Today, Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the “Local Journalism Sustainability Act” to create tax credits designed to encourage citizens, small businesses, and newsrooms to sustain and support local news.

Today, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law introduced a bipartisan package of bills to invigorate competition against dominant digital platforms.

Thanks in part to the efforts of Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the coronavirus relief bill includes a provision that will make thousands of local journalism outlets newly eligible for emergency federal support under the Paycheck Protection Program.

Today, the U.S. Department of Justice issued recommendations to Congress for amending Section 230 of the Communications Act. This law states that platforms are not liable for third-party content that they carry, and can take down objectionable content without fear of lawsuits.

Yesterday, Public Knowledge sent a letter to Congress providing insight into the flow of misinformation and disinformation over social media platforms to prepare for the joint hearing on “A Country in Crisis: How Disinformation Online is Dividing the Nation.” The hearing will discuss the impact of disinformation on the American public.

Today, we’re happy to announce the latest addition to our tracking report logging digital platform responses to misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic: a “superfund for the internet” proposal. Such a fund would compel digital platforms like Google and Facebook to invest in tools our society needs to fight misinformation online — tools that have been proven during the pandemic.

Today, we’re happy to announce the launch of our newest tracking report to log digital platform responses to misinformation during this pandemic. The report monitors how major digital platforms like Twitter and Google respond to the crisis and analyzes their various approaches, helping policymakers, media, and the public to better explore what platforms are doing to combat the rising “infodemic” — a dangerous onslaught of misunderstandings, inaccurate data, and lies about the coronavirus spread rapidly online. Public Knowledge will update the tracking report weekly as the pandemic unfolds.

Today, the United States Senate voted to pass a stimulus bill, “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act,” to address the coronavirus pandemic by providing economic support for individual Americans and businesses. Unfortunately, the bill disregards broadband subsidies for low-income Americans, largely neglects broadband deployment, and rejects any requirements for broadband providers to drop data caps, overage fees, or throttling practices to keep people connected. The bill also overlooks support for local journalism, and privacy protections for geolocation and health data. Public Knowledge is very concerned that this bill misses an opportunity to help Americans on the wrong side of the digital divide during this time of crisis, as well as the local journalists they depend on.

Today, reports indicate that even as more people turn to local journalism for information on the growing coronavirus threat in their communities, local media operations are being shuttered across the nation. Public Knowledge contends that unless Congress steps in immediately to help fund local journalism, communities across the country risk losing one of their key sources of accurate information about what citizens need to know and do in response to the pandemic.

Have you heard? The COVID-19 pandemic has entered a new phase. No, it’s not the new, more contagious “super strains” of the virus, or the beginning of the vaccine rollout. It’s the shift in focus of the disinformation peddlers, from the virus itself (remember the “infodemic”?) and the 2020 election to the ramping up of […]