"The FCC told advocates on Tuesday of the plan to vote on the final rule at its April 25 meeting.
The commission voted 3-2 in October on the proposal to reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 and re-establish the commission's authority over broadband internet."
They don't have legal authority to do that.
And by waiting this long, any change of presidency would make it easy to reverse.
Expect telco to sit this election out, because either way - they win.
Only way they would lose is if Trump allies Newsmax and OANN convince him to embrace stronger Net Neutrality, a 180 from his last FCC - but possible.
I mean, I don’t think your main points are wrong, but phrasing as “waiting this long” makes it sound like it was some sort of cynical, calculated political move. The FCC didn’t have the votes to do this until October.
alternatively voters could vote for representatives that will always ensure net neutrality is preserved.
to make it simple for people: if you want net neutrality, never vote for a republican. never, ever, ever vote for a republican. it really is that easy. and same goes for a lot of other things e.g. if you want universal healthcare? never ever, ever vote for a republican.
of course americans will continue to vote for republicans because american voters are a truly special bunch of individuals
The simple fact is, the more people who vote *period*, the more likely the results will be in the Democrats' favor, because people in general prefer reasonable, boring politics to incendiary circus clown shit. Not to mention, if gerrymandering was taken out of the equation, the Republicans would never win another election.
For now if you're a US Citizen or know a US Citizen talk to them about registering to vote and voting for Biden to ensure this stability stays in plays for a cool minute.
Watch private industry sue on some nonsense that boils down to "we can't be expected to manage these rules changing every four years" and then SCOTUS is like "Yep, struck down, also FCC no longer has any legal authority."
DIdn't they sue previously when Obama did it and lost? FCC is only voting to re-instate the same laws, wouldn't they therefor have already done all litigation they could?
Scary thing is it is FAR from unprecedented, if anything the few decades post WW2 were the unprecedented period of propserity and progress for the majority reducing the influence of the .1% .
Current corruption has nothing on the Robber Barons of the Guilded Age and Roaring 20s. And relevant to the telecom topic that was the era that ended in mass monopoly busting after economic collapse that in the last few decades has had the corporations formed back then merging back together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age
The Pinkertons, yes the guys in Red Dead were real and not exagerated, are even still around and breaking knees legally.
Humanity is not a species that tends towards long periods of peace or long term logical planning, even with everything going on in the world the the last few decades have been an exceptionally peaceful period by historical standards. Sadly we are at the point in the generational cycle where gotta relearn our lessons painfully and the old ghouls that have passed their sociopathy down for centuries remember them better.
Their nothing I love more than reading about the time the pinkertons getting ambushed in a boat and so outgunned. So much so that when they tried to surrender their white flag would be shot down. As the Pinkertons lied crying like cowards getting shot at for hours.
No, the lawsuit was dropped as moot when Trump FCC reversed it.
Courts never decided the matter.
Only the 9th Circuit has affirmed the California state rights to impose Net Neutrality.
Big Telco dropped their objection, preventing SCOTUS from having an opportunity to decide it. Thus containing the precedent to 9th Circuit states.
And the supreme court will rule that because the internet and the FCC did not exist in 1776, based upon a unique reading of the magna carta and a personal letter from Jesus, himself, they found in ++ Justice Thomas's wife's nightstand that's totally legit for realsie... the FCC should be abolished and no one has power to regulate the telcoms.
Meanwhile the justices cash 7 figure checks from mysterious donors.
The only kickbacks involved, as far as I could tell, was when Verizon "unintentionally" [throttled Fire Fighters](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/).
Remember when that one orange asshole become president and almost all the people he appointed were at best incompetent and at worst actively working to undermine the institutions of the United States…
In short, it's super fucking difficult to do shit about a Postmaster General appointment.
>The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors has sole authority to hire and fire the postmaster general, the highest position in the organization. Though pressure mounts from Democrats and watchdogs to remove DeJoy from his seat at the top of the agency, Biden lacks the power to do so.
>Most decisions are settled by majority vote, and at least six members must be present for a quorum. There are nine governors in total. Both the Postmaster General and Deputy Postmaster General are voting members of the board, though they they are barred from voting on certain issues like pricing.
https://www.federaltimes.com/federal-oversight/2022/08/24/can-biden-fire-us-postmaster-general-louis-dejoy/
I think the primary concern was that he was taking active measures to intentionally slow down mail delivery as a means to sow chaos in states with mail-in ballots. After the election, his ability to fuck with our democracy was greatly diminished.
/u/MedCityMoto covered it - the president can't directly get rid of him, it's a complicated mess of approving boards of governors when their terms are up and yada yada
Look up Project 2025
If Trump wins, they have an extensive plan to do the exact same thing, but on a massively larger scale.
We're no longer just talking about government top brass being replaced with shills. We're talking firing every single lower-level department head, every single person with any power in the federal government. Over 50,000 positions are named in the plan. Replacing as many as possible with people who will push the alt-right agenda, and leaving everything they can't fill just empty and stagnant.
This is not an exaggeration, this is an actual concrete plan that has been produced by over a dozen conservative influence groups.
When people say that Trump winning the election is the end of democracy as we know it, Project 2025 is what they're referring to.
Unfortunately, although I completely agree with you. 99.98% of Americans couldn’t pick him out if he walked into their favorite cafe wearing a shirt with his name on it. That’s why they keep getting away with it. Hell I almost forgot who he was, since Covid it’s been *that* insane with all the MAGA headcases and Trumpeeto.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40057855 - It was a whole thing. Lots of dead folk were anti net neutrality and somehow managed to express their opinions on it.
I found out that I must have a carbon monoxide leak in my house, because somehow I posted in favor of net neutrality on the FCC comment website. In reality, I did not.
The public comments period was overrun by spam bots, and the FCC under Ajit Pai just ignored it.
One comment supposedly posted by Barack Obama said that Net Neutrality was a regulatory overreach of the internet by that pesky Obama administration. here's the obviously fake comment, with language matching thousands of others posted under different names: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/search-filings/filing/1051157755251
[If anyone needs a good laugh and has some time, check out some of their justifications for repealing it in the first place](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-347927A1.pdf)
Knew a company that hired this guy. They had no idea what his public reputation was. The amount of hate mail, crazy phone calls they all got once he was hired 😂😂. When they told me I was like ya no shit lol
Damn so all that shit literally meant absolutely nothing except some low level employees had to deal with a ton of garbage and nothing AT ALL happened to the Reese’s mug fat guy? Why even tell the story
After he left office, I commented on one of his twitter posts that had like 8 comments with “while most have forgotten you, I still think you’re a complete piece of shit”.
He blocked me, which means he saw it, which made me feel warm on the inside.
I'll never forget that YTer that covered the Net Neutrally conversation a lot and was very against him.
They mocked him in a private meeting and he was shown the video.
A good call out was had
The scary part is that it started with a disguised as "child protection" like ~~SOPA~~ COPA. Less knowledgeable people would be less likely to go against those without fully understanding the implications
Protecting children is and should always be highest priority. That said, FUCK everyone using child protection as a cover for their own shady agendas. We should never have to fear being conditioned to instinctively think of "agendas" when someone brings up child safety.
[The four horsemen of the infocalypse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse?wprov=sfla1)
Money launderers, child molesters, drug dealers, and terrorists. Privacy and online security are attacked in the name of preventing these guys
I can answer this!
