"Pai’s swift moves to re-write Internet regulations, which even Republicans overwhelmingly oppose, belies the concern he purports to show for consumers. The vote on his plan is set to take place before any sort of investigation has been conducted into allegations that hundreds of thousands of comments submitted to the F.C.C. during its public comment period appear to have been posted under stolen identities. On Wednesday afternoon, 18 attorneys general sent a letter to the F.C.C. calling for an “immediate delay” in its vote while the matter is dealt with. “Many of our offices have received complaints from consumers indicating their distress over their names being used in such a manner,” they wrote. “While not all of us may agree on any given policy, we stand together today as prosecutors of fraud and as defenders of the democratic process . . . It is essential that the Commission gets a full and accurate picture of how changes to net neutrality will affect the everyday lives of Americans before they can act on such sweeping policy changes.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/201...oying-net-neutrality-is-actually-fun-and-cool
I'm not sure how Republican lawmakers can keep floating (and occasionally passing) these wildly unpopular changes and not pay for it dearly at the ballot box. We have a government that has almost no connection to the will of its citizens due to state legislatures' gerrymandering.
Why would they do something that is going to be hated by both Republicans and Democrats? I can't imagine anyone thinking that this is a good thing for them. Insanity.
Yeah, it's the mark of an Oligarchy, and it could morph to something much worse. We'll see. Mussolini, as I understand it, fondly defined Fascism as Corporatism. I don't think the current oligarchy cares that much about the rights of citizens. Certainly not to privacy or, clearly, to unfiltered information.
To those who say "the internet was fine before net neutrality," this is what NN stopped: 2005 - Madison River Communications was blocking VOIP services. The FCC put a stop to it. 2005 - Comcast was denying access to p2p services without notifying customers. 2007-2009 - AT&T was having Skype and other VOIPs blocked because they didn't like there was competition for their cellphones. 2011 - MetroPCS tried to block all streaming except youtube. (edit: they actually sued the FCC over this) 2011-2013, AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon were blocking access to Google Wallet because it competed with their own service. edit: this one happened literally months after the trio were busted collaborating with Google to block apps from the android marketplace 2012, Verizon was demanding google block tethering apps on android because it let owners avoid their $20 tethering fee. This was despite guaranteeing they wouldn't do that as part of a winning bid on an airwaves auction. (edit: they were fined $1.25million over this) 2012, AT&T - tried to block access to FaceTime unless customers paid more money.
