Post: #1

FCC Chief Plans to repeal the 2015 Obama-era legislation guaranteeing net-neutrality to telecom clients.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-i...SKBN1DL21A

Quote:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission unveiled plans on Tuesday to repeal landmark 2015 rules that prohibited internet service providers from impeding consumer access to web content in a move that promises to recast the digital landscape.

FCC chief Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump in January, said the commission will vote at a Dec. 14 meeting on his plan to rescind the so-called net neutrality rules championed by Democratic former President Barack Obama that treated internet service providers like public utilities.

The rules barred broadband providers from blocking or slowing down access to content or charging consumers more for certain content. They were intended to ensure a free and open internet, give consumers equal access to web content and prevent broadband service providers from favoring their own content.

The action marks a victory for big internet service providers such as AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc that opposed the rules and gives them sweeping powers to decide what web content consumers can get and at what price.

It represents a setback for Google parent Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc, which had urged Pai not to rescind the rules. Netflix said Tuesday it opposed the measure to “roll back these core protections.”

With three Republican and two Democratic commissioners, the move is all but certain to be approved. Trump, a Republican, expressed his opposition to net neutrality in 2014 before the regulations were even implemented, calling it a “power grab” by Obama. The White House did not immediately comment Tuesday.

Pai said his proposal would prevent state and local governments from creating their own net neutrality rules because internet service is “inherently an interstate service.” The preemption is most likely to handcuff Democratic-governed states and localities that could have considered their own plans to protect consumers’ equal access to internet content.

“The FCC will no longer be in the business of micromanaging business models and preemptively prohibiting services and applications and products that could be pro-competitive,” Pai said in an interview, adding that the Obama administration had sought to pick winners and losers and exercised “heavy-handed” regulation of the internet.

“We should simply set rules of the road that let companies of all kinds in every sector compete and let consumers decide who wins and loses,” Pai added.

Tom Wheeler, who headed the FCC under Obama and advocated for the net neutrality rules, called the planned repeal “a shameful sham and sellout. Even for this FCC and its leadership, this proposal raises hypocrisy to new heights.”

AT&T, Comcast and Verizon have said that repealing the rules could lead to billions of dollars in additional broadband investment and eliminate the possibility that a future presidential administration could regulate internet pricing.

Comcast said no matter what the FCC decided it would “not block, throttle, or discriminate against lawful content.”

‘HEAVY COSTS’

Verizon said it believed the FCC “will reinstate a framework that protects consumers’ access to the open internet, without forcing them to bear the heavy costs from unnecessary regulation.”

The Internet Association, representing major technology firms including Alphabet and Facebook, said Pai’s proposal “represents the end of net neutrality as we know it and defies the will of millions of Americans.”

“This proposal undoes nearly two decades of bipartisan agreement on baseline net neutrality principles that protect Americans’ ability to access the entire internet,” it said.

Pai’s proposal would require internet service providers to disclose whether they allow blocking or slowing down of consumer web access or permit so-called internet fast lanes to facilitate a practice called paid prioritization of charging for certain content. Such disclosure will make it easier for another agency, the Federal Trade Commission, to act against internet service providers that fail to disclose such conduct to consumers, Pai said.

The FTC could seek to bar practices that it deemed “anticompetitive” or violated antitrust rules.

The FCC received more than 22 million comments. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman disclosed Tuesday he has been investigating for more than six months in a bid to learn who was behind the filing of false comments.

A U.S. appeals court last year upheld the legality of the net neutrality regulations, which were challenged in a lawsuit led by telecommunications industry trade association US Telecom.

The group praised Pai’s decision to remove “antiquated, restrictive regulations” to “pave the way for broadband network investment, expansion and upgrades.”

The FCC’s repeal is certain to draw a legal challenge from advocates of net neutrality.

Nancy Pelosi, the top U.S. House of Representatives Democrat, said the FCC move would hurt consumers and chill competition, saying the agency “has launched an all-out assault on the entrepreneurship, innovation and competition at the heart of the internet.”

The planned repeal represents the latest example of a legacy achievement of Obama being erased since Trump took office in January. Trump has abandoned international trade deals, the landmark Paris climate accord and environmental protections, taken aim at the Iran nuclear accord and closer relations with Cuba, and sought repeal Obama’s signature healthcare law.