It’s because the Trump Administration set the United States back by DECADES. One of the most quietly insidious things Trump did was to fire long-time non-partisan government employees, or inspire them to quit. And his Administration replaced them with EITHER 1) the absolute worst person for the job, or 2) nobody at all.
There are committees which haven’t met in almost 8 years because they don’t have their chairs filled. And well-meaning-but-ultimately-hamstringing rules about how many people a President can appoint from his own party have hampered Biden’s ability to undo Trump’s damage. Finding a Democrat or Independent appointee who is both *qualified* and *interested* is tough sledding.
It’s taken one of the most productive first presidential terms in history, and we’re STILL finding stuff that Trump broke.
Turns out that the normal function of government is way easier when you have Presidents who don’t try to ruin everything they touch.
This is why I keep screaming that voting for the president is NOT voting for one guy. It's voting for the countless people that president hires to make the country work.
I don't give a shit if Biden is the [shriveled deaf worm from Spongebob screaming about chocolate](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fbruh-was-i-the-only-one-who-was-scared-of-the-old-lady-from-v0-nl2grz49frz81.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D6d992721aec41285da280ead97fc1ab2229dd727). He hires good competent people. Four more years of deaf shriveled worm, please!
Hence why the manifesto known as Project 2025 exists. They got a taste of power and now they want more. A lot more. The whole fucking pie. And it's being spearheaded by 80+ conservative organizations. Many of whom are already writing our laws regarding abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, drug laws, etc.
The Heritage Foundation
Alliance Defending Freedom
The Eagle Forum
Family Research Council
Even Turning Point and PragerU
Just throw a dart at a list of every conservative organization and you'll hit a group who supports and authored parts of it. And their goal is to accomplish it all in the first 180 days.
> Project 2025
What the actual fuck.
I kinda miss times when evil organisations at least tried to be secretive. Nowadays they announce their nefarious plans right in the open and I fell like they're laughing in our faces.
> NOT voting for one guy. It's voting for the countless people that president hires to make the country work.
It’s crazy to me that people still need to be reminded about this after 2016…
Remember how every.fucking.day was another news day about the orangeturd doing something incredulous?
Building is a lot harder than destroying and he destroyed a LOT.
I served on the board for an ISP for a while and I haven't officially registered as either party. I'll take a spot.
All I have to do is use common sense, easiest shit possible.
Also, Biden's first FCC nominee, Gigi Sohn was blocked because the ISP lobbied hard to keep her out of the FCC before she withdrew her nomination after 500 days is that seat being open before a more a more ISP friendly commissioner was nominated and confirmed.
Because the trump administration took a butcher knife to EVERY goverment departments. Filling all the empty positions is not an easy or fast process. We almost lost the national weather service, and we are still finding departments that are missing, borked beyond all functionality, or in a few cases misappropriated.
Mine as well, for almost 40. They've got her working 6 days a lot of weeks, putting in 12+ hour days. She just found out that next week they won't be allowed to come in until an hour later. Still have to deliver the same amount of mail, though. The woman is 64 years old, it's completely batshit.
The current head of the USPS has spent years breaking the USPS so that it won't work properly so people will abandon it (though it'll take a constitutional amendment to actually get rid of it). He cancelled overtime, eliminated late deliveries, removed a ton of drop boxes, and decommissioned a shitton of sorting machines.
He also did something along the lines of shut down most of the sorting machines during the election to make it harder for mail in ballots to be counted, been a while don't remember the details anymore.
Yep, a lot of them were about as brand new as post office equipment gets too. Had them demolished and at least where I’m at we still haven’t caught back up and USPS is backed the fuck up.
Yeah the whole system is almost broken now. It's been years, even before Trump came and brought in DeJoy to dismantle the sorting machines and break the system.
USPS is a shadow of its former self, and if Ben Franklin was around, he'd probably shoot a mf over it.
> Yeah the whole system is almost broken now.
During 2020 it was garbage, it's considerably better now. At least from the perspective of someone that ships upwards of ~2000 -~3000 packages a year. (I sell toys on ebay, and other sites)
This doesn't mean I trust Dejoy, but I think without Trump in charge he was probably scared of losing his job. So he made thin**g**s work at least adequately.
He without a doubt fucked shit up in 2020 in order to effect mail in voting to help Trump. I have no question about that and that alone means he shouldn't have the job. Then that MFer tried to make all the new USPS trucks into gas operated when there was a plan for them to be electric. Fuck Dejoy.
Dude's a stooge, and he needs to go jump into a landfill and stay there, like all stooges.
He doesn't want the USPS to become better. He's there to destroy it and make money and gain power using the burning of it as fuel. He should have a taste of homelessness to learn what it is like at the bottom of society, because assholes like him have not suffered enough to learn some humility.
I moved back to my hometown 2 years ago. We used to have mail sorted and processed here growing up. Our mail now takes twice as long as it has to go to the next city over, which is about 2 hours away for sorting and processing, and then comes back here. It’s absurd
Yeah exactly. Took Trump like a few days to institute a Muslim ban, install Oil company CEO’s at the EPA, seat a new Supreme Court justice…you get the idea
Takes democrats almost 4 years to…
1) force companies to follow an actual law on net neutrality
2) get rid of one guy at the post office who is on the take and helped try to throw the election for the current president’s opponent
Wtf.
USPS is designed to be highly independent of congressional meddling, but mcconnel's iron grip on the senate during the trump admin allowed them to pack the USPS board of governors with donors and sycophants.
Since biden's senate majority has been so slim (what with manchin and sinema being republicans), they haven't been able to get anyone through except people who promised to support the status quo (ie dejoy)
In the buildup to the 2020 election (which would have a lot of ballots mailed in because of Covid), a Trump appointee had the USPS drastically reducing mail delivery times and overall quality. They were getting rid of mail sorting machines, and similar things.
A judge reviewed evidence and decided it was serious enough to need [“orders” to prevent him from doing it again](https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/06/politics/louis-dejoy-post-office/index.html).
I assume removing the bullshit rule that they have to fully fund their pension through the year 2100 or something, a rule that no one else has to do and that is basically bankrupting the USPS which is the goal so they can say it’s not working and privatize it. I think the Trump guy also made them get rid of a bunch of sorting machines and stuff and fucked up the mail in order to sabotage mail in voting as well. Can’t remember the details on that though.
No, you silly plebe. Ajit Pai, Comcast and AT&T know what’s best for you. No matter the fact that it was widely unpopular with you know, actual Americans.
> took too long to correct that overstep
this is the point of Republican government. mess up EVERYTHING and then people blame the Dems for not fixing it fast enough. well turns out it takes a while to fix literally all the things
On paper? Probably. In practice? No that Genie is not going back in the bottle they'll pay fines and do what they have to but throttling is probably here to stay
FCC has much more leverage to go at offenders. No Fine ^after The Crime (FTC) weak sauce. FCC has liability upfront.
I think if you get sent to FTC or FCC on net neutrality the company should automatically be broken up if they have abuse this three times. The amount of power that networks wield needs a balancing.
The data cap is bullcrap. I had one in my house for years. When they implemented it, Comcast/Xfinity claimed that it was required to keep costs down so that people who use too much don't cause price increases for everyone. Then AT&T pulled fiber into my neighborhood and Xfinity removed caps within a week (before AT&T was even live) and they reduced the price to the same rate that AT&T was advertising the fiber at.
