Free Press Action's 2024 Media and Technology Policy Platform: A Guide for Candidates and Policymakers

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People expect unfettered and affordable access to communication services — and a media system that provides accurate news and information. A significant and bipartisan majority of Americans want to make sure their communications and internet activity are private, and do not want to see discrimination or intentionally false information online.

This policy platform is a guide for candidates and policymakers seeking to uphold their constituents’ rights to connect and communicate and is supported by our members across the country, including in every state and territory.

CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

End the digital divide and make broadband affordable for everyone.

Millions of people in low-income communities and communities of color can’t afford to get online. This isn’t just a matter of building more broadband. While internet access is available to many poor families, too often it comes with terms and prices they can’t afford.

In the poll Free Press Action commissioned, we asked respondents what they would do if their home-internet bills went up $20 per month. Overall about one-quarter of respondents said they’d have to cancel their service and about half said they’d have to make cuts elsewhere in their budgets.

People need affordable high-speed internet to connect to loved ones, access educational and job opportunities, use telehealth care, work from home, learn about government services, organize for change and stay informed about what’s happening in their communities and the world.

Candidates should expand on the successes of previous administrations in this realm. Beginning in 2022, the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) subsidized access to high-speed internet for as many as one in six U.S. households. The ACP subsidized the cost of access for millions of people living below the federal poverty line or enrolled in federal aid programs like Medicaid and SNAP.

The administration is also investing billions of dollars to make broadband available and affordable to unserved and underserved communities in all 50 states and U.S. territories. Candidates should embrace the position that internet access is a basic human right.

Priorities include:

  • Pass legislation to provide permanent and progressive sources of funding of at least $8 billion per year for the ACP and other affordability supports and digital-equity initiatives. This starts with passing the bipartisan Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act or other strong short-term ACP renewal legislation in 2024 to restore the program and preserve high-speed internet access for ACP enrollees through the remainder of this year.
  • Build on the success of the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program and similar efforts to continue closing broadband-access gaps with grants from general treasury funds. Lawmakers must answer questions about the future of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund (USF) in ways that harmonize important affordability programs like the ACP and Lifeline, and that sustain those programs without increasing regressive taxes on consumers who pay into USF.
  • Collect data on actual broadband prices, and use this data to make internet access more affordable.
  • Eliminate junk fees that internet service providers (ISPs) impose. These fees impose an extra burden on people struggling to afford access.
  • Support the FCC’s use of its authority in Title II of the Communications Act and in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act’s digital-discrimination prohibitions to investigate and stop ISPs’ unjust and unreasonable practices.
PROTECTING BROADBAND CONSUMERS

Uphold the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to regulate broadband and protect Net Neutrality.

In 2024, the FCC reinstated its Title II authority to oversee the most important communications infrastructure of our time. Restoring Title II means that the agency can take action when people experience exploitative prices, billing fraud, the effects of dwindling competition, privacy violations, discrimination and all manner of shady behaviors from high-speed internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon. With Title II, for example, the FCC could have stopped these companies from disconnecting people at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when everything from education to work to health care shifted online.

The agency also brought back the Obama-era Net Neutrality rules, which bar ISPs from blocking, slowing down or discriminating against legal content online.

This is a significant victory that reflects the public consensus. Millions of people spoke out in 2017 when the FCC ditched its Title II authority and repealed the Net Neutrality rules. Since then, poll after poll has shown that people across the political spectrum support Net Neutrality. A 2022 University of Maryland poll found that three in four voters — including 82 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of independents — wanted the Net Neutrality protections reinstated. Candidates must support these rules and the Title II framework needed to enforce them.

Priorities include:

  • Support the FCC’s ruling in its 2024 Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet Order to prevent discrimination in the deployment and offering of internet access.
  • Oppose any judicial, congressional or future administration efforts to overturn or undo the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s digital-discrimination prohibitions, the FCC’s Title II broadband-classification decisions or the agency’s Net Neutrality rules.
  • Support FCC enforcement actions and investigations into ISPs violating the Net Neutrality protections.
  • Fill any future vacancies at the FCC with commissioners who support Net Neutrality and Title II.
BUILDING RESILIENT COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE

Build resilient infrastructure.

The ever-worsening climate crisis has made it urgent to ensure that internet, mobile phone and other communications networks can withstand disasters. As these catastrophes have grown more severe and frequent, these networks have become increasingly vulnerable — and outages can leave people stranded when they need lifesaving assistance.

We saw this when wildfires devastated Maui in 2023 and left thousands of people without cellphone service. This made it impossible for people to call for help or connect with loved ones who were also struggling to survive.

