Media Center

Today, the Federal Communications Commission issued a Hearing Designation Order referring certain questions regarding the TEGNA-Standard General-Apollo Global Management before an Administrative Law Judge. The Order specifically questions how the transaction could artificially raise prices for consumers and result in newsroom job losses. Common Cause has filed a petition to deny and other pleadings opposed to this merger.

In recent weeks, industry and big money opposition have continued to run a smear campaign to stall Gigi Sohn’s confirmation to serve as FCC commissioner. These attacks have now turned to a more bigoted and hateful nature in an effort to keep the FCC deadlocked. A deadlocked FCC is unable to advance key priorities that address the communications needs of all households. Common Cause calls on the Senate to condemn these attacks and rapidly confirm her to the FCC.

Facebook has once again missed the opportunity to be the adult in the room when it comes to checking the clear and present danger that Donald Trump poses to the nation on social media. Instead, the company and its founder Mark Zuckerberg decided to try to plunge headlong into a race to the bottom with Elon Musk and Twitter, irrespective of the threat to public safety and national security.

Today, Common Cause submitted comments in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on the harms stemming from commercial surveillance and whether new rules are needed to protect people’s privacy and information. The comments highlight the unique harms to democracy and civil rights caused by modern commercial surveillance practices and put forward solutions for how the FTC can adequately address these harms. 

Last week, Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Soon after closing the deal, Musk fired Twitter’s top executives including its CEO, CFO, General Counsel, and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety. More layoffs are expected to be made in the coming days. 

Civil rights, democracy, and public interest groups are calling out the major social media companies for not doing enough to combat election disinformation and urging them to take steps to combat and curb the rampant problem in the final weeks before this year’s midterm elections. In a letter to the CEOs of Meta (Facebook), Twitter, YouTube, Snap, Instagram, TikTok, and Alphabet, the groups urged the platforms to do more to combat the proliferation of election disinformation on their platforms with a particular focus on combatting the ‘Big Lie’, preventing disinformation targeting non-English speaking communities, and creating more friction to reduce the distribution of content containing electoral disinformation.