Pai, who has moved quickly to undo numerous regulatory actions since becoming FCC chairman, is pushing a broad deregulatory agenda. Pai said he had not shared his plans on the rollback with the White House in advance or been directed to undo net neutrality by White House officials.

The FCC under Obama regulated internet service providers like public utilities under a section of federal law that gave the agency sweeping oversight over the conduct of these companies.

Language in the new proposal would give the FCC significantly less authority to oversee the web. The FCC granted initial approval to Pai’s plan in May, but had left open many key questions including whether to retain any legal requirements limiting internet providers conduct.

His plan would eliminate the “internet conduct standard,” which gave the FCC far-reaching discretion to prohibit improper internet service provider practices.

Reddit was having a field day about this today, and numerous petitions launched.

We have spoken about net neutrality before, this throttling and potential censorship by ISPs is not good, however there is less FCC interference. Super interesting.

Post: #2

ISPs that play their cards right could profit off this by not throttling content and advertising it to take bites out of Comcrap. Or we're going to start seeing blacklists of "hate speech" sites where ISPs won't connect to them, to go along with Google purging badthink sites out of their search engine results.

Post: #3

Another Trump victory!

Post: #4

Hey remember when Donald Trump said this was a bad idea because the ISPs would attack conservative media? Glad to see corporate interests still control the country

/s

Post: #5

We'll eventually see if this is a bait-and-switch to destroy Zuck's empire.

In the meanwhile it might pay to apply pressure to the right people.

Post: #6

This would be absolutely terrible. This Pai schmuck is so clearly bought and paid for.

This is not a case of "liberals are mad about this, so it's a good thing." Which I am usually all in favor of.

The internet works fine the way it is now, I do not want Verizon, AT&T, etc to be able to throttle mine or anybody else's content.

Any politician who supports this needs to be run out of office before their term is finished.

Post: #7

(11-21-2017 11:35 PM)iamdegaussed Wrote:  This would be absolutely terrible. This Pai schmuck is so clearly bought and paid for.

This is not a case of "liberals are mad about this, so it's a good thing." Which I am usually all in favor of.

The internet works fine the way it is now, I do not want Verizon, AT&T, etc to be able to throttle mine or anybody else's content.

Any politician who supports this needs to be run out of office before their term is finished.

I'm inclined to agree, but I've seen both sides of the argument. While I want the status quo to remain that way (the FCC could do away with a lot more damaging regulations first) I'm pretty sure that Pai is intent on repealing this. I wonder if this will open up more companies that will once to provide unlimited internet without throttling, thus providing more jobs, competition, and a better, faster internet or will the big companies eat all the little ones and block off the internet and ruin it.

Interesting times indeed.

Post: #8

(11-21-2017 11:43 PM)CJ_W Wrote:  

(11-21-2017 11:35 PM)iamdegaussed Wrote:  This would be absolutely terrible. This Pai schmuck is so clearly bought and paid for.

This is not a case of "liberals are mad about this, so it's a good thing." Which I am usually all in favor of.

The internet works fine the way it is now, I do not want Verizon, AT&T, etc to be able to throttle mine or anybody else's content.

Any politician who supports this needs to be run out of office before their term is finished.

I'm inclined to agree, but I've seen both sides of the argument. While I want the status quo to remain that way (the FCC could do away with a lot more damaging regulations first) I'm pretty sure that Pai is intent on repealing this. I wonder if this will open up more companies that will once to provide unlimited internet without throttling, thus providing more jobs, competition, and a better, faster internet or will the big companies eat all the little ones and block off the internet and ruin it.

Interesting times indeed.

It won't, because there are huge infrastructure costs that keep small companies from starting up in this space. Even Google is making slow progress and fighting tooth and nail for market share.

Post: #9

The big companies will devour anyone who dares to stand up to their new total control. There is zero percent chance this creates some sort of internet free market where everything goes along happily.

It's fine the way it is.

Post: #10

(11-21-2017 11:58 PM)iamdegaussed Wrote:  The big companies will devour anyone who dares to stand up to their new total control. There is zero percent chance this creates some sort of internet free market where everything goes along happily.

It's fine the way it is.

