Anna Gomez confirmation means “FCC can act swiftly to restore net neutrality.”
Now let’s get back to net neutrality and rules on social media.
I’m not holding my breath.
We’ll probably see them lobbying to give ISPs additional taxpayer funds to ‘expand’ broadband access while redefining broadband to be anything above 150Kbps.
I laughed at this and then immediately died inside at the prospect.
What rules
Rules for social media lol. What do you expect the government to do? How would they even enforce these rules? Social media sites would simply host in other countries outside of the USA to bypass regulations.
Instead of trying to regulate websites, how about we create better privacy protections for our citizens, eh?
Privacy protection sounds a lot like rules for social media to me…
I don’t think you put much thought into this, friend. Many social media companies are incorporated in the US to make use of US ad revenue sources. Where the servers are hosted doesn’t matter. The legal corporate entity is the important bit.
And as mentioned in the other comment, privacy protections would operate the same way, seeing as they are literally rules for social media, among other sites.
But yes, privacy protections would be great. Let’s do that
Even if that’s true I wouldn’t put it past the companies to find ways to circumvent regulations, and I think trying to advocate for regulating them sets a precedent against the free and open internet that websites are under government control, which shouldn’t be the case. Imagine if government started requiring government ID’s to access all websites (including Lemmy, which is a social network).
It’s true that companies will probably try to find ways to circumvent any rules placed on them, but I don’t think that’s a good reason to not make the legislation.
If regulating social media is an infringement on the free and open internet, does that same logic apply to everything else we regulate? Government mandated ID checking would certainly be bad, but is it a terrible infringement on the internet to say, for instance, “hey, you can’t advertise to children in these ways”?
They have zero interests in providing privacy protections. KOSA is a prime example, bi partisan internet censorship
I hope they clap the cheeks of the lobbies and finalize net neutrality rules with no take-backsies. Then focus on actually improving the internet after that. Just…please get shit done. Quickly.
What took so long?
Republicans
NET NEUTRALITY NOW
I hope they don’t fuck this up. It’d be really easy for these incompetent bastards to do something stupid like “all internet traffic must be given the same priority.”
Traffic shaping is important. Certain packets, like those for real time transmission, have to be given priority (think packets for game movement or phone calls or video conferencing) whereas things that can be downloaded or buffered into larger packets (streaming video, file downloads) the packets can be transmitted with lower priority.
The important part of this is the shaping doesn’t happen on a per origin basis, but shaping for purpose is critical. I’m hoping any regulation isn’t the nonsense that was spelled out previously, it’d be a disaster because it’s like the dumb asses didn’t bother to consult actual network engineers before drafting the proposals.
I hope they do it right if they’re gonna do it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Biden tried again in May with the nomination of Gomez, a State Department digital policy official who was previously deputy assistant secretary at the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from 2009 to 2023.
“If confirmed, she would give the Democrats a majority at the FCC that would enable them to impose a radical left-wing agenda, including investment-killing and job-killing so-called net neutrality rules, otherwise known as Obamacare for the Internet,” Cruz said.
The Republican yes votes came from Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, and Todd Young of Indiana.
Annoyed at how many vote no on a candidate as qualified and non-controversial as this," commented Harold Feld, senior VP and consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.
Media advocacy group Free Press said the “unprecedented 32-month delay” that deadlocked the FCC "was the result of concerted efforts by the phone, cable, and broadcast lobbies to hamstring the agency that oversees their businesses.
Gomez’s confirmation restores the agency’s full complement of commissioners and provides a tie-breaking vote on issues related to diversifying media ownership, promoting broadband affordability and protecting the rights of Internet users."
The original article contains 556 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
otherwise known as Obamacare for the Internet
No one calls it that.
That’s what they tried dubbing it a few years ago on fox.
It needs to be dumbed down for his audience
It’s never gonna happen, lmao. It’ll be just like Obama’s ‘priorities’ with the Freedom of Choice act. A hundred days’ll pass from the dems having initiative in the FCC, and suddenly, Net Neutrality will ‘no longer be a priority’ for that body.
I wish either side would actually follow through on one of their good promises instead of just the shitty ones.
“If confirmed, she would give the Democrats a majority at the FCC that would enable them to impose a radical left-wing agenda, including investment-killing and job-killing so-called net neutrality rules, otherwise known as Obamacare for the Internet” Cruz said.
