…as FCC votes to kill Title II rules; GOP’s 2-1 majority starts repeal process, with final vote coming later in 2017, arstechnica.com
The Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to start the process of eliminating net neutrality rules and the classification of home and mobile Internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act.
The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposes eliminating the Title II classification and seeks comment on what, if anything, should replace the current net neutrality rules. But Chairman Ajit Pai is making no promises about reinstating the two-year-old net neutrality rules that forbid ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet content or prioritizing content in exchange for payment. Pai’s proposal argues that throttling websites and applications might somehow help Internet users.
The FCC plans to take comments on its plan until August 16 (the docket is available here) and then make a final decision sometime after that.
The net neutrality rules were approved in February 2015 when Republicans were in the commission’s minority. Today, Pai and fellow Republican Michael O’Rielly voted in favor of the plan to eliminate the rules while Democrat Mignon Clyburn voted to preserve them.
“The Internet was not broken in 2015” before the rules were imposed, Pai said today before the vote. “We were not living in a digital dystopia. Nonetheless, the FCC that year succumbed to partisan pressure from the White House and changed course.” The rules imposed new regulatory burdens on ISPs both large and small, he said. The Title II rules also raised “the possibility of broadband rate regulation,” making ISPs hesitate before building or expanding networks, he said.” (the depressing rest is here), including:
“Pro-net neutrality group Free Press recently published an updated list of alleged net neutrality violations by ISPs through the years.”
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Ajit Pai Retweeted:
never mind, you can sleep well cuz the Dems are on the case!
good news, bad news for julian assange:
I don’t quite get why the neo-libs seem so hellbent on tearing trump to shreds. he’s a pretty dutiful waterboy for empire, $350 billion in weapons to the Saudis is no small deal. based on the net neutrality model, why should your phone service provider treat all your cell calls “neutrally”? trump is the fee for service/access neo-lib’s wet dream. I don’t get it.
unless…is there a deep state crisis? or is this a bunch of headlines-grabbing nonsense? or both? get this stupid assclown in there and have one phony crisis after the other, TV/MSM gold. boy, what are the projected ratings for the impeachment?!? the crisis of trump manufactures psychic reinvestment in the status quo thru its hysteria, and that thru leaks from the spooks w/all the veracity of a tabloid headline. maybe there’s more to it, that trump’s slight thawing of relations w/Russia concerned some people or whatever. and no doubt many hate pig trump for rather personal, subjective reasons, like taste & style and, like roger “buffet for worms” ailes, no one will weep for him when the media machine cannibalizes one of its own.
but net neutrality is axed by the admin that is savaged by the parties benefiting from neutrality’s end? the folks who want all the “fake news” websites to have much slower access to the “consumer”? what a bonanza for advertisers. jeezus. precisely b/c of things like net neutrality, and war & lots of other stuff, the banshees howling from their trump-phobia seem more like part of a shell game psyop than ever.
i feel like more of a dolt than usual, j, and am having difficulty switching gears from a thang i’m working on. may i ask you to parse this in simpleton-speak for me? “based on the net neutrality model, why should your phone service provider treat all your cell calls “neutrally”? trump is the fee for service/access neo-lib’s wet dream. I don’t get it.”, even while i think your final paragraph *has* explained it.
can you explain, then i’ll try again later? the folks came to temporarily fix the oven, and left mud and gravel all over the place. i need to clean it up. i was so tickled to have it working until the parts come in that i wanted to give them something: buds of homegrown worked a treat as i had no cookies. ;-)
but i will say that part of the crisis headlines may be sneaky psyops, but yes, the libruls seem serious about T’s collusion w/ putin. and putin’s w/ assad-the-sarin-gasser-of-his-own-people, and trump bombing syrian military forces. impeachment polling might be interesting, but polls, meh. president pinhead pence? better, worse, tra la la…
some folks realized during the campaign that trumpsanity is big ratings bucks. no one thinks NBC/Viacom will tell Rachel Maddow to stop plugging how impeachable trump is just for the “good of the country”. not if the ratings are high. but they know when the shrill is set non-stop to 11, people will change the channel sooner or later. still, they won’t lobotomize that patient until he gets too disruptive of the national psyche ward. (and then some responsible pair of hands may just start vetting his tweets etc. and david brooks can get back to writing how neuropsychology approves the habits & beliefs of suburban soccer moms & dads. don’t you think he gets tired of recycling that garbage? bring on the Trumpenator! if only to relieve the boredom.)
anyway, the cell phone thing may not be the best analogy but it’s like prioritizing the call from the boss or the debt collector over your personal calls to your friends. “this is Citibank. as authorized by act of congress, we interrupt your personal phone call to bring you this important announcement regarding the rate increase on your $50,000 in credit card debt…” “Verizon has determined you have used your minutes for the month, for the remainder of which, you will now only receive texts from advertisers.” I just got a new cell phone & computer by necessity, not top shelf by any stretch but 5 years newer that one I had. and how much of the design is about ease of access for marketers?
