SACRAMENTO — California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and State Sen. Tom Umberg have delayed further consideration of the California Journalism Preservation Act (AB 886) until 2024. The lawmakers pushed the legislation back to allow more time to examine the bill, which has run up against strong opposition from civil- and digital-rights groups, small publishers and community […]
Free Press
Posted inCalifornia
Free Press Action Urges California Lawmakers to Reject Journalism Bill That Won’t Help Local Journalism or Serve Local Communities
SACRAMENTO — On Thursday, the California State Assembly passed the California Journalism Preservation Act (the “CJPA”), legislation that creates a convoluted and messy negotiating mechanism that would allow publishers to extract payments from Big Tech companies, including search engines that feature content linking to their stories. The CJPA is a giveaway to the bill’s most […]
Posted inCalifornia
Florín Nájera-Uresti and Mike Rispoli: A California Bill Would Break the Open Internet & Harm Local News
Over the past 15 years, the United States has lost more than half the newspaper reporters covering state and local beats. Runaway consolidation has decimated local news, and this crisis has disproportionately harmed low-income communities, people of color, rural communities and immigrants. The news crisis is prompting lawmakers to examine how to use public policy to keep […]
Posted inOp-Ed
Craig Aaron: Failure to Stand Up to Industry-Orchestrated Smears Cost FCC and the Nation a True Public Servant
WASHINGTON, March 7, 2023 – Today Gigi Sohn, longtime public-interest advocate and former Federal Communications Commission official, withdrew her name from consideration for the long-vacant commissioner’s seat at the agency after her nomination had been held up for nearly 500 days. The move follows a relentless smear campaign leveled against the nominee by a phalanx […]
Posted inOp-Ed
Jessica J. González: Free Press Action Praises Bill Restoring FCC Authority to Protect Internet Users
WASHINGTON, July 28, 2022 — On Thursday, Sens. Ed Markey (Massachusetts) and Ron Wyden (Oregon) and Rep. Doris Matsui (California) introduced the Net Neutrality and Broadband Justice Act, which would confirm the legal classification of broadband internet-access service as a telecommunications service under the Communications Act. Clarifying the legal treatment of broadband in this way […]
Posted inUS
New Polling Shows More Overwhelming and Bipartisan Support for Net Neutrality Protections
WASHINGTON — On Thursday, the University of Maryland released a public survey that found nearly two-thirds of Republican voters support reinstating Net Neutrality protections. The findings show a disconnect between Republican lawmakers and their political base at a time when the phone and cable industry has been lobbying Washington against open-internet safeguards, including funding a […]
Posted inOp-Ed
Free Press Action Applauds House Passage of Infrastructure Bill
WASHINGTON — On Friday, the House of Representatives passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (or “IIJA”), a $1.2-trillion deal that the Senate passed in August. The bill touches on a wide range of spending projects and infrastructure-policy priorities, including more than $40 billion for broadband deployment and $14.2 billion for broadband-affordability measures. That affordability […]
Posted inUS
More Than 100 Organizations and Community Leaders Demand That the FCC Investigate Decades of Racism in Media Policies
On Monday, more than 100 organizations and community leaders called on the Federal Communications Commission to investigate the history of racism in its media policies and identify reparative actions the agency can take to redress the structural racism that exists in the U.S. media system. In a letter sent to Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, […]
Posted inUS
Communications Infrastructure Is as Essential as Levees, Bridges and Roads to Keeping People Safe During Climate Disasters
Hurricane Ida left large swaths of Louisiana without reliable cellphone services, including the complete loss of services in two of the parishes directly in the storm’s path. In addition, more than 300,000 homes lost cable and wireline services, according to Federal Communications Commission data released on Monday. The region’s 911 call center was knocked out as well; […]
Posted inUS
New York Attorney General Finds the Broadband Industry Funded Illegal Scheme to Flood the Trump FCC with False Comments Against Net Neutrality
WASHINGTON — On Thursday, the New York Attorney General’s office announced that its multi-year investigation found that the nation’s largest broadband companies funded a secret multimillion-dollar campaign to influence the Federal Communication Commissions’ 2017 repeal of Net Neutrality rules and Title II classification of broadband internet-access service. The scheme resulted in millions of fake comments […]
