The Facebook Oversight Board is reviewing a manipulated video of President Joe Biden to determine whether the platform is properly handling political misinformation, the board announced Monday. A Facebook user posted an altered, seven-second video of Biden in May. The original video showed Biden participating in early in-person voting in October 2022 during the midterm elections. Biden placed an “I Voted” sticker on his granddaughter, above her chest as she requested and kissed her on the cheek. According to the board, the altered version showed a loop of the moment Biden touched his granddaughter’s chest. “The altered video plays to a short excerpt of the song ‘Simon Says’ by Pharoahe Monch, which has the lyric ‘Girls rub on your titties,’” the board said. The video’s caption said Biden is a “sick pedophile” and “mentally unwell.” A user reported the content, but Meta chose not to remove it because the company’s community standards apply to videos “generated by artificial intelligence or to those in which a subject is shown saying words they did not say,” the board said. The board selected the case to “assess whether Meta’s policies adequately cover altered videos that could mislead people into believing politicians have taken actions, outside of speech, that they have not,” the board said.
Country of origin cases
Consumers have reported losing $2.7 billion to social media-originating scams since 2021, the FTC said Friday. That compares with $2 billion in reported losses on non-social media websites and apps, $1.9 billion via phone, $900 million via email and $600 million via text. Statistics from the first half of 2023 show 44% of consumer reports in the social media category involved online shopping fraud. Most of the reports were filed by people “who never received the items they ordered after responding to an ad on Facebook or Instagram,” the agency said. Investment schemes were 20% of social media loss reports, and romance scams were 6%, the FTC said.
A Pennsylvania House committee advanced a bipartisan bill on “ghost poles” Tuesday amid a push to increase telecom accountability by six Republicans from rural districts. The bills respond to constituents’ many complaints about Frontier Communications, state legislators said in interviews last week.
A hearing over allegedly false transfers of control by the owners of several low-power radio and television stations is set for Oct. 1, 2024, said an order from FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin posted in docket 23-267 Monday (see 2308110063). The proceeding concerns allegations Antonio Guel transferred the stations to his niece, Jennifer Juarez, to avoid including the stations in a bankruptcy filing, although he remained in control of them. Since the hearing designation order's (HDO) August release, Juarez has waived her right to participate in the hearing and surrendered the licenses, and Guel has submitted documentation showing that his company targeted in the HDO, the Hispanic Christian Community Network, has been dissolved. In Monday’s order, Halprin ruled that due to those events, the hearing proceeding would continue forward on only some of the matters originally listed in the HDO, focusing on Guel’s alleged misrepresentation and fitness to hold an FCC license. In Monday’s order, Halprin also noted broadcast attorney Dan Halpert’s representation of both Juarez and Guel, along with the possibility he could be called as a witness in the proceeding, could create conflicts of interest and mean Guel would need another attorney. “Resolution of any client conflicts is primarily Mr. Alpert’s duty, but the Presiding Judge raises the issue at this early stage of the proceeding to forestall any potential future delay that conflict issues might cause,” the order said. Alpert didn’t comment.
The FCC Wireless Bureau granted part of what Alaska’s GCI sought on drive testing of the speeds available on its wireless network. The tests are required under the FCC’s Alaska Plan. “For all but four grid cells raised in GCI’s … petitions, we waive the 15 mph threshold for in-motion drive tests,” the Friday order said: “For those 25 grid cells, we will accept GCI’s original drive test results. For one grid cell on Adak Island, we allow GCI to perform testing in a proxy grid cell.” The bureau dismissed as now moot GCI’s request for a waiver to permit drone testing in two grid cells. The bureau also granted an extension until Nov. 1 of GCI’s deadline for completing drive retesting in three grid cells in Utqiagvik.
The FCC's draft NPRM that would kick off the agency's efforts to reestablish net neutrality rules largely mirrored the commission's 2015 order, according to our analysis of the draft. Commissioners will consider the item during an October open meeting that will include a full commission for the first time under Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel despite a potential government shutdown (see 2309270056). Meanwhile, FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington said the FCC’s net neutrality push is not about protecting free speech but about protecting some tech companies.
The FCC's abdicating its internet oversight authority in 2017 largely neutered the agency's ability to protect online privacy and to require ISPs to address lengthy outages, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Tuesday as she announced the agency was moving to take that authority back. Reclassification of broadband as a service under Title II would end having to often jury-rig legal justifications for actions the agency is taking, she said, saying October's agenda will include a draft NPRM on reinstating the agency's 2015 net neutrality rules. The move met loud criticism, including from inside the FCC, as well as support.
E-rate groups, industry and state officials welcomed the FCC's proposals to expand access to the program and streamline its requirements, in comments posted Tuesday in docket 02-6. Commissioners adopted the Further NPRM in July as part of an order expanding access to E-rate for tribal libraries (see 2307200041). Some sought more guidance on certain rules and more flexibility for applicants seeking category two support.
APCO Chief Counsel Jeff Cohen urged the FCC to “proceed as soon as possible” on rules requiring location-based routing for wireless calls to 911 (see 2309110042), in a meeting with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Cohen also raised related rules on next-generation 911 communications, said a filing posted Monday in docket 21-479. “The Commission must approach rules for NG9-1-1 in a manner that promotes a common understanding of the public safety community’s goals and expectations for NG9-1-1 and does not conflict with the comprehensive vision and definitions outlined in pending federal NG9-1-1 funding legislation,” APCO said: “The single most important step the Commission can take would be to adopt requirements for achieving interoperability between originating service providers and 9-1-1 service providers, and among 9-1-1 service providers.”
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission properly decided that FirstEnergy charged unlawfully high pole-attachment rates to Verizon, a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court majority decided Thursday. The PUC also appropriately determined the length of retroactive relief, despite Verizon’s arguments that refunds should go further back.