Republican's 'Big Tech Accountability' Platform Calls For Both More And Less Moderation, And A 'Not Fairness Doctrine' Fairness Doctrine

from the all-over-the-map dept

It's become quite clear over the past few years that the Republicans' platform these days is "punish those who disagree with us," or, in the shorter vernacular: "cry moar, libs." This becomes blatantly clear as you look at the newly released "Big Tech Accountability Platform" that the Republicans in the House have released (coming from the ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers). The platform actually starts out making some amount of sense, but note that it will ignore all of that within a single page. The principles laid out are actually good ones -- if the plan actually followed them (which it does not):

1. We will protect free speech: Republicans worked hard to repeal the Federal Communications Commission’s Fairness Doctrine and we will not advocate for a new one.

2. We will be mindful of small businesses and entrepreneurship: Any policy we pursue will balance these essential interests to preserve competition.

3. We will promote American tech leadership and innovation: We will continue to promote American global leadership while working to address issues here at home.

You could build a good platform around those pointers. But, this is not that. On the very next page, it lists out its legislative "concepts" for Section 230 reform, which quickly show how things go off the rails.

Legislative Concept 1: Limit the Right of Exclusion

a. Define Big Tech companies as places of public accommodation and prohibit discrimination based on political affiliation and/or viewpoint.

b. Alternatively, define Big Tech companies as places of public accommodation and limit liability protections to content moderation processes that provide a measure of due process to users.

So, uh, remember that whole thing about respecting free speech and not bringing back the fairness doctrine? This legislative concept is literally bringing back the fairness doctrine. It's also unconstitutional as it attacks the 1st Amendment rights of companies not to be compelled to host speech they don't want to host.

Perhaps even more incredible is that while the first legislative concept is basically "moderate less," the second legislative concept is "moderate more"!

Legislative Concept 2: Require Reasonable Moderation Practices

a. Require Big Tech companies to implement and maintain reasonable moderation practices to address illegal drug sales; child exploitation, including child pornography and trafficking; targeted harassment or bullying of users under the age of 18; terrorism; counterfeit products and materials sales; and all other illegal content on their platforms.

b. Failure to implement and maintain such reasonable moderation practices is a violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act.

c. Such companies may be liable for content decisions related to content included above but may assert liability protections if they implement and maintain reasonable moderation practices.

This shows how totally unprincipled and ignorant the Republicans are on this topic. It's kind of the standard response of those who don't even understand the basics of content moderation. The assumption is always that there's some perfect level of moderation -- less moderation of speech we like, and more moderation of speech we dislike. But that assumes everyone agrees on which speech is liked and which speech is not. And that's not how any of this works.

This isn't a Goldilocks fairy tale, in which some moderation is too much, and some moderation is too little, and you can just turn the dials and find the kind of moderation that is "just right." And legislative proposals that pretend otherwise only show their complete disconnect from reality.

And they're not done yet.

Legislative Concept 3: Limit Liability to Protected Speech

a. Modify Section 230 to only provide liability protection for moderation of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment or specifically listed in the statute.

Uh, yikes? This might depend on what's "listed in the statute," but already listing types of speech that get immunity and that do not would raise serious 1st Amendment issues. But beyond that, it's not even clear what this means? If it means that 1st Amendment protected speech no longer gets 230 protections then, um, won't sites be much, much quicker to pull down all sorts of content? This would mean no 230 protections over abuse, harassment, hate speech, etc. Under such a proposal, you'd think that Republicans spreading disinformation would be at serious risk of having all their accounts banned. I know that the Democrats might like this, but it seems like a bizarre thing for Republicans to suggest.

Legislative Concept 4: Remove Liability Protections

a. Remove liability protection under Section 230 for content moderation decisions made by Big Tech companies that discriminate based on political affiliation or

viewpoint.

We've been over this before. It would violate the 1st Amendment and create compelled speech. Why do no politicians seem to understand this?

Legislative Concept 5: Require Appeals Processes

a. Require Big Tech companies to implement and maintain reasonable and userfriendly appeals processes for users to challenge content moderation decisions on constitutionally protected speech as well as decisions about suspending or deplatforming users. The appeals process must clearly explain the company’s content moderation policies and identify the specific provision(s) the content or user violated and why.

