Net Neutrality

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Communications Commission has at long last announced the agency’s plans to restore Title II net neutrality, which was repealed in 2017 by the Trump administration.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.

The Internet Is Not Facebook

November 11, 2022 Corynne McSherry and Jillian C. York, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Educate! Content Policing, Internet, Media, Net Neutrality

Cloudflare’s recent headline-making decision to refuse its services to KiwiFarms—a site notorious for allowing its users to wage harassment campaigns against trans people—is likely to lead to more calls for infrastructure companies to police online speech. Although EFF would shed no tears at the loss of KiwiFarms (which is still online as of this writing), Cloudflare’s decision re-raises fundamental, and still unanswered, questions about the role of such companies in shaping who can, and cannot, speak online. The deplatforming followed a campaign demanding that Cloudflare boot the site from its services. At first the company refused, but then, just 48 hours later, Cloudflare removed KiwiFarms from its services and issued a statement outlining their justifications for doing so.

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.

We Already Knew Broadband Should Be A Public Utility

March 17, 2021 Aden Hizkias, Public Knowledge. Create! Internet Freedom, Net Neutrality, Pandemic, Public utility

Broadband allows people to participate in the digital world, which encompasses our daily lives. It connects people with their families and friends, news on what is happening in the country and abroad, and gives access to an unlimited amount of important information and resources. During the COVID-19 pandemic, broadband has been critical in supporting online school and work, access to healthcare and medical information, and even vaccine distribution. Eighty-seven percent of people reported that the internet has been important to them during the outbreak, and fifty-three percent of people reported that broadband is essential for critical purposes and everyday tasks. If broadband is so essential, then why doesn’t current federal policy enable the Federal Communications Commission to regulate broadband as we regulate other public utilities — similar to the way we treat electricity, water, and phones?

DOJ Drops Lawsuit To Block California Net Neutrality Law

February 11, 2021 Marguerite Reardon, CNET. Educate! California, Department of Justice, Legal System, Net Neutrality

The US Department of Justice under President Joe Biden has dropped a department lawsuit filed under former President Donald Trump that challenged California's net neutrality rules. California's law, considered more strict than federal rules adopted during the Obama administration, could set the baseline for future federal rules. The DOJ formally dismissed the lawsuit Monday. The suit was first filed in 2018 under ex-US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a Trump appointee. Former California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed the California law in October 2018. California adopted the new rules after a Republican-led FCC in 2017 repealed federal rules that had been established under President Barrack Obama.

Outgoing FCC Chair Ajit Pai Praised By Industry Organizations

December 2, 2020 Todd Spangler, Variety. Educate! Ajit Pai, FCC, Net Neutrality, Telecoms

Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who said Monday he will depart the commission on Jan. 20, leaves behind a controversial legacy: He’s regarded as either an exemplary change agent or an ideologue who forfeited consumer interests for commercial ones. To cable, telecommunications and consumer-electronics companies, Pai has been a model of transparency and a champion of free markets who cut away outdated regulations and laid the groundwork for the expansion of broadband to millions of Americans.

A Tale Of Two Titles

November 13, 2020 Dana Floberg, Tech Dirt. Educate! Internet Access, Internet Freedom, Net Neutrality, Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a reliable broadband connection is a health and safety necessity. Families need the internet to connect to remote work, virtual classrooms, election information and telehealth care while maintaining social distance. But roughly 60 percent of low-income parents say their students will experience digital obstacles when attending online school this fall — including 40 percent who say they will have to seek out public WiFi because they don’t have a reliable internet connection at home. And students aren’t the only ones who need internet access to learn, work and thrive at home — at all times, but especially now.

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