Privacy, Net Neutrality Legislation Could Break Political Logjam, Comcast's Cohen Says
Federal legislation on privacy and net neutrality could be the common ground that helps break the balkanization and incivility endemic in politics, Comcast Chief Diversity Officer David Cohen told a Media Institute event Thursday. The rapid pace of technological and societal change needs to be met with a return of civility in political discourse and universal connectivity to facilitate training people to hold down post-artificial intelligence jobs and an embracing of diversity, he said. He argued public spending on broadband connectivity for underserved areas is likely being wasted.
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Accelerating societal change is helping polarize political debate when Congress needs to act on issues like upgrading national infrastructure and on immigration reform, Cohen said. But there's broad consensus on privacy and net neutrality issues, and federal regimes for both make more sense than patchwork approaches of state by state, he said.
Cohen said a major "but scary" technological advance is the development of AI and the implications of massive job loss in the U.S. China's pushing heavily on AI development and is poised to reap most of the major economic benefits, the executive said. He said the U.S. will need the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for workforce retraining and modernization in response to AI.
Much political rhetoric and media coverage over the digital divide focuses on the lack of rural deployment, yet the majority of Americans not connected are in urban and suburban areas where they have broadband access but don't subscribe, Cohen said. Those connectivity issues don't need government intervention, he said: Public dollars need to focus exclusively on unserved areas instead of underserved. He said programs like the internet literacy training provided through Comcast's low-income Internet Essentials offering, and other connectivity programs from other ISPs, are better suited for tackling the issue of the underserved who don't sign up. He said public money for broader deployments need to be distributed on a competitive basis, such as through reverse auctions.
Cohen cited Comcast's inclusiveness bona fides -- pointing to the diversity of 40 percent of its board, 62 percent of its workforce and more than half its vice presidents and above -- and said rhetoric about its current legal fight with Entertainment Studios has been "distasteful and, yes, offensive." He said ES has been "posturing for personal financial gain." The Supreme Court heard oral argument Wednesday on ES litigation against the MVPD (see 1911130024).
ES founder/owner Byron Allen told us Comcast is "a bully [that] has made a lot of enemies." The cable operator could have settled what otherwise would have been "a typical carriage dispute" without going to SCOTUS, Allen said. That potentially could eviscerate civil rights protections, he worries.
Asked if there needs to be stronger antitrust prosecution of edge providers, Cohen said it's outmoded to think of them strictly as competitors. He wants them subject to the same antitrust oversight as any other company.