thank goddess i don’t read david brooks. ;-) but okay, i binged for polls, two agree pretty much w/ this from may 16 public policy polling: The poll, conducted in the wake of Trump firing former FBI director James Comey, found 48 percent in favor of impeachment and 41 percent against. Just 43 percent of respondents think Trump is going to serve his full term as president.
i lost the ny daily news one, but similar. now of course, imo, all poll are push polls to varying degrees, so quoting them w/o know the questions is rubbish in itself. now as to your question ‘but net neutrality is axed by the admin that is savaged by the parties benefiting from neutrality’s end?’, i wondered if there might be an answer in a thing i’d read by kevin zeese, starting w/ the fact that pai is a former lawyer for verizon; no, not much of a conflict of interest… . and i was thinking of this first paragraph about
1000s of startups.
.”“Start-ups for Net Neutrality” is 1,000-member group of start-up businesses that have written to Commissioner Pai urging him to keep net neutrality and Title II. They see it as essential for allowing new businesses to compete, to be able to put out their product or service and get a niche in the economy and be able to challenge existing businesses. In their letter to Pai they write, after applauding efforts to create a faster Internet, that:
We also depend on an open Internet—including enforceable net neutrality rules that ensure big cable companies can’t discriminate against people like us. We’re deeply concerned with your intention to undo the existing legal framework.
Without net neutrality, the incumbents who provide access to the Internet would be able to pick winners or losers in the market. They could impede traffic from our services in order to favor their own services or established competitors. Or they could impose new tolls on us, inhibiting consumer choice.” impede new bidness, entrepeneurs, small bidness, etc.
but the neutrality part is about content; he talks about mergers, coming mergers, etc., then:
“In the future ISP’s that own MSNBC, CNN and other media will have the power not to allow competitive news sources or advocacy news sources to stream live on their broadband networks. If the ISP’s have the choice to shut down independent news sources that compete with them for viewers, they will. That is what is coming. The Internet will be more of a tool for big media (and government) propaganda and shut down the vibrant free speech that a wider media is allowing to occur.
Unfortunately, because the telecoms choose not to compete with each other, most people do not have a choice of provider. They are in Comcast, Verizon or AT&T territory so they have nowhere else to go. That is why they get away with overpriced access, lousy service and slow Internet speeds compared to the rest of the world. It is also why they are among the most unpopular corporations in the country. Monopolies do not need to create faster Internet like the rest of the developed world has, and they will not need to be content neutral or allow equal access to all if Title II net neutrality rules are repealed. Don’t let that happen.”
oh lard I don’t read brooks either. when he’s getting all “bonobos in paradise” or whatever the hell his first book was, you can tell by the article title. “brain scans show conservatives think like this, while liberals think like that. see the bright colors on the scan? that proves it: there are fundamental ideological differences b/n the jackasses & the dumbos.” snoooooooze. being less of an asshole than say George Will in your reactionary tripe is important.
absolutely everything you said. I imagine an impeachment proceeding where secret evidence is admitted whose origin cannot be divulged except to select senators. trust us, merka. and hurray! maybe we’ll all get to say to DT: YOU’RE FIRED!!! won’t we all then nuzzle up to Big Bro’s nurturing breast? there can be so many win wins for the ‘deep state’ even if there never is any impeachment or some censure or BS like that.
I mean, the media is so $^#@$ unhinged. the prez or ceo or whatev of Microsoft already said the origin, the development, of this ransom ware thing was the USG. but “all signs” point to N Korea. jeesus. i’m going to watch alien: covenant. something more humane, w/the zenomorphs and androids. “i don’t know which species is worse!!! you don’t see them screwing each other over for a goddam profit!” (from aliens.)
sorry to b so brief, but we have a fambly drawing room drama afoot, yanno when it’s hard to tell farce from tragedy? anyhoo, at least some peeps are blaming bill gates over ransomeware, as in: not providing patches for oldie op’s like XP; my fave and i have one. but otherwise in the hysteria area, do you mean shite like this time mag cover this week? PropOrNot?
Jeepers h crackers.
lol; wouldn’t you have thunk ‘the onion’ created it? (hope you have time to read my new diary on scary biscuits betsy deVos.)
Flip teh inter-tubes’ sabotage back on itself : Teh Time cover merely reflects the red badge of US’ Republican election; Mebbe Trump’s converting The Kremlin, long UnRed these many years!? i USTIJ UIJ
it not only reflects ‘the kremlin owns herr T’s white house, but the paint is not just any red, but Blood Red. quite a psyop. holy hell, though, that video is total war porn. yikes.