The Senate Commerce Committee is at an impasse over funding the FCC’s affordable connectivity program, ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told us Tuesday. Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Democrats haven't found enough willing Republicans and the soonest the committee could even consider a markup is the first week of June.
Karl Herchenroeder
Karl Herchenroeder, Associate Editor, is a technology policy journalist for publications including Communications Daily. Born in Rockville, Maryland, he joined the Warren Communications News staff in 2018. He began his journalism career in 2012 at the Aspen Times in Aspen, Colorado, where he covered city government. After that, he covered the nuclear industry for ExchangeMonitor in Washington. You can follow Herchenroeder on Twitter: @karlherk
The Senate Commerce Committee will try again next week to approve funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program (see 2405100046), Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us Thursday after the scheduled markup was pulled amid tensions with Republicans over amendments.
Communications Decency Act Section 230 has outlived its usefulness and should be repealed, Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told us this week.
The Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday voted along party lines to pass two bills aimed at combating AI-driven manipulation of election content such as deep fakes and synthetic audio.
The Senate Commerce Committee on Thursday plans to mark up legislation that would regulate kids’ social media use, Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., announced Friday.
A measure regulating children’s social media use has sufficient bipartisan support for the Senate Commerce Committee to approve it, ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told us last week.
The FTC should narrow the scope of its online impersonation rule, preventing unnecessary liability for broadband and wireless providers, NCTA, CTIA, USTelecom and the Consumer Technology Association told the agency in comments posted through Wednesday. Consumer advocates urged the agency to make the rule broad enough to stop companies from turning a blind eye to scams.
The White House didn’t pressure social media platform executives to censor COVID-19-related content, former Biden officials told House Judiciary Committee members Wednesday. Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Republicans said the officials' pressure violated the First Amendment. The lawmakers cited numerous examples of tech company employees describing “pressure” from the administration.
The Biden administration could impede U.S. competitiveness if it codifies new cloud service regulations that force the tech industry to monitor and share data about foreign customers with the government, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM told the Commerce Department in comments due Monday. Telecom associations worried that definitions for cloud service companies might be too broad.
A new law seeking Chinese divestment of TikTok is unlikely to survive scrutiny if challenged for reasons similar to those that blocked Montana’s ban against the app, free speech experts tell us.