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The story of net neutrality as an Obama-led takeover of the Internet has been a key Republican talking point for months, a talking point which has been refuted by internal FCC documents obtained by Motherboard using a Freedom of Information Act request. These findings were made by the independent, nonpartisan FCC Office of Inspector General an Inspector General. However, the findings were not made public prior to Thursday’s vote.
[...] First, some background: The FCC is an independent regulatory agency that is supposed to remain “free from undue influence” by the executive branch—it is not beholden to the White House, only the laws that Congress makes and tells it to regulate. This means the president cannot direct it to implement policies. In November 2014, President Obama released a statement saying that he believed the FCC should create rules protecting net neutrality, but noted that “ultimately this decision is theirs alone.”
[...] Since 2014, Republicans have pointed to net neutrality as an idea primarily promoted by President Obama, and have made it another in a long line of regulations and laws that they have sought to repeal now that Donald Trump is president. Prior to this false narrative, though, net neutrality was a bipartisan issue; the first net neutrality rules were put in place under President George W. Bush, and many Republicans worked on the 2015 rules that were just dismantled.
What happened, then, is that Republicans sold the public a narrative that wasn’t true, then used that narrative to repeal the regulations that protect the internet.
Internal FCC Report Shows Republican Anti-Net Neutrality Narrative Is False
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @10:36PM (9 children)
(Not same AC)
Instead of insulting someone who you think doesn't understand you, try to understand them for a moment. The Googles of the world fought VERY hard, doing absolutely everything they could to ensure Hilary would win. Now those same companies are fighting VERY hard to ensure net neutrality remains in place.
If Google had maintained their "Don't Be Evil" mantra from oh-so-long ago and avoided succumbing to the Silicon Valley cancer of "diversity for the sake of diversity, as long as we work to exclude straight white males," it would be a lot easier for the general public to trust that this is a hugely important issue to rally over. Remember how they changed their search page during SOPA/PIPA, before they went full retard on the political stage? People jumped on board. But now it's a partisan issue, and they lost any right-wing voter support they could have had.
Now that Google et al. are partisan, and not even subtly, Joe Sixpack doesn't trust *anything* they say. And Joe Sixpack would also be wise to start using DuckDuckGo instead, but he won't, because Google is easier to type.
TL;DR: Yes, the tech companies brought this on themselves, albeit in a roundabout fashion. Maybe they should try being politically neutral instead.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @10:55PM (2 children)
Nope, you're just repeating more stupidity. Net Neutrality has NOTHING to do with free speech or censorship by private corporations. The closest NN comes to your viewpoint is with the idea that ISPs could not treat website traffic any differently, they would be "dumb pipes" that simply deliver what their customers request.
Your censorship issue is something that would have to be tackled with new legislation, NN has ZERO BEARING on your complaints. I guess widespread ignorance such as you possess is what prevented a public outcry that would actually motivate the congress critters, along with all the nasty lies / manipulation / false data used to try and erode support for NN.
Take your corporate shilling somewhere else, I am having a hard time believing that you can actually be so ignorant of the NN details when its been discussed on here ad nauseum.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @11:22PM (1 child)
I said NOTHING about net neutrality itself (which, for the record, I am pro-net neutrality). I'm focusing more on the way most people view political issues: not for the content of the issue itself, but for who is or is not against it.
Google, Twitter, Facebook et al. came out as pro-left, and now they're paying for it by losing the support of people on the right who would have supported them otherwise. Simple as that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19 2017, @11:34PM
Gotcha, guess all your points are on topic and not flamebaiting. It is good to give the context with your initial comment so people don't assume the rest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @12:23AM (3 children)
Well, the first time I saw a post like this, I thought that somebody was posting insight into a position that I could not understand, so I modded it up.
It's now pretty clear that you're either trolling or completely delusional.
You do realize that now that we don't have net neutrality, Google and TwitFace will be entrenched? Imagine an SJW boot stomping on a human face forever. That's the net without net neutrality.
Whatever. What's done is done. Please, continue destroying every ideal you claim to be fighting for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @02:19AM (2 children)
If net neutrality keeps Google/Twitter/Facebook in check, why do they all want net neutrality? It seems contrary to their interests.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @01:06PM
Because it will cost them money to send content. They can afford it.... but it still costs them. On the other hand, the little guy probably can't afford it.
