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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday May 09 2017, @02:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the public-servants-not-serving-the-public dept.

Common Dreams reports

Last Week Tonight host John Oliver on [May 7] issued another powerful rallying cry to save net neutrality protections, and, repeating the outcome of his 2014 plea, his viewers flooded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) site, causing it to temporarily crash.

[...] Oliver said it's worth noting that [FCC Chairman Ajit] Pai is "a former lawyer for Verizon", a company which "won a lawsuit which meant that if the FCC wanted strong, enforceable protection, its only real option was to reclassify the ISPs, and yet he cheerily insists under questioning that there is just not evidence that cable companies were engaging in rampant wrongdoing".

"Title II is the most solid legal foundation we have right now for a strong, enforceable net neutrality protections", Oliver said, and urged "we, the people, [to] take this matter into our own hands".

To that end, Last Week Tonight bought the domain name gofccyourself.com, which redirects users to the official FCC page[1] where open internet advocates can leave a comment and call for these protections to remain in place. (Oliver notes that it simplifies the commenting process the FCC "has made more difficult since three years ago".)

"Everyone needs to get involved. Comment now, and then maybe comment again when the FCC makes its proposal official. Even call you representative and your senators", Oliver urged.

So successful was the start of his campaign, according to Motherboard, that there was such a high volume of traffic flooding the Federal Communications Commission that the site temporarily went down. As of this writing, it is up and running again.

[1] The fcc.gov page is almost entirely behind scripts.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday May 09 2017, @07:12PM (1 child)

    as a libertarian/possible anarchist i find this situation confusing. the result i want is an open and free internet but the two current choices are government overreach and crony capitalism/monopoly. kind of like voting for a republican or democrat for office. it's a false choice set by the enemy of free humanity. i wonder if we'll start getting a "propaganda of the deed" response to ISP offices if things continue to get worse?

    That's a false equivalence.

    Title II classification was just fine for broadband providers until 2002, when they were reclassified under Title I. Investment in broadband actually fell after that.

    What's more, the net neutrality rules were most certainly not an overreach. Rather, they were quite measured in an attempt to protect consumers (including you) from unsavory practices, like allowing ISPs to double-dip (charging you for your bandwidth, then charging content providers for the same bandwidth) or preferring their own content properties over others, which increases barriers to entry.

    I know it's pretty much de rigueur these days to just accept whatever narrative is offered by ${trustedmediasource}, rather than getting the information and judging for yourself.

    I went ahead and actually read the FCC rulemaking from last year WRT Title II and net neutrality. The FCC took great pains to focus only on the issues of net neutrality and promoting an open Internet. Those rules specifically exempted pretty much all the things (price regulation, censorship, onerous reporting, etc., etc., etc.) that opponents claimed they were doing.

    So, before you condemn everyone, perhaps you should do a little research. If you do, you'll find that one side (at least in this particular case) is promoting competition and fairness, and the other is supporting crony capitalists.

    But don't take my word (or anyone else's, for that matter) for it. Read the actual documents and decide for yourself.

    --
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 09 2017, @11:04PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday May 09 2017, @11:04PM (#507177) Journal

    But don't take my word (or anyone else's, for that matter) for it. Read the actual documents and decide for yourself.

    Good starting-point here. [fcc.gov]

    It provides a good overview and links on the right to the actual order, as well as related court decisions, etc.

    Expect this stuff to disappear fairly soon. (not necessarily nefariously since the govt's position will have changed)