Two days ago, the Senate voted to overrule Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and restore Net Neutrality; it was an incredible victory, but unless the same motion passes in the House, it's a symbolic one.
Why do 87% of Americans hold a favorable view of Net Neutrality? Not because the vast majority of the country has become wonkishly interested in the intersection of competition policy and telcoms regulation: it's because they care about the internet.
The Senate has successfully voted to overrule FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and save Net Neutrality (provided that Congress and Trump agree); the vote was a squeaker on near straight party lines: all the Dems and independents voted to keep Net Neutrality, and they won the day thanks to help from three Republicans who split from their party: Susan M Collins [R-ME]; John Kennedy [R-LA] and Lisa Murkowski [R-AK].
The US Senate has just voted in favor of REVERSING the #NetNeutrality rollback which Trump FCC chairman, Ajit Pai put in place. This is a major win for the internet, Net Neutrality, and the American people.
Today, Senate Democrats will force a vote on whether to rescue Net Neutrality from the depredations of Vichy nerd Ajit Pai; the debate is streaming now and will continue until 3PM Eastern/12PM Pacific, when the Senate will vote.
Net Neutrality is extraordinarily, improbably popular with Americans: 87% of Americans have both heard of Net Neutrality and believe it should be protected; virtually the only opponents Net Neutrality has are telcoms lobbyists and politicians who've had money funneled their way through telcoms PACs and direct contributions.
Frank Wu writes, "Brianna Wu, progressive Democrat and cybersecurity expert, is running for Congress in Massachusetts District 8. She has just released a set of three short videos to explain three complex technical issues."
As states pass a wave of laws barred non-neutral ISPs from providing services to state agencies, more than 100 US mayors have pledged to disqualify non-neutral ISPs from getting city contracts as well.
Jonathan Spalter is the CEO of Ustelecom, a telcoms lobby group funded by AT&T and Verizon; in an op-ed on the lobbyists' site, he threatened to "aggressively" sue any state that passes net neutrality rules.
Washington State was the first to pass a true Net Neutrality law that restored all the public protections the FCC withdrew when it killed Net Neutrality late last year; the move is symbolically awesome but legally fraught, seeking to redefine the line where the FCC's authority stops and the states' authorities start.
Calling the FCC's decision to kill Net Neutrality the "road to serfdom" Senator Ron Wyden [D-OR] introduced the legislation he'd co-sponsored with Senator Ed Markey [D-MA] to restore Neutrality.
It's CPAC! The annual far-right hootenanny for preppers, false-flaggers, climate deniers, truthers, and the sort of person who closes their eyes and thinks of The Fountainhead, featuring Marion Maréchal-Le Pen of France, Nigel Farage, Sean Hannity, and mass-murder enthusiast Wayne LaPierre.
Ajit Pai's Net Neutrality-killing order is scheduled to go into effect on April 23, and when that happens, it'll be open season on the free, fair and open internet.
Facebook and Google's parent company Alphabet are among the tech giants pushing a congressional bid to reverse the Trump administration's plan to repeal Obama-era Net Neutrality rules that protect the open internet. — Read the rest
First it was Montana, then New York, then California — and now New Jersey has become the latest state to enact state-level Net Neutrality rules in defiance of Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who not only killed Net Neutrality despite the obvious fraud and deceit in the regulatory process, but also insists (as his Democratic predecessor, Tom Wheeler, did) that states do not have the right to override federal communications policy.
The FCC's order killing Net Neutrality in December 2016 also includes a prohibition on states making their own telcoms rules that restore it (this is a mixed bag — if states' rights don't permit them to overrule the FCC, then a future FCC that reinstates a Net Neutrality order could stop states whose governments are captured by telcoms lobbyists from subverting it), and states have fought back though a loophole: the governors of Montana and New York have issued executive orders banning non-Neutral ISPs from doing business with the government; but in California, the State Senate just went further.
Days after Montana Democratic Governor Steve Bullock signed an executive order banning ISPs that violate Net Neutrality from supplying state government agencies, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (also a Democrat) has followed suit, with an even stricter executive order.
Burger King's video on "Whopper Neutrality" (see Carla's earlier post) — an analogy to explain Net Neutrality that's also obviously a marketing campaign for Burger King — is a surprisingly great explainer, but even more importantly, it's an important bellwether for corporate America's perception of public support for Net Neutrality.
Although Net Neutrality – or its repeal if certain somebodies get their way – is an issue that affects everyone, not everyone is clued in to what it actually means. Enter Burger King's faux "social experiment" that explains Net Neutrality with a currency everyone understands: the Whopper sandwich. — Read the rest
In order to ram through its Neutrality-killing bill, the FCC had to break all the rules: ignoring expert testimony, inventing an imaginary alternate internet where Neutrality didn't matter, pretending millions of obviously fake comments were real, obstructing justice when law-enforcement tried to investigate these comments, pretending the evidence supported neutracide, lying about how the Obama FCC created its Neutrality order, and lying about what happened after the order was passed.
