US Officially Repeals Net Neutrality Rules
The net neutrality rules said companies had to treat all data equally.
Enacted in 2015, the rules sought to stop providers giving preferential treatment to sites and services that paid them to accelerate their data.
And critics fear repealing them may see consumers charged extra for anything more than the most basic service.
Public protests greeted the Federal Communications Commission's plan to end use of the rules, with many saying it could have an impact on free speech.
But, in December, the FCC voted to repeal the rules. And the regulations expired on Monday.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44438812
Oddly The Trump FCC Doesn't Much Want To Talk About Why It Made Up A DDOS Attack
Last week, e-mails obtained via FOIA request revealed that yes, FCC staffers routinely misled journalists in order to prop up this flimsy narrative, apparently in the belief they could conflate consumer outrage with criminal activity. The motive? It was likely for the same reason the FCC refused to do anything about the identity theft and bogus comments we witnessed during the repeal's open comment period: they wanted to try and downplay the massive, bipartisan public opposition to what the lion's share of Americans thought was an idiotic, corruption-fueled repeal of popular consumer protections.
[...] One of the FCC staffers accused of making false statements about the DDOS attack was recently departed FCC IT chief David Bray. Original reports stated that Bray and other staffers had been feeding this flimsy DDOS narrative to gullible reporters for years, then pointing to these inaccurate stories as "proof" the nonexistent attack occurred. Under fire in the wake of last week's report, Bray first doubled down on his claims, adding that the 2014 "attack" hadn't been publicized because former FCC boss Tom Wheeler covered it up. But Wheeler himself subsequently stated in a report late last week that this was unequivocally false:
"When I was in the greenroom waiting to come in here, I got an email from David Bray, who said 'I never said that you told us not to talk about this and to cover up,' which was the term that got used. Which of course is logical, because as the Gizmodo article that you referenced pointed out, A) FCC officials who were there at the time said it didn't happen, [and] B) the independent IT contractors that were hired said it didn't happen. So if it didn't happen it's hard to have a cover up for something that didn't happen."
Related Stories
Report: FBI opens criminal investigation into net neutrality comment fraud
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the use of stolen identities in public comments on the government's repeal of net neutrality rules, BuzzFeed News reported Saturday.
The investigation focuses on "whether crimes were committed when potentially millions of people's identities were posted to the FCC's website without their permission, falsely attributing to them opinions about net neutrality rules," the report said.
"Two organizations told BuzzFeed News, each on condition that they not be named, that the FBI delivered subpoenas to them related to the comments," BuzzFeed wrote.
The FBI subpoenas came a few days after similar subpoenas sent by NY AG Barbara Underwood in mid-October. Underwood "subpoenaed more than a dozen telecommunications trade groups, lobbying contractors, and Washington advocacy organizations," The New York Times reported in October.
Previously: John Oliver Leads Net Neutrality Defenders to Crash FCC Website. Again.
Bot Floods the FCC's Website with Anti-Net Neutrality Comments
FCC Officially Publishes Net Neutrality Repeal
U.S. Officially Repeals Net Neutrality Rules; FOIA Request Reveals Details of Bogus DDoS Attack
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Passes Blame Over Lying About Public Comment System Being DDoSed
99.7 Percent of Unique FCC Comments Favored Net Neutrality
Ajit Pai Admits Russia Interfered in Net Neutrality Process amid Lawsuit
The Federal Communications Commission has scheduled an April 25 vote to restore net neutrality rules similar to the ones introduced during the Obama era and repealed under former President Trump.
"After the prior administration abdicated authority over broadband services, the FCC has been handcuffed from acting to fully secure broadband networks, protect consumer data, and ensure the Internet remains fast, open, and fair," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said today. "A return to the FCC's overwhelmingly popular and court-approved standard of net neutrality will allow the agency to serve once again as a strong consumer advocate of an open Internet."
[...]
In a filing with the FCC, Turner wrote that "ISPs have been incredibly bullish about the future of their businesses precisely because of the network investments they are making" and that the companies rarely, if ever, mention the impact of FCC regulation during calls with investors."We believe that the ISPs' own words to their shareholders, and to industry analysts through channels governed by the SEC, should be afforded significantly more weight than evidence-free tropes, vague threats, dubious aggregate capital expenditure tallies, or nonsensical math jargon foisted on the Commission this docket or elsewhere," Turner wrote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:04PM (7 children)
How many other countries ever had it? How is their internet different?
(Score: 5, Informative) by SpockLogic on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:34PM
When the net started everyone had it, everyone.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 5, Informative) by julian on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:35PM (2 children)
Other countries have much more competitive markets for ISPs.
Most Americans have exactly one choice for broadband: the cable company. DSL, satellite, LTE, and dial-up don't count; they're too slow, have too high latency, have crippling bandwidth caps, or all three. We are not going to get to a competitive market in the USA through deregulation. So that's a non-starter. So using regulation to enforce fair play is the next best option.
Net-neutrality *should* be the conservative position because it fosters the growth of small businesses and allows the little guy to compete with the big, established, companies in every space the uses the Internet to sell goods and services. Conservatives turned against it because they were paid to by established industry players, and crafted specious rhetoric about government regulations run amok which would rile up their low-information base and get them to (once again) vote against their own interests.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:25AM
Conservatism is just reactionary fundamentalism to progress. Free market, free trade, small/big businesses... The only objective is to maintain and preserve (conserve) the existing status and power structures whatever the means. If it means tossing the liberals out of your party, so be it. If it means tariffs and supports big businesses, that's also fine. If a national healthcare system can be made to keep pushing money to the same people (i.e. themselves), then they'll support it.
