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Pai is awful.
because the Repug pols absolutely depend on the total ignorance and ideological blindness of their base.
Pai is awful.
lol party of hypocrisy
liberals do it? BAD
conservatives do it? its ok because liberals did it!
Cisco And Oracle Applaud The Looming Death Of Net Neutrality
Both Oracle and Cisco (not coincidentally major ISP vendors) have come out in full-throated support of the FCC's plan to kill net neutrality. FCC boss Ajit Pai has been making the rounds the last few weeks in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, trying to drum up support of his attack on broadband consumer protections. Pai met with Cisco, Oracle, Facebook and Apple in a number of recent meetings, but so far only Oracle and Cisco have been willing to enthusiastically and publicly throw their corporate fealty behind Pai's extremely-unpopular policies.
"From our perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company, what should have been a purely technological discussion of managing traffic on internet networks has inexplicably evolved into a highly political hyperbolic battle, substantially removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality. Further, the stifling open internet regulations and broadband classification that the FCC put in place in 2015 – for just one aspect of the internet ecosystem – threw out both the technological consensus and the certainty needed for jobs and investment."
If you're playing along at home, you should, by now, realize this is bull .
Once again, public SEC filings, earnings reports, and ISP executive statements contradict this claim. Killing net neutrality and broadband privacy protections is about one thing:
letting giant in bent ISPs make more money by abusing the lack of compe ion in the broadband last mile.
And while that's good for ISP vendors like Oracle, that's not so great for the smaller companies that need a healthy, level playing field to do business. That's why over 800 startups have come out in opposition to the FCC plan.
Like Oracle, Cisco was similarly eager to ignore the vast negative repercussions of the FCC's plan in a statement over at the company's website. In its statement, Cisco also falsely claims that net neutrality stifled investment:
"The proposal will review what is needed to protect consumers and prevent anti-compe ive behavior, while rolling back le II reclassification, which has inhibited investment. The balanced approach Commissioner Pai unveiled will encourage new investments in broadband networks and speed the development of innovative services, including Internet of Things technologies, telemedicine, distance learning, emergency services, and mobile 5G."
As we've noted, Pai's "balanced approach" involves first gutting all FCC authority over broadband, then shoveling the remaining, paltry authority back over to an already limited FTC authority that AT&T lawyers have demostrated they're able to tap dance around.
Both Cisco and Oracle are well aware that the goal here isn't "balanced" regulations or "protecting consumers";
the goal is to turn a blind eye to the lack of compe ion in the broadband space (a disease for which neutrality violations are just one symptom) for the sole benefit of their clients at AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and Charter.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...utrality.shtml
Pai in your face
FCC Commissioner Wants To Ban States From Protecting Consumer Broadband Privacy
Despite a last-ditch effort by the EFF and other consumer and privacy groups, the GOP voted back in March to kill consumer broadband privacy protections. As we noted several times, the protections weren't particularly onerous -- simply requiring that ISPs are transparent about what data they're collecting, who they're selling it to, and that they provide working opt-out tools. But because many of these large ISPs are busy pushing into the media sector (AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner being just one example), large ISPs lobbied fiercely to eliminate anything that could dent these future potential revenues.
Shortly thereafter, at least eight states and a handful of cities rushed in to fill the void. The city of Seattle, for example, passed a new requirement that ISPs receive opt-in permission (the dirtiest phrase imaginable to the marketing industry) before collecting and selling subscriber data. Meanwhile in Maine, a new privacy proposal by State Senator Shenna Bellows is seeing support from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike. Bellows cited Congress' decision to overturn the protections as a motivation for the move:
"With its reckless vote, Congress put Mainers’ privacy up for sale,” Bellows said. “Most people are rightfully appalled by the idea that their Internet service provider could be watching their every move online and selling their information to the highest bidder. We owe it to our cons uents to protect their privacy."
This move by the states to do the job Congress wasn't willing to do has apparently riled the current FCC majority.
Speaking at an event at the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC),
FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said he would be exploring taking some kind of action against states that move to pass new broadband privacy protections.
O'Rielly's comments have previously been backed by current FCC boss Ajit Pai, who has also hinted at taking action against the states:
"It is both impractical and very harmful for each state to enact differing and conflicting privacy burdens on broadband providers, many of which serve multiple states, if not the entire country,” said Pai. “
If necessary, the FCC should be willing to issue the requisite decision to clarify the jurisdictional aspects of this issue."