Why? Why is Congress interfering in the ways that private companies run their business? Most companies (and all large companies) do have an appeals process already. But mostly all these kinds of proposals do is serve to make it a lot more costly for websites to suspend bad actors. It's like an "all trolls get to troll" act, and often is used to test the boundaries of what people can get away with. It's a perfect tool for bad actors.

Legislative Concept 6: Carve Out Big Tech Companies from Section 230

a. Carve out Big Tech companies and/or only those that are specifically engaged in certain activities, such as hosting social media platforms and app stores, from Section 230 liability protections while retaining current liability protections for all new entrants and small companies.

b. Repeal Section 230 protections for companies engaged in targeted behavioral advertising.

It's unclear how either of these ideas does anything even remotely useful. I mean, you could carve big companies out of 230 and they'd survive, but all it would likely do is lead to a lot of wasteful litigation. It would also almost certainly lead the companies to be a lot more aggressive in taking down content, and would then rely on the 1st Amendment to protect those decisions. As for connecting 230 to advertising practices, we've seen a few bills that try to do that and no one has ever explained what useful thing that does -- other than basically attack one particular business model.

Nearly every one of these proposals doesn't seem to have any principled argument behind it. There's no policy rationale at all. It's entirely "big tech is bad, big tech likes 230, let's take 230 away from big tech." That's not leading. That's regulating based on perceived grievances.

Filed Under: big tech, cathy mcmorris rodgers, content moderation, fairness doctrine, free speech, republicans, section 230

Trump Nominates Guy Who Wants To Police Speech Online To Be The Next FCC Commissioner

from the not-great,-bob dept

As was rumored late last week, the White House is, in fact, nominating Nathan Simington to the FCC, taking over the seat of of Mike O'Riely, whose nomination was withdrawn just days after O'Rielly expressed his strong support for the 1st Amendment and made it clear what he thought of idiots calling for the government to force websites to host content:

The First Amendment protects us from limits on speech imposed by the government—not private actors—and we should all reject demands, in the name of the First Amendment, for private actors to curate or publish speech in a certain way. Like it or not, the First Amendment’s protections apply to corporate entities, especially when they engage in editorial decision making. I shudder to think of a day in which the Fairness Doctrine could be reincarnated for the Internet, especially at the ironic behest of so-called free speech “defenders.” It is time to stop allowing purveyors of First Amendment gibberish to claim they support more speech, when their actions make clear that they would actually curtail it through government action. These individuals demean and denigrate the values of our Constitution and must be held accountable for their doublespeak and dishonesty. This institution and its members have long been unwavering in defending the First Amendment, and it is the duty of each of us to continue to uphold this precious protection.

While there are many things we've disagreed with O'Rielly about, on this one, we agree 100%. And, the thanks he gets is effectively being fired by the President... and then replaced with someone who appears to believe the exact opposite.

Simington is apparently the guy who wrote the utterly nonsensical, blatantly unconstitutional Executive Order that President Trump signed after he got mad that Twitter placed two fact checking notices on his dangerous and misleading tweets.

Note the situation here. Twitter (and the rest of the internet) is now being punished for providing more speech. This is, of course, what people like Simington like to claim they support. But when it comes down to reality, they seem to want to just force the internet to host the speech of their friends, and never to do anything such as present counterarguments. On top of that, they wish to force private companies to host speech they do not support and do not believe in. All of this is unconstitutional.

Yet, now the author of this nonsense gets rewarded with a potential FCC Commissionership.

It's not clear if the Senate would find the time to do confirmation hearings before the election, but there's a decent chance that now rather than there being just one (Hi, Brendan Carr) FCC Commissioner who relishes using the power of the FCC to punish companies he doesn't like, we'll have two FCC Commissioners who have abandoned all pretenses that the Republican FCC Commissioners support the 1st Amendment and favor a "light touch" regulatory regime. They seem to only favor that for the telcos so many FCC Commissioners end up going to work for after leaving the FCC. For internet companies? They seem to think the opposite.

