Biden Names FCC Picks, Pushes for Democratic Majority at Deadlocked Agency (bloomberg.com) 40
President Joe Biden moved to lock in his first Democratic majority at the Federal Communications Commission, naming veteran government lawyer Anna Gomez to an open seat and proposing to extend the service of two current commissioners. From a report: The appointments poise the FCC, after more than two years of partisan deadlock under a Democratic chairwoman, to act on the party's priorities, including restoring net neutrality regulations. Such rules bar broadband providers from interfering with web traffic and were gutted by Republicans during the administration of President Donald Trump.
All three nominees, announced by the White House on Monday, need Senate confirmation. In addition to Gomez, Biden proposed a second five-year term for Democrat Geoffrey Starks, who otherwise would need to leave the agency at the end of the year. Biden also proposed another term for Republican Brendan Carr, who has been on the commission since 2017. Gomez's arrival would bring the agency to its full strength of five commissioners for the first time since January 2021, when Trump's Republican chairman departed, leaving the 2-to-2 split. An earlier Biden nominee withdrew amid opposition from Senate Republicans. FCC commissioners serve staggered five-year terms, and no more than three can be members of the president's party.
All three nominees, announced by the White House on Monday, need Senate confirmation. In addition to Gomez, Biden proposed a second five-year term for Democrat Geoffrey Starks, who otherwise would need to leave the agency at the end of the year. Biden also proposed another term for Republican Brendan Carr, who has been on the commission since 2017. Gomez's arrival would bring the agency to its full strength of five commissioners for the first time since January 2021, when Trump's Republican chairman departed, leaving the 2-to-2 split. An earlier Biden nominee withdrew amid opposition from Senate Republicans. FCC commissioners serve staggered five-year terms, and no more than three can be members of the president's party.
Hopefully better prepared than the FAA nominee (Score:1)
https://twitter.com/SenTedBudd... [twitter.com]
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Republicans bad.
Democrats bad.
Deadlock Good. At lease we can't make things worse.
I know, I know, "We MUST do something, this is something, therefore we MUST do it!"
Did I Miss Anything?
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Yes, asshole, everything.
Unless you want to never have sex again (banning birth control is coming next), and banning anything except what you, TFG, or DeSanctimounious says.
Oh, and increased prices for your 'Net access.
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It's a great thing they're in a deadlock. Put Democrats in control, kiss section 230 goodbye and watch their interpretation of the communications decency act completely gut liability for content providers
I'm not saying Democrats won't do something like you're suggesting (whatever the hell that is), but Republicans have been openly saying that they wanted to destroy Section 230 and yet didn't when they were in control, and Democrats haven't tried to do it while they have been (although a few of them have mentioned they might like to give screwing with it a go, sleazy fuckers, I'm not a Democrat-lover either.)
What exactly do you think Democrats will do with Section 230, and/or the CDA? And hopefully also, why
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Don't worry, you can basically just ignore anyone that says anything about "Twitter Files" and thinks there was anything out of the ordinary as brainwashed by right-wing propaganda.
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S.230 is an awesome fucking rallying cry.
But every one of them has at least one aide that understands what it is, and the consequences of breaking it. Nobody is going to touch S.230, unless it's the courts.
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Re:The Intenet Died Years Ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Section 230 is like democracy, it's the worst of the systems except for all the others.
No matter how you re-word or tweak 230 at the end of the day that line of websites are not liable for the content users post on those sites absolutely must remain in place becauase otherwise the entire paradigm of how users interact with websites goes out the window and the chilling effect on speech will be immense.
Section 230 is actually a critical free speech component becuase without it websites would have so so over-moderate or simply not engage in user generated content at all. It's a really critical part of how the internet came to be in what we know today.
230 probably should remai as is, what IMO is needed is regulation to make trasparent the enforcement mechanisms websites use to block and ban users. Websites can absolutely have a TOS and enforce it but this whole thing of people getting banned and not being given a reason is wrong. That and some sort of standardized appeal process. Something along those lines I think would go a long way.
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S.230 protects freedom of speech, and a free internet, from a fucking swarm of tort lawsuits that will chill speech in a way that Snidely Whiplash billionaires could only fucking dream of otherwise.
Overhaul? No. No thanks.
Think of S.230 this way. It's what freedom of speech actually looks like.
