Trump's FCC will soak net neutrality in gas and toss in a lit match Supporters of net neutrality are preparing to defend FCC regulations passed two years ago in the face of what is increasingly looking like a determined effort by the Trump Administration to undermine them. Earlier this week, Trump named a third person to his FCC transition team and, as with the previous two, she is a vocal …
The first issue is what happens to two existing FCC Commissioners. One, Jessica Rosenworcel, has been held in limbo for nearly a year by Congress, which has refused to confirm her reappointment for political reasons.
Actually, it's the Democrats that are holding up her re-appointment