It seems reasonable that a program designed to assist those with low incomes should go only to low-income households. But the Biden-Harris administration is using a dubious mechanism to get around that expectation in a program designed to help low-income families pay for broadband internet service.
Congress created the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to provide broadband internet assistance to low-income households.
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Vice President Kamala Harris is the first Democratic presidential nominee in modern history not to disclose the names of her campaign’s top fundraisers, obfuscating a cadre of individuals who could serve in influential positions if she wins in November.
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The Biden administration’s program to expand access to broadband internet may run afoul of the law that created it, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), part of the Department of Commerce, is responsible for allocating $42.5 billion in funds intended to bolster the United States’ broadband internet infrastructure through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program (BEAD) program. The agency, in a move to expand high-speed internet access to low-income communities, has been attempting to force states to adopt price controls for broadband services provided through the new projects, a strategy experts say could be illegal.
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In the dynamic landscape of global entertainment, the influence of Beijing over Hollywood has long been a topic of heated discussion. While the box office power of the Chinese market has waned, giving a breath of creative freedom back to our filmmakers, there looms a new and more pervasive form of influence on Hollywood and well beyond: TikTok.
Beijing may have lost theatrical market leverage, but it has more than made up for that with an overpowering social media presence that has become an epidemic, not just in Hollywood but throughout the United States. In fact, the Chairman of Congress’s Select Committee on China, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), accurately labels TikTok as “digital fentanyl” and has been aggressively campaigning to ban the social media app.
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President Joe Biden’s administration has recently taken unprecedented action to exert influence over Americans’ digital lives, including broadband internet, net neutrality, social media and artificial intelligence (AI).
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TikTok hasn’t exactly got Facebook dancing in the streets.
The Chinese-owned social media app is rapidly eating away at Facebook’s user base, especially among the under-30s crowd, which seems to think that Facebook is for the over-the-hill crowd.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Friday announced a ban on new imports of Chinese-owned telecommunications equipment, including the equipment suspected of surveilling sensitive U.S. military sites.
The new rules, prohibiting U.S. sales and imports of equipment from companies including Huawei and ZTE, are the first to be implemented on the grounds they pose “unacceptable risk to national security,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr said Friday. U.S. authorities have expressed concerns that Beijing could exploit the companies’ telecommunications installations across the country to collect data from U.S. sites, including nuclear and military sites in the U.S.
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Federal Communications Commission member Brendan Carr said that TikTok is “China’s digital fentanyl” and that the social media platform is “a very sophisticated surveillance app.”
“At the end of the day, TikTok is China’s digital fentanyl,” Carr, a Republican and one of five FCC commissioners, said Friday on Fox News.
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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to ban telecommunication devices and video surveillance equipment from five Chinese companies in a recent move to address national security concerns, according to Axios.
The proposed FCC ban blocks Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications Corporation, Hikvision and Dahua Technology Company on national security grounds, marking the first time the FCC has attempted to implement an electronics ban on that basis, Axios reported. The proposed ban follows an Oct. 5 draft order circulated by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel that, if approved through a vote, will effectively block all equipment sales by firms that pose a threat to the U.S., according to Axios.
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The U.S. is investigating Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei for potential surveillance capabilities at cell towers near U.S. military bases and missile silos, according to Reuters.
Authorities are concerned that China could exploit Huawei communications equipment in the U.S. to gather sensitive data on military procedures and personnel, Reuters reported Thursday. The Commerce Department reportedly opened the investigation in 2021.
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President Joe Biden’s nominee to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Gigi Sohn, cut a favorable deal with broadcasters shortly after she was nominated to the regulatory agency.
Sohn previously worked as a director of Locast, a streaming service that transmitted local television broadcasts on the internet. The company was shut down in October 2021 after broadcasters sued and a judge ruled the service was in violation of copyright law. Locast entered into a settlement agreement with broadcasters requiring the service to pay $32 million in damages.
Biden nominated Sohn to an empty commissioner position at the FCC, which is tasked with regulating the broadcast industry, in late October; however, one day after she was nominated, Sohn signed a confidential agreement with broadcasters cutting the amount of damages Locast would pay to around $700,000, according to a copy of the agreement seen by Bloomberg Law.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has announced plans to spend billions of federal tax dollars to increase high-speed internet access in the state.
The governor issued Executive Directive 2021-12 Monday, designed to expand access to high-speed internet in Michigan. The programs will be funded from money the state is anticipated to receive from the recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Attempts to “bridge the digital divide” have been implemented through federal and state programs since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initiated its National Broadband Plan in 2010, with money from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Michigan has allocated additional federal funds, including:
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Senate Commerce Republicans are whipping opposition to the nomination of Gigi Sohn, one of President Joe Biden’s picks for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Biden nominated Sohn, former FCC counsel under Tom Wheeler and Ford Foundation alum, to an empty spot on the commission in late October, along with current acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to the permanent position.
While Republicans have been quiet in their response to the nomination of Rosenworcel, many are pointing to Sohn’s public statements on conservatives as reasons to oppose her confirmation.
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A far-left group funded by radical billionaire George Soros submitted a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) calling for Republicans to be murdered, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
The group in question is Free Press, which is funded by Soros’s Open Society Foundation, as well as the Center for American Progress, the Tides Foundation, and other far-left organizations. Free Press, whose stated goal is to “reshape media” in the United States, submitted a letter signed by almost 5,000 of its members baselessly accusing the FCC of systemic racism.
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The United States government has allegedly approved the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of electronic chips to Chinese technology giant Huawei, in a massive reversal of a Trump-era policy by the Biden Administration, as reported by the Daily Caller.
The report was first made by Reuters on Wednesday, which cited two anonymous sources who claimed to be familiar with the deal. Huawei intends to use the new supply of chips to construct more automatic components of automobiles, including video monitors and motion sensors. Huawei allegedly asked the suppliers to raise the value of chips from hundreds of millions to at least one billion for the next sale after the four-year licensing agreement expires.
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Three Senate Republicans introduced a bill Wednesday requiring the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to consider collecting revenue from major tech companies to fund broadband internet.
The Funding Affordable Internet with Reliable Contributions Act, introduced by Sens. Roger Wicker, Todd Young, and Shelley Moore Capito, directs the FCC to consider collecting Universal Service Fund (USF) contributions from Big Tech companies “such as YouTube, Netflix, and Google,” the lawmakers announced in a statement Wednesday. USF is a subsidy fund of the FCC that dispenses around $10 billion a year for broadband internet infrastructure in rural areas, according to the FCC website.
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Federal Communication Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced Thursday that he intends to move forward with a rulemaking to “clarify” the meaning of Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act.
Pai’s announcement comes one day after Twitter prohibited users from posting links to a New York Post story about alleged emails involving Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden and the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Twitter’s suppression of the story led President Donald Trump to call for the repeal of Section 230, which indemnifies internet companies from liability over content posted by their users.
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More support is being thrown behind a plan to have the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction off mid-band spectrum for 5G use rather than allow satellite operators to conduct a private sale of an asset they received for free.
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