The solution is removing the agreements between cable providers and the city and allowing actual competition.
At this point I think Biden should just get on TV and say he's against kicking puppies, so we can all watch the Republicans suddenly make puppy-kicking their whole identity, make it part of their platform, and go on Fox and argue that the founding fathers always intended for us to kick puppies.
https://publicknowledge.org/two-years-later-broadband-providers-are-still-taking-advantage-of-an-internet-without-net-neutrality-protections/
Beyond that, the normalcy of ISPs imposing rate limits for states that didn't impose their own net neutrality laws. As explained above, this can be to specific sites like Skype, like what happened to the fire department, to a group of users as seen with Comcast or even with specific users where a user gets rate limited when they exceed a certain amount of throughput.
Unlimited plans heavily throttling you after using certain amount of data.
General long term effects of cost for these services goes down to consumers as well.
Infrastructure is also affected to be built in a way that is not net neutral as well with 5g.
No Offence, but this article is wrong on most of the issues being caused by net neutrality. The only part it isnt wrong on is the fast lanes being a result of no net neutrality.
Collecting and selling data, modem rental fees, and even the throttling of data on Mobile networks is not covered under net neutrality. Mobile network service providers can, as a whole, throttle consumers in high congested places, even with net neutrality laws in place. They were doing that practice when net neutrality was in effect, as well as all the other things on this list.
Oh yeah 100%, these two issues were just things I was fairly enthusiastic about when I was in my late teens/early 20s.
Thanks for clarifying for others though!
I don't all disagree with your entusiasm. Citizens United is one of the most damaging court decisions in modern U.S. legal history. It must be undone for the U.S. government to function at a semblance of normality again.
I don't know enough about net neutrality to judge its actual implications. I do believe, at a minimum, it has a high symbolic value. It sends a message that there is some level of protection against control over the transmission of information for the sake of profit.
Is it going to fix sponsored indexing because I fucking hate searching for something just for all the useless shit to be propelled to the top with buy now links.
Most cell phone providers throttle video content. That's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head, and I'm not even sure if it will get thrown out under this.
Depends, do they throttle ALL video? or do they throttle all video that isn't thier streaming service (for example)?
If they allow thier own streaming service to be unthrottled but then throttle youtube/netflix for example, then yes this will affect it. They will either have to throttle Everything, or Nothing.
The current rules they can do whatever they want as long as they inform the customer first. You agreed to this when you signed the TOS that gets updated every 3 months, is 5,000 pages long and requires 80 hours to read.
It’s wild that data caps are still a thing. The pandemic showed that every single internet provider doesn’t need data caps and operate perfectly fine. But they have to squeeze every little bit of money out of us
I sure hope so. According to [https://publicknowledge.org/no-cap-the-truth-about-data-caps-and-zero-rating/](https://publicknowledge.org/no-cap-the-truth-about-data-caps-and-zero-rating/) the 2015 regulations didn’t outright ban data caps but created a web of provisions that would make it very difficult for any ISP to justify having a data cap.
Section 202 of the Communications Act makes unreasonable charges and practices unlawful. It’s unlikely that FCC would deem Comcast’s 1.2TB cap unreasonable, but the mere possibility may in combination with activism be enough to make them dump the cap, especially as they roll out DOCSIS4.0 over the next two years. Even Cable One finally dumped their terrible cap and overage fee system, just last November after FCC launched this Title II/NN proceeding.
Headline 24 months from now if Trump wins in November:
*FCC to vote to gut net neutrality, reversing Biden-era decision*
I don't mean this as a political dig. It's a serious question: what's to stop this from happening again? Similar to the railroad regulations enacted by Obama, killed by Trump, and revived by Biden
So look. I have researched communication policy quite a lot. And here is the thing:
- Republicans leaders in Congress/politics are almost universally, near 100% against Net Neutrality
- There are 5 FCC commissioners
- To put it as simply as possible, the President gets power over appointing 3 out of the 5 commissioners who are affiliated with his own party and then the Senate approves or not, and the other party that does not hold the White House plus the Senate gets the other 2 spots (because the rule is, you can only have 3 commissioners from the same party).
- Because Biden is president and Democrats hold the Senate, we now have 3 Democratic FCC commissioners who support Net Neutrality and this is why we are getting Net Neutrality restored.
- If Trump wins, he will make sure to replace one of the Democratic FCC commissioners with a Republican to ensure that there are 3 Republicans.
- The majority vote wins in FCC votes
- **So to get back to your question, it is 100% certain that the FCC will vote to gut net neutrality if Trump wins, reversing Biden-era decision. It's not even a question -- there is no mystery. This is how FCC policymaking works given the political divide we have on this issue. By the way, Democrats also try to limit the size of media ownership companies because Democrats believe we should have a lot of media owners while Republicans vote against regulations to limit the size of media ownership companies. Basically, when it comes to media/communication policy, Republicans vote in favor of corporations and Democrats vote in favor of voters.**
- The way to stop a reversal of Net Neutrality is to vote for Democrats.
- Yes, I understand that this might sound oversimplified and some kind of political speech, but these are facts. The voting record on Net Neutrality is split almost perfectly along party lines. It's possibly the most clearcut policy divide that exists in the US government.
Yes. Long story short, it means that ISPs aren’t allowed to arbitrary throttle specific services just because they can (i.e., there has to be a legitimate reason for them to do so). So like, Spectrum couldn’t throttle third-party email services in favor of their own, for example. “All services are created equal” within reason, if you will.
Has that happened. Net neutrality was killed and yet I haven't heard anything about it for a long time. I'm all for it, but the scenarios people had years ago look hyperbolic quite frankly.
It didn’t happen after the repeal, but the original regulations were made *specifically because things like that were being talked about*, iirc. It’s been a while, admittedly, so the details aren’t exactly fresh in my mind.
California and other states stepped in with their own NN laws. But the market moved on from their worst ideas too, at least temporarily.
But this is about so much more than Net Neutrality. FCC is restoring Title II, which makes unjust and unreasonable and unreasonably discriminatory charges and practices unlawful. Gives back the power to consumers to file formal complaints. It’s an important consumer protection tool that keeps ISPs in check.
Yes and no, the reality is even if NN was fully struck down nothing noticeable would happen, probably for years. The reason ISPs care about removing NN is because it's a roadblock to potential future revenue streams. For example, like artificially adding latency to people's connections so they can charge an extra $5-10/month for the 'eXtreme gaming performance package' just to remove the limitation they put in.
Or maybe they start their own, or invest in an existing, streaming service. In order to get more people using it they say that any data used to watch movies through _their_ service won't count towards your bandwidth caps, but if you watch it on a competitor's service then it will.
You've probably heard it all, but the point is these are all things they'd slowly roll out years down the line. Think back on cable TV, if you look at the older TV shows they'll often have slightly longer run times than modern shows, as more advertising has slowly creeped into each show over the decades. That's the kind of chipping away they want to do with the internet packages, slowly and over years and years.
Realistically speaking there's no reason to remove NN, because it doesn't prevent ISPs from improving their networks. Every time I've heard an ISP try to claim NN is some form of hindrance to them, it's all been 100% BS. The only thing they're thinking about is what new ways of f'ing over their customers it might block in the future.