Re:The Intenet Died Years Ago (Score:5, Informative)
Does anyone remember the apocalyptic rhetoric used to vilify the evil republicans and Ajit Pai, when they ended net neutrality and how the internet just imploded? How all the ISPs started blocking all the traffic? How entire websites could no longer be reached? How poor, oppressed peoples all over the US suddenly lost connectivity to the internet? What, none of that happened? Wait, what? We all have the fastest internet we've ever had? I think someone might have been lying. Maybe it's a good thing the FCC is in deadlock, not mucking up the works like every government agency, ever. But you know, I'm just one guy on the internet. What does the truth even matter...
Well it looks like a lot of States (notably California) added their own Net Neutrality laws®s in response [wikipedia.org]. So the lack of significant violations might simply be that it's not worthwhile for major ISPs to engage in a the complicated legal and technical work and endure the massive PR hit to violate Net Neutrality in only a fraction of the US.
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What, none of that happened?
Yeah, some did. But to credit my ISP, they are blocking some GMail. Because that's mostly spammers and 419 scams. They probably wouldn't be able to if Google filed a net neutrality complaint.
Wait, what? We all have the fastest internet we've ever had?
That's not saying much. I was hoping that they'd actually improve it.
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Ooo, nice trolling. Your cutting-edge rhetoric forces us all to step back and reconsider.
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Re:The Intenet Died Years Ago (Score:4, Informative)
That was when AOL started letting its users connect to the regular Internet, thereby flooding it with users who weren't familiar with netiquette or that the Web isn't the same thing as the Internet. Wikipedia's got a pretty good synopsis of the "eternal September" [wikipedia.org] of 1993.
Re:The Intenet Died Years Ago (Score:4, Informative)
We all have the fastest internet we've ever had?
Yeah, and it's still utter shit compared to the rest of the developed world. And I say this as a US citizen and fiscal conservative. The money spent on Internet service in the US is some of the worst value for dollar anywhere.
Re:The Intenet Died Years Ago (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not a technology problem, or a landmass problem. We (US consumers) need competition, so we get more and better choices as Internet service consumers. If we need to subsidize community internet to get it, that's way better money spent than continuing to piss endless funds down a bottomless pit to the tune of trillions of dollars for decades, as we have with the Comcasts and other mega ISPs of the country for the past quarter century.
Also, people need to quit focusing exclusively on download speeds. ISPs should be forced to advertise all tiers of service in both up and down speeds. Yes, some of this may be partially resolved with DOCSIS 4.x, but we're still years away from that tech becoming mainstream for the majority of US internet users.
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The money spent on Internet service in the US is some of the worst value for dollar anywhere.
What you said is true for other things in the USA as well.
Education
Healthcare
Just to name some major items.
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Re:Snow (Score:2)
flake
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Does anyone remember the apocalyptic rhetoric used to vilify the evil republicans and Ajit Pai, when they ended net neutrality and how the internet just imploded?
No. I do remember the thing which didn't happen. I remember discussions about the impact of traffic prioritisation on service, but precisely no one sane was suggesting your apocalyptic scenario. That kind of rhetoric is usually reserved for idiot politicians who presumably are all currently being sexually assaulted in transgender bathrooms.
How all the ISPs started blocking all the traffic?
Literally no one, not even the aforementioned dumbass politicians were suggesting that ISPs would block traffic. They said they would change priorities for a fee.
What, none of that happened? Wait, what?
I'm not
Re:The Intenet Died Years Ago (Score:5, Informative)
Does anyone remember the apocalyptic rhetoric used to vilify the evil republicans and Ajit Pai, when they ended net neutrality and how the internet just imploded? How all the ISPs started blocking all the traffic? How entire websites could no longer be reached? How poor, oppressed peoples all over the US suddenly lost connectivity to the internet? What, none of that happened?
That's a nice straw man you have there. And look how easily you knocked it over! Meanwhile, the actual concern was that—especially in the absence of competition—ISPs would throttle or favor traffic from certain sites and services. And sure enough, guess what happened? Exactly that.
Wait, what?
Yep. While your straw man never came to pass, the actual concerns we were raising years ago have been continuing unabated.
