Submitted by The Republican-controlled FCC on Thursday suspended the net neutrality transparency requirements for broadband providers with fewer than 250,000 subscribers. Critics called the decision anticonsumer.
The transparency rule, waived for five years in a 2-1 party-line vote Thursday, requires broadband providers to explain to customers their pricing models and fees as well as their network management practices and the impact on broadband service.
The commission had previously exempted ISPs with fewer than 100,000 subscribers, but Thursday’s decision expands the number of ISPs not required to inform customers. Only about 20 U.S. ISPs have more than 250,000 subscribers.
What could possibly go wrong?
The five-year waiver may be moot, however. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Republicans in Congress are considering ways to scrap a large chunk of the net neutrality regulations approved by the agency just two years ago.
Is it just me, or is the undoing of the opposing party’s policies every 4-8 years a really terrible way to run a country?
It’s not just you. Then again, from here in the UK, I despair in general.
Hi,
For a representative democracy, you’d have to say that the people are using their representatives to undo their own policies every 4 to 8 years.
My theory is that there’s very little actual “representation” in a representative democracy; and perhaps someone should try true democracy (where every citizen can vote on every issue directly; possibly via. some kind of web site that presents a “for” and an “against” argument and expects citizens to read them before voting).
– Brendan
Edited 2017-03-01 11:33 UTC
And make it super-easy for electoral fraud? It would be better to do that on dead tree format. Less chance of an external entity (ie russia, china) tampering with the vote
And would lock out a large portion of our population with various print disabilities. Should they not be represented? And really, the Russia/China argument is getting to be a lod of bull. I’d be more worried about hacks from our own leaders than external entities at this point but, hey, anything to create that foreign enemy right?
Work in cyber security. You will quickly realize how much Russian and Chinese hacks impact our economy and government. I worry about our government overreaching with their hacks as well but Russia and China are a constant, never-ending threat. It’s no accident that pretty much all secure institutions that can afford to block both countries completely at their firewall do.
Hi,
The Internet is considered “secure enough” for online banking, online shopping, confidential communication, etc; but as soon as someone suggests voting for/against things (like net neutrality) a few times per week you want to chop down several forests?
Note: I’m not sure about third-world countries like the US, but here most Government services (taxation, healthcare, social security, etc) are already online.
– Brendan
I’m all for that, but not in this country. At this point, I don’t know how you’d get citizens to even read about each issue, let alone care. They’d rather have the talking head on whatever news channel they watch tell them how to vote and be done with it.
My theory is that there’s very little actual “representation” in a representative democracy; and perhaps someone should try true democracy (where every citizen can vote on every issue directly; possibly via. some kind of web site that presents a “for” and an “against” argument and expects citizens to read them before voting). [/q]
Good god no. If you want to see a shit show, that’s the recipe right there. Direct democracy is tyranny of the majority, which is great if you’re in the majority, but not great if your in a minority.
Representatives do listen to constituents, but the constituents do need to voice their concerns.
What you need is TRUE representation, not just some asshole CLAIMING to represent the people, but in reality representing major interests. Go to the jury pool model – people in the district come in and then are randomly assigned a position for one term, then exempt for the next few. That and SEVERE restrictions on lobbying will do better than any other system we’ve tried.
Don’t even think about doing it through a jury pool model. No one in this country wants to serve on juries and, I know from personal experience, that people will say whatever it takes to get out of there quickly… even if that means they simply go with the easiest, and not the right, verdict on a case. To hell with that!
So then abolish jury trials? Specialized jobs shouldn’t be filled by lottery, sure, for reasons of both motivation and skill. However, there ought to be a statistical sampling of citizens voting politicians’ proposals up or down. That way the deviation from ideal representivity is only a modest (and random) statistical margin of error.
The issue isn’t the lack of direct representation in the US. It’s gerrymandering, money in politics, the electoral college, and never-ending campaigns. More people voted for a Democrat for President and more people voted for Democrats overall for congress yet they lost both branches of government. The Presidency was due to the electoral college and congress was due to gerrymandering. They are both ways in which certain people are disproportionately represented over other people. We can get people’s votes to count equally without direct representation. Creating a society that changes laws at the same pace it changes its opinion is not a good idea in my opinion. Instead of reversing ourselves every 8 year it will be every 8 weeks.
