Do none of y’all actually read the text of bills Tumblr people hype up?
The FCC, the commission who’s only mandate is to regulate and control (keyword) communications inside the US (including censorship laws), reclassified all internet services as ‘telecommunications’ so that internet communications and commerce would fall under their jurisdiction. AKA, the Government, through the FCC, took control of the internet in February of 2015.
They used the pretense of “Net Neutrality” to justify their power grab, but make no mistake. For all the flowery language, the end result was that the FCC took control of the internet, and it is now within their rights to censor and regulate everything Americans can access online.
The FCC’s own report, in the paragraphs of so called ‘justification’ for their take-over, acknowledge that no ISP was actually threatening net neutrality. There were no active examples of ISPs playing favorites. When the FCC took over the Internet, not a single ISP was trying to “deceive consumers, degrade content, or disfavor … content”. All the FCC could say was that the ISPs had the tools to do it. Well, guess what, they have since Internet became a thing, and not one of the ISPs has ever engaged in any such anti-consumer practices. No paid slow-downs, no preferred content, nothing. None of it ever actually happened, and there was no evidence that any ISP was even planning to do it. But the FCC took control anyways.
S.993, the bill you’re saying will ‘kill net neutrality’, is literally one paragraph of simple english. Its only purpose is to undo what I just described. Here, let me quote it to you verbatim:
In General.—The rule adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in GN Docket No. 14–28 on February 26, 2015 (relating to broadband Internet access service), shall have no force or effect, and the Commission may not reissue such rule in substantially the same form, or issue a new rule that is substantially the same as such rule, unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of enactment of this Act.
In common, non-legalese, the bill says, “Hey, FCC. This is Congress. That wasn’t cool. The internet is not yours to regulate. We’re stopping you from enforcing that nonsense, and no, you can’t just write up an identical rule again. Knock it off.”
It took me less than ten minutes of research and I think a total of 5 mouse clicks to get this information. True, not everyone is fluent in legalese, but it’s not that complicated to understand.
DO NOT trust overhyped, unresearched opinions on proposed legislation as being representative of what’s actually contained in that legislation. This bill is literally the Congress saying “Yo! We shouldn’t be able to control the internet through the FCC!” And that’s all it is! There’s nothing else to it!
Do your research, people. That’s what your precious internet is good for, isn’t it?Reblogging because apparently people still think this bill is about “Killing Net Neutrality”.
It’s about taking the reins of the internet out of Government hands. Because, I mean, it’s not like governments are notorious for limiting and restricting citizen access to things (cough russia, china, NK, etc cough)
Alright, I did my research. And honestly, I think you completely missed the point of what this bill means.
To start, the Open Internet Order.
The FCC, the commission who’s only mandate is to regulate and control (keyword) communications inside the US (including censorship laws), reclassified all internet services as ‘telecommunications’ so that internet communications and commerce would fall under their jurisdiction.
You’re right about that. But you seem to gloss over what “telecommunications” means in this context.
The measure passed on February 26, 2015 put the Internet under regulation according to Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. You can read the Act here, with Title II starting at page 35.
The general idea of Title II is to outline the purpose and regulations on common carriers, or entities responsible with the transport of goods and services like telecommunications. The most important section is Section 202.
It shall be unlawful for any common carrier to make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services for or in connection with like communication service, directly or indirectly, by any means or device, or to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, or locality, or to subject any particular person, class of persons, or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage.
Think of it like a telephone service. No matter where you go, where you live, as long as you’re connected to a telephone line, the telephone company must provide adequate service to you just like any other provider in the US would. It is their responsibility to be able to reliably transmit data without prejudice.
Because it’s a phone line. The company has nothing to do with what you say over a line or what you hear. It’s only supposed to make sure both lines are connected.
In fact, these are public utilities like electricity and gas. You don’t pay in tiers for the quality of electricity you receive. You just get it.
The same can potentially be said for the Internet. ISPs are not the Internet, but rather the provider of infrastructure needed to connect to it.
And that’s all the FCC did with that measure. They didn’t take control over what content is piped, like you’re claiming. They simply took control of how the pipe is built, how it’s supposed to work. And they can now step in if ISPs are accused of throttling speeds or hiding content because the rules of the pipe say you can’t do that.
TITLE II DOES NOT GIVE THE FCC THE POWER TO REGULATE INTERNET CONTENT. Much like how Title II does not give the FCC the power to regulate what can be said over a phone line. At most, it grants the FCC the extra power to tell ISPs how to behave and monitor their behavior, which is guess is a bad thing if you love deregulation.
Onto S.993. Again, you’re right in that all it does is nullify the FCC vote to reclassify Internet services as telecom. But you’re missing the big fucking picture.
Before the measure, access to the Internet was classed as an information service. What’s that?
The term “information service” means the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service
Again, this is in the Communications Act of 1934 linked above, on page 4 as definition 20.
There’s a problem with this definition. ISPs don’t offer you shit when it comes to using to the internet. They don’t give you the tools to engage in social media, watch streaming videos, read news articles, and blog on this stupid website. All they do is give you a connection to it all, and you the user are in control of the information you pull and push from the connection.
Otherwise, it’s the ISP that’s in control of the information because they’re the ones offering it to you. And they are allowed to take away or hinder your capabilities however they see fit.
So this is the question. What do ISPs do? Do they provide the lines and infrastructure needed for users to communicate (telecom), or do they offer you the tools needed to engage in the internet and its content (information).
In 2015, the FCC said it was the former. Now, they want to switch it back to the latter.
What that bill is really saying is, “No, ISPs do not merely give you access to the Internet. They offer and have control of the content and information you receive online, and that’s how it should be.” You can read it simply if you want, but you need to understand that there’s a lot more going on under the hood. Laws are not made for reading in the now. They have real consequences on the laws that precede and follow it.
And frankly, your interpretation of the bill, following your belief that the internet underwent some sort of hostile takeover, is opinionated, unresearched and demonstrates a failure of understanding the net neutrality debate.
But enough of me ranting. I’m honestly curious.
- How is anything that FCC implemented in 2015 related to a government takeover of the internet?
- Where is the text in Title II that gives the government the ability to regulate and censor the content we receive online?
- If it’s the lack of provisions preventing the government from regulating content that concerns you, then why is this a problem now? Wouldn’t the FCC have that unwritten power before 2015?
I can sympathize with the fear of government giving itself extra powers. But I simply don’t see anything that would change as dramatically as you make it out to be.
P.S. this took waaay longer than 10 minutes to find.