That's the problem with the current conservative stance. It's always free market, free market, free market, like that's some sort of magic pill that makes everything better.

It's true that free market and fewer regulations typically are good. Except for where the free market makes it easy for people in a significantly advantages position to prey on those in considerably weaker positions.

See healthcare, food, housing and meaningful education.

Post: #11

(11-21-2017 11:45 PM)Repo Wrote:  

(11-21-2017 11:43 PM)CJ_W Wrote:  

(11-21-2017 11:35 PM)iamdegaussed Wrote:  This would be absolutely terrible. This Pai schmuck is so clearly bought and paid for.

This is not a case of "liberals are mad about this, so it's a good thing." Which I am usually all in favor of.

The internet works fine the way it is now, I do not want Verizon, AT&T, etc to be able to throttle mine or anybody else's content.

Any politician who supports this needs to be run out of office before their term is finished.

I'm inclined to agree, but I've seen both sides of the argument. While I want the status quo to remain that way (the FCC could do away with a lot more damaging regulations first) I'm pretty sure that Pai is intent on repealing this. I wonder if this will open up more companies that will once to provide unlimited internet without throttling, thus providing more jobs, competition, and a better, faster internet or will the big companies eat all the little ones and block off the internet and ruin it.

Interesting times indeed.

It won't, because there are huge infrastructure costs that keep small companies from starting up in this space. Even Google is making slow progress and fighting tooth and nail for market share.

That's what I actually heard, from a proponent of repealing it. . .he mentioned that the lack of fiber optic wiring across the country causing the need for isps to want this or something. I'm probably butchering the idea.

Anyway I'm pretty sure that this will backfire on Trump, he really needs to pay attention:

1)This is actually uniting the left (except the feminists actually lol[Two X is the only Reddit sub to not mention a peep about all this]) One of the reasons Trump won was because many on the left simply didn't vote. Fuck up the internet, and he wont get a second term as a lot more people will turn out to vote against him like the bernie bros did when Hillary screwed them over.

2)Uniting the left (again) this time they probably aren't going to go away, and with Soros' money behind them(he did transfer like 18 billion of his money some time prior to this) Trump better think up some 5 6 7 8 9D political Chess moves, improve the economy to 50s golden age levels, get the wall up, drain the swamp, dramatically lower taxes on everyone even more, deal with North Korea once and for all without any allied/American deaths, and fix health care for good this time in his first term. As that's the only way he'll be Re-elected. Also a more firmly united left will finally taste power, real true power. They've been eating themselves for a while, now they've stopped and will be on the warpath if this gets done. and who does the left hate more than themselves? Yeah. I'm glad Roosh made that chat group, as I'm pretty sure they'll attack us as well.

3)If this does pass, the Uniting of the left will crystalize even further, as the next target would be to target verizon comcast etc for anti trust violations untill they are ALL forced to break up into pieces. This will cause many layoffs and be bad in the short term. Thing is that short term crash may crash the economy, especially with the stock market being so overpriced as it is now(read: YUGE Bubble Burst Inc). The only winners will be lawyers


I hope someone talking to Trump tells him of all this so he can put a stop to it or fire Ajit Pai. So It doesn't affect him in 3 years' time. I mean Imagine if Trump just suddenly came out and was like. . ."yeah Pai, you're fired." The left wouldn't know WHAT to do lol. Maybe they'd leave him alone long enough to get shit done.

Post: #12

Ajit Pai only has a job because of a diversity quota.

All of the articles he's written say "Free market would help" but no mention of how. Poorly thought out arguments that reek of someone bought and paid for by the big cable companies. Fuck him.

Post: #13

(11-22-2017 01:10 AM)iamdegaussed Wrote:  Ajit Pai only has a job because of a diversity quota.

All of the articles he's written say "Free market would help" but no mention of how. Poorly thought out arguments that reek of someone bought and paid for by the big cable companies. Fuck him.

No he had the job because the people who put him in place knew what positions he would go for, like tbis.

Post: #14

This is simply bad policy, life would be better if people look at policy in the lens of actually understanding the policy and its effects not which side introduced the policy. Because you recognize this is shite and agree with the evil liberals doesn't make you a bad person, if anyone here thinks the big ITSPs aren't going to bend you over with no Vaseline and ram it to you hard behind the guise of "net neutrality" the first chance they get your sadly mistaken. When they begin charging content providers that cost is passed along to their consumers i.e. you and me. It goes beyond content providers this thing can get really sticky really quick. This is just another case of politically appointmented beaurocrats, and politicians be it on the left or right being brought and sold by big business to screw everyone else.