Considering Simington's direct role in writing the executive order, and then working at NTIA while it crafted the petition for the current FCC review of Section 230, you would think that, should he actually be approved by the Senate, he should at the very least recuse himself from this particular matter. But, given this particular administration and their unwillingness to actually obey the law and follow the rules when it comes to "owning the libs" or whatever their motivation is, it wouldn't surprise me to see him take part in any vote.

Filed Under: fairness doctrine, fcc, mike o'rielly, nathan simington, section 230, speech police

It's Spreading: Lindsey Graham Now Insisting 'Fairness Doctrine' Applies To The Internet

from the aren't-you-supposed-to-understand-law? dept

Remember when Republicans were against the "Fairness Doctrine"? Apparently, that's now out the window, so long as they can attack Facebook. As we noted recently, Senator Ted Cruz appears to be pushing for the strangest interpretation of Section 230 around (in direct conflict with (a) what the law says and (b) how the courts have interpreted it) saying that in order to make use of CDA 230's immunity "good samaritan" clause, internet service providers need to be "neutral." Again, that's not what the law says. It's also an impossible standard, and one that would lead to results that would piss off lots of people. The similarities to the FCC's concept of the "Fairness Doctrine" are pretty clear, though such a rule on the internet would be an even bigger deal, since the Fairness Doctrine only applied to broadcast TV.

And, it appears that Cruz's incorrect interpretation is spreading like a virus. Senator Lindsey Graham is now spewing the same nonsense.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a subcommittee chairman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told MT that he remains concerned about potential bias when it comes to content moderation on social media platforms. “They enjoy liability protections because they’re neutral platforms. At the end of the day, we’ve got to prove to the American people that these platforms are neutral,” he said. “You’ve got to have a validating system where the government can come in and validate that this whole system is neutral.”

So much about this is wrong. First, Section 230 of the CDA has never required platforms to be neutral. Indeed, it would be silly to do so because what the hell does "neutral" even mean in this context? Second, claiming that someone needs to "prove" that the platforms are neutral. What does that even mean? How would you prove that anything is "neutral" anyway? Finally, saying that the government has to validate that your internet service is neutral raises a very large number of very serious First Amendment questions. What kind of Senator is not only so wrong about the law, but thinks that the appropriate role of government is to "validate" internet platforms over what kind of speech they allow?

Separately, this is the same Lindsey Graham who just recently was demanding that social media sites do more to takedown content he didn't like. Now, apparently, he's up in arms over the fact that the sites took down content he did like. If Graham truly wants websites to "do everything possible to combat" terrorist groups using the internet, then attacking CDA 230 is the worst possible way to do that. CDA 230 gives websites the power to moderate and filter out such content without fear of facing legal liability. In other words, it's an excellent tool for getting websites to takedown extremist content. To then turn around and insist that sites should lose CDA 230 protections because they also took down some content you like... raises all sorts of First Amendment issues. You're basically saying websites should only remove the content I dislike, and if they remove content I like I'm going to put their existence at risk. Guess what happens then? Sites will stop moderating entirely, leaving up more of the "bad" content you dislike.

Oh, and back to that whole "fairness doctrine" thing. Guess who is vehemently against it? You guessed right: Lindsey Graham. Opposing the Fairness Doctrine is one of the few issues on his tech campaign platform and a few years back he put out a press release touting his conservative credentials including "barring the use of federal funds to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine" (which was silly anyway, because there was no appetite to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine).

Except, now, as soon as he can pretend to be up in arms over Facebook, Graham seems to jump on the idea of a Fairness Doctrine for the internet. Not only that, but he seems to think it's already in place (it isn't) and requires the government to go in and validate platforms over what speech they allow.

Filed Under: cda 230, fairness doctrine, first amendment, intermediary liability, lindsey graham, neutral platform, ted cruz, validation
Companies: facebook, google

Ted Cruz Demands A Return Of The Fairness Doctrine, Which He Has Mocked In The Past, Due To Misunderstanding CDA 230

from the grandstanding-idiocy dept

Remember the Fairness Doctrine? It was an incredibly silly policy of the FCC from 1949 to 1987 requiring some form of "equal time" to "the other side" of controversial matters of public interest. It's a dumb idea because most issues have a lot more than two sides, and simply pitting two arguments against one another tends to do little to elucidate actual truth -- but does tend to get people to dig in more. However, despite the fact that the fairness doctrine was killed more than 30 years ago, Republicans* regularly claim that it's about to be brought back.

