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The Federal Communications Commission has denied petitions from telecommunications industry trade groups to stop implementation of Open Internet rules while legal challenges move forward:
In its ruling, the FCC declared that the petitioners could not establish reasonable grounds to stay the rules, even with the court appeal currently ongoing. In order to do so, the FCC said, a petitioner must not only show that they are likely to win the case and would suffer irreparable harm absent a stay, but also show that a stay is in the public interest and would not harm other parties.
"Petitioners have failed to demonstrate that they are likely to succeed on the merits," the FCC said. "The Commission’s classification of fixed and mobile [broadband internet access service] as telecommunications services falls well within the Commission’s statutory authority, is consistent with Supreme Court precedent, and fully complies with the Administrative Procedure Act."
Though it wasn't what opponents were hoping to hear, the ruling is far from the end of the road in the fight over the FCC rules. Even as the commission moves forward, legal challenges could still roll back the regulations.
The move to dismiss the broadband industry petitions for a stay is no surprise, but the FCC's denial sets up the next phase in the net neutrality legal battle. Now the groups will ask a court to halt the reclassification pending a final outcome. If they can't get a stay from a judge, they will have to abide by the reclassification until their full challenge of the FCC's ruling gets its day in court, which could take years.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:26PM
What good is an open Internet if there are so many websites out there, SoylentNews included, that allow and even promote abusive moderation?
We all know how bad Reddit and Hacker News are. Original thought is mercilessly crushed at those sites. For example, if at Hacker News you dare to question Ruby on Rails, or NoSQL databases, or anything that Mozilla has done, you will be downvoted and censored as much as is possible.
Slashdot isn't anywhere near as bad, but abusive moderation is the norm there. While abusive moderation was much less of a problem here, during this site's first months, it has gotten particularly bad lately. Over the past several days I've seen a number of stories where there are five or ten comments in a row that have been abusively downvoted, along with others scattered to and fro.
What good is it to have an open Internet when original thought is so ruthlessly crushed by so many major (and minor) websites?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:29PM
I was questioning myself because I noticed exactly the same thing as you describe. "Troll" is absurdly misused.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:31PM
I was questioning myself because I noticed exactly the same thing as you describe. "Troll" is absurdly misused.
You are correct. -1: Offtopic is the proper down-mod for these comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:53PM
Offtopic is perhaps the only mod that's abused more than Troll. When a comment has been marked Offtopic, it's a great indicator that it's actually on-topic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:37PM
I've seen it suggested that any moderation here should be accompanied by the username of the moderator. I tend to agree with this idea.
It should bring at least some small sense of responsibility to those who are moderating. Maybe it will make them think twice before abusively moderating if they know that their username will be forever linked with that abusive moderation.
I don't think that's enough, though. There needs to be ways to punish users who moderate abusively. They're doing more harm to this community and to the discussion here than any alleged "troll" ever could manage to do.
Anyone, ACs included, should be able to flag abusive moderators. If a moderator has more than, say, three abusive moderations flagged within a single week, then that user loses his or her moderation privileges for a month. Even that's being lenient, however. Realistically, even just one abusive moderation should be enough for a user to never moderate here ever again.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday May 12 2015, @07:14PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @09:16PM
A good chunk of the best comments here come from ACs. You just gotta accept the fact that the chaff comes with the wheat. Also, not all trolling is bad. There are plenty of people who quickly climb their high horse that they need a knock or two. The quickest way to marginalize this place is to do away with AC accounts and anonymous moderation. Besides, when there is only a dozen or two comments per story and only a couple of obvious troll comments in them, I don't see this as the big problem some make it out to be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @10:29PM
Golly, that Sarah Palin is one heck of a gal. I hope she runs for president.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nerdfest on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:23AM
Duh. All Democrats do.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday May 12 2015, @11:29PM
I thought Tork's comment was a hilariously tongue-in-cheek. I do have to say that I am impressed that I'm able to regularly browse at 0 here and don't feel like gouging my brain out when browsing at -1.
Besides, that particular AC in question might as well be wearing a neon name tag. $diety help us all if he figures out how to immitate different writing styles.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @07:12PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @11:02PM
You forgot to sign your comment with "--gewg_".