Post: #15

I can see the big corporation's argument though. Under Obama, fewer people had a reason to invest in internet infrastructure because the net was effectively socialized. It was tragedy of the commons; take as much as possible with zero reason to give back.

However, if it does result in thought-policing of the internet by ISP's, then we know the FCC must move to create rules against restricting speech. But as far as allowing the ISP's to claim virtual property, and charge different prices to different users depending on how much internet they consume, seems wise and prudent to me that will result in a much faster and powerful web.

Post: #16

Control the information and you control the truth.

Post: #17

I personally don't think this is a good precedent - I'm surprised this thread isn't blowing up about this since the news yesterday.

People need to pay very close attention to Title II

Post: #18

(11-22-2017 02:07 PM)kaotic Wrote:  I personally don't think this is a good precedent - I'm surprised this thread isn't blowing up about this since the news yesterday.

People need to pay very close attention to Title II

The fact of the matter is that the average person (not speaking about this forum, but the public at large) has no idea what is going on.

However, there may be a huge opportunity for satellite internet with the booming space industry in the coming years that negates a large portion of this infrastructure. Love or hate SpaceX and the private space industry, the cost reducing effects of these companies are definitely going to make this viable for even smaller funded startups.

I do believe that the consumer can always vote with their wallet, however who gets to decide what is censored or throttled? No corporation should hold that power, and were it silicon valley monsters that held this power, we already know many websites would be going dark.

Post: #19

(11-22-2017 02:07 PM)kaotic Wrote:  I personally don't think this is a good precedent - I'm surprised this thread isn't blowing up about this since the news yesterday.

People need to pay very close attention to Title II

Because it goes against what Trumps pick wants.

Post: #20

(11-22-2017 02:18 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  

(11-22-2017 02:07 PM)kaotic Wrote:  I personally don't think this is a good precedent - I'm surprised this thread isn't blowing up about this since the news yesterday.

People need to pay very close attention to Title II

The fact of the matter is that the average person (not speaking about this forum, but the public at large) has no idea what is going on.

However, there may be a huge opportunity for satellite internet with the booming space industry in the coming years that negates a large portion of this infrastructure. Love or hate SpaceX and the private space industry, the cost reducing effects of these companies are definitely going to make this viable for even smaller funded startups.

I agree, I still see people constantly asking how it affects them and how to break it down in simple terms.

True since the CubeSate race is barely warming up but will be a big player later. This will be interesting to watch over the next 20 years.

Quote:I do believe that the consumer can always vote with their wallet, however who gets to decide what is censored or throttled? No corporation should hold that power, and were it silicon valley monsters that held this power, we already know many websites would be going dark.

Unfortunately Silicon Valley IS already censoring and making websites/social media accounts going against the grain shut down.

This has been going on for quite some time and upticked once Trump ran for president.

(11-22-2017 02:24 PM)Repo Wrote:  

(11-22-2017 02:07 PM)kaotic Wrote:  I personally don't think this is a good precedent - I'm surprised this thread isn't blowing up about this since the news yesterday.

People need to pay very close attention to Title II

Because it goes against what Trumps pick wants.

I might me missing something, but you're saying this decision is going against Trumps pick Ajit ??

Post: #21

@kaotic

No I'm saying that going against this decision would go against Trumps pick, and since Trump doesn't appear to be doing anything to stop his pick, to disagree with the decision would be to disagree with Trump. Most of the forum still supports Trump it seems.

Post: #22

I can't believe that they haven't shut down the net before now.

All that equal access, free speech and lack of control must really bite their biscuits.

Post: #23

Doesn't using a VPN get around this? Haven't read about the issue in it's entirety.

Post: #24

(11-22-2017 07:44 PM)Neo Wrote:  Doesn't using a VPN get around this? Haven't read about the issue in it's entirety.

They could just throttle Vpns, so no.

Post: #25

Net Neutrality: Who do you want censoring your internet: Big Tech or Big Government?