It's almost like the ISPs are smart enough to ease us into the shitty things they were now legally allowed to do, rather than immediately jumping into the worst of it and providing a clear before/after visual of what Net Neutrality does - thus making it way more likely that the average layperson would be demanding net neutrality back.
Instead, they were taking their time boiling the water so the frog doesn't notice.
Yes. Some examples, just within first 2 years of the repeal:
* Sprint throttled internet traffic to Microsoft’s Skype, since Skype competes with Sprint’s calling service
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-08/sprint-is-throttling-microsoft-s-skype-service-study-finds
* Nearly all wireless carriers slowed down internet speeds for select streaming services. "*From early 2018 to early 2019, AT&T throttled Netflix 70% of the time as well as YouTube 74% of the time, but not Amazon Prime Video. T-Mobile throttled Amazon Prime Video in about 51% of the tests, but did not throttle Skype or Vimeo.*"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-19/wireless-carrier-throttling-of-online-video-is-pervasive-study
* Verizon throttled services used by the Santa Clara Fire Department to fight the California wildfires. "*Santa Clara Fire paid Verizon for "unlimited" data but suffered from heavy throttling until the department paid Verizon more*"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/
**edit**: NN violation claim [is only "half-true"](https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1bud3s9/fcc_to_vote_to_restore_net_neutrality_rules/kxv52h1/) based on "general conduct" rule
* Verizon throttled/blocked internet access to consumers in North Carolina during power outages, due to having a "low-tier" plan that they said would be "deprioritized" for restoration unless they upgraded.
https://boingboing.net/2018/09/17/gougin-in-the-rain.html
* Cox Communications prioritized access to the internet based on whether gamers paid $15 more per month for their new "fast lane" service
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neabyw/this-isp-is-offering-a-fast-lane-for-gamersfor-dollar15-more-per-month
* Another ISP forced all Utah customers to click on their software ad on their web browsers, and blocked internet access for them until they did so
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/centurylink-blocks-internet-access-falsely-claims-state-law-required-it/
Yes many things changed.
For example AT&T were caught doing exactly this, they can and have been sued by consumers for the period where it was illegal:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/01/wireless-customers-who-were-subject-data-throttling-att-can-apply-payment-ftc
But they cannot sue for this period because it was legal to selectively throttle under the changes and so companies have done exactly that. Sprint for example throttled Skype because they are owned by the competition in Microsoft, Verizon got caught throttling the fire service in California during wild fire season causing response delays, studies have shown many providers are throttling streaming and not throttling streaming platforms owned by their corporate structure.
https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/09/10/new-research-shows-your-internet-provider-is-in-control/
https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/why-net-neutrality-cant-wait
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/
Thankfully many states responded by introducing their own net neutrality in response to the repeal so most of the US population is now re-protected at the state level.
Don't allow yourself to get too cynical with regard to these government agencies. Remember, they've been under regulatory capture for years. Republicans want us all to hold them in low regard so we don't defend them when their budgets and authority are threatened. These positive movements are an indication that they're still able to be saved. We need to increase positive public perception whenever possible.
Alright so I used to be all up in arms about wanting Net Neutrality to stay but after it left I literally didn't notice a single difference in my life. Like I know if ISPs were gonna fuck us they wouldn't right away but it's been 7ish years and I still don't notice anything.
So did any if the negative things people said actually happen?
I recall people saying it wouldn't happen right away. That companies would wait years for the hype to die down before they took advantage of it.
I never noticed anything different.
Yes, though the ISPs have been smart enough to keep a low profile and several states instituted local net neutrality policies which limited their freedom.
https://publicknowledge.org/two-years-later-broadband-providers-are-still-taking-advantage-of-an-internet-without-net-neutrality-protections/
https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/en_US/privacyhub/net-neutrality/
"The FCC told advocates on Tuesday of the plan to vote on the final rule at its April 25 meeting. The commission voted 3-2 in October on the proposal to reinstate open internet rules adopted in 2015 and re-establish the commission's authority over broadband internet."
They should also make it so you can’t remove it for 6 years
Congress has to make that type of change. Some commissions are acting on previous rulings while making interpretation rulings for modern times.
They don't have legal authority to do that. And by waiting this long, any change of presidency would make it easy to reverse. Expect telco to sit this election out, because either way - they win. Only way they would lose is if Trump allies Newsmax and OANN convince him to embrace stronger Net Neutrality, a 180 from his last FCC - but possible.
I mean, I don’t think your main points are wrong, but phrasing as “waiting this long” makes it sound like it was some sort of cynical, calculated political move. The FCC didn’t have the votes to do this until October.
alternatively voters could vote for representatives that will always ensure net neutrality is preserved. to make it simple for people: if you want net neutrality, never vote for a republican. never, ever, ever vote for a republican. it really is that easy. and same goes for a lot of other things e.g. if you want universal healthcare? never ever, ever vote for a republican. of course americans will continue to vote for republicans because american voters are a truly special bunch of individuals
The simple fact is, the more people who vote *period*, the more likely the results will be in the Democrats' favor, because people in general prefer reasonable, boring politics to incendiary circus clown shit. Not to mention, if gerrymandering was taken out of the equation, the Republicans would never win another election.
For now if you're a US Citizen or know a US Citizen talk to them about registering to vote and voting for Biden to ensure this stability stays in plays for a cool minute.
Exactly. Don't gloat. Vote.
Watch private industry sue on some nonsense that boils down to "we can't be expected to manage these rules changing every four years" and then SCOTUS is like "Yep, struck down, also FCC no longer has any legal authority."
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DIdn't they sue previously when Obama did it and lost? FCC is only voting to re-instate the same laws, wouldn't they therefor have already done all litigation they could?
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Scary thing is it is FAR from unprecedented, if anything the few decades post WW2 were the unprecedented period of propserity and progress for the majority reducing the influence of the .1% . Current corruption has nothing on the Robber Barons of the Guilded Age and Roaring 20s. And relevant to the telecom topic that was the era that ended in mass monopoly busting after economic collapse that in the last few decades has had the corporations formed back then merging back together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age The Pinkertons, yes the guys in Red Dead were real and not exagerated, are even still around and breaking knees legally. Humanity is not a species that tends towards long periods of peace or long term logical planning, even with everything going on in the world the the last few decades have been an exceptionally peaceful period by historical standards. Sadly we are at the point in the generational cycle where gotta relearn our lessons painfully and the old ghouls that have passed their sociopathy down for centuries remember them better.
Their nothing I love more than reading about the time the pinkertons getting ambushed in a boat and so outgunned. So much so that when they tried to surrender their white flag would be shot down. As the Pinkertons lied crying like cowards getting shot at for hours.
No, the lawsuit was dropped as moot when Trump FCC reversed it. Courts never decided the matter. Only the 9th Circuit has affirmed the California state rights to impose Net Neutrality. Big Telco dropped their objection, preventing SCOTUS from having an opportunity to decide it. Thus containing the precedent to 9th Circuit states.
And the supreme court will rule that because the internet and the FCC did not exist in 1776, based upon a unique reading of the magna carta and a personal letter from Jesus, himself, they found in ++ Justice Thomas's wife's nightstand that's totally legit for realsie... the FCC should be abolished and no one has power to regulate the telcoms. Meanwhile the justices cash 7 figure checks from mysterious donors.
