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Senate Democrats have put together 50 votes for a measure meant to block the Federal Communications Commission's December decision to end net neutrality rules put in place by the Obama administration.
Democrats are just one GOP vote shy of the 51-vote threshold for a Senate resolution of disapproval, which would strike down the FCC's December rules change.
"With full caucus support," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, "it's clear that Democrats are committed to fighting to keep the internet from becoming the Wild West where ISPs are free to offer premium service to only the wealthiest customers while average consumers are left with far inferior options."
The Democrats' effort won the support of its first Republican backer, Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), last Tuesday.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @03:56PM (5 children)
Well, it seems to me that Mr. Schumer (being the mental giant he is) has it backwards. Net neutrality is what allows the internet to be the "wild west" of ideas. Without net neutrality, we're looking at a very real risk of the Googles, Facebooks, and Twitters colluding with ISPs (in ways that everybody's marketing department is sure to spin as doubleplusgood) to move from services that (for whatever reason) are merely popular to services that are actually entrenched, with barriers to entry for anybody who wants to create an alternative service.
Net neutrality makes projects like GNU Social [gnu.io] (appears to be decentralized Twitter) and Diaspora* [diasporafoundation.org] (appears to be decentralized Facebook) viable regardless of what the herds of cows do with their iThingies. I wish I knew how to explain to certain reactionary elements that net neutrality is what allows them to have their InfoWars and Brietbart.
Without net neutrality, companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter would be able to use their leverage to get ISPs to offer customers package deals for discount internet where, say, those services are free and included with the package. That's good, right? Who doesn't want a discount? The direction it's likely going is that before long, there will be no package that allows access to the "wild west" portions of the internet outside of the corporate walled gardens without paying an arm and a leg. Maybe if you want to get at the "wild west," you'll have to cough up $300 per month plus thousands in installation fees for a T1 (yes, only a T1, funny to think that's a small pipe these days) to your house.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 17 2018, @04:43PM
What greater barrier to entry can there be, than needing tens, hundreds or even thousands of millions of dollars to pay the ISP's to allow your traffic through? Google and Amazon and Facefook can all set up budgets of billions, to pay for that bandwidth. Startups? Even with things like kickstarter, they're not going to get that kind of monthly money for a startup. You're looking at something similar to colonialism - a startup MIGHT find the funds to get into a region. They might even become the biggest thing within their region. (region would be defined by however the ISP's chopped things up into slices, cubes, spheres, and planes) The hottest thing in the Washington, Oregon, Idaho section of the US may find it impossible to break out into the larger world.
While you blather about barriers to entry, you've completely neglecting one of the most important barriers, short of direct government censorship.
(Score: 5, Informative) by captain normal on Wednesday January 17 2018, @05:08PM
I think you are a bit confused about who is fighting for neutrality and who is handing the TelCo-Cable industries a blank check over our lives. Senator Schumer and the Ds are fighting the Trump administration's rejection of net neutrality.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @07:43PM (2 children)
You're ignoring the end-user net neutrality, which is what matters more and is what people see.
InfoWars and Brietbart are getting censored. If you search for them, google will put up a little sidebar to scare you away. That doesn't happen for left-leaning sites, even if maximally bullshit. If you post stuff from them on Twitter, you can lose your account. If you post articles from them on Facebook, you may get a warning to not post about them.
This abuse is why there is no sympathy for complaints from the internet giants. Basically, everybody who isn't a leftist now hates those companies. When they want something like net neutrality, the demands fall on deaf ears.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 18 2018, @03:03AM
It appears my wish to be able to explain it to you has gone unfulfilled. I'll check my genie into the shop tomorrow morning.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 18 2018, @04:52AM
Never fear. Without net neutrality, your ISP can just route InfoWars and Brietbart into /dev/nul and it won't matter at all whether they're listed by Google or you post about them anywhere.