The way we did so-called net neutrality was useless anyway. Instead of the ISPs shaping traffic to suit them, it ended up being people currying favor with the fcc to get exceptions to the rule. Might as well have it the way it was before. At least it was honest, in its own way.
The past eight years, at the state and federal level the Republican Party has used obstructionism as the keystone of their platform. I fear this will backfire on the Republicans when the Democratic Party becomes a majority again–they will eventually. The Democrats could potentially have their revenge and do nothing but obstruct any and all efforts made by the Republicans.
I would hate to see the country stagnate and suffer with back-and-forth obstructionism every couple of election cycles.
Maybe the democrats will be the bigger party and do what’s right for the people/country, or maybe they will be vengeful and petty like the Republicans were to them, IDK. :/
I’m betting on vengeful. The day the parties actually served the people ended before I was even born.
For businesses, government works best when it’s not doing anything.
Businesses rely on stability. They plan, they budget capital, and they work within regulations. When regulations change, they have to reconfigure their business processes, and in turn they have to re-evaluate their budgets and plans.
So government gridlock isn’t the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen is the current situation where one party can rubber stamp every bad idea that comes along, and they can force bills through which are knee jerk reactions to the hysteria of the day with out contemplation of forethought.
I’m hoping for vengeful actually. Otherwise the Republicans pay no price for their obstruction. They do whatever they want and restrict Democrats from doing ANYTHING they want whether the Republicans are in power or not. That is not a functional Republic. Neither is obstruction but only one course of action has the chance to change that. Democrats compromised for 8 years with Bush and were rewarded as good representatives by being blocked on everything for the next 8, even on bills the Republicans agreed with. Then they were rewarded for that with all three branches of government. Compromise isn’t going to help anyone at this point unless you are a billionaire or a Republican, although there is a big overlap there.
Generally speaking, the democrats are the ones who are willing to play nicely in the sandbox while the republicans want to throw toys around and kick the sand cuz they feel like it. The democrats probably will try to `be the bigger party`, and as always, it’s going to backfire because the republicans will continue being what they are. Republicans don’t and aren’t willing to view democrats as equals, they view them as inconvenient and in the way. Don’t be fooled though, both parties are just different branches on the same tree, and puppets of those with power & influence (ie: money).
It’s laughable anyone actually believes our government is “of the people, by the people, for the people”. Corporations have bought & paid for our laws, our policies, and our direction. Money and big business influences every aspect of our governing bodies. The White House has finally been emptied of politicians and replaced with billionaires & CEO’s. And not surprising everything they’re doing is to benefit themselves. That it’s not in the interest of or what the people want is inconsequential. The beauty of it is that these non-politicians don’t have a constituency to answer to. They can do whatever the f… they want and not have to answer for it. It’s a great time to be a top 1%’er!
It’s better then the alternative of putting your faith in the competency of a deity appointed monarch.
Democracy is an experiment, and that’s how experiments work. They zigzag back and forth until they reach a state of equilibrium. It’s bracketing; it’s compromise.
Anyway, a couple of points. It’s the FCC, and this happens every time a new chairman is appointed. The policy swings can happen during administrations. The FCC is also one of the more toothless agencies. If a company was violating Net Neutrality rules, the FCC could levy fines, but that’s about it. They aren’t a law enforcement agency like the FBI or ATF, so they have to take it in good faith that everyone will abide by the rules.
I will vigorously argue that very little has changed since 1992. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama basically followed the same template. That’s 24 years of consistence.
My question is rhetorical and actually hits two points.
1. Everyone currently on the FCC was put there during Obama’s presidency. Trump has not added anyone new to it. You cannot blame Trump (yet) for those on the board. The only thing possibly due to Trump was Tom Wheeler’s resignation. For the others on the board, you would have to blame Obama too, but that would show that it was not due to the new administration, specifically.
2. Both (all) parties have their hands out for money. I have a feeling that a Democrat as president would not have been much different (see note above that Obama approved the current members on the FCC).
I am cynical.
Actually control of the FCC is pretty much at the hands of the party that holds the Presidency. This is how the FCC works. The President appoints one of the commissioners as chair and the previous chair retires. I think they can stay on as commissioners if they want but they don’t.
Edited 2017-03-01 23:55 UTC
1. As abraxas already pointed out, the president appoints the FCC chair, not `everyone`. There are vast differences between the Obama chair vs. the Trump chair.
2. Democrats try to comfort you while you’re being violated. Republicans prefer you stfu and look the other way.