Remember how Comcast was able to shake down Netflix with their "it'd be a real shame if your content slowed to a crawl on the way to our customers" throttling? That problem didn't magically disappear when the FCC knocked out its own teeth. Instead, Netflix realized they were on their own, so they silently passed the cost to customers and accepted that it was an opportunity for them to pull the ladder up after themselves: subsequent streaming services have bumped into the same extortionate routine, which limits their ability to get their foot in the door. While there are loads of other factors at play, shake downs like these are a silent contributor to the rising costs seen across the board for streaming services.
Zero-rating? Continuing unabated as well. At a time when Google and Apple are getting raked over the coals for anticompetitively favoring apps and services, the FCC lacks the teeth to go after carriers who do the same. With zero-rating allowing carriers to act as kingmakers by precluding competition in over-the-wire services from the get-go, new entrants are unable to compete on their own merits. The carriers have been able to tilt the playing field in their favor, costing consumers more while while providing us with fewer options.
We all have the fastest internet we've ever had?
Are you asking for a pat on the back because you didn't stop the decades-long march of technological progress? Congrats? Never mind that this statement has been true under every administration and every set of rules since the inception of the Internet.
Perhaps because you're too busy claiming credit for things that aren't yours, you've failed to take note that...
(1) We still pay roughly twice as much for our broadband as most of the developed world. Revoking Title II didn't fix that.
(2) The claims Ajit Pai made about Title II killing investments by ISPs were never true to begin with and the promises made by the ISPs when Title II was revoked haven't been kept. E.g. My (thankfully now-former) national ISP promised back in 2017 to roll out fiber to 100% of their customers but said that Title II was putting that rollout in jeopardy. We're now six years on, the "threat" of Title II was eliminated, and they have yet to lay an inch of fiber near me. But I did see my monthly bill nearly triple in that time.
(3) Over-the-wire service prices have skyrocketed in the last few years. Normally that would mean there was a growing "umbrella" for new entrants to disrupt the market from the bottom, but we've instead seen the market go through a period of rapid consolidation. Disney + Hulu. Discovery + HBO. Paramount + Showtime. The list goes on, the prices go up, and the choices get fewer. Anyone who's been paying the least bit of attention has already noticed that the future of streaming is starting to look a lot like the history of cable, with, coincidentally enough, the cable carriers being the ones picking the winners thanks to the FCC abdicating its responsibility to ensure that the playing field was level.
But sure. This is fine. Just ignore the writing on the wall.
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Remember how Comcast was able to shake down Netflix with their "it'd be a real shame if your content slowed to a crawl on the way to our customers" throttling? That problem didn't magically disappear when the FCC knocked out its own teeth. Instead, Netflix realized they were on their own, so they silently passed the cost to customers and accepted that it was an opportunity for them to pull the ladder up after themselves: subsequent streaming services have bumped into the same extortionate routine, which limits their ability to get their foot in the door. While there are loads of other factors at play, shake downs like these are a silent contributor to the rising costs seen across the board for streaming services.
Eh.
That's not how Netflix handled it. Having been on the other side of Netflix's... hmmm. free-market solution to Net Neutrality rules.... The way they handled it was by limiting video quality to ISPs that didn't directly connect with them at a peering point, for free.
And then make sure that their customers understood why.
It was highly effective. As soon as a $150k/mo residential contract of ours came under threat by our customers being pissed off that Netflix said their ISP sucked, we fixed the problem
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The players may be similar and I have no doubt your story is true and accurate, but there’s a fundamental difference between the situations you and I are talking about.
You guys were neither paying Netflix directly nor indirectly for the level of service that was being withheld. So long as Netflix’ customers had informed consent that their preferred level of service wasn’t available before that service was withheld, I see no issue. It may be hardball on their part to extract concessions fro
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The players may be similar and I have no doubt your story is true and accurate, but there’s a fundamental difference between the situations you and I are talking about.
I didn't mean to imply there wasn't... more so I was trying to imply that Netflix had weaponry to deploy back at Comcast- i.e., the same thing they deployed against us.
Your Netflix app on your TV saying "Sorry, you can't player SuperHD Content because your ISP sucks" (it's been too many years to remember the exact verbiage, but it wasn't that far from that)
This message had nothing to do with throttling, speeds/throughputs/latency of any kind- it was merely delivered to any customer that was terminated on
We don't need a democrate majority (Score:1)
We also don't need a republican majority. We need a competent majority, or at a minimum, an odd number of commissioners.