FCC

This Is An All-Out War On The First Amendment

April 11, 2025 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! FCC, First Amendment, Media, Press Freedom, Trump Administration

There are reasons that the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, is an opaque entity for many people. The fact that there is a federal agency setting the terms for media companies’ operations conflicts with many Americans’ understanding of the press corps as a group of brave, independent individuals looking to tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may. There are, in fact, many community-supported, differently structured news outlets doing just that. But, listeners know, the big major papers and stations and channels we may look to for news are owned and sponsored by big profit-driven corporations that share the status quo–supporting interests of other big profit-driven corporations.

Sixth Circuit Rules Against Net Neutrality; EFF Will Continue To Fight

January 15, 2025 Chao Liu and Katharine Trendacosta, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Educate! EFF, FCC, Legal System, Net Neutrality

Last week, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the FCC, rejecting its authority to classify broadband as a Title II “telecommunications service.” In doing so, the court removed net neutrality protections for all Americans and took away the FCC’s ability to meaningfully regulate internet service providers. This ruling fundamentally gets wrong the reality of internet service we all live with every day. Nearly 80% of Americans view broadband access to be as important as water and electricity. It is no longer an extra, non-necessary “information service,” as it was seen 40 years ago, but it is a vital medium of communication in everyday life.

FCC Reasserts Its Authority To Protect The Open Internet

April 25, 2024 Timothy Karr, FreePress.net. Create! FCC, Internet Freedom, Net Neutrality, Telecoms

Washington, DC - On Thursday, in a 3–2 vote, the Federal Communications Commission voted to restore Net Neutrality protections and reclassify high-speed-internet access services as telecom services subject to Title II of the Communications Act. The decision is a major victory for the public interest: Title II authority empowers the FCC to hold companies like AT&T, Comcast, Spectrum and Verizon accountable for a wide range of harms to internet users across the United States. Prior to the historic vote, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said: “[We] take this action today to help ensure that broadband is fast, open and fair for all of us.”

Internet Service Providers Plan To Subvert Net Neutrality

April 20, 2024 Chao Liu and Cooper Quintin, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Resist! FCC, Internet, Net Neutrality, Telecommunications

In the absence of strong net neutrality protections, internet service providers (ISPs) have made all sorts of plans that would allow them to capitalize on something called "network slicing." While this technology has all sorts of promise, what the ISPs have planned would subvert net neutrality—the principle that all data be treated equally by your service provider—by allowing them to recreate the kinds of “fast lanes” we've already agreed should not be allowed. If their plans succeed, then the new proposed net neutrality protections will end up doing far less for consumers than the old rules did.

Net Neutrality Is Back; Telecom Giants Are Again Playing Dirty

October 5, 2023 Evan Greer, Fast Company. Educate! Astroturfing, FCC, Lobbyists, Net Neutrality, Propaganda, Telecom

Big Telecom’s lobbyists and spin doctors are working overtime this week because the Federal Communications Commission has at long last announced the agency’s plans to restore Title II net neutrality, which was repealed in 2017 by the Trump administration. In a functioning democracy, this move would be noncontroversial. Basically no one outside of the telecom giants and their front groups supported the repeal of the rules. The Title II protections were put in place after millions of people from across the political spectrum demanded that the FCC use its authority to prevent internet providers from abusing their gatekeeper power, blocking or slowing down websites, or charging unfair fees to use your favorite apps.

FCC Restores Its Responsibility To Oversee Corporate Control Of Internet

October 1, 2023 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! FCC, Media, Net Neutrality, Telecoms

The FCC has been ineffectual for some time, because it’s been short of full staffing. Big media players torpedoed, with the most scurrilous of means, the nomination of public interest advocate Gigi Sohn, but eventually Biden nominee Anna Gomez was sworn in as fifth commissioner. In the wake of that, FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel has now announced that the FCC is to be an active player again. At the National Press Club this week, Rosenworcel (9/26/23) said that the FCC will vote on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking at its next meeting in mid-October. And they will center the role of Title II, the part of federal communications law that gives the agency the power to even go about overseeing corporate control of the internet.

Democrats Are Failing On Net Neutrality And Other Digital Rights

April 11, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG FCC, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Telecoms

In 2014-15, a broad social movement won net neutrality, but that victory was taken away by the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, under the Trump administration. President Biden, promising to restore net neutrality, appointed a favorable chairperson, Gigi Sohn, but his administration and Democrats in Congress failed to defend her from a successful attack by the Telecommunications industry. Clearing the FOG speaks with Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, about the current campaign to push for a new FCC commissioner, what is behind the assault on Tik Tok, including a dangerous piece of legislation called the RESTRICT Act, and how corporations are using facial recognition technology for their own agendas.

Action Alert: Trump Rules Remain At FCC As Democrats Cave To Big Cable

March 18, 2023 Evan Greer, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Democrats, Donald Trump, FCC, Joe Biden, Net Neutrality, Telecoms

Remember Ajit Pai, the former Verizon lawyer Trump put in charge of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)? When he gutted net neutrality rules and kneecapped the agency’s ability to regulate telecom monopolies, voters from across the political spectrum were outraged. The internet erupted in protest. Millions of people from across the political spectrum called their elected officials and submitted comments to the FCC, and thousands took to the streets. It was a rare moment of genuinely popular public revolt that defied partisan DC logic. If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that we don’t want our cable or phone company screwing us over more than they already do, selling our browsing habits and real-time location to advertisers, or dictating what websites we can visit or which apps we use.