* Our general policy is not to focus on political parties, unless it's a necessary part of the story, and in this case it is. If you look at people freaking out about the supposed return of the fairness doctrine (which is not returning) it is always coming from Republicans, stirring up their base and claiming that Democrats are trying to bring back the fairness doctrine to silence the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys of the world.

But that's why it's so bizarre that Ted Cruz has taken to the pages of Fox News... to incorrectly claim that the fairness doctrine applies to the internet based on his own tortured (i.e. dead wrong) reading of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. We already discussed how wrong Cruz was about CDA 230 in his questions to Mark Zuckerberg (while simultaneously noting how ridiculous Zuck's responses were).

In his Fox News op-ed, Cruz argues that if a platform is "non-neutral" it somehow loses CDA 230 protections:

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) states: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

This is a good provision. It means that, for example, if you run a blogging platform and someone posts a terrorist threat in the comments section, you’re not treated as the person making the threat. Without Section 230, many social media networks could be functionally unable to operate.

In order to be protected by Section 230, companies like Facebook should be “neutral public forums.” On the flip side, they should be considered to be a “publisher or speaker” of user content if they pick and choose what gets published or spoken.

This is Cruz only reading Section (c)(1) of CDA 230, and totally ignoring the part right after it that says:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected

There's plenty of case law that has made it clear that moderating content on your platform doesn't make you liable under CDA 230. The very point of this section was to encourage exactly this kind of moderation. Indeed, this part of the CDA was added directly in response to the infamous Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy case, where Prodigy was found liable for certain posts in part because it moderated other messages.

Now, you could claim that Cruz is not misreading the law -- but rather he's advocating a return to the days of that Stratton Oakmont ruling being law. After all he says "Facebook should be 'neutral public forums.'" But, that's both an impossible standard (what the hell is "neutral" in this context anyway?) and basically calling for a return to the fairness doctrone.

Republicans, who have spent years freaking out about the fairness doctrine should be really pissed off at Cruz for basically demanding not just a return of the fairness doctrine, but demanding it for all online platforms and setting it at an impossible standard.

And, of course, this is the same Cruz who has railed against the fairness doctrine itself in the past.

"You know, the Obama FCC has invoked the Fairness Doctrine a number of times with sort of wistful glances to the past. Nostalgia," he said. "You know if I had suggested years ago that the Obama administration would send government observers into the newsrooms of major media organizations, that claim would have been ridiculed. And yet that is exactly what the FCC did."

Amusingly, this was right after he railed against the Obama FCC for pushing for net neutrality.

So... to sum up Ted Cruz's views on the internet, net neutrality is evil and attack on free speech, but platform "neutrality" is necessary. How does that work? Oh, and the fairness doctrine is censorship, but Facebook needs to engage in a form of the fairness doctrine or face stifling civil liability.

It's almost as if Ted Cruz has no idea what the fuck he's talking about concerning internet regulations, free speech, neutrality and fairness -- but does know that if he hits on certain buzzwords, he's sure to fire up his base.

Filed Under: cda, fairness doctrine, section 230, ted cruz
Companies: facebook

Congress Questions Facebook About Something It Probably Didn't Do With A Feature That Barely Matters

from the fairness-doctrine? dept

So just a couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion on the Techdirt podcast about whether or not it was appropriate for platforms like Facebook and Google to sway elections. As that discussion noted, while the obvious instinctual reaction is "hell no, that's horrible," the issue is a bit trickier and more nuanced the more you delve into it. Obviously, traditional media regularly present information in ways prompted to influence elections -- even to the point of endorsing candidates. But when things become algorithmic, for some reason, they get more complicated, because people like to think that an algorithm somehow is "neutral" or unbiased -- leaving out the fact that that algorithm is, you know, programmed by people and those people have their own biases and beliefs. But, the simple fact is that there's no such thing as a "neutral" platform in any real sense if there's anything that involves ranking. A ranking system is inherently biased because it needs to be. By definition, it's ranking things.

