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United States Government The Internet

What Biden's Victory Means For Net Neutrality - and for Ajit Pai (msn.com) 173

"A victory by Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election could usher in an abrupt change in the nation's telecommunications policy, restoring so-called net neutrality regulation," Bloomberg recently reported: Biden hasn't talked much about the FCC during the campaign, but his party's platform is specific. It calls for restoring net neutrality rules put in place under then-President Barack Obama when Biden served as vice president and taking a harder line on telecommunications mergers... If Biden wins, the FCC, which currently is at full five-member strength, could begin the new presidential term with a 2-to-1 Democratic majority, allowing it to move quickly. A Republican commissioner is leaving at the end of the current Congress and chairmen traditionally depart as a new administration arrives.

Ajit Pai hasn't indicated what he'll do. He can stay on as a commissioner but a new president could strip him of the chairmanship and its power to control what policies advance to a vote... If Pai stays after a Biden win, "he's denuded of power to do much of anything except to block things," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a Washington telecommunications lawyer.

Bloomberg also speculates that in addition, America's FCC "may move to bar broadband providers from exempting their own entertainment or media offerings from data caps." While there had been interest in such a move four years ago, Ajit Pai "squelched an agency move toward doing so soon after taking office in 2016."
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What Biden's Victory Means For Net Neutrality - and for Ajit Pai

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  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @11:45PM (#60698242)
    but sadly he's still talked about 'reforming' section 230 of the CDA, which if allowed to happen would still chill speech on the Internet. Without the S230 protections websites either have to censor everything (like YouTube does with it's "Content Aggregators"), risk devastating lawsuits or shut down their comments sections.

    What you won't see with an S230 repeal or reform is a free speech paradise that proponents are hoping for. Just the opposite really, website providers will crack down hard since they're now responsible for every little thing you post. Even if the only reform was to disallow moderation (which a lot of trolls are aching for as they don't like their Natalie Portman/hot-grits posts being modded down) it would still effectively chill speech, as anyone with a python script could crap flood speech they disagree with into oblivion...
    • by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Saturday November 07, 2020 @11:53PM (#60698266) Journal

      Info on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. [eff.org] Provided here only as information to support discussion.

      • Info on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. [eff.org] Provided here only as information to support discussion.

        Trump is still months away from being out of office. It's way too early to start having fact-based discussions.

        • I'm still waiting to see if he manages to go back and do his job in the meantime. I have some suspicions that he may just have a tantrum and quit, leaving Pence in charge ("haha, sleepy Joe can't be 46 now!").

          • I'm still waiting to see if he manages to go back and do his job in the meantime. I have some suspicions that he may just have a tantrum and quit, leaving Pence in charge ("haha, sleepy Joe can't be 46 now!").

            It would be really smart of Trump to resign, letting Pence finish out his term in exchange for a blanket pardon. The crimes documented in the Mueller report alone could send him to federal prison for around 50 years, and no one has even looked seriously into his corruption/emoluments.

            Resigning and letting Pence pardon him would be smart. Which is why he won't do it.

            • Wouldn't help Trump. The AG of New York is eager to put him in prison for crimes committed within the state. A federal pardon won't get Trump out of that. He'll just end up in Sing Sing instead of a federal prison.
              • Wouldn't help Trump. The AG of New York is eager to put him in prison for crimes committed within the state. A federal pardon won't get Trump out of that. He'll just end up in Sing Sing instead of a federal prison.

                Well, if it were you, would you rather have one sovereignty trying to put you in jail, or two?

  • by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Sunday November 08, 2020 @12:11AM (#60698292)

    Ajit Pai was nominated for a position on the Federal Communications Commission by President Barack Obama in 2011. He was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on May 7, 2012, and was sworn in on May 14, 2012, for a term that concluded on June 30, 2016. He was then designated chairman of the FCC by President Donald Trump in January 2017 for a five-year term.

    He's been a "swamp" critter for quite a while. Follow the money.

    • by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Ajit Pai was nominated for a position on the Federal Communications Commission by President Barack Obama in 2011.

      Pai was recommended by Mitch McConnel, according to the tradition of appointing 1 commissioner from the opposite party. He theoretically could have refused, but a lone commissioner has very little power, so why bother.

  • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Sunday November 08, 2020 @12:17AM (#60698306)

    I feel it's a terrible idea to try to interpret an ancient communications law by squinting and partially applying it to modern problems. What we really need is a comprehensive legislative solution.

    I've made this argument before, and was roundly shouted down when Obama enacted "Net Neutrality". Remember that anything which can be enacted only with the stroke of a President's pen can be repealed just as easily. Now that we've seen this happen once before, I'm hoping my point sounds a bit more reasonable.

    But Republican Senate!, I hear you say. Well, yes, enacting legislation is difficult, and prone to compromises. Maybe the bill's supporters will have to bend a bit and offer support for some Republican issues in turn. At least try writing a bill, and let's see what specific opposition there is.

    • by cats-paw ( 34890 ) on Sunday November 08, 2020 @01:27AM (#60698404) Homepage

      Maybe the bill's supporters will have to bend a bit and offer support for some Republican issues in turn

      yes, there was so much compromise during the Obama administration.

      There is no compromise on the Republican side. The gerrymandering has backfired in that absolute crazed right wing fanatics, spouting Q-anon theories, can be elected.

      They are _rewarded_ for not compromising. Not ever.

      So no, there will be no legislation. The Republicans will block everything, wait until 2024, and see if they can win the presidency again. There will be no compromise. They are rewarded for not compromising.

      They will then enact the most corporate friendly orders they can, and thus it will go, for quite some time.

    • by Can'tNot ( 5553824 ) on Sunday November 08, 2020 @04:53AM (#60698656)

      Obama enacted "Net Neutrality".

      Obama did not enact net neutrality, the FCC did, and the FCC can not flip flop on policy quite as easily as you're suggesting. They're required to maintain a degree of consistency and if they enact some policy which anyone feels violates that requirement then the aggrieved party can sue to block that policy. The ISPs sued when the FCC under Obama classified them as telecommunications services and enacted net neutrality legislation, and lost that lawsuit. Consumer advocates sued when the FCC under Trump classified the ISPs as information services and killed net neutrality, and lost that lawsuit. Presumably the ISPs will sue again when the FCC tries to re-undo the problem... but this time they're dealing with courts which have been thoroughly packed by the Republicans. We have yet to really feel the worst consequences of that, but this could be one of those. I don't know.

      As for legislation: I'm not sure that 1996 counts as "ancient" but we've had similar legislation more recently, albeit not directly related to net neutrality. Removing virtually any kind of limitations on spying or invasion of privacy by the ISPs was one of the first things the Republicans rushed to do as soon as they took over in 2017. Since it was a legislative action this can't be reversed by the FCC, so if you want a barometer on how likely a Republican senate is to do anything positive which might cut into ISP profits... well there you are. If the Senate passes meaningful privacy legislation, then I will look at meaningful neutrality legislation with hopeful eyes. This will not happen.

    • Insert Thor meme here.

      I feel it's a terrible idea to try to interpret an ancient communications law by squinting and partially applying it to modern problems.

      That's what keeps employers from tapping your work phone at will ("quality assurance" aside), the way they can search your computer or company email. Speaking of phones, are you glad courts applied the 4th Amendment to phone calls, or do you think the government should have been free to tap them without warrants until a new amendment was passed?

      • Excet that they've not historically applied the conventions to phone calls. The NSA "MYSTIC" program is still active, monitoring citizens telephones and metadata in bulk at the telco facilities. It was one of the programs revealed by Edward Snowden's leak of NSA documents.

        • by dryeo ( 100693 )

          This case, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] decided that it was fine for the Federal government to tap phones back in '28 as phone calls were not covered by the 4th or the 5th. No search, no seizure and the lines weren't tapped in someones dwelling so evidence acquired this way was fine.

    • I suspect that at the time that no one expected a moron to be elected in the future, or that the moron would lack all subtlety in tearing down regulations that favor the people.

      (I'm allowed to say moron, right, that's still allowed in the constitution? I'm sometimes unsure what parts still remain in place.)

  • by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Sunday November 08, 2020 @12:58AM (#60698366)

    and forced to move somewhere with 10Mb/s service, out of cell range, not realizing he had signed a 10 year non-compete clause when he joined the FCC.

    • 10Mbps is not that bad, you can actually browse the web that way without too much pain. He should be move somewhere where he has to choose between ADSL and dialup.