Democrats Cave To Corporate Smear Campaign Against Gigi Sohn

March 8, 2023 Fight for the Future. Educate! Democrats, FCC, Gigi Sohn, Net Neutrality

The Washington Post is reporting that Gigi Sohn, the Biden administration’s nominee for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), will withdraw her nomination, after Democrats failed to stand up to an outrageous and bigoted smear campaign funded by the telecom industry. Sohn’s withdrawal plunges the Biden administration’s supposed priorities into peril: deadlocked at 2-2, the FCC will be unable to restore net neutrality, enforce privacy rules, or use its authority to protect the location data of people seeking or facilitating abortions.

Gigi Sohn Has Faced Relentless Smear Campaigns, Some Funded By Telecoms

February 14, 2023 Janine Jackson, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! FCC, Gigi Sohn, Joe Biden, Net Neutrality, Telecoms

Gigi Sohn was nominated by Joe Biden to fill the vacant fifth seat at the Federal Communications Commission in October of 2021, and renominated for a third time last month. Sohn is a veteran legal telecom expert, a fellow at Georgetown Law, co-founder of the group Public Knowledge, and for years an advisor to former FCC chair Tom Wheeler. Hundreds of groups, officials, companies—left, right and center—have publicly endorsed her. So why has her nomination languished? Therein lies the tale—a disheartening one of outsized corporate power and the denaturing of government’s public interest obligation, and of transparently scurrilous right-wing attacks, and lagging, inadequate response.

Renomination Of Gigi Sohn Gives Public Another Chance To Be Heard

January 28, 2023 Julie Hollar, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! FCC, Media, Net Neutrality, Telecoms

This month President Joe Biden renominated the highly qualified Sohn, whose confirmation has now been stalled for a record-breaking amount of time. With a 50/50 split in the Senate, Democrats had failed to muster enough support for a vote in the face of strong opposition from deep-pocketed big media corporations like Comcast. The FCC has been operating without a fifth member for well over a year, which has left it deadlocked with two Democratic and two Republican members. That’s great news for the telecom industry, which is enjoying the FCC’s inability to do things like restore net neutrality (which was implemented under Obama and repealed under Trump), ensure equal access to broadband, prevent further consolidation of big media, and crack down on wireless carriers’ abuse of private user location data.

Biden Executive Order Calls On FCC To Restore Net Neutrality

July 11, 2021 Timothy Karr, Free Press. Educate! FCC, Joe Biden, Net Neutrality, Telecoms

Washington, DC — On Friday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission, to enact measures protecting internet users against the anti-competitive practices of large telecommunications and internet companies. In the order, Biden calls on the FCC to “restore Net Neutrality rules undone by the [Trump] administration.” In 2017, the agency under then-Chairman Ajit Pai repealed the Open Internet Order and abandoned the FCC’s jurisdiction over broadband under Title II of the Communications Act. Today’s executive order also calls on the FCC to require more transparency from broadband providers about their prices and terms of service, and to examine the impact of early termination fees and other punitive practices imposed on broadband customers.

FCC Must Expand The E-Rate Program To Connect Students During Pandemic

February 20, 2021 Shiva Stella, Public Knowledge. Create! Education, FCC, Internet Access, Students

Yesterday, Public Knowledge joined Access Humboldt, Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, Consumer Reports, and New America’s Open Technology Institute in filing comments in response to the Federal Communications Commission’s Public Notice on the use of E-Rate funds to enable remote learning. Public Knowledge supports “off-campus” use of E-Rate funds to help students studying at home access the broadband they need to stay connected to classes, student services, and their families during the pandemic. The following can be attributed to Greg Guice, Director of Government Affairs at Public Knowledge: “As the nation enters its 12th month of the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools remain closed or opened on a limited basis, making distance learning the primary means of educational instruction for many students.

Ajit Pai’s Broadband Legacy: Haste And Waste

January 21, 2021 S. Derek Turner, Free Press. Educate! Ajit Pai, FCC, Internet, Privatization

As we documented in our previous three posts, the $9.2-billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) — FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s supposed crowning achievement toward closing the broadband digital divide — is looking more and more like one of the most wasteful projects in FCC history. Our first post gave some examples of questionable funding in urban areas that we stumbled upon after spending just a few minutes with the map of winning bidders. This included ridiculous examples of “rural” subsidies awarded to major ISPs to offer broadband in gated urban communities where they already offer service, and awards to bring broadband to a posh resort that is already well-connected.

The FCC And States Must Ban Digital Redlining

January 17, 2021 Ernesto Falcon, EFF. Educate! FCC, Inequality, Internet Access, Telecoms

The rollout of fiber broadband will never make it to many communities in the US. That’s because large, national ISPs are currently laying fiber primarily focused on high-income users to the detriment of the rest of their users. The absence of regulators has created a situation where wealthy end users are getting fiber, but predominantly low-income users are not being transitioned off legacy infrastructure. The result being “digital redlining” of broadband, where wealthy broadband users are getting the benefits of cheaper and faster Internet access through fiber, and low-income broadband users are being left behind with more expensive slow access by that same carrier.

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