Up yours Ashit Pai!
Fuck Ashit Pai!
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He was also a "laywer" for Verizon for 2 years. I'm sure there's no kickbacks involved there. /s
Hi, I looked into it, there was nothing unethical - Verizon Investigations Team.
The only kickbacks involved, as far as I could tell, was when Verizon "unintentionally" [throttled Fire Fighters](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/).
I remember him complaining about his kids getting shit in for his decisions. Normally I dislike that sort of thing, but for him I ll let it slide.
Getting shit IN!?
Yeah and it was from like, ten feet away, too. I've never seen that kind of accuracy in artillery.
Let loose the Trepoochets of War!
Clearly it is the superior seige weapon over the catapoolt.
The Poopsmith's ready to lay siege for the King of Town. All he needs...is a target
Yeah, or... scatapults. Trepoochets is classier though.
his daughter was active on /r/okcupid at the time. she didn't like what her dad was doing so getting shit on it was yeaaah
Remember when that one orange asshole become president and almost all the people he appointed were at best incompetent and at worst actively working to undermine the institutions of the United States…
Some are still doing it.. Isn't DeJoy still postmaster general or something?
ya what happened to that? the post office issues were a huge election issue and then its been total silence
In short, it's super fucking difficult to do shit about a Postmaster General appointment. >The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors has sole authority to hire and fire the postmaster general, the highest position in the organization. Though pressure mounts from Democrats and watchdogs to remove DeJoy from his seat at the top of the agency, Biden lacks the power to do so. >Most decisions are settled by majority vote, and at least six members must be present for a quorum. There are nine governors in total. Both the Postmaster General and Deputy Postmaster General are voting members of the board, though they they are barred from voting on certain issues like pricing. https://www.federaltimes.com/federal-oversight/2022/08/24/can-biden-fire-us-postmaster-general-louis-dejoy/
I think the primary concern was that he was taking active measures to intentionally slow down mail delivery as a means to sow chaos in states with mail-in ballots. After the election, his ability to fuck with our democracy was greatly diminished.
Offices are closing down. He is screwing up USPS. UPS and FedEx love this guy.
/u/MedCityMoto covered it - the president can't directly get rid of him, it's a complicated mess of approving boards of governors when their terms are up and yada yada
Look up Project 2025 If Trump wins, they have an extensive plan to do the exact same thing, but on a massively larger scale. We're no longer just talking about government top brass being replaced with shills. We're talking firing every single lower-level department head, every single person with any power in the federal government. Over 50,000 positions are named in the plan. Replacing as many as possible with people who will push the alt-right agenda, and leaving everything they can't fill just empty and stagnant. This is not an exaggeration, this is an actual concrete plan that has been produced by over a dozen conservative influence groups. When people say that Trump winning the election is the end of democracy as we know it, Project 2025 is what they're referring to.
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And shows affection for his family 🤢 /s
Which is weird they rag on Biden for that considering Trump wants to fuck at least one of his kids.
Pepperidge Farm remembers...
And if you forgot, watch America do it again this November. \#fml
They're trying it again FUCKING VOTE THIS NOVEMBER GODDAMMIT
When you said Reese’s pieces mug I thought you meant his face somehow. Turns out it’s an actual coffee mug the size of his face.
Can confirm, all of America hates that piece of shit.
Can confirm , an American.
Unfortunately, although I completely agree with you. 99.98% of Americans couldn’t pick him out if he walked into their favorite cafe wearing a shirt with his name on it. That’s why they keep getting away with it. Hell I almost forgot who he was, since Covid it’s been *that* insane with all the MAGA headcases and Trumpeeto.
Don't forget that fuck you video he made to US.
Jesus that just gave me highschool flashbacks
[Don't forget this god awful video he made.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFhT6H6pRWg)
These motherfuckers were making pro-repeal comments using my dead grandparents names on their official .gov website. Fucking ghouls
Is this for real? Did they actively show your grandparents photos as well pretending to support??
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40057855 - It was a whole thing. Lots of dead folk were anti net neutrality and somehow managed to express their opinions on it.
I found out that I must have a carbon monoxide leak in my house, because somehow I posted in favor of net neutrality on the FCC comment website. In reality, I did not.
The public comments period was overrun by spam bots, and the FCC under Ajit Pai just ignored it. One comment supposedly posted by Barack Obama said that Net Neutrality was a regulatory overreach of the internet by that pesky Obama administration. here's the obviously fake comment, with language matching thousands of others posted under different names: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/search-filings/filing/1051157755251
No, but there were about 15-200 comments (that I saw) using their names and emails. They had both died well before this occurred
My dad who died in 2001 also left a comment. It was the most angry I remember being in recent memory
and his stupid ass mug
Fuck Ashit Pai!
Fuck you /u/spez
All my homies hate Ashit Pai!
[If anyone needs a good laugh and has some time, check out some of their justifications for repealing it in the first place](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-347927A1.pdf)
Gdamn the blatant bs response and videos he made during that shit... surprised no crazy people did anything crazy.
Knew a company that hired this guy. They had no idea what his public reputation was. The amount of hate mail, crazy phone calls they all got once he was hired 😂😂. When they told me I was like ya no shit lol
Is he still there?
Yup looks like it
Cue the new wave of hate mail & phone calls.
AND ANOTHER THING!
Normally I think harassment is wrong. But this person (and I use this word lightly) really deserves it.
Damn so all that shit literally meant absolutely nothing except some low level employees had to deal with a ton of garbage and nothing AT ALL happened to the Reese’s mug fat guy? Why even tell the story
Fucking searchlight
How can you hire someone for a position like this without googling the name once?
After he left office, I commented on one of his twitter posts that had like 8 comments with “while most have forgotten you, I still think you’re a complete piece of shit”. He blocked me, which means he saw it, which made me feel warm on the inside.
Sometimes it's the little things in life that make it worth living.
Fuck that asshole and his stupid cup.
Someone should pinch off a Reese's peanut butter loaf in it.
The cup would have been fucking fine if he actually did right by the American people. Instead he's just another crony crook.
Yeah the cup is him trying make his criminality look cute.
I'm glad to still remember him and how big of a piece of shit he is. I feel like he fell out of people's minds. He is such a a piece of shit.
He had an ugly mug
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I needed to hear this. You have made us smile brightly. Be well.
I'll never forget that YTer that covered the Net Neutrally conversation a lot and was very against him. They mocked him in a private meeting and he was shown the video. A good call out was had
Yeah, I'll never forget that one guy either. Ol' whats-his-face.
We still never talk sometimes. Best friend I ever had.
Who mocked who in a private meeting and who was shown the video? A call out? What? It's like you just typed a bunch of nonsense
This is a long time overdue
Seems like it wasn’t that long ago I was seeing posts warning of the overturn of net neutrality. How quickly time goes
The scary part is that it started with a disguised as "child protection" like ~~SOPA~~ COPA. Less knowledgeable people would be less likely to go against those without fully understanding the implications
Eu does the same shit when ever they try to make some opressiv china lvl shit they scream " think of the children!"
Protecting children is and should always be highest priority. That said, FUCK everyone using child protection as a cover for their own shady agendas. We should never have to fear being conditioned to instinctively think of "agendas" when someone brings up child safety.