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...-privacy.shtml
what happened to all y'all bubba's "states rights"?
Y'all's Repug FCC insisting that Americans' privacy be UNIFORMALLY ed in all 50 states. It's good for corporate profits.
Net Neutrality: Why Artists and Activists Can’t Afford to Lose It
Eventually, she’ll ask a friend to use a phone to record a set. And that night she will kill. Utterly destroy the room. That will be the first time she uploads footage of herself performing to the internet. Her life will never be the same.
This kind of thing has happened, countless times. And not just to comics but also to magicians, singers and people who were embarrassed on camera but managed to monetize their shame. It will happen again. But it may not happen much longer if the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, follows through on his plan to roll back the network neutrality rules that ensure that anyone who puts something on the internet has a fair shot at finding a life-changing audience.
To understand how consequential this is, imagine a young woman walking into the HBO offices and saying, “Hi, I’m an awkward black girl and I think I have some pretty hilarious misadventures that you should make into a TV show!” HBO’s only question probably would have been, “How did you get in here?” Now picture this: “Hi, I’m Issa Rae. I have hundreds of thousands of YouTube subscribers and hundreds of millions of YouTube views. And I’m an awkward black girl.” HBO’s question: “When can you start?” I’m exaggerating. But only slightly. Issa Rae started the web series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” on YouTube in 2011. Thanks in large part to its success, six years later, her comedy series, “Insecure,” is set to air for a third season on HBO. It’s hard to imagine this happening in a world without net neutrality.
Net neutrality is crucial ... it also allows content about more serious subjects to find an audience, without the endorsement or approval of traditional media gatekeepers.
The exchange of information and ideas that takes place on the internet is more important now than ever.
To protect it, we need to keep the current net neutrality rules in places.
We need them to ensure that people working to make the world better can reach their intended audiences.
We need them to ensure that artists everywhere continue to have a platform through which we can discover their work.
Right now, the internet is a level playing field.
The question the Trump administration needs to answer is: Why would you want to change that?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/opinion/net-neutrality-artists-activists.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Repugs gonna service their BigCorp dictators and up Internet
BigCorp will make you pay to access websites and content that are free now.
I bet Repug FCC gives Verizon exactly what it wants
Verizon has a new strategy to undermine online privacy and net neutrality
FCC should declare state broadband laws invalid, Verizon tells commission
Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission to preempt any state laws that regulate network neutrality and broadband privacy.
With the two sets of rules either gone or on their way out, it's possible that state governments might impose similar rules to protect consumers in their states. Verizon told the FCC in a filing last week that the commission should preempt laws in any state that does so.
"some supporters of stringent regulation of ISPs are now looking to states and localities to frustrate these achievements," Verizon wrote.
State broadband laws "pose a real and significant threat to restoring a light-touch, uniform regulatory framework for
broadband service," Verizon said.
"This white paper explains why the Commission can and should preempt these problematic state broadband laws and identifies several potential sources of authority for the Commission to do so."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/verizon-asks-fcc-to-preempt-any-state-privacy-or-net-neutrality-law/
When the oligarchy dictates, the Repugs listen, and deliver
For Repug s, BigCorp rights to pre-empt the Repugs sacred "states rights"
Wireless Industry Lobbies To Ban States From Protecting Your Privacy, Net Neutrality
In the wake of the Trump administration's decision to gut modest FCC consumer privacy protections and net neutrality rules, telecom lobbyists are working overtime trying to stop states from filling the void.
In the wake of the FCC's wholesale dismantling of consumer protections, states like California have tried to pass their own laws protecting your broadband privacy rights online,
only to find the efforts scuttled by AT&T, Verizon and Comcast lobbyists, who've been more than happy to spread all manner of disinformation as to what the rules did or didn't do.
both Verizon and Comcast have been lobbying the FCC to ban states from protecting your privacy and net neutrality.
The two companies were also joined this week by the wireless industry's biggest lobbying and policy organization, the CTIA. In an ex parte filing (pdf) with the FCC,
wireless carriers whine about how unfair it is that states attempted to protect user privacy after the federal government made it clear it had no such interest:
"Earlier this year, legislators in various states attempted to countermand Congressional action on broadband privacy regulations.
When states and localities are provided a wide berth to test the boundaries of what is or is not consistent with Congressional objectives, the Commission and the courts are forced to evaluate regulations case-by-case, with broadband providers subject to a patchwork of mandates at issue during the review."
