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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: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 09 2017, @10:02PM (1 child)

    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday May 09 2017, @10:02PM (#507147) Journal

    Surely you don't want to leave everyone enslaved to the false choice. What is the third way that has been so carefully hidden?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 10 2017, @06:55PM (#507678)

    the two current choices are government overreach and crony capitalism/monopoly

    There is no 3rd way.
    To start, I disagree with the use of "overreach".
    There are some things that are natural monopolies.
    People of my (Socialist/Communist) persuasion hold that a natural monopoly should belong to ALL the people collectively.

    The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is run by city gov't and, to my observation, is doing a better job in the area that it serves than SoCal Edison is doing where it holds a monopoly.

    Internet service is currently a duopoly in most places.
    Wilson, NC and Chattanooga are examples where the local gov't assumed responsibility for that and it worked well (though Reactionary forces in state gov't have limited expansion).
    N.B. If they had a working Democracy in those states, one which served ALL of the people (and wasn't allowed to be bought off by oligarchs), those would be even better examples.
    {Plug for Anti-Capitalism goes here: People before profits}

    Mineral rights in Alaska and The Alaska Permanent Fund is a fine example of how to handle a natural monopoly:
    The gov't takes charge of the ownership/permissions and private companies pay into the fund to do the extraction.

    The public-ownership-and-private-services-delivering/competing notion would also give smaller companies (worker-owned cooperatives?) a more-accessible entry point.

    ISTM that I could get Libertarians to meet me in the middle on widespread adoption of this model for natural monopolies.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]