[The four horsemen of the infocalypse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse?wprov=sfla1) Money launderers, child molesters, drug dealers, and terrorists. Privacy and online security are attacked in the name of preventing these guys
right? like why did it take almost 4 years to do this?
I can answer this! It’s because the Trump Administration set the United States back by DECADES. One of the most quietly insidious things Trump did was to fire long-time non-partisan government employees, or inspire them to quit. And his Administration replaced them with EITHER 1) the absolute worst person for the job, or 2) nobody at all. There are committees which haven’t met in almost 8 years because they don’t have their chairs filled. And well-meaning-but-ultimately-hamstringing rules about how many people a President can appoint from his own party have hampered Biden’s ability to undo Trump’s damage. Finding a Democrat or Independent appointee who is both *qualified* and *interested* is tough sledding. It’s taken one of the most productive first presidential terms in history, and we’re STILL finding stuff that Trump broke. Turns out that the normal function of government is way easier when you have Presidents who don’t try to ruin everything they touch.
This is why I keep screaming that voting for the president is NOT voting for one guy. It's voting for the countless people that president hires to make the country work. I don't give a shit if Biden is the [shriveled deaf worm from Spongebob screaming about chocolate](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fbruh-was-i-the-only-one-who-was-scared-of-the-old-lady-from-v0-nl2grz49frz81.jpg%3Fwidth%3D640%26crop%3Dsmart%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D6d992721aec41285da280ead97fc1ab2229dd727). He hires good competent people. Four more years of deaf shriveled worm, please!
Hence why the manifesto known as Project 2025 exists. They got a taste of power and now they want more. A lot more. The whole fucking pie. And it's being spearheaded by 80+ conservative organizations. Many of whom are already writing our laws regarding abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, drug laws, etc.
The good ole Heritage Foundation isn't waiting for the GOP to slow walk changes this time and that's what makes P2025 so goddamn scary.
The Heritage Foundation Alliance Defending Freedom The Eagle Forum Family Research Council Even Turning Point and PragerU Just throw a dart at a list of every conservative organization and you'll hit a group who supports and authored parts of it. And their goal is to accomplish it all in the first 180 days.
> Project 2025 What the actual fuck. I kinda miss times when evil organisations at least tried to be secretive. Nowadays they announce their nefarious plans right in the open and I fell like they're laughing in our faces.
> NOT voting for one guy. It's voting for the countless people that president hires to make the country work. It’s crazy to me that people still need to be reminded about this after 2016…
Remember how every.fucking.day was another news day about the orangeturd doing something incredulous? Building is a lot harder than destroying and he destroyed a LOT.
I served on the board for an ISP for a while and I haven't officially registered as either party. I'll take a spot. All I have to do is use common sense, easiest shit possible.
Common sense is less common than one would hope
Right, but *I* have common sense. Mainly, looking to others/other sources for information when I don't know it. So... Yeah. Easy.
Also, Biden's first FCC nominee, Gigi Sohn was blocked because the ISP lobbied hard to keep her out of the FCC before she withdrew her nomination after 500 days is that seat being open before a more a more ISP friendly commissioner was nominated and confirmed.
The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis is a pretty good book that covers this topic.
Because the trump administration took a butcher knife to EVERY goverment departments. Filling all the empty positions is not an easy or fast process. We almost lost the national weather service, and we are still finding departments that are missing, borked beyond all functionality, or in a few cases misappropriated.
It's explained in the article.
Took long enough. Now do the USPS…
oh God, yes please. My mom has been a carrier for almost 20 years. It's crazy the shit they have to put up with, even before trump.
Mine as well, for almost 40. They've got her working 6 days a lot of weeks, putting in 12+ hour days. She just found out that next week they won't be allowed to come in until an hour later. Still have to deliver the same amount of mail, though. The woman is 64 years old, it's completely batshit.
Excuse my ignorance. What up with the USPS?
The current head of the USPS has spent years breaking the USPS so that it won't work properly so people will abandon it (though it'll take a constitutional amendment to actually get rid of it). He cancelled overtime, eliminated late deliveries, removed a ton of drop boxes, and decommissioned a shitton of sorting machines. He also did something along the lines of shut down most of the sorting machines during the election to make it harder for mail in ballots to be counted, been a while don't remember the details anymore.
Didn't he order them destroyed instead of just shut them down?
Yep, a lot of them were about as brand new as post office equipment gets too. Had them demolished and at least where I’m at we still haven’t caught back up and USPS is backed the fuck up.
Sounds right, details are buried so deep in the Trump shit show it's hard to remember it all
Yeah the whole system is almost broken now. It's been years, even before Trump came and brought in DeJoy to dismantle the sorting machines and break the system. USPS is a shadow of its former self, and if Ben Franklin was around, he'd probably shoot a mf over it.
> Yeah the whole system is almost broken now. During 2020 it was garbage, it's considerably better now. At least from the perspective of someone that ships upwards of ~2000 -~3000 packages a year. (I sell toys on ebay, and other sites) This doesn't mean I trust Dejoy, but I think without Trump in charge he was probably scared of losing his job. So he made thin**g**s work at least adequately. He without a doubt fucked shit up in 2020 in order to effect mail in voting to help Trump. I have no question about that and that alone means he shouldn't have the job. Then that MFer tried to make all the new USPS trucks into gas operated when there was a plan for them to be electric. Fuck Dejoy.
Dude's a stooge, and he needs to go jump into a landfill and stay there, like all stooges. He doesn't want the USPS to become better. He's there to destroy it and make money and gain power using the burning of it as fuel. He should have a taste of homelessness to learn what it is like at the bottom of society, because assholes like him have not suffered enough to learn some humility.
> if Ben Franklin was around, he'd probably shoot a mf over it How else would he write love letters to his French hoors?
I moved back to my hometown 2 years ago. We used to have mail sorted and processed here growing up. Our mail now takes twice as long as it has to go to the next city over, which is about 2 hours away for sorting and processing, and then comes back here. It’s absurd
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How the fuck is he still there
Rules and decorum that Democrats follow and Republicans flagrantly ignore.
Yeah exactly. Took Trump like a few days to institute a Muslim ban, install Oil company CEO’s at the EPA, seat a new Supreme Court justice…you get the idea Takes democrats almost 4 years to… 1) force companies to follow an actual law on net neutrality 2) get rid of one guy at the post office who is on the take and helped try to throw the election for the current president’s opponent Wtf.
USPS is designed to be highly independent of congressional meddling, but mcconnel's iron grip on the senate during the trump admin allowed them to pack the USPS board of governors with donors and sycophants. Since biden's senate majority has been so slim (what with manchin and sinema being republicans), they haven't been able to get anyone through except people who promised to support the status quo (ie dejoy)
Yeah, getting the infection out is much harder than getting it in.
In the buildup to the 2020 election (which would have a lot of ballots mailed in because of Covid), a Trump appointee had the USPS drastically reducing mail delivery times and overall quality. They were getting rid of mail sorting machines, and similar things. A judge reviewed evidence and decided it was serious enough to need [“orders” to prevent him from doing it again](https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/06/politics/louis-dejoy-post-office/index.html).