Like Comcast and Verizon, the wireless industry would have you forget that states wouldn't be running to create discordant privacy protections if these same lobbyists hadn't just successfully killed modest federal rules.
This is a problem caused entirely by lobbyists for some of the least compe ive companies in America.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...utrality.shtml
Uber/Lyft $Ms bought TX Repugs to preempt cities' rights to regulate rideshare. Now ATT/VZN getting their little Pai so the Feds preempt statees rights to protect the privacy of their citizens.
The oligarchy is unstoppable, and the Repug s remove any and all obstacles.
Prepare the lube for December 14th, the day we’re all gonna get ed. But hey, freedom!
How is this administration on the wrong side of everything?
Repugs are paid by the oligarchy to enrich the oligarchy which in turn "takes care of the Repugs"
the corruption is 100% legal and unstoppable.
#GOFCCYOURSELF
Who is Ajit Pai, the “Trump soldier” remaking America’s internet?
Ajit Pai promised last December to bring a “weed-wacker” to the agency that oversees the US’s media and telecommunications industries.
He appears to be wielding a chain saw instead
.
Since taking the office in January, Pai, 44,
a former attorney for Verizon and Congressional aide to attorney general Jeff Sessions,
has trashed rules that protected local media compe ion,
eviscerated a program that gives poor people greater access to the internet, and
decided that compe ion exists even when there’s just one internet provider in a market.
he made the most brutal cut so far, saying the commission plans to wipe out net neutrality rules that require that all data that goes over the internet is treated the same.
The move could force US companies and consumers to pick and choose what they can access online, and let broadband companies dictate what content they see, further dividing the fractured country by politics and paycheck.
It’s a remarkably unpopular stance for a Republican many think hopes to become senator or
governor of his home state of Kansas
some day.
he has taken a scorched earth approach to everything that was passed in the previous FCC and a lot of things that were passed much earlier.”
“set out to completely defang the FCC,” Aaron said. He’s pushing “a really aggressive agenda to benefit the biggest companies,”
“I look forward to returning to the light-touch, market-based
Copps congratulated him on the job. But on Tuesday, Copps said his reign has devolved into a “farce and a tragedy.”
https://qz.com/1133973/net-neutrality-who-is-ajit-pai-the-trump-soldier-coming-for-your-internet/?mc_cid=d76849fbb8&mc_eid=47e367557b
Just another way the oligarchy is ing America for profit and into un ability
ISPs Renew Pledges Not To Block or Throttle
The FCC cited those pledges in announcing the planned rollback of those rules.
Pai is also eliminating the rule against paid prioritization,
but ISP pledges generally do not extend to a ban on paid prioritization,
That is a grayer area given that some
ISPs argue differential pricing of tiers for different speeds and levels of service has plenty of precedent and can be a pro-consumer
ay to differentiate service, rather than an anticompe ive lever.
Comcast senior EVP David Cohen said it was important for consumers to know that, FCC action or no, "we do not and will not block, throttle, or discriminate against lawful content –
and we will be transparent with our customers about these policies."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/new...hrottle/170263
The entire PAi/BigISP program is to fleece consumers for $Bs more. As FB and Google censorings have shown, the BigISP will block whatever hurts their politics or profits, later if not sooner.
Comcast is rated by consumers as the THE WORST customer relations, so we are supposed to believe Comcast's pledges?
Pai is making lots of "oligarchy can legally screw customers" moves, because that's exactly what BigISP wants, and why Pai was made FCC hatchet man.
If Portugal is a net neutrality nightmare, we’re already living in it
an alarming-looking screenshot from Portuguese mobile carrier Meo.
“In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages,” he wrote.
================================
https://www.theverge.com/platform/am...-ajit-pai-plan
How's the water, you rightwingnutjob, BigCorp fellating frogs?
How Gutting Net Neutrality Poses a Direct Threat to Political Organizing
The FCC's Ajit Pai ignores public support and laws upholding equal internet access.
. Essentially, anyone who goes online can connect with everyone else online. And that’s given rise to all sorts of innovation, it’s allowed political organizers, and racial justice advocates to use this tool to contact people, to organize, to get their message out.
allow these very powerful companies to insert themselves as gatekeepers.
there will be this great incentive for them to favor their own content and to degrade content from websites and services like Democracy Now! or other services. So, this fundamentally upsets the level playing field of the Internet.