What
I am not American but does this mean that the Ali guy will be gone?
Do you mean Ajit Pai?
A shit pie.
I mean would you be kind in a world that cursed you with one of the world’s most punchable faces?
Ted Cruz’s face exists!
Yeah that’s the one. Thanks.
He’s been gone a while. Congress just never approved his replacement.
Republicans just never approved his replacement.
God damn it. We need balance of power to keep everyone sain
Dems have the majority? Time for a recess.
Here’s a contrarian hot take. The net neutrality fight is one of those uniquely American issues that simply should not matter, like school shooter drills, complicated tax filings, and tipping. The Wikipedia page on net neutrality in the United States is about as long as War and Peace, yet in most other countries “net neutrality” is not even enshrined as a distinct legal concept and they do just fine.
In the US, net neutrality has not been a general requirement for ISPs since the issue first surfaced over a decade ago, and efforts to enshrine net neutrality into federal law have failed. The dystopia of a balkanized Internet floated by net neutrality campaigners (e.g. ISPs charging people extra to access Netflix) has not come to pass. Yet it’s a live issue because (i) Americans are paranoid about corporations screwing them over, (ii) American corporations have a long history of screwing them over, and (iii) Americans of all camps love waging long and complicated legal battles against each other.
What’s really needed is not net neutrality, but a more competitive ISP market. What the net neutrality fears are really about is ISPs having power over consumers. If only one ISP serves your area, they can screw you over by forcing you to shell out more money to access Netflix or whatever. But government efforts are ultimately better spent increasing market competitiveness, such as setting up “shared fiber” requirements. If there are a bunch of ISPs all competing against each other, “net neutrality” will fall naturally into place simply because none of them want to piss off their customers.
The dystopia of a balkanized Internet floated by net neutrality campaigners (e.g. ISPs charging people extra to access Netflix) has not come to pass.
You may be unaware, but that dystopia already exists today: Mobile service providers (= ISPs for their customers) are selling e.g. WhatsApp traffic quotas separately from other internet traffic. You’ll buy a package, and you’ll get X GB traffic, but Y GB WhatsApp traffic separately, with Y sometimes even being > X.
Meaning in effect that people have to pay more to access the non WhatsApp-Internet, which means “ISP charging people extra to access Netflix” (among other services). It encourages people who have little money to stay in their WhatsApp filter bubble.
In a competitive market, bundling/unbundling is good, not bad. It’s a way for consumers to get a better deal. For example, if a tiny minority of users take up a huge chunk of internet traffic through their use of WhatsApp, bundling WhatsApp separately allows the majority of non-power-users to pay less. If you don’t like it, just jump to the other providers.
It’s under conditions of market power that bundling/unbundling becomes problematic. When your ISP is a monopoly, they can impose bundles on you not because it’s a good way to offer consumer choice, but because it’s a way to stealthily increase prices.
All data is data. Charge by the byte with a 2% profit (not even sure hot to fogure that), or just leave it as unlimited, as it should be.
Food is food, so why doesn’t McDonald’s charge you by the Happy Meal, instead of allowing you to buy burgers, fries, and drinks separately?
I think you missed my point, being that the absence of net neutrality by legislation has brought us exactly what those promoting such legislation have warned about.
When your ISP is a monopoly
Well look at that, they all are. Next.
Everything you wrote is wrong, firstly because this is not just an American problem and that matters, this stupid economic liberalism has never worked and that’s why everything is the shit it is. The market does not regulate itself, there is no invisible hand of the market, if left alone corporations will fuck consumers and workers to fill the pockets of shareholders. This theory is what gave us Google and Amazon.
This is like when Europeans or people in other countries say, “racism isn’t a problem here, it’s a ‘uniquely American’ problem.” Not because racism doesn’t exist in these other countries, but because these other countries aren’t actually talking about racism and often don’t care about it.
It’s more like saying European schools are not well prepared for school shootings. Indeed they aren’t, and this is in principle a problem, but they’ve settled the issue at a deeper level.
That’s not really true. Emerging internet markets are right to be worried about this too. For example India codified net neutrality just a few years ago.
While more competition in ISPs would prevent this being needed, having the backing of a law is a good fallback.
I’m sorry I can’t keep track. Are the democrats and progressives for net neutrality or are they for removing dangerous misinformation and hateful non progressive ideas?
Net Neutrality only applies to ISPs. Endpoints can do whatever they want.
