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President Trump's Supreme Court nominee argued last year that net neutrality rules violate the First Amendment rights of Internet service providers by preventing them from "exercising editorial control" over Internet content.
Trump's pick is Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The DC Circuit twice upheld the net neutrality rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, despite Kavanaugh's dissent. (In another tech-related case, Kavanaugh ruled that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephone metadata is legal.)
While current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai eliminated the net neutrality rules, Kavanaugh could help restrict the FCC's authority to regulate Internet providers as a member of the Supreme Court. Broadband industry lobby groups have continued to seek Supreme Court review of the legality of Wheeler's net neutrality rules even after Pai's repeal.
[...] Consumers generally expect ISPs to deliver Internet content in un-altered form. But Kavanaugh argued that ISPs are like cable TV operators—since cable TV companies can choose not to carry certain channels, Internet providers should be able to choose not to allow access to a certain website, he wrote.
"Internet service providers may not necessarily generate much content of their own, but they may decide what content they will transmit, just as cable operators decide what content they will transmit," Kavanaugh wrote. "Deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN and deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN.com are not meaningfully different for First Amendment purposes."
Kavanaugh's argument did not address the business differences between cable TV and Internet service.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 15 2018, @06:35PM (2 children)
How does that follow from the ownership of the means of production by the workers who operate said means?
Incels, you mean!
However, how do you account for the International Committee of the Fourth International's [wsws.org] sharp disagreement with identity politics (and ICFI's disagreement with many other planks of the neoliberalist [DNC] platform)?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @12:40AM (1 child)
Does this happen? No. No it does not. Other than the occasional organic food store cooperative on the verge of bankruptcy while immersed in a filthy-rich capitalist environment, workers don't get to own the means of production.
It doesn't even make sense. Does every floor sweeper get to own a share equal to every semiconductor physicist? If they together own a few chip fabs, who decides to shut them down or build new ones? What if the floor sweeper wants to sell one for $42.83 so he can pay his cable bill? Getting that job just gives you a gift of an equal share, at the expense of all others, or do you have to buy in? If you have to buy in, then most people can't do that. If you can sell your share, then workers will soon not have ownership, but if you can't sell then you aren't really an owner.
Imagine a failing business with one valuable asset. The business gets down to 2 remaining workers. All the rest have quit. The last person gets full ownership? "You quit." "No, you quit." After it's just one person with an item worth a $billion, they can't hire a helper without giving that person a gift of half a $billion?
This is not a viable solution. Marx even admitted as much: socialism is a transitional step to communism. Of course, that doesn't work either.
Oh, and before you say that all the "communist" governments weren't "real communism", it doesn't matter. We end up with famine and death camps every time we try, and only a fool would believe that things will work out great if only we just try it again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @02:19AM
*spots parent comment* Incoming Gish gallop! Hit the deck!
That must be why they are springing up around me left and right even here in flyover country.
Mondragon [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia: "At Mondragon, there are agreed-upon wage ratios between executive work and field or factory work which earns a minimum wage. These ratios range from 3:1 to 9:1 in different cooperatives and average 5:1."
Are you familiar with corporate governance in a publicly traded corporation?
Why would a company operate in such a manner that its shareholders cannot afford their cable bills?
That is the model I understand.
Are you talking about opportunity cost in selecting one worker-owned cooperative to join exclusive of another?
This sounds like capitalism, the consequences of which you illustrate with "If you have to buy in, then most people can't do that. If you can sell your share, then workers will soon not have ownership...." I agree that is the ultimate condition of capitalism.
Why wouldn't you be able to "sell"--or perhaps we should say return, as the transaction itself would not represent a commodity itself subject to speculation in a market (identified problem above)--return the share back to the worker cooperative by putting in your two-week's notice?
You may not sell your body to somebody else, and it possesses no market value. I believe they tried to make human life a marketable commodity once before, and it did not go too well. Even a capitalist recognizes the danger of permitting a market of human lives for sale. Yet are you not the owner of your body?
Certainly! In the logic of your strange scenario, when the helper leaves, that $billion will be returned to this poor guy who cannot keep his workers, in the same manner that allowed the $billion to remain apparently undisturbed by the departure of every previous worker!