So, Ajit Pai is ignoring the public, he’s ignoring the law. These rules have been challenged in court and they withstood those challenges. And he’s ignoring the facts. He says this is government regulation of the Internet. It’s not. It’s a regulation of internet service providers.
https://www.alternet.org/activism/fc...nline-activism
So ya think Comcast, etc will allow full speed acces for websites like ComcastSucksMy .com, DisneySux.com? ESPNisRacist.com
As The FCC Guts Net Neutrality, Comcast Again Falsely Claims You Have Nothing To Worry About
Verizon and Comcast seem intent on insisting that none of this is actually happening.
Comcast lobbyists and PR reps have also been having grand old time pretending that this blatant example of regulatory capture isn't real, and
that the complete dismantling of telecom sector oversight won't have a decidedly-foul impact on already frustrated end users and the internet.
sure, the FCC may be gutting already flimsy oversight of one of the least compe ive sectors in America, but users shouldn't worry because the company's tireless love of consumers will somehow carry the day:
Comcast is back again insisting that you have absolutely nothing to worry about.
In a new blog post, top Comcast lobbyist "Chief Diversity Officer" David Cohen once again claims that
net neutrality harmed industry investment (independent analysis and executive statements have repeatedly shown this to be a lie),
that Comcast will be able to self-regulate in the absence of real oversight, and that gutting the le II foundation underpinning the agency's rules just isn't that big of a deal:
"As we have said previously, this proposal is not the end of net neutrality rules.That's the same, debunked bull Cohen has been peddling for years.
With the FCC transparency requirement and the restoration of the FTC‘s role in overseeing information services, the agencies together will have the authority to take action against any ISP which does not make its open Internet practices clearly known to consumers, and
if needed enforce against any anti-compe ive or deceptive practices.
Comcast has already made net neutrality promises to our customers,
we will continue to follow those standards, regardless of the regulations in place."
the remaining transparency requirements on ISPs are so loophole-filled as to be utterly useless. As such, Comcast is stating it will adhere to them happily --
since there won't be much of anything to actually adhere to.
reversing the classification of ISPs as common carriers under le II of the Communications Act absolutely destroys the rules.
Reverse that classification (again), and you've
eroded the FCC's authority to police bad behavior by a sector with a rich history of anti-compe ive behavior and predatory pricing.
the broadband industry's lobbying plan is to pay lobby the government to dismantle the FCC's ability to protect consumers,
then shovel all remaining oversight to an FTC that's ill-equipped to handle it.
The FTC lacks the ability to craft new rules as needed, and is so under-funded and over-extended that policing ISP behavior will fall through the cracks.
That's something former FCC boss Tom Wheeler explained earlier this year:
"In the Trump administration, people are talking about stripping regulatory power from the FCC,
and essentially taking the agency apart (including moving jurisdiction over internet access to the Federal Trade Commission [FTC]).
“Modernizing” the FCC is the lingo being used.
It’s a fraud.
The FTC doesn’t have rule-making authority.
They’ve got enforcement authority and their enforcement authority is whether or not something is unfair or deceptive.
And the FTC has to worry about everything from computer chips to bleach labeling.
Of course, carriers want [telecom issues] to get lost in that morass. This was the strategy all along.
AT&T is currently embroiled in a case against the FTC that could erode the FTC's authority even further. AT&T was sued by the FTC after it lied to consumers about throttling their connections in the hopes of driving them to more expensive plans.
If AT&T wins that fight, any company with a common carrier component (which extends to everything from parts of Google's business to oil pipelines) could dodge FTC accountability.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...ry-about.shtml
We have less choice,
ISP will block content that hurts their profits
and Internet access will be complicated and cost everybody a lot more
and the "deconstructed" FCC / FTC won't be able to do anything about it.
iow, BigCorp will over Americans more and more for more profit.
and of course, you will absolutely no privacy, every click, every site you visit will be logged and sold.
excellent discussion ITT
More than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments were Likely Faked
NY Attorney General Schneiderman [/COLOR]estimated that hundreds of thousands of Americans’ iden ies were stolen
and used in spam campaigns that support repealing net neutrality.
My research found at least 1.3 million fake pro-repeal comments, with su ions about many more.
In fact, the sum of fake pro-repeal comments in the proceeding may number in the millions.
