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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: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 17 2018, @04:43PM (3 children)
None of the politicians on either side think with what you said they do;
Who cares what they think, it's how they act that matters.
And Dems consistently act towards a neutral internet. While the Reps consitently act to neuter the internet.
I know which I prefer.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by crafoo on Wednesday January 17 2018, @05:29PM (1 child)
I don't think this is true. Dems vote very authoritarian as soon as copyright infringement comes up. It's not surprising considering who funds them. And it's still pushing for corporate control of the internet, just a different set of corps than republican corporate masters.
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 17 2018, @07:26PM
More Reps voted for the DMCA than Dems. [govtrack.us]
While I'm no fan of the (historical*) Dem position on copyright the worst you can say about them is they're almost as bad as the Reps on that issue.
*With the recent left wing backlash against things like SOPA I doubt the Dems are nearly as aligned on this issue as they used to be. There hasn't been any major legislation either way in a decade, though, so it's hard to tell.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 17 2018, @07:17PM
This supposed "net neutrality" is about how companies like Verizon and Comcast have to treat the traffic from companies like Netflix and Hulu.
That matters, barely. It's nothing compared to how large end-user-oriented monopolies treat individual users, which is the neutrality that matters. Twitter, YouTube, Google search, Google news, and Facebook have all been caught suppressing viewpoints that are not politically correct in California. Amazon and Netflix have even gotten into that misbehavior, purposely promoting viewpoints that mainstream America finds abhorrent.
When the companies abusing users complain about other companies abusing them, it should be no surprise that this complaint falls on deaf ears at best.
Bonus: with the CAN-SPAM act encouraging spam and the patriotism of the PATRIOT act being questionable, we tend to assume that names are the opposite of what they sound like. So we already have suspicion that "net neutrality" is non-neutral, and then we see it supported by companies that fight end-user net neutrality.
Maybe if those companies wanted neutral treatment from ISPs, they could have provided neutral treatment to end users. There could be some sympathy then.