Whoever has monopoly rights on the pipes now gets to control the content by way of charging.... based on content not data usage.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @05:26PM
GP here. It could be the case that the D team periodically takes up positions that happen to be in line with liberal (as in liberty, not SJWs) ideals because they know that left-wing authoritarian followers are not a stable power base. Left-wing authoritarian followers pop up every now and then, but it seems to only be right-wing authoritarian followers that have staying power.
A free internet is in everybody's best interest, sans authoritarian leaders and their authoritarian followers (both wings).
There's another question that's much more interesting I've been wondering about: why do the right-wing authoritarian leaders who rally against SJWs seem to want TwitFace to be entrenched?
Are they really that stupid? I don't think they are. When I was young and stupid myself, I assumed that many people were ignorant about technology, so I tried to help educate them. I've found that most people are ignorant about technology; most people have taken a position of silence with regards to technology. They simply don't care. My position that they were ignorant was incorrect; they are stupid. When it comes to authoritarian leaders, sociopaths, and other gaslighting assholes, those are not stupid or ignorant. They have some other objective that will somehow increase their power.
I propose that TwitFace is the unifying Enemy of these (so called “alt right”) authoritarian leaders. Authoritarian leaders cannot function without a unifying Enemy to rally their followers against. They are just as afraid of free speech as SJWs, who are also authoritarian leaders and followers. Therefore, if (“alt right”) authoritarian leaders wish to be entrenched (and given increasing power by their followers), they must also entrench the unifying Enemy.
Left-wing authoritarianism lacks staying power because it often does not have a viable, long-term unifying Enemy. Sure, it might be trendy to hate white people, or to hate people assigned the male gender at birth, or to hate men who are cisgendered, but it simply isn't viable long-term. Progressive values tend to deprecate and vanquish left-wing authoritarianism. However, right-wing authoritarianism, by its very reactionary nature, has staying power, because of the way it uses nostalgia in a quixotic attempt to turn back time. If one's enemy is time and the loss of class privileges relative to other classes in society, it's easy to find a long-term unifying Enemy.
However, that being said, I must not fail to note that right-wing authoritarianism cannot take hold if there is a rising tide lifting all boats. The real economy has been stagnant going on 40 years now. That's the real reason for the rise and success of right-wing authoritarianism. It's the economy, stupid.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @12:15PM
You're out of your mind.
1. Net Neutrality doesn't hurt Google, Facebook, Twitter, or Netflix. They're multi-billion dollar companies with recognized names, they can push back when Comcast or Verizon try to squeeze them or their end users for extra money. Net Neutrality fucks the next Google, Facebook, or Netflix, by letting the ISPs bleed it dry. "If you want to reach more than 30,000 customers at full speed we require an extra $0.01 per GB of traffic, otherwise we will throttle your connection speed onto our network by 60%." That's what they can do now, and it will stifle competition on the net. Congratulations, the Google you hate just got an even stronger lock on its market position.
2. Your "as long as we work to exclude straight white males" comment is beyond ridiculous. Straight white men are still the overwhelming majority of state governors, senators, representatives, Fortune 1000 CEOs, CTOs, and engineers in the country. "Maybe we shouldn't shit on people who are not straight white males" != "mistreat straight white males". Get over your martyr complex. I'm a straight white male, I'm doing just fine, and I've been contacted by recruiters from Amazon and Google within the past year. They're not about to kick us all to the curb - or put us in concentration camps.
3. And Joe Sixpack doesn't know or care whether Google is partisan. He'll use Google on his Android device for the same reason 99.9% of Windows PC shoppers never replace the operating system on the computer they buy - consumers tend to use the defaults. We always have, we always will.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:14PM
Google has been backing away from their support of NN lately. They still claim to support it, sure, but they aren't actually putting in any effort. As you noticed, back during the SOPA/PIPA fight, they had information about it right on their homepage. For NN, all they did was a post to their corporate blog. So we know they're willing to do a hell of a lot more for an issue they actually care about, but not for NN.
And it makes sense. Killing NN would probably be *great* for Google. Sure, right now Joe Sixpack doesn't give a damn about switching to DuckDuckGo. But without neutrality, Joe Sixpack no longer even has the option. No matter what Google may do, no matter how evil they get, they can just contract with the ISPs to be the "preferred search provider" and become the only search engine that you can access.
With NN, companies will do as much evil scummy crap as they can get away with. They'll do everything they can that won't drive all their users away. But without it, they don't really have to worry about driving users away, so even that one small restriction on their asshole behavior gets lifted.