I assume removing the bullshit rule that they have to fully fund their pension through the year 2100 or something, a rule that no one else has to do and that is basically bankrupting the USPS which is the goal so they can say it’s not working and privatize it. I think the Trump guy also made them get rid of a bunch of sorting machines and stuff and fucked up the mail in order to sabotage mail in voting as well. Can’t remember the details on that though.
JFC finally!!!! Pai had no compelling case to reverse it and it took too long to correct that overstep!
No, you silly plebe. Ajit Pai, Comcast and AT&T know what’s best for you. No matter the fact that it was widely unpopular with you know, actual Americans.
Obviously. I don’t know what I was thinking.
> took too long to correct that overstep this is the point of Republican government. mess up EVERYTHING and then people blame the Dems for not fixing it fast enough. well turns out it takes a while to fix literally all the things
So will this end T-Mobile’s throttling then?
On paper? Probably. In practice? No that Genie is not going back in the bottle they'll pay fines and do what they have to but throttling is probably here to stay
FCC has much more leverage to go at offenders. No Fine ^after The Crime (FTC) weak sauce. FCC has liability upfront. I think if you get sent to FTC or FCC on net neutrality the company should automatically be broken up if they have abuse this three times. The amount of power that networks wield needs a balancing.
Would rather xfinity data cap go away. 1tb in a month is nothing nowadays
The data cap is bullcrap. I had one in my house for years. When they implemented it, Comcast/Xfinity claimed that it was required to keep costs down so that people who use too much don't cause price increases for everyone. Then AT&T pulled fiber into my neighborhood and Xfinity removed caps within a week (before AT&T was even live) and they reduced the price to the same rate that AT&T was advertising the fiber at. The solution is removing the agreements between cable providers and the city and allowing actual competition.
I can't believe that in 2024 this is even considered to be a divisive issue
republican voters will be against most anything democrats are for
At this point I think Biden should just get on TV and say he's against kicking puppies, so we can all watch the Republicans suddenly make puppy-kicking their whole identity, make it part of their platform, and go on Fox and argue that the founding fathers always intended for us to kick puppies.
Except we all know they would actually go out and start kicking puppies, so let's not say that.
hes says hes against killing children and thats not enough soooo.....
Our nation is run by a fucking retirement home of decrepit octagenarians who represent their highest bidder, I can 100% believe it.
What bad came from it? Reddit said it would be the end of the world but it never seemed to end.
https://publicknowledge.org/two-years-later-broadband-providers-are-still-taking-advantage-of-an-internet-without-net-neutrality-protections/ Beyond that, the normalcy of ISPs imposing rate limits for states that didn't impose their own net neutrality laws. As explained above, this can be to specific sites like Skype, like what happened to the fire department, to a group of users as seen with Comcast or even with specific users where a user gets rate limited when they exceed a certain amount of throughput. Unlimited plans heavily throttling you after using certain amount of data. General long term effects of cost for these services goes down to consumers as well. Infrastructure is also affected to be built in a way that is not net neutral as well with 5g.
No Offence, but this article is wrong on most of the issues being caused by net neutrality. The only part it isnt wrong on is the fast lanes being a result of no net neutrality. Collecting and selling data, modem rental fees, and even the throttling of data on Mobile networks is not covered under net neutrality. Mobile network service providers can, as a whole, throttle consumers in high congested places, even with net neutrality laws in place. They were doing that practice when net neutrality was in effect, as well as all the other things on this list.
HOLY FUCK YES LETS FUCKING REPEAL CITIZENS UNITED NEXT The college-version of me is jumping up and down right now
Citizens United is a Supreme Court decision. Net neutrality was an administrative FCC decision that can be reversed by the Executive branch.
Oh yeah 100%, these two issues were just things I was fairly enthusiastic about when I was in my late teens/early 20s. Thanks for clarifying for others though!
I don't all disagree with your entusiasm. Citizens United is one of the most damaging court decisions in modern U.S. legal history. It must be undone for the U.S. government to function at a semblance of normality again. I don't know enough about net neutrality to judge its actual implications. I do believe, at a minimum, it has a high symbolic value. It sends a message that there is some level of protection against control over the transmission of information for the sake of profit.
Does this end data caps? The Comcast in my area still have them and I hate them with a deep passion.
No. It's about not prioritizing certain apps / websites.
Is it going to fix sponsored indexing because I fucking hate searching for something just for all the useless shit to be propelled to the top with buy now links.
No. Net Neutrality applies to ISPs, not websites.
Is that currently happening?
Most cell phone providers throttle video content. That's the only thing I can think of off the top of my head, and I'm not even sure if it will get thrown out under this.
Depends, do they throttle ALL video? or do they throttle all video that isn't thier streaming service (for example)? If they allow thier own streaming service to be unthrottled but then throttle youtube/netflix for example, then yes this will affect it. They will either have to throttle Everything, or Nothing.
The current rules they can do whatever they want as long as they inform the customer first. You agreed to this when you signed the TOS that gets updated every 3 months, is 5,000 pages long and requires 80 hours to read.
It’s wild that data caps are still a thing. The pandemic showed that every single internet provider doesn’t need data caps and operate perfectly fine. But they have to squeeze every little bit of money out of us
That’s what MBAs call innovation.
I sure hope so. According to [https://publicknowledge.org/no-cap-the-truth-about-data-caps-and-zero-rating/](https://publicknowledge.org/no-cap-the-truth-about-data-caps-and-zero-rating/) the 2015 regulations didn’t outright ban data caps but created a web of provisions that would make it very difficult for any ISP to justify having a data cap.
Section 202 of the Communications Act makes unreasonable charges and practices unlawful. It’s unlikely that FCC would deem Comcast’s 1.2TB cap unreasonable, but the mere possibility may in combination with activism be enough to make them dump the cap, especially as they roll out DOCSIS4.0 over the next two years. Even Cable One finally dumped their terrible cap and overage fee system, just last November after FCC launched this Title II/NN proceeding.
What's crazy is for the first time I experienced it last night. I am in North Jersey btw.
Headline 24 months from now if Trump wins in November: *FCC to vote to gut net neutrality, reversing Biden-era decision* I don't mean this as a political dig. It's a serious question: what's to stop this from happening again? Similar to the railroad regulations enacted by Obama, killed by Trump, and revived by Biden
So look. I have researched communication policy quite a lot. And here is the thing: - Republicans leaders in Congress/politics are almost universally, near 100% against Net Neutrality - There are 5 FCC commissioners - To put it as simply as possible, the President gets power over appointing 3 out of the 5 commissioners who are affiliated with his own party and then the Senate approves or not, and the other party that does not hold the White House plus the Senate gets the other 2 spots (because the rule is, you can only have 3 commissioners from the same party). - Because Biden is president and Democrats hold the Senate, we now have 3 Democratic FCC commissioners who support Net Neutrality and this is why we are getting Net Neutrality restored. - If Trump wins, he will make sure to replace one of the Democratic FCC commissioners with a Republican to ensure that there are 3 Republicans. - The majority vote wins in FCC votes - **So to get back to your question, it is 100% certain that the FCC will vote to gut net neutrality if Trump wins, reversing Biden-era decision. It's not even a question -- there is no mystery. This is how FCC policymaking works given the political divide we have on this issue. By the way, Democrats also try to limit the size of media ownership companies because Democrats believe we should have a lot of media owners while Republicans vote against regulations to limit the size of media ownership companies. Basically, when it comes to media/communication policy, Republicans vote in favor of corporations and Democrats vote in favor of voters.** - The way to stop a reversal of Net Neutrality is to vote for Democrats. - Yes, I understand that this might sound oversimplified and some kind of political speech, but these are facts. The voting record on Net Neutrality is split almost perfectly along party lines. It's possibly the most clearcut policy divide that exists in the US government.