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:40PM
The parent comment is a perfect example of a bad mod job. It's 100% on topic, yet it has been wrongly modded down.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:43PM
Oh, FFS - if the moderation is so damned bad, you can open your own damned site, without paying exorbitant extortion fees in order to compete with SN, /. and all the other sites. THAT is what an open internet is all about.
Do you have even the vaguest idea what the ISP's and the carriers have in mind for the internet? They want to be PAID, REPEATEDLY, for every data transaction, and they want to be PAID AGAIN for that data to be delivered quickly.
It isn't bad enough that they have refused to install that mythical "last mile" of broadband - they want the legal means to throttle every bit per second according to their own pricing schedules.
Wake the hell up. This "open internet" we are looking at isn't the best of all possible worlds, but it's a HELL of a lot better than the corporate excutives were going to give us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @05:50PM
Why are your views so hypocritical and inconsistent with respect to these two very similar issues?
On one hand, you tell people who are displeased with the severe moderation problems here just to leave and to build their own site.
Yet on the other hand, you tell people who are displeased with the severe telecom problems in America to "wake the hell up" and make a stink about these problems.
You need to rethink your positions on these issues, and realign them so that they don't conflict with one another.
You need to either support those who are against the severe moderation problems here, or you need to tell those who are against the severe telecom problems in America just to build and maintain their own telecom infrastructure.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:30PM
On one hand, you tell people who are displeased with the severe moderation problems here just to leave and to build their own site.
Yet on the other hand, you tell people who are displeased with the severe telecom problems in America to "wake the hell up" and make a stink about these problems.
Perhaps the two things are so different in scale that comparing them is completely absurd? Have you considered that?
The rules or policies on a particular website are far less important than protecting an open Internet from multi-billion dollar companies. Your comments aren't even deleted here; people can still see them if they want.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:34PM
Try to stay with me here. My views are not hypocritical at all, and here is why.
The telecoms are busy raping you, me, government, small business, big business, and anyone else not previously mentioned. The telecoms are the gatekeepers - you pay them, or you don't get internet. You cannot compete with them, period. You either do business their way, or you don't do business.
SN controls nothing outside of it's own site. You can take it or leave it, and they can't follow you to another site to block your interactions there. No site on the internet has any control over what you do on the internet, once you leave it's site. (well, with the exception of a drive by malware installation.)
You are completely free to start your own site, sell subscriptions, solicit donations, sell gimmicks and gadgetry with your logo on it - whatever you choose to do. You are just as free to go back to /. or to join some other geek site that is less slash-like. SN is not a gatekeeper. SN cannot control your usage of the internet.
There are sites on the internet that I truly despise, such as stormfront. If the stormfront people had their way, a lot of the internet would simply disappear. No more black interest sites, for starters - it would all be outlawed. Fortunately for all of us, stormfront is no more of a gatekeeper than SN is.
Can you now see why I hold different standards for a site like SN, and the telecoms? I certainly hope that I've cleared that up for you.
Of course, you could have cleared it up for yourself, with a little critical thinking.
(Score: 2) by wantkitteh on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:43PM
When someone on SN misuses moderation, it affects a single commenter on SN. When a telecoms company misuses traffic management, it affects every single customer indiscriminately.
I can't tell if you're making a mountain out of a molehill or whether you've just been living under a rock for a couple of years to not know what the difference in those issues is. Hell, I don't live in America but I know the issue inside and out thanks to all the coverage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @11:04PM
That's nonsense. A single bad moderation affects not just the commenter, but it indiscriminately affects everybody who wants to read that comment.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:10AM
Oh, the humanity!
A single bad moderation affects not just the commenter, but it indiscriminately affects everybody who wants to read that comment.
But how could it possibly affect them since they won't even know it exists, and thus cannot possibly know that they would want to read said post? And of course, if we keep having complaints about modding rather than concentrating on the fact the major corporations are going to keep trying to turn the internet back into TV, only without the social responsibility and fairness doctrines, there will be even more comments that we all will never know that we wanted to read.
(Score: 3, Touché) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:17PM
You can always browse at -1...it's not like the comments are deleted.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @09:05PM
The moderation here will always be broken until they require that you're browsing at -1 before you can moderate.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 15 2015, @01:13AM
No, I think it would be largely the same as it already is.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:26AM
I browse at -1. It is abused regularly, but there are those that try and fix it as well. I think the moderation is working quite nicely and encourages involvement.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:40PM
What good is food/water/air/living if you aren't rewarded for your speech?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford