New Media – Page 2 – Media & Communications Policy

February 25, 2021July 7, 2021 By Stuart N. Brotman

Digital Privacy Laws Should Reflect Our Work-From-Home Pandemic Lives

With COVID-19 and economic recovery at the top of the policy agenda for the Biden Administration and the new Congress, it may take awhile until serious attention is devoted to enacting national digital privacy legislation. This continues to put states in a leadership position to craft their own approaches. Florida, Minnesota, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Washington are among the states that are in the process of developing their own bills for timely legislative approval.

And Virginia’s pending Consumer Data Protection Act is poised to be signed into law by Gov. Ralph Northam, after receiving very strong bipartisan support in both the Virginia House and the state Senate.

February 8, 2021July 7, 2021 By Stuart N. Brotman

Greater Social Media Trust Is Needed To Fight COVID-19

The resumption of daily press briefings by the new White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has brought back a welcomed routine of making the president’s chief spokesperson available for informational updates and responses to questions posed by various reporters in the press corps. Ms. Psaki typically holds these weekday sessions in the early afternoon and they can be viewed on a variety of websites.

With that scheduling constant now in place, it’s time for the Biden Administration to devise a separate social media schedule for COVID-19 updates to help minimize the tsunami of misinformation about testing, PPE availability, mandated mask orders, vaccine supply, and actual vaccinations. These updates should be based on actual data and science, not on rumors or speculation. And when sufficient information is not yet forthcoming, we should be told why it has not been released and when it may be made public.

January 25, 2021July 7, 2021 By Adonis Hoffman, Esq.

Big Tech Must Self-Regulate To Protect Public Safety

In a single swipe, Twitter and Facebook have done what the U.S. government and the Constitution could not: delete the power of an irreverent president to rile and rally Americans to violent action.

Twitter announced Jan. 8 that it permanently suspended Trump’s account, while Facebook announced Jan. 7 it had suspended Trump’s account indefinitely.

January 11, 2021July 7, 2021 By Stuart N. Brotman

A Better Way To Close the Digital Divide

As 2021 begins, one source of optimism from Congress was the recent enactment of much-needed legislation to expand broadband network availability into rural and tribal areas.

The new emergency stimulus funding includes $300 million to be made available as Broadband Infrastructure Deployment Grants to target unserved areas for network infrastructure construction that prioritizes funds for counties, cities, or towns with less than 50,000 inhabitants.

December 10, 2020July 7, 2021 By Richard T. Kaplar

The Role of Targeted Advertising In Supporting First Amendment Principles

One can scarcely remember the time, only a few short decades ago, when life moved along without the array of personal digital devices that have come to define today’s culture. All of that changed, of course, with the advent of the Internet and the ability to access a burgeoning number of websites (which themselves were rapidly evolving).

Personal desktop computers, portable laptops, tablets, cell phones, and “smart phones” would fuel the tech revolution. Who could imagine that someday one’s phone, tablet, and computers would all be synchronized into a seamless whole. Or that millions of Americans would spend vast amounts of time engaging each other via something called “social media.”

September 25, 2020September 25, 2020 By Guest Author Gordon Smith

First Amendment Still Shines During Toughest of Times

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago this week, Congress passed a collection of amendments to the U.S. Constitution, 10 of which would become the Bill of Rights. Foremost in the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment, which allows Americans to worship how they please, speak their minds openly, and have their voices heard by their government.

Our Founding Fathers, in their infinite wisdom, also included in the First Amendment the right to a free press. They understood that our democracy could not survive without the freedom to report the news without fear or favor. The times may have changed; that principle has not.

September 18, 2020September 18, 2020 By Guest Author Gary Arlen

Early Voting Brings New Media Challenges In Advertising and Editorial Endorsements

From shifting commercial placements to premature newspaper endorsements, this year’s early balloting procedures are having a massive effect on media operations. Political strategists are figuring out how and more importantly when to place ads in this unprecedented season of extensive early voting.

The Halloween weekend deluge of campaign ads just before Election Day on Nov. 3 may be meaningless if up to half of voters have already cast their ballots. In a related vein, the ripple effect of advertising decisions also affects ad timing for down-ballot races, where voters may need more coaxing.

August 20, 2020August 19, 2020 By Stuart N. Brotman

Privacy Policy Research Deserves a Much Wider Audience

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hosted its fifth annual PrivacyCon on July 21, 2020. This was the first time the one-day conference was fully remote, rather than in person at the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection in Washington, D.C.

PrivacyCon should not be confused with Comic-Con, the annual pop culture extravaganza that began the following day with over 350 virtual panels extending over nearly a week. Perhaps the thousands who show up there each year in San Diego with colorful costumes will not miss a beat as they turn on their Zoom cameras to participate in a way never imagined when this year’s Comic-Con was organized.

August 13, 2020August 13, 2020 By Adonis Hoffman, Esq.

Cancel Culture Is Techno Tyranny

Hyper partisan politics and our divided nation make it easier than ever to vilify anyone, any time, in any way. In the words of Michael Corleone, “If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone.”

Used figuratively here, of course, but that is what cancel culture has wrought in today’s society.

While cancellation may seek to stifle speech, it causes social and economic destruction as well. It projects permanence and public shame for its targets whether deserved or not. And it promotes a kind of techno tyranny against which we all should be vigilant.

July 7, 2020August 13, 2020 By Guest Author Gary Arlen

Ending the Media Versus Police Tumult

Whatever happens with police reform legislation in Congress, there is no reason to expect that protection of reporters and media will figure into the proposed “best practices” of how journalists should be treated during tense and often violent situations such as we’ve seen in the past month. Generalized protections already exist in the First Amendment, but as the brutal incidents of the past month show, law enforcement officers can recklessly bypass those enshrined barriers.

A slew of reports – some of them admittedly self-pitying – emerged in recent weeks with frightening details about how print and electronic journalists have been attacked by law enforcement officers. It appears that sometimes reporters were singled out as they sought to cover the protests and demonstrations that erupted around the world after George Floyd’s death-by-knee in Minneapolis.