Global digital rights advocates are watching to see if Congress acts, worried that other countries could follow suit with app bans of their own.

  • isles@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Isn’t broadcast licensing specifically about partitioning radio spectrum space, which isn’t applicable here? US-based social media isn’t licensed and applying radio era law to internet may not be appropriate.

    • Alex@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      From the UK perspective broadcasters have a license to broadcast and are regulated by ofcomm. I thought the FCC had similar oversight of the US broadcasters - for example not being keen on swearing and sex on TV. For UK news programmes there is a requirement to be balanced for example.

      • isles@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Most assuredly, the licensing of the spectrum comes with requirements and strings, so those broadcasters are regulated. They must follow the rules or risk their license.

        However, radio licensing came about to avoid broadcast “collisions” for amateur radio operators in ~1912. Regulations came later under the FCC in 1934.

        These same collisions are not applicable to the internet (or rather, we’ve already used methods to avoid them, like DNS).