In this post, I will point out one particularly egregious spambot submission,
make the case that there are likely many more pro-repeal spambots yet to be confirmed, and
estimate the public position on net neutrality in the “organic” public submissions.¹
Key Findings:²
- One pro-repeal spam campaign used mail-merge to disguise 1.3 million comments as unique grassroots submissions.
- There were likely multiple other campaigns aimed at injecting what may total several million pro-repeal comments into the system.
- It’s highly likely that more than 99% of the truly unique comments³ were in favor of keeping net neutrality.
https://hackernoon.com/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-neutrality-comments-were-likely-faked-e9f0e3ed36a6
Repugs hired hackers, Pootin's cyber army?, to "prove" that "Americans" are for repealing net neutrality?
It really doesn't, oligarchy s on FCC have the majority, totally immune to Americans' preferences.
Tim Wu: Why the Courts Will Have to Save Net Neutrality
an open internet, with no blocking — much of our current internet ecosystem was built.
Ajit Pai, announced plans to eliminate even the most basic net neutrality protections — including the ban on blocking —
replacing them with a “transparency” regime enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.
“Transparency,” of course, is a euphemism for “doing nothing.”
will soon be able to block internet calls so long as they disclose the blocking (presumably in fine print).
Indeed, a broadband carrier like AT&T, if it wanted, might even practice internet censorship akin to that of the Chinese state, blocking its critics and promoting its own agenda.
by going this far, the F.C.C. may also have overplayed its legal hand.
So drastic is the reversal of policy (if, as expected, the commission approves Mr. Pai’s proposal next month), and so weak is the evidence to support the change, that it seems destined to be struck down in court.
government agencies are not free to abruptly reverse longstanding rules on which many have relied without a good reason, such as a change in factual cir stances.
A mere change in F.C.C. ideology isn’t enough.
As the Supreme Court has said,
a federal agency must “examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action.”
Given that net neutrality rules have been a huge success by most measures, the justification for killing them would have to be very strong.
Mr. Pai’s rationale for eliminating the rules is that cable and phone companies, despite years of healthy profit, need to earn even more money than they already do —
that is, that the current rates of return do not yield adequate investment incentives.
More specifically, Mr. Pai claims that industry investments have gone down since 2015, the year the Obama administration last strengthened the net neutrality rules.
Mr. Pai is not examining the facts:
Securities and Exchange Commission filings reveal an increase in internet investments since 2015,
Because he is killing net neutrality outright, not merely weakening it, he will have to explain to a court not just the shift from 2015 but also his reasoning for destroying the basic bans on blocking and throttling, which have been in effect since 2005 and have been relied on extensively by the entire internet ecosystem.
What has changed since 2004 that now makes the blocking or throttling of compe ors not a problem?
The evidence points strongly in the opposite direction:
There is a long history of anticompe ive throttling and blocking — often concealed — that the F.C.C. has had to stop to preserve the health of the internet economy.
In our times, the judiciary has increasingly become a majoritarian force.
It alone, it seems, can prevent narrow, self-interested factions from getting the government to serve unseemly and even shameful ends.
And so it falls to the judiciary to stop this latest travesty.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/o...-fcc.html?_r=0
Will Pai be able to judge-shop to get the case into a oligarchy pro-business / anti-citizen court?
Yeah once I realized that I did not read the articles he posted nor his rants I just put him on ignore. Unclutters things nicely I find.excellent discussion ITT
I find them amusing. I read some.
Freedom!
Comcast hints at plan for paid fast lanes after net neutrality repeal
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...et-fast-lanes/
killing net neutrality is nothing but a BigCorp strategy to screw customers with extra fees to visit sites, to have x bandwidth, etc, etc.
There is no problem that net neutrality will solve, it's a scam and Pai is a .
Freedom! Compe ion! The venerated, unchallengeable market always provides the best solution
AT&T and Comcast lawsuit has nullified a city’s broadband compe ion law
Bad news for Google Fiber: Nashville utility pole ordinance invalidated by judge.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/att-and-comcast-win-lawsuit-they-filed-to-stall-google-fiber-in-nashville/
TX doesn't even allow municipal networks
FCC chairman calls Twitter the real threat to an open internet
Ajit Pai also poked fun at criticism from celebrities like Alyssa Milano about his plan to repeal net neutrality rules and called out Twitter for censorship.
https://www.cnet.com/news/fcc-chairm...tag=CAD590a51e
ALL the Repugs, and their supporters, are PIECES OF
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