from the protecting-kids-by-hurting-kids dept
Back in June, Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr announced he’d be reviewing the FCC E-Rate program with an eye on “reforms.” Generally, when Brendan Carr promises “reforms,” usually what he means is either “I’m going to destroy this program,” or “I’m going to illegally make changes to this congressionally-mandated program that ensures telecom giants like AT&T get more money with less accountability.”
E-Rate is a historically bipartisan and uncontroversial program that helps bring affordable broadband to rural libraries, schools, and communities. While it has had some issues with fraud at times (almost always at the hands of private companies), the program generally does a lot of good in bringing affordable internet access into communities neglected by telecom monopolies.
Without it, or under a pared down version, schools and rural schoolkids would be more inclined to have to rely on what regional telecom monopolies deem appropriate, which is usually either over-priced broadband, or nothing at all.
Carr’s June announcement proclaimed he was “taking a look” at the program because he’s worried about kids having too much “screen time”:
“Over the last several years—and especially during COVID—many schools dramatically increased screen time for kids, with many students now swiping for hours every day. Research has now been pouring in that America’s experiment with heightened screen time in schools may be related to the negative educational outcomes we are now seeing in classrooms across the country—from declining academic performance to diminished reading comprehension skills.”
That’s quite the act of misdirection. For one, the FCC doesn’t regulate “screen time,” so you’ve once again got Carr wandering into areas he should have no say in. Which is weird for a guy who has endlessly complained of “government overreach” every single time previous FCCs have tried to bolster broadband telecom consumer protection (see: net neutrality) or prevent harmful media consolidation.
E-Rate was also mandated by Congress. Much like other recent actions (like Carr’s illegal dismantling of media consolidation limits), Carr is pretending he’s only making modest tweaks to existing systems, so he can pretend he’s not openly breaking the law.
Carr’s FCC is also pretending to be seriously fielding comments on his upcoming E-Rate rule changes. Librarian organizations this week filed their input defending E-Rate, correctly noting that Carr’s obsession with “screen time” is a straw man designed to misdirect attention from the potential harm of gutting a useful subsidy program.
From the Education and Libraries Networks Coalition (EdLiNC):
“E-Rate was established by Congress for a specific purpose – to ensure affordable connectivity for schools and libraries, and that mission must remain the focus of this proceeding. For nearly three decades, E-Rate has been successful in connecting students, educators, and library patrons in rural, suburban, and urban communities alike.
Questions about curriculum, instructional practice, or student behavior should not be used to undermine a proven program that helps schools and libraries maintain the networks modern education depends on.“
This sort of stuff doesn’t really get press attention, but it matters all the same.
The E-Rate program spends about $3 billion a year driving affordable broadband into parts of the country left high-and-dry by the regional telecom monopolies Carr refuses to regulate. While there is sometimes fraud in programs like this, the vast majority of the time it’s caused by private companies that Carr, again, refuses to competently regulate and is afraid to stand up to.
Were you seriously interested in reforming these programs, you’d start doing audits of major companies like AT&T, which have a long history of defrauding these and other initiatives. Instead, Carr’s trying to shift the focus to the idea that taxpayers are funding internet access that’s delivering “harmful content” to kids, which, if you’ve tracked Brendan Carr’s censorial extremism, should be a huge red flag.
I suspect there are several motivations here. One being big telecoms like AT&T that want E-rate revamped in a way that financially benefits them. The other being Carr and the right wing extremist mission to extend their censorship and ideological dominance into every aspect of American life, starting with the classroom, where they’re compelled to root out any and all criticism of right wing ideology.
This is how he framed his new plan for E-Rate reforms on a recent appearance on Fox News:
“There are school districts that have read our law as only requiring them to put Internet safety procedures in place on the devices that the school owns. If you bring your own device to a network supported by this program, you don’t necessarily have any filters on where you can go. Kids are ultimately finding pornography, and that’s a problem.”
To be clear, schools already employ filtering systems. Some work, some don’t. The nature of these systems is such that they not only tend to over-filter content, but they’re generally easy to bypass.
Still, it’s not the FCC’s job to determine what content is acceptable, or even to manage kid “screen time” on personally-owned devices. That’s not only an unworkable game of whack-a-mole that would waste a lot of taxpayer money, that’s the precise sort of weird overreach Carr (and Republicans, and “free market” Libertarians) have whined about for as long as I’ve been alive.
But as with so much Republican “policy,” the pretense that they’re protecting kids helps obscure the fact they’re actively hurting them. In this case by making already shaky U.S. broadband even more expensive and spotty in long-neglected rural, minority, and lower-income areas.
Filed Under: brendan carr, broadband, e-rate, fcc, high speed internet, libraries, students, telecom