  • But, personally, in 4 "horrible horrible" years of "orange man bad" I didn't feel anything.

    Every content I have been using have been delivered in the same time, there were no visible problems.

    • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday November 08, 2020 @04:48AM (#60698646)
      That's because Netflix has been paying the extortion fee demanded by the bigger ISPs like Verizon. Haven't you wondered why Netflix's rates have been going up faster than the rate of inflation?

      This is a multi-faceted problem. Net neutrality only fixes one of those facets (ISPs double-billing - charging you for service, and also charging websites for the service you already paid for). The other problems like exorbitant prices, poor customer service, long wait times for installation and repair, low data caps, slow rate of hardware upgrades relative to the rest of the developed world, etc. can't be fixed by net neutrality. The root cause of all these problems is the same however - local governments granting these ISPs service monopolies. Stop that practice (insure there's competition among ISPs) and all these problems are solved, no net neutrality needed. It's how the rest of the world does it.
      • Looks like we are saying the same thing: Net Neutrality is a bullshit problem

        As for forcing ISPs to stop all other crap - there is nothing about that in Bloomstradamus article quote

      • by thule ( 9041 )
        "Extortion fee"? Do you mean peering agreements that save Netflix's transit costs? This has been done for years, long before Netflix. The issue really started with Cogent trying to keep their no-settlement peering agreements after they took on Netflix.

        Other than that, I agree. Competition is the way forward. Back in the days of dialup a customer could choose from plenty of ISP's. Same with DSL, but to a lesser degree. Maybe the right way to go is to require last mile networks to only provide connectivity
      • The root cause of all these problems is the same however - local governments granting these ISPs service monopolies. Stop that practice (insure there's competition among ISPs) and all these problems are solved, no net neutrality needed. It's how the rest of the world does it.

        Nope. Flat wrong. Missouri Revised Statutes 67.1842 Prohibited acts by political subdivisions paragraph (5) Enter into a contract or any other agreement for providing for an exclusive use, occupancy or access to any public right-of-way;

        It has been illegal for any local government entity in Missouri to establish exclusive franchise agreements for any utility, including broadband, since 2013. It's not even legal to grant a preference to any public utility right-of-way user (paragraph (2)). Is Missouri some Me

    • That’s the problem: because you do not know how you are personally affected you assume no one was affected. If you want one example: The FCC is refusing to investigate Frontier Telecom [arstechnica.com] despite lengthy outages. Such oversight is part of the FCC's charter especially since Frontier receives hundreds of millions from the FCC every year.
    • I didn't feel anything.

      Jeesh impatient much? Give corporations a chance to screw each other first. When they run out of money to pay each other for transit then it'll be your turn.

  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Sunday November 08, 2020 @04:36AM (#60698630)

    What needs to happen is that all the laws, rules, agreements, regulations and etc that artificially constrain competition in the ISP market need to go away.

    If new players (be they local governments, non-profit organizations, community groups, co-ops, for-profit businesses or anyone else) can come in and run new networks and provide a genuine alternative to the dinosaurs like Comcast, Charter, Cox, Verizon, Frontier, AT&T etc then the ISPs who do customer unfriendly stuff will loose customers.

    All this talk about anti-trust against Google, Facebook etc, instead of going after them, go after Comcast and AT&T and others for the way they abuse their market power to prevent new competitors entering the market.

    • No it's not. There's no competition for you. You will only have one ISP. Remember net neutrality isn't about you having access to two ISPs, it's about ISPs not double dipping for bandwidth and prioritisation.

  • What Biden will actually mean is a mercantilist policy.
    So all that benefits the larger companies will go.
    The middle class will be eroded further.
    Net neutrality might go if that earns them a few bucks.
  • Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z Ctrl+Z for the love of god Ctrl+Z

  • Or obviously running his errands should be filing their resignation letters before being kicked out. Purge is comming.
  • by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Sunday November 08, 2020 @11:10AM (#60699360) Homepage
    Everything Ajit Pai has done has been for the detriment of American's everywhere. The cellphone industry plant must go!
  • Right now, I would think expanding capacity to work from home, with prioritization of Zoom traffic necessary to get by till then. Why waste time on solutions in search of a problem? And if we talk neutrality, what about content neutrality of social networks and video hosting?

  • Is to troll all the trolls. They're coming out in force. You know he must be doing something right!

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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