Today’s political arena tolerates hypocrisies with a greater degree of acceptance than many would like, though the public absolutely draws a line at shady backroom deal-making.
This is why we ought to be aghast at the process surrounding Gigi Sohn’s nomination to the FCC. Recently, Sohn announced that, if confirmed, she would recuse herself for several years on matters related to retransmission consent or television broadcast copyright. These issues are of great importance to FCC and to broadcasters, and broadcasters were worried about Sohn’s record on them.
Sohn had been in hot water about these matters since late 2021. In November of 2021, the National Association of Broadcasters expressed that while they did “not currently oppose the nomination of Gigi Sohn, we have serious concerns about her involvement as one of three directors of the illegal streaming service Locast.” That streaming service had essentially fleeced the broadcasters by illegally streaming their content for free. Sohn was a board member and supported the activity.
Thereafter, Sohn’s nomination hit choppy waters, and suddenly, she couldn’t be on the wrong side of the broadcasters anymore. Thus, her recent gambit: Recusing herself from big issues pertaining to broadcasters.
Her recent bending-of-the-knee led to this: “NAB appreciates Ms. Sohn’s willingness to seriously consider our issues regarding retransmission consent and broadcast copyright, and to address those concerns in her recusal. We look forward to the Senate moving forward with Ms. Sohn’s confirmation and are eager to work with her and the full complement of commissioners in the very near future.”
From “serious concerns” to “eager”—welcome to rank regulatory corruption in 2022. Here is the bottom line: An embattled nominee for a regulatory position just announced that she would not regulate so that she could comfortably earn her regulatory posting. There is a fitting Latin expression for this, one that doesn’t wear well in the halls of Congress: A quid pro quo.
To put it bluntly, Sohn’s job as an FCC Commissioner would be to regulate the broadcast industry. And yet, at a moment of maximum peril for her nomination, she promised the broadcast industry that she’d be hands-off for a few years.
Set aside the flagrantly unethical nature of this. Consider a more practical problem with Sohn recusing herself on retransmission and copyright issues, a conundrum best articulated by the Wall Street Journal: “These subjects consume a large share of the FCC’s regulatory bandwidth, which means the agency could be deadlocked for good or ill on many issues.”
The decision to press ahead with Sohn’s nomination is a galling dereliction of duty. There are issues of real concern including media ownership, retransmission, and broadcast copyrights that require a fully operational Commission. By giving up her ability to regulate broadcasters on these issues, Sohn has neutered her own position—even before she’s been confirmed. And because she’d have to refrain from voting on these matters, she’s also neutered the FCC.
This is unacceptable. There were already questions swirling about Sohn’s backroom wheeling-and-dealing and her questionable record on minority media ownership, among other worries. But this quid pro quo is simply the last straw. Congress cannot and should not move forward with a nominee for a regulatory position who has abdicated all regulatory authority.
There are certainly other qualified nominees for the FCC post. Perhaps most importantly, any new candidates shouldn’t campaign for the job by saying they won’t do the job. This FCC Commission seat should be filled by a regulator who can actually regulate.
Technology
Tech Leaders Need To Push Trump On These Three Major Issues
By Kish Rajan
In the wake of the presidential election, Silicon Valley is in a deeply awkward position. Almost the entire tech industry backed Hillary Clinton, but Donald Trump is the one who is about to enter the Oval Office.
This may sting but tech leaders can’t just dismiss the new administration. For one thing, the federal government is a giant technology customer. In 2015 Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Dell brought in a combined $14 billion in revenue from government contracts.
The federal government also has the regulatory power to make the lives of tech executives easier or much, much harder. Many fear that we’re in for the latter. Trump has hinted at starting a trade war with China, which is both a cheap manufacturer and a giant customer for tech companies. Clamping down on immigration could stem the tide of bright foreign entrepreneurs who have helped build some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley. And Trump has called net neutrality a “top-down power grab” so Title II may be reversed.
But there are still places where tech leaders might be able to influence the President-elect and his transition team in order to help the tech industry. Here are three things executives should push for in the upcoming meeting:
Universal Broadband
One of Trump’s biggest selling points was his promise to bring jobs back to the many communities that have been hurt by the slow death of manufacturing in this country. But short of a miracle, he’s not going to be able to bring back manufacturing jobs.
Instead, he should focus on bringing those communities into the modern age with increased access to fast, reliable broadband. By making sure that everyone has access to the internet, he’ll help people advance their education, apply for jobs online and even build new businesses. In this digital age, living without broadband is a serious hardship for anyone who wants to do better for themselves.
By creating incentives for private investment by broadband service providers to expand the footprint of their offerings, speed their networks and reach a point of saturation, the president-elect would go a long way in not only modernizing America, but also creating jobs in the process. The appetite for investment, backed by incentives to increase capex, would send a strong signal to America that communications and tech inclusivity is the path toward prosperity.
Infrastructure Improvement
During the campaign, Trump proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure-improvement plan to put people to work fixing the nation’s highways, bridges, tunnels and airports. Assuming he continues to cite this as a priority for his new administration, the tech industry should push to have a seat at this table. Instead of simply building roads and patching decaying infrastructure, we should build smart roads that have built-in sensors to track everything from traffic to whether a road needs immediate maintenance. Insights from big data can help improve traffic flow and adjust speed limits to ease congestion and increase safety.
And the digital infrastructure that is mostly invisible should be a part of that plan. Consumers favor modern networks that fuel their smartphones and mobile devices, as the reliance on the antiquated landline telephone networks diminishes by record amounts every quarter. By incentivizing private deployment and decreasing barriers to buildout, we also create a digital superhighway that will promote many new businesses not just in California, but in every part of the country. The administration should also champion the idea of “dig once” which would mandate that pipes for fiber optic cables be laid down any time there is a federally-funded highway project. This will eliminate the need for teams to dig and re-dig streets every time wires need to be upgraded, which is costly and inconvenient for drivers. It’s time to revive this dormant policy opportunity.
Develop the Workforce
If this country is going to get serious about creating more jobs, it needs to start at the education level. Too many people are entering the workforce without the skills they need to succeed in the digital age and a rapidly changing economy. Improving our education system by increasing the emphasis on STEM education would be a good start.
But Trump also needs to acknowledge that immigrants are building some of our biggest tech companies, which are also creating jobs. Elon Musk, whose Tesla cars and batteries are made in America, is from South Africa. Google employs 62,000 people in the U.S. alone. That company’s co-founder, Sergey Brin, was born in Russia, and its CEO, Sundar Pichai, was born in India. The startups founded by immigrants should remain U.S.-based. Curtailing immigration is a short-sighted solution, and the hope is that the tech industry can underscore this thought in a powerful way. Comprehensive immigration reform may be off the table, but that doesn’t mean that improvements cannot be made to the current system in order to continue the flow of bright engineers and innovators to the America.
While tech leaders are likely to have many concerns about the new administration, they need to pick their battles. By focusing on these three areas, they can appeal to Trump’s campaign promises, especially around creating new jobs, while helping to maintain the health of the whole tech industry.