This week, there's been a big kerfuffle over a claim published at Gizmodo that Facebook's "trending stories" list was somehow biased against conservative sources, and that the humans who maintain the trending list were told not to link to certain sites, such as Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax. This followed on some overwrought and exaggerated reporting about the people who work on the trending news team.

The "Facebook suppressing conservative news stories" hook is attention grabbing and of course is generating a lot of chatter and reactions, some more intelligent than others. But there are a few problems with it. First, and most importantly, it's likely not true. Facebook's trending team boss put out a statement denying the key points and making it sound like whoever Gizmodo's source is took a kernel of truth -- that Facebook employees will check stories to see if they have some sort of factual basis before including them in the trending list -- and twisted that into a claim of bias. Specifically, Facebook says:

There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. Nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. These guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in Trending Topics.

Trending Topics is designed to showcase the current conversation happening on Facebook. Popular topics are first surfaced by an algorithm, then audited by review team members to confirm that the topics are in fact trending news in the real world and not, for example, similar-sounding topics or misnomers.

We are proud that, in 2015, the US election was the most talked-about subject on Facebook, and we want to encourage that robust political discussion from all sides. We have in place strict guidelines for our trending topic reviewers as they audit topics surfaced algorithmically: reviewers are required to accept topics that reflect real world events, and are instructed to disregard junk or duplicate topics, hoaxes, or subjects with insufficient sources.

In short, it sounds like the source for Gizmodo's article may have turned situations in which stories were deemed to have "insufficient sources" and claimed that it was a way to lock out conservative voices. Some will, undoubtedly, claim that Facebook's statement on this is lying, but I don't believe that's the case. I've been talking to a number of people at Facebook, including those close to the Trending Topics folks, and they insist that the story is not even remotely true. Other reporters appear to be hearing the same thing.

And, frankly, this makes sense. I honestly would *never* expect (for example) a Techdirt story to make it into Facebook's trending list, because we're not the kind of site that's likely to get listed there, as we're mostly about opinion, rather than hard news. But I don't think that's some sort of nefarious "bias." I think it's about focusing the trending list on more standard journalism.

The second big issue with this is that I find it difficult to believe that Facebook's trending stories even matter that much. Frankly, I didn't even know it existed and had never even noticed it on my Facebook page until I went and sought it out for this particular story (for what it's worth, I actually assumed it would be in the left column and was surprised to find it in the right). As Nilay Patel rightly points out, the trending news box is "fundamentally unimportant and uninteresting." Facebook works in the news feed, not in the trending topics box. And that news feed is still driven by what kinds of people you're friends with. Remember, this is the same company that can't figure out how to stop blatantly false news stories from spreading virally from feed to feed. Manual edits of the trending news topics is meaningless.

The third thing is that, as a private platform, Facebook does have the right to do what it wants. As John Roberts notes, the law here is pretty clearly established that Facebook has a First Amendment right to structure its trending news feed however it likes.

But, of course, in this politically charged season, politicians will let no good scandal -- no matter how ridiculous -- go unexploited, and thus we have Senator John Thune sending an angry letter to Facebook, demanding answers to a long list of questions around the Gizmodo story, and stating:

If Facebook presents its Trending Topics section as the result of a neutral, objective algorithm, but it is in fact subjective and filtered to support or suppress particular political viewpoints, Facebook's assertion that it maintains a "platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum" misleads the public.

As noted above, this letter is ridiculous for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that Congress has no authority whatsoever to make Facebook change its algorithm, and it's concerning that Senators think they might know a better way for Facebook to present content. But it's made even more ridiculous by the fact that Thune (along with many on the conservative side of the political spectrum who are so upset by this) has been among the most outspoken voices on the horror of "the fairness doctrine," which mandates a sort of "equal time" on news programs for opposing political views. In fact Thune himself cosponsored a bill in 2007 to bar the FCC from bringing back the fairness doctrine (side note: the FCC has expressed zero interest in bringing back the fairness doctrine, yet every so often politicians will accuse it of wishing to do so to score political points).