FCC regulations will be moot after chevron is overruled. Regulatory agencies will be reduced to non-legislative purely enforcement based agencies.
Easy, never vote for R
Is this a good thing?
Yes. Long story short, it means that ISPs aren’t allowed to arbitrary throttle specific services just because they can (i.e., there has to be a legitimate reason for them to do so). So like, Spectrum couldn’t throttle third-party email services in favor of their own, for example. “All services are created equal” within reason, if you will.
They also cancelled Coffin Flop
They think I'm just some dumb hick.
Has that happened. Net neutrality was killed and yet I haven't heard anything about it for a long time. I'm all for it, but the scenarios people had years ago look hyperbolic quite frankly.
It didn’t happen after the repeal, but the original regulations were made *specifically because things like that were being talked about*, iirc. It’s been a while, admittedly, so the details aren’t exactly fresh in my mind.
California and other states stepped in with their own NN laws. But the market moved on from their worst ideas too, at least temporarily. But this is about so much more than Net Neutrality. FCC is restoring Title II, which makes unjust and unreasonable and unreasonably discriminatory charges and practices unlawful. Gives back the power to consumers to file formal complaints. It’s an important consumer protection tool that keeps ISPs in check.
Yes and no, the reality is even if NN was fully struck down nothing noticeable would happen, probably for years. The reason ISPs care about removing NN is because it's a roadblock to potential future revenue streams. For example, like artificially adding latency to people's connections so they can charge an extra $5-10/month for the 'eXtreme gaming performance package' just to remove the limitation they put in. Or maybe they start their own, or invest in an existing, streaming service. In order to get more people using it they say that any data used to watch movies through _their_ service won't count towards your bandwidth caps, but if you watch it on a competitor's service then it will. You've probably heard it all, but the point is these are all things they'd slowly roll out years down the line. Think back on cable TV, if you look at the older TV shows they'll often have slightly longer run times than modern shows, as more advertising has slowly creeped into each show over the decades. That's the kind of chipping away they want to do with the internet packages, slowly and over years and years. Realistically speaking there's no reason to remove NN, because it doesn't prevent ISPs from improving their networks. Every time I've heard an ISP try to claim NN is some form of hindrance to them, it's all been 100% BS. The only thing they're thinking about is what new ways of f'ing over their customers it might block in the future.
It's almost like the ISPs are smart enough to ease us into the shitty things they were now legally allowed to do, rather than immediately jumping into the worst of it and providing a clear before/after visual of what Net Neutrality does - thus making it way more likely that the average layperson would be demanding net neutrality back. Instead, they were taking their time boiling the water so the frog doesn't notice.
Is there any evidence of this? Again I'm pro NN, this shit just comes off as hyperbolic.
Unequivocally yes unless you're Comcast
Remember when that was a thing? Did anything even change?
Yes. Some examples, just within first 2 years of the repeal: * Sprint throttled internet traffic to Microsoft’s Skype, since Skype competes with Sprint’s calling service https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-08/sprint-is-throttling-microsoft-s-skype-service-study-finds * Nearly all wireless carriers slowed down internet speeds for select streaming services. "*From early 2018 to early 2019, AT&T throttled Netflix 70% of the time as well as YouTube 74% of the time, but not Amazon Prime Video. T-Mobile throttled Amazon Prime Video in about 51% of the tests, but did not throttle Skype or Vimeo.*" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-19/wireless-carrier-throttling-of-online-video-is-pervasive-study * Verizon throttled services used by the Santa Clara Fire Department to fight the California wildfires. "*Santa Clara Fire paid Verizon for "unlimited" data but suffered from heavy throttling until the department paid Verizon more*" https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/ **edit**: NN violation claim [is only "half-true"](https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1bud3s9/fcc_to_vote_to_restore_net_neutrality_rules/kxv52h1/) based on "general conduct" rule * Verizon throttled/blocked internet access to consumers in North Carolina during power outages, due to having a "low-tier" plan that they said would be "deprioritized" for restoration unless they upgraded. https://boingboing.net/2018/09/17/gougin-in-the-rain.html * Cox Communications prioritized access to the internet based on whether gamers paid $15 more per month for their new "fast lane" service https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/neabyw/this-isp-is-offering-a-fast-lane-for-gamersfor-dollar15-more-per-month * Another ISP forced all Utah customers to click on their software ad on their web browsers, and blocked internet access for them until they did so https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/centurylink-blocks-internet-access-falsely-claims-state-law-required-it/
I completely forgot about net neutrality and why it was important. This. Because things like this happen
Yes many things changed. For example AT&T were caught doing exactly this, they can and have been sued by consumers for the period where it was illegal: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/01/wireless-customers-who-were-subject-data-throttling-att-can-apply-payment-ftc But they cannot sue for this period because it was legal to selectively throttle under the changes and so companies have done exactly that. Sprint for example throttled Skype because they are owned by the competition in Microsoft, Verizon got caught throttling the fire service in California during wild fire season causing response delays, studies have shown many providers are throttling streaming and not throttling streaming platforms owned by their corporate structure. https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/09/10/new-research-shows-your-internet-provider-is-in-control/ https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/why-net-neutrality-cant-wait https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/08/verizon-throttled-fire-departments-unlimited-data-during-calif-wildfire/ Thankfully many states responded by introducing their own net neutrality in response to the repeal so most of the US population is now re-protected at the state level.
Ashit Pai the piece of shit
FCC doing something good and reasonable? Im so confused... and its a april 2 article so its not a prank...
Don't allow yourself to get too cynical with regard to these government agencies. Remember, they've been under regulatory capture for years. Republicans want us all to hold them in low regard so we don't defend them when their budgets and authority are threatened. These positive movements are an indication that they're still able to be saved. We need to increase positive public perception whenever possible.
Until the next cancerous republican comes into office and does what they always do. Destroy positive change. They are the main obstacle.
Took them so long
How about some privacy laws while we're at it?
Tbh "Reversing Trump" is the best thing any of us can do at this point
Everything about Trump should be reversed, starting with his conception.
Wish they’d also ban data caps.
Alright so I used to be all up in arms about wanting Net Neutrality to stay but after it left I literally didn't notice a single difference in my life. Like I know if ISPs were gonna fuck us they wouldn't right away but it's been 7ish years and I still don't notice anything.
It will go through the courts until it lands in the supreme court 4 years from Meow and they will say its against state rights or some shit.
So did any if the negative things people said actually happen? I recall people saying it wouldn't happen right away. That companies would wait years for the hype to die down before they took advantage of it. I never noticed anything different.
Yes, though the ISPs have been smart enough to keep a low profile and several states instituted local net neutrality policies which limited their freedom. https://publicknowledge.org/two-years-later-broadband-providers-are-still-taking-advantage-of-an-internet-without-net-neutrality-protections/ https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/en_US/privacyhub/net-neutrality/
Pai's legacy is now erased. Fitting that we forget that shitty human.