Interesting Policy Reads: Section 230, End of the Broadband Pledge, and the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification

With our "Interesting Policy Reads" blog posts, the EDUCAUSE Policy Office highlights recent articles on federal policy issues and developments that are directly relevant to members or provide insights on higher education policy in general.

• Coronavirus Lockdowns Spark Boom in Online Learning for Adults, Too, The Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2020. (Adults are making time to learn new skills during quarantine, prompting instructors to conduct lessons on online platforms like Skillshare and Udemy.)
• House Republicans Call for Digital Divide Hearing, Multichannel News, June 4, 2020. (Reps. Greg Walden and Bob Latta are urging the House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold a hearing on the digital divide in light of the coronavirus outbreak, notwithstanding a broadband and digital equity hearing the committee held prior to the pandemic.)
• A Landmark Open-Access Agreement, Inside Higher Ed, June 17, 2020. (The University of California system announced an open-access deal with Springer Nature, where rather than paying for employees and students to read research in the publisher's journals, the UC system will instead pay for their researchers to publish openly in Springer Nature journals, thereby removing paywalls for everyone.)
• Justice Dept. Urges Rolling Back Legal Shield for Tech Companies, The New York Times, June 17, 2020. (The US Justice Department is calling on lawmakers to make changes to the Communications Decency Act—specifically Section 230—that would permit civil lawsuits for social media posts that contain certain harmful content and end immunity for other content, including child exploitation and abuse, terrorist content, and cyberstalking.)
• College Programs in Prisons Go Remote, Inside Higher Ed, June 18, 2020. (As COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has ravaged prisons, the pandemic has forced many college programs in correctional facilities to either suspend instruction or utilize limited internet access and devices to sync to a learning management system.)
• End of Broadband Pledge Could Cut Lifelines for Families, Axios, June 23, 2020. (The pledges that internet service providers took to retain service for consumers who are unable to pay their bills will end on June 30, but the Federal Communications Commission has asked providers to set up payment plans for customers who are still unable to pay in lieu of disconnecting them altogether.)
• The DOD Wants Better Cybersecurity for Its Contractors. The First Steps Haven't Been Easy, FedScoop, June 23, 2020. (Some outside observers believe the US Department of Defense has a long way to go in getting the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification [CMMC] off the ground, citing concerns with the program's fifteen-person volunteer board, which is tasked with overseeing the Accreditation Body of the CMMC.)

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Kathryn Branson is a Senior Associate with Ulman Public Policy.