Oh, and in 2009, during yet another of the bogus "fairness doctrine" freakouts, Thune himself stated:

I believe it is dangerous for Congress and federal regulators to wade into the public airwaves to determine what opinions should be expressed and what kind of speech is 'fair." This undercuts every American's freedom of speech, and I urge my colleagues to reject any renewed institution of the Fairness Doctrine, which is nothing more than government controlled censorship.

Yes, and now the same person who said that, is doing exactly what he was complaining about, and trying to argue that somehow Facebook's editorial decisions are not "fair" enough. Ain't no hypocrisy like Washington DC hypocrisy, folks.

As I said in the podcast, there are very legitimate concerns about large internet companies that may have too much control or too much influence. It's certainly something that should be watched carefully, and there absolutely should be a lot more transparency about how all of this works. Transparency would solve a lot of these issues, frankly. But holding a collective freakout based on a flimsy story that doesn't appear accurate (on a feature that isn't important), leading to Congress suddenly wanting to get involved (even if only for grandstanding purposes), just seems to lessen the ability to focus on real issues when they inevitably arise.

And, of course, having Congress get involved just makes Congress look like a joke.

Filed Under: algorithms, bias, fairness doctrine, john thune, trending, trending topics
Companies: facebook

Internet Goes Crazy Over Ordinary FCC Survey, Claims Agency Wants Draconian Control Over Newsrooms

from the perhaps-you-should-read-the-original-proposal? dept

Last week, when perusing the newswires, I kept seeing references to a most diabolical plan that was supposedly being crafted by the FCC. The agency, I was told by countless news outlets, was engaged in an insane attempt to effectively bring back the Fairness Doctrine -- awful rules justly killed off back in 1987 that tried to force fair media coverage. Under this new horrifying plan, the insufferably nosy government would, I was told, shortly thereafter begin telling reporters and newsrooms what they could and couldn't cover. Newsrooms that failed to play along with this effort, I was told by FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai himself, would possibly lose their broadcast licenses, given that the voluntary survey was secretly not voluntary:

The FCC also wants to wade into office politics. One question for reporters is: "Have you ever suggested coverage of what you consider a story with critical information for your customers that was rejected by management?" Follow-up questions ask for specifics about how editorial discretion is exercised, as well as the reasoning behind the decisions. Participation in the Critical Information Needs study is voluntary—in theory. Unlike the opinion surveys that Americans see on a daily basis and either answer or not, as they wish, the FCC's queries may be hard for the broadcasters to ignore. They would be out of business without an FCC license, which must be renewed every eight years."

Madness! The massive stones on government! What a horrible example of government overreach! The outrage grew and grew, as additional news outlets piled on, noting this was a massive attack on the First Amendment. It also was a frontal assault on freedom that warrants the immediate demolition of the FCC entirely.

Knowing the FCC like I do after a decade of covering them, I thought that it seemed a little out of character for a timid, marginally-competent agency terrified of disrupting the status quo to suddenly take LSD and begin such a ham-fisted attack on common sense. As such, I did something crazy -- I read the actual study proposal. Apparently, this absolutely insane frontal assault on everything we hold dear in the god-damned universe was little more than a survey trying to ferret out how to best help disadvantaged, poor citizens (especially those for whom English may not be a first language) get the information they need. FCC Mignon Clyburn, who previously owned an African-American newspaper in South Carolina, has long held minority media ownership as a core policy focus.

It's a fairly routine and entirely voluntary field survey designed to gather data. Nothing more. There's not really any actual policy even attached to it. There was certainly nothing included that could drive any sane or reasonable individual to the conclusion that newsrooms would soon be under the iron fist of a new FCC-crafted information-control and propaganda gestapo. Many of the complaints against the "Critical Information Needs' (CIN) survey seemed focused specifically on how volatile and provocative the questions asked were, though I can't find any questions (page 25, pdf) that are even remotely controversial (perhaps I missed them or I'm not squinting my eyes or tilting me head just right).