Posted inUS
Advocates, Elected Officials Urge Facebook to Address the Spanish-Language Disinformation Crisis
WASHINGTON, March 16, 2021— On Tuesday, a coalition of racial-justice and platform-accountability organizations joined members of Congress to demand that Facebook fix its Spanish-language content-moderation gap, a crisis that is pushing extreme disinformation and hate to Spanish-speaking communities in the United States. Participating organizations, including Free Press, the Center for American Progress, the National Hispanic […]
Posted inOp-Ed
Craig Aaron: Congress Can’t Help Journalism Unless it Confronts the Power of Big Tech and Big Media
WASHINGTON, March 12, 2021 — At a House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on Friday, industry and labor representatives debated how to best solve the crisis in journalism. The hearing addressed the recently introduced Journalism Competition and Preservation Act — which would exempt publishers and broadcasters from antitrust rules, allowing them to collude in negotiations for […]
Posted inUS
Appeals Court Rejects Trump FCC Attempt to Scrap Media-Ownership Limits
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 23, 2019 — On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit delivered a forceful rebuke of the Federal Communications Commission and overturned the agency’s latest attempts to eliminate long-standing limits on local-media ownership. An alliance of public-interest groups — Common Cause, the Communications Workers of America, Free Press, the Media […]
Posted inUS
House Passes Save the Internet Act in Response to Strong and Bipartisan Public Support for Net Neutrality
WASHINGTON, April 10, 2019 — On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the Save the Internet Act (H.R. 1644), voting to restore the strong Net Neutrality rules and Title II legal framework for broadband in the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order. A companion bill introduced in the U.S. Senate in early March is also gathering […]
Posted inUS
In Big Win for Open-Internet Advocates, Senate Votes to Undo 2017 Net Neutrality Repeal
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2018 — On Wednesday, the Senate voted 52–47 in favor of a resolution of disapproval that would overturn the Federal Communications Commission’s unpopular 2017 repeal of Net Neutrality protections. The resolution, introduced by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, would roll back the rule change, set to take effect June 11, and restore internet-user […]
Posted inUS
Net Neutrality Supporters Announce Operation #OneMoreVote on Feb. 27
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2018 — Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and Free Press Action Fund, which have organized many of the largest online protests in history, have announced Operation #OneMoreVote, an internet-wide day of action on Feb. 27. On this day, internet users, small businesses, online communities, public-interest groups and popular websites will harness […]
Posted inOp-Ed
Matt Wood: Chairman Pai Tries to Rewrite Legal History of Net Neutrality with Bogus FTC Agreement
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2017 — On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission released a draft “Memorandum of Understanding” (MoU) on the ways the two agencies will allegedly work together to protect internet users after the FCC guts the open-internet protections in a vote on Dec. 14. In a statement accompanying the […]
Posted inUS
Nation’s Leading Press Freedom and Civil Liberties Groups Call on FCC to Abandon Its Attack on Net Neutrality
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2017 — On Thursday afternoon, more than 30 press freedom, civil liberties and open government groups submitted a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai urging him to cancel the scheduled Dec. 14 vote to undermine the open-internet protections put in place in 2015. “You must not abandon Net Neutrality,” the […]
Posted inUS
Trump FCC Eliminates Local Broadcast Main Studio Requirement in a Handout to Sinclair That Will Harm Local Communities
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 2017 — The FCC voted on Tuesday to eliminate the “main studio rule,” which requires TV and radio broadcasters to maintain studios in or near the communities they serve. The party-line vote was led by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who has close ties to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the rule […]
Posted inUS
Trump’s FCC Advances Scheme to Gut Open-Internet Protections and End Net Neutrality
WASHINGTON, May 18, 2017 — On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines to begin a rulemaking process in order to jettison Title II protections and once again place broadband-access providers under Title I of the Communications Act — a move that would undermine the sound and successful basis for the FCC’s landmark […]