It echoed what we saw in Puerto Rico in 2017, when Hurricane Maria reportedly knocked out 95 percent of cellphone towers on the islands. The inability to make calls or access lifesaving information contributed to the steep death toll. And there have been countless other disasters that have also wrought havoc on communication networks across the United States. Being able to connect to critical services during and after climate emergencies can literally save lives.

Priorities include: 

  • Support the Resolution Recognizing the Human Rights to Utilities, first introduced in the House of Representatives in 2022, which affirms that access to broadband, power and water are basic human rights and public services that must be accessible, safe, sufficient, affordable, justly sourced, sustainable, climate-resilient and reliable for every person.
  • Promote policies at the FCC that hold companies accountable for building resilient networks and restoring service during emergencies. These policies must prioritize the needs of communities of color — which climate change most impacts and existing infrastructure least serves. These policies must also guard against corporations exploiting future disasters for profit.
  • Support the development of decentralized, locally controlled communications networks in every city or town that seeks to exercise this choice, but especially in frontline communities.
ENDING PRISON-PHONE EXPLOITATION

Support efforts to end exorbitant prison-phone rates and stop other predatory practices.

For decades, prison-phone companies have exploited incarcerated people and their loved ones by charging astronomical rates for phone calls and video visitations. Relief came in 2022, when the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act became law. Once the resulting rules are officially in place at the Federal Communications Commission, the agency will have the authority to stop prison-telecom corporations from charging predatory rates. Candidates must support these rules and oppose any attempts to undercut them.

Priorities include:

  • Support the FCC’s efforts to implement and enforce the Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2022.
  • Oppose measures to replace in-person prison visitation with video calls. Video and phone contact must be supplements, not replacements, for in-person visits.
PROTECTING ONLINE PRIVACY AND CIVIL RIGHTS

Pass comprehensive federal privacy and civil-rights protections.

Companies track everything we do online to extract data that — no matter how innocuous it may appear in isolation — is then used to create dangerous and invasive online profiles. This information feeds powerful algorithms to target users for profit, and scammers and fraudsters can also exploit this data.

In the Free Press Action poll, 72 percent of respondents expressed concern that “tech companies are tracking what you read and watch,” and 66 percent noted worries that “state and local governments can determine your location and might use it against you.”

Abusive data practices can also be used to violate internet users’ civil rights, denying people all manner of opportunities and liberties. Online applications, targeted advertising and automated processes make more and more consequential decisions about who has access to housing, employment, education, finance, health care and other benefits. And biometric surveillance, coupled with other online tracking and profiling tools, can even restrict people’s access to public spaces.

Priorities include:

  • Pass comprehensive privacy legislation based on data-minimization principles to prohibit companies from collecting, retaining, using or selling more information and sensitive data about people than is necessary to provide the requested product or service.
  • Prohibit online platforms and other entities from collecting, processing and sharing people’s data in ways that discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability or other protected demographic categories.
  • Limit the amount of information that platforms can collect, process and share with third parties. This would limit platforms’ ability to target users of all ages with harmful content and would also protect users from abusive surveillance practices.
  • Urge the Federal Trade Commission to adopt rules enforcing existing laws against unfair and deceptive trade practices to protect people’s privacy and prevent discriminatory behavior.
  • Support FTC enforcement action when companies build generative AI products that are discriminatory or enable fraud.
  • Support FTC action when companies retroactively alter corporate policies to enable the expansion of their data-collection practices beyond what consumers initially agreed to for the purpose of receiving a specific product or service.
STOPPING UNWARRANTED GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE

Don’t let the government buy people’s private information.

For years, federal agencies have exploited legal loopholes to collect massive amounts of personal information without court orders — and without congressional or judicial authorization. Every time federal agents buy data from unregulated and exploitative data brokers, they’re arguably violating the Fourth Amendment. The law-enforcement and intelligence communities have manipulated these loopholes to create a sweeping public-private surveillance mechanism that targets immigrants, people of color, protesters, religious minorities and other vulnerable communities.

Priorities include:

  • Pass the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act, which would require federal agencies to get court orders to purchase information from data brokers on people within the United States.
  • Bar law-enforcement and intelligence agencies from buying data on people if the information was obtained from users’ accounts or devices, or via deception, hacking, or violations of a contract, privacy policy or terms of service.
  • Close loopholes that allow the intelligence community to buy metadata gathered from the international calls, texts and emails of people within the United States without a court order.
  • Close loopholes that allow the intelligence community to obtain records about U.S. residents’ browsing of foreign websites without a court order.
  • Fix Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to prevent intelligence agencies and law enforcement from searching data collected on people in the United States and on U.S. citizens abroad. The government has routinely misused foreign intelligence surveillance tools to intimidate and investigate protesters, lawmakers, journalists, judges and others in the United States.
  • End surveillance of activists exercising their First Amendment right to protest.
  • Oppose state bills seeking to restrict this right.
PREVENTING ALGORITHMIC DISCRIMINATION AND BIASED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Eliminate algorithmic discrimination.

