For almost a decade, Public Knowledge has been a leader in training diverse early career advocates for a future in public policymaking, putting them in positions to have their voices included in the making of laws and regulations. Public Knowledge’s training program is an immersive experience where early career fellows learn by working side-by-side with […]

Public Knowledge has long sought to support independent programmers because a media landscape dominated by programming created by major corporations will not reward creativity, give a voice to marginalized groups, or help foster informed public debate.  This is why the story of One America News Network (OAN) is sad. There are some murky details about […]

Last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) announced more than $1 billion in funding to promote meaningful broadband access in rural, Tribal, and socially vulnerable communities. This program has the potential to deliver robust, affordable broadband to rural and Tribal communities that is essential to their civic, economic, and educational livelihoods. […]

The Federal Trade Commission recently published its report on the privacy practices of the six major Internet Service Providers and three advertising affiliates associated with the major ISPs. The FTC observed that: Many of the ISPs… amass large pools of sensitive consumer data. Many of the ISPs… gather and use data in ways consumers do […]

“Facebook and Big Tech are facing a Big Tobacco moment, a moment of reckoning. The parallel is striking. I sued Big Tobacco as Connecticut’s attorney general; I helped to lead the states in that legal action and I remember very, very well the moment in the course of our litigation when we learned of those […]

In middle school, I played Alice in our school’s production of Alice and Wonderland. Back then I had blonde hair, and most importantly, could memorize more lines than most of my peers. At the end of the play, I had to defend the Knave of Hearts for his alleged burglary of the Queen of Hearts’ […]

Frances Haugen, the (hopefully first of many) Facebook whistleblower, made one thing abundantly clear this week in both her 60 Minutes interview and her Senate Hearing: The United States needs a specialized agency to oversee digital platforms. Antitrust enforcement alone is not enough. Breaking up Facebook would solve some problems, but without additional oversight it […]

The COVID-19 pandemic upended life in March 2020. Almost everything was forced online to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, and libraries were not exempted. When the pandemic hit, many libraries were forced to get creative on how to safely interact with their patrons. Libraries had started to invest in enabling online access to […]

Facebook is in trouble. Or perhaps more accurately, it should be in trouble, but it’s really not. A deluge of negative headlines have bombarded the social media giant over the past few weeks. Their products are negatively impacting teen girls’ mental health and are directly linked to suicides. The company is making its users angrier […]

Last year, Epic Games sued Apple, arguing — among other things —that its restrictions on app store payments for digital goods were anticompetitive. Last week, a California judge ruled partly in Epic’s favor. The outcome in the Epic v. Apple trial is good for developers and users. It falls well short of bringing about the […]