We are in the middle of the silly season and social networking sites will be abuzz this week as the Democratic Party kicks off its national convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s a good time to have a broadband connection as the activity on Twitter showed last week during the Republican Party’s convention in Tampa, Florida. Whether you support the GOP or not, if you are an avid political geek as yours truly, you were definitely getting in your two cents on how well the Republicans were making their case for whether they should be allowed four years in the White House.

Pew Research recently released an assessment of how all this tweeting and Facebook posting is impacting political discourse in America. Overall, the report found that postings to social networking sites are having some impact on political views, especially among people who identify themselves as Democrats or liberals. According to Pew Research, 24% of liberal social network site users and 18% of moderate social network site users said that use of social network sites have prompted them to change their political views. Only 11% of conservatives who use social network sites are prompted to change their views as a result of interacting online.

In addition, 25% of social network users have become more active as a result of using social network sites. Sixteen percent of social network site users have changed their political views as a result of interacting on the sites. Nine percent of social network site users took the opposite turn and became less engaged with political discussion as a result of postings online.

Oh well. Happy tweeting and see you tonight online at least.

Public Knowledge, one of the Dark Lords of the Progressive Sith, filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to deny confidential treatment of a joint operating agreement between Verizon and SpectrumCo and Verizon and Cox. Verizon wants to purchase spectrum from these two entities in exchange for the cross selling of each other’s services.

Public Knowledge believes that the FCC should not apply confidential treatment to information about the companies’ governance structure under their joint agreement. Public Knowledge argues that the information does not consist of trade secrets or any other information that if released would harm either of the companies’ competitive positions.

My take is, how does removing confidential treatment help the FCC make a better decision about the optimal use of a natural resource. Public Knowledge argues that keeping the information confidential may stifle innovation, and stifling innovation threatens of the public interest. Public Knowledge is probably taking some comfort in hiding behind a concept, the public interest, that has successfully avoid a concrete definition for decades if not the past couple centuries.

This comfort is more apparent when you consider that Public Knowledge, the group bringing the assertion, brings no quantitative analysis to justify its position. How do we know that keeping a joint operations agreement confidential will drive up costs for consumers? Will making its details public increase the likelihood of broadband adoption?

So quick is Public Knowledge to cite the Freedom of Information Act, it feels like they are simply happy to forego the consumer welfare analysis good public policy requires. First address quantitatively or qualitatively the consume harm. Then move to analyzing any barriers to market entry failure to act may cause or help maintain. Jumping to a FOIA analysis, though acceptable by jurisprudential warriors, only tells me that Public Knowledge is more interested in being overly nosey.

Politic365.com today reported that G.K. Butterfield, Democrat of North Carolina, led over 70 Democrats in supporting AT&T, Inc.’s proposed purchase of T-Mobile USA. Seems like the congressman from the Tar Heel state is concerned with the digital divide for both rural and minority communities in his district.

Mr. Butterfield represents North Carolina’s First District which is 97.5% rural and 50.9% African American. Unlike opponents of the acquisition, who seem to only focus on how big AT&T is, Mr. Butterfield is emphasizing the increased access to broadband that the transaction may provide.

The Wall Street Journal today reports that a deal has been struck to quell the political fight between U.S. Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, and U.S. Representative Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland.

Quelling a political fight or being politically correct? The latter is what it sounds like to me. While I am sensitive to Mr. Clyburn’s status as the highest ranking African American in the United States Congress, what’s more important is his stance on net neutrality.

Mr. Clyburn’s position opposing net neutrality sends a stronger message for African Americans than just the symbolism of merely having him in the leadership. Mr. Clyburn has indicated his understanding that net neutrality does nothing for consumer welfare. Net neutrality does not reduce rates for broadband access. Net neutrality does not encourage the strategic partnerships that can aid a minority startup’s entry into the content provider market.

Given our propensity for using mobile devices to surf the Internet, the last thing the minority community needs is the higher prices that a net neutrality policy, applied to broadband access, would bring.

No, the politically correct move that Ms. Pelosi made yesterday does not give Mr. Clyburn the respect he deserves.