemaking on technical requirements for mobile challenge, verification and crowdsourced processes required under the Broadband Data Act (see 2107160067), says Wednesday's Federal Register.