Online Child Protection Initiative Collides with End of Government-Funded Internet Discount Program

This week on FOX 11 News In Depth, Hal delves into the initiative aimed at shielding children from online exploitation. As April draws to a close, households enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program will witness an increase in their internet bills as this government-funded program comes to its end. Launched towards the conclusion of 2021, it provided monthly discounts worth $30 for eligible families across America. The most recent figures published by states indicate that approximately three million households were partaking in this initiative prior to February’s cutoff date for new applications (February 7). Concurrently, internet service providers have begun increasing their prices independently. For instance, some AT&T clients received notifications of a $5 monthly price hike starting June 9th last week. The Affordable Connectivity Program will witness the conclusion of final payments in May since it has already run out of funds; as such, eligible households were also entitled to receive up to a one-time discount worth a hundred dollars when acquiring laptop or desktop computers/tablets from participating providers provided they contributed more than $10 and less than $50 towards the purchase price. The program’s termination comes at an unfortunate time for numerous states, as per statistics disclosed by the White House, Louisiana is set to be most widely affected since approximately 30% of households are enrolled in this initiative. This vital scheme has come to a halt because Congress failed to approve the request made last October (2023) that requested an extension for funding worth $6 billion. The Affordable Connectivity Program, which is part and parcel of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law implemented during 2021, initially received $14.2bn in financing.