Really, the name says it all.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:20AM
Canadian here. Less competitive market, I think, but net neutrality recently enshrined in law against the wishes of the Big telephone and cable companies.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:41PM (2 children)
I am not American, and as far as I am aware we don't actually have Net Neutrality rules as such, but I do know the national network infrastructure bit is owned by a heavily regulated company which provides access to the network for the retail providers who I actually deal with.
My home connection is 100/10 and costs me about $US50 per month.
My ISP provides me bandwidth to the Internet, and thats all. If I want to run a webserver or mail server I can, and anything coming in is just packets to them, so I am getting net neutrality in reality.
If anything changes, I have the choice of about 10 ISP's, all of which have good points and bad points.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:04AM (1 child)
Maybe, but you have No True Freedom [wikipedia.org] like the USA has.
(Score: 5, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:19AM
That's true.
I was just saying to Mrs. Zombie last night that strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you, I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:05PM (13 children)
What exactly happened to this?:
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/16/213218 [soylentnews.org]
Did that never make it through the House or something?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:15PM
It was a political gesture. It was never expected to make it through the House of Reps.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:19PM (11 children)
Did that never make it through the House or something?
Paul Ryan and the House Republicans are refusing to even hold a vote on it. [thehill.com]
Vote Dem in the midterms if you want your net neutrality back.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:36PM (6 children)
I'm for a constitutional amendment requiring one chamber to take a vote on any text passed by the other chamber within two weeks if they don't present their own project, or a month if they do.
Either chamber should have to vote on any text backed by at least a quarter of its members under the same deadlines (maybe limit that "backing" to once a day per member).
Similarly, the Senate should have to vote on any nominee for any position in less than a month.
They can vote no a lot, but they have to vote.
Even if that helps scumbags pass stuff I never want to see, it's better than the current stalling game that distorts democracy.
Other amendment: unrelated riders should render a bill void in its entirety.
I'm pretty sure we could get those two easily approved by The People, if only that mattered.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:45PM (2 children)
Add a clause that anyone that doesn't vote also doesn't get a paycheck.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:00AM
Yes, but most are too rich to really care about the paycheck. Add: their staff doesn't get paid.
I'd go for "miss 25% of the votes, you become ineligible forever" (requires a safety against the Speaker setting up 700 votes on your day off).
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Thursday June 14 2018, @12:54PM
In my state they'd agree to this, then also pass a bill that whenever they do get a paycheck, they deserve backpay covering all missed paychecks with a bonus for good behavior, so they'd only need to have their act together a few times a year.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:53PM (2 children)
You can even run it as russian roulette. But for every day past some relatively short cutoff date, the two majority parties in Congress will have one member from each side executed for each day they are unable to decide on a bill, budget, or other legislative action. Do this a few times and you will see Congress hopping to in a hurry, because they only thing they like more than cash and collusion is their lives, and having a legally mandated way to threaten that will see a lot more of them hopping to.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 14 2018, @06:57PM (1 child)
Just make sure that there are no exceptions whatsoever. The Speaker doesn't get out of it just because he's the head honcho.
"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 tangomargarine on Thursday June 14 2018, @07:00PM
Er, and it's a randomly-selected member. We didn't actually say that? It's random.
1/500 (or whatever) chance gets interesting when the stakes are that high
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Gaaark on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:09AM (3 children)
"Vote Dem in the midterms if you want your net neutrality back."
and hope they don't bobble Hillary back out again.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:36AM (2 children)
They won't do that for the midterms. If they decide to screw the pooch by introducing her again, it will be in 2020.
But I desperately, foolishly hope the party learns from the mistakes of the past few decades. "We're marginally less corrupt than the Republicans" just doesn't mobilize the base the way the Democrat establishment expected.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:31AM
Last I saw (not an American), Bernie seemed to be going strong!
He's known, he's popular: bring HIM out.
If I'd been American and given the choice of Bernie Vs Trump I'd have gone Bernie.
Hill Vs Trump, with no other option, I would have voted trump (no other option, mind you)
Yeah, people seem to be cluing in to the whole corruption and 'we want better' idea. Bout time.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:15AM
They're gonna do it in 2020. The Democrats aren't as corrupt in absolute terms as the Republicans, but the Clinton machine was instrumental in shifting the Overton Window right beyond the wildest dreams of, say, Nixon (who threatened to do the same thing when he was elected). Unless something fundamental changes about the way the Dems work, they are the new Republicans (whereas the GOP are now basically the Taliban, but too fat and weak to grow facial hair).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:06PM
I would comment, but I'm afraid that Comcast may reclassify my home internet traffic, A) charging me more, and B) throttling my bandwidth while C) compensating by offering me free bandwidth to VUDU and Sony Playstation Online.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 13 2018, @11:07PM (1 child)
It's just blatant propaganda coming from the Federal Communication Commission.
Y'know a little good old fashioned government sponsored disinformation.
No biggie, right?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:17AM
Truth be told, it was kind of ham-handed weak sauce compared to the propaganda the CIA is directing news sources like New York Times and WaPo to print. Let's hope operation Red to Blue works and all those former CIA folks running for D team this midterm make a difference!