You could try to argue the $900,000 survey was a waste of money, but then you'd have to admit the looming hearings about the survey as probably just as wasteful. You could also try to argue that such inquiries push beyond the FCC's technology-driven mandate (although you'd face counter argument that media ownership analysis is part of their job under the Communications Act). What you wouldn't be able to do with the slightest bit of factual support is suggest this was an FCC attempt to stifle free speech and newsroom freedom.

But people did, and the hysteria forced the FCC to issue a statement (pdf) saying that the survey was on hold until they could tone down the not-actually-inflammatory-at-all questions. The FCC noted that the survey was part of their Congressional requirement under section 257 of the Communications Act to study barriers to entry for small business owners and entrepreneurs (with an obvious focus on minority business owners). To try and placate the rioting, reading-challenged hordes, the FCC notes that any revamped study won't ask media owners or reporters what they think:

"To be clear, media owners and journalists will no longer be asked to participate in the Columbia, S.C. pilot study. The pilot will not be undertaken until a new study design is final. Any subsequent market studies conducted by the FCC, if determined necessary, will not seek participation from or include questions for media owners, news directors or reporters. Any suggestion that the FCC intends to regulate the speech of news media or plans to put monitors in America's newsrooms is false."

So in the end, the big "victory" is that a study trying to analyze minority media needs gets gutted and will be less useful. Hooray! Good job, team! Make no mistake, the furor really wasn't about the study itself, it was part of a long-standing concerted effort to gut any dwindling regulatory oversight the FCC has over the broadcast or broadband industries by demonizing the agency. The Fairness Doctrine is pretty routinely trotted out as a bogeyman on that front; former FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell tried to argue that supporting net neutrality would also bring the long-ago dismantled policy back from the dead. That's not to say that there haven't been small attempts to bring the Fairness Doctrine back, but those efforts never go anywhere because almost everyone realizes it's a stupid idea. It's more useful as a political scarecrow than anything.

Those still worried shouldn't be; the FCC is so terribly afraid of upsetting industry and the status quo that they can't even admit fundamental realities (like the broadband industry isn't competitive and prices are high). They lack the intestinal fortitude to implement significant good policy of any meaningful measure, much less bad ideas of such head-rattling, impossible scale. If we can all agree that government dictating what newsrooms can cover is idiotic, perhaps we can all also agree that those same newsrooms should be hiring people who can actually read?

Filed Under: fairness doctrine, fcc, journalism, media

Once More, With Feeling: The Fairness Doctrine Is Not Fair, Nor Is It Needed

from the please-make-it-go-away dept

A year and a half ago, there was this sudden burst of attention from some suggesting that the long-discredited and discarded concept of the "fairness doctrine" needed to be brought back. The fairness doctrine is basically a requirement that whenever a TV station covers a controversial topic, it's required, by law, to give equal time to a "response." This, some people think, makes the coverage "fair." It does not. All it does is presume that there are two, and only two, sides to any issue -- and that people are too stupid to figure out that some stuff you see on TV may not tell you the whole story.

Usually, it's pushed by some group that feels "its side" isn't getting enough attention. Of course, rather than realize that maybe they're not doing a very good job packaging up that message to make it understandable or interesting (or, maybe, that they're just wrong), they feel the need to demand time on TV for a response. Yet, these days, when anyone can "broadcast" any content they want, there's even less of a need for a fairness doctrine on TV. It's a restriction on speech, by determining what a TV show needs to include in a report. That's not fair at all.

Thus, we were pretty surprised some in Congress actually decided to push for a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine last year. Thankfully, the effort went nowhere, helped in part by the FCC pointing out that, these days, there's just no need for a return of the Fairness Doctrine. No side has any trouble getting its word out. There's no shortage of outlets to do so. If your message isn't getting out there, it's certainly not for a lack of available channels.

And yet... here they come again. Reports are spreading that Rep. Nancy Pelosi is pushing to bring back the Fairness Doctrine once again. And, even worse, others seem to be trying to beyond even the Fairness Doctrine, with a variety of ideas that all seem to involve having the government own or regulate content. It's stunning, in this day and age, with all the outlets out there for someone to get out their message that they would feel they need to turn to the government to force their message on others.

Filed Under: fairness doctrine, free speech, politics