Algorithms make assumptions and decisions about us based on our actual or perceived identities and preferences. The rise of artificial intelligence is super-charging algorithms’ problematic use of this data by moving even more consequential decisions about us out of human hands and into AI feedback loops.

These algorithms and AI models are built and trained on decades of institutionalized discrimination and segregation. They perpetuate biases that create inequitable experiences for users. While prohibiting discrimination in the context of comprehensive privacy legislation is crucial, lawmakers must take steps to prohibit discriminatory outcomes even when people’s personal data is used for purposes that privacy law otherwise permits.

Priorities include:

  • Ban algorithms that profile users and target content to them in ways that discriminate against them based on protected demographic traits, or based on other sensitive data like information on health conditions and health care.
  • Ban the use of facial-recognition technology and other biometric tracking that persistently discriminate against people of color based on inaccuracies in these poorly tested yet pervasive tools.
  • Investigate how harmful data practices violate voting rights and other civil rights.
  • Support legislation requiring companies to immediately disclose when they learn that nefarious actors are using their platform algorithms to discriminate against or otherwise harm people. Companies should face civil penalties for any persisting harms.
REQUIRING TECH TRANSPARENCY

Require transparency from social-media platforms.

Meaningful platform-accountability legislation should shed light on the ways in which social-media platforms acquire, use and retain our personal information. We deserve to know what kinds of information companies and data brokers are collecting about us, even when they are doing so for permitted purposes and in a nondiscriminatory way.

Priorities include:

  • Pass legislation to require tech companies to disclose what kinds of information they collect and where they obtain the information (which companies share data with them, and who they share data with).
  • Support legislation requiring private companies to be transparent about how they use our information, how they decide what content to show us and how they store and manage our data.
  • Support legislation requiring companies to provide transparency and data access to external stakeholders, including independent researchers, to help expose dangerous and exploitative practices.
  • Ensure that companies consistently enforce their terms of service in all languages they support or in which they have a significant user base. Companies must enforce their rules in a culturally competent and equitable manner and remove harmful content regardless of the language it appears in.
PRESERVING FREE EXPRESSION ONLINE

Keep platforms open for user-generated content while holding these companies accountable for the harms they themselves cause. Do not let the government shut down sites or silence disfavored speech.

Technology-policy debates of the last decade have featured a nuanced but sometimes confused conversation about the role that internet platforms play in fostering people’s ability to communicate and express themselves online.

Many mistakenly believe that the First Amendment protects elected leaders from critique and from having people fact-check them — or that it protects billionaire platform owners’ every utterance. What it actually does is protect people against government censorship.

The answer to keeping people safe online while keeping channels of communication open is to empower platforms to make their own content-moderation decisions. We can’t have government dictating those decisions, which would chill speech and innovation. But we also cannot pretend government has no role to play in identifying or countering disinformation, protecting people against discriminatory uses of our data, or holding platforms accountable for knowing distribution of harmful and hateful content.

Priorities include:

  • Preserve Section 230, which lowers barriers to people sharing their own content online and is critical to combating hate. If platforms were immediately subject to lawsuits for everything they host whenever they take any steps to moderate content, they would leave up more harmful content and be less willing to host content those in power deem controversial. That would disproportionately harm Black and Brown communities, LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, religious minorities and dissidents.
  • Reform Section 230 without repealing or sunsetting it, in ways that clarify platforms’ accountability for their own content and actions, as well as their potential liability for continuing to distribute harmful content once they have knowledge of those harms.
  • Oppose the forced sale and ban of TikTok, which the company and its users are currently challenging on First Amendment grounds, and recognize that such bans chill the lawful communication and expression of hundreds of millions of internet users. To combat corporate and governmental over-collection and misuse of people’s private data, pass comprehensive privacy laws and surveillance reforms that protect people on every site and app.
  • Oppose provisions in laws that are intended to protect children’s online safety, but that would allow federal and state officials to target or block topics they deem controversial or harmful, such as LGBTQIA+ materials, reproductive-rights information, or content about our country’s historical and present-day structural racism.
DIVERSIFYING MEDIA OWNERSHIP

Foster diverse media ownership and community-rooted solutions to the local-news crisis.

Our country continues to experience dramatic declines in the number of local journalists and independent newsrooms, meaning that people are getting their news from newspapers, television broadcasters and radio stations that giant corporations or hedge funds own. When out-of-touch corporations own the news, local stories — especially those of people of color and other marginalized communities — go untold. The public needs access to diverse news sources that are locally controlled and responsive to community needs.

Priorities include:

  • Support legislation to restrict broadcast-media consolidation — for example, by limiting broadcasters to owning just one television station per local market and reaching only 15 percent of the national audience.
  • Support legislation to promote media-ownership diversity — for example, by offering tax credits for station sales to women and people of color.
  • Support legislation to force all deregulatory media decisions to include an analysis of how they would impact broadcast-ownership opportunities for women and people of color.
  • Support legislation that provides grants and financial incentives for local-news outlets to remain in local hands or transition to local owners, and support new forms of ownership such as worker- or community-owned cooperatives.
  • Oppose the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) and similar bills designed to let media companies collude and exempt themselves from antitrust laws. These bills entrench the power of big corporations and hedge funds while doing little to support community news.
  • Oppose state legislation modeled on the JCPA. These state bills cannot waive antitrust law, but they still propose platforms’ forced carriage of clickbait — and then funnel the bulk of any money they might generate to the largest incumbent broadcasters and commercial media outlets instead of public, independent, ethnic and noncommercial outlets.
REVIVING LOCAL JOURNALISM

Protect journalism jobs and invest in civic media’s future.

Mass journalist layoffs, digital disruption and newsrooms’ financial struggles have created obstacles to fostering more informed communities. But the collapse of local commercial media has also ushered in an era of innovation that prioritizes community needs over corporate profits. A burgeoning civic-media movement is taking root across the country, led by forward-thinking journalists and community-centered storytellers who put the public’s needs before their own bottom lines. But to continue growing, this field needs public-policy support and more independent funding streams.

People across the political spectrum increasingly support policies that would ensure local communities have access to the journalism our democracy requires. The Free Press Action poll found that 52 percent of respondents believe we should “increase public funding to create and expand local and independent news.”

To ensure communities have the news and information they need, we need bridge policies that protect journalism jobs in different types of newsrooms now, as well as more forward-looking policies to expand our existing public-media infrastructure and invest in the growing civic-media field.

Priorities include:

  • Support legislation to tax the revenue of large online advertisers and redirect those funds to public, independent and noncommercial journalism and civic media.
  • Support the creation of publicly funded grantmaking and financing bodies that can invest in news deserts and communities that commercial media outlets don’t serve.
  • Support legislation to hire, retain and place more journalists in underserved communities, using approaches such as payroll tax credits and a national fellowship program.
  • Triple funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to make up for the loss of local journalists at commercial outlets and reorient these reporting jobs toward community and civic media. Keep public-media funding apace with what other democratic countries invest in noncommercial media.
  • Endorse states’ initiatives to fund local-news media, especially in news deserts where there are no local-news outlets that meet residents’ needs.
  • Endorse local community-engagement efforts to promote accountability and dialogue between noncommercial media and underserved communities, including communities of color.
  • Support legislation that carves out a designated path for journalism outlets to apply for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, and incentivizes commercial owners to transition to noncommercial ownership or hybrid for-profit/nonprofit models.
SECURING MEDIA REPARATIONS

Advocate for reparation proposals and reparative actions that redress the harms the media and policymakers have inflicted on Black people and Black communities.

Our nation’s most powerful media institutions, with the support of past and present government policies, have historically played a central role in undermining democracy for Black people and Black communities. They have done so by promoting anti-Black narratives that serve the political goals of upholding racial hierarchies — and by adopting policies that resulted in structural racism in our media system.

Free Press Action’s Media 2070 project documents how anti-Black racism has defined U.S. media since colonial times, when profits from the trafficking of enslaved people kept the nation’s earliest newspapers afloat. Media 2070 is calling on the government to redress how its policies have sustained an unjust media system that undermines the struggle to realize a multiracial democracy. Media and media-related institutions must also repair the harms they have caused.

Priorities include:

  • Call on the Federal Communications Commission to open an inquiry to examine how its exclusionary policies have helped create an unjust media system for Black people and other communities of color. Already 25 members of the House of Representatives have urged the agency to examine its history of racial inequity.
  • Work with reparations leaders and advocates to develop reparative proposals that redress the harms that media institutions and our media system as a whole have inflicted on Black people and Black communities.
  • Identify reparative solutions that address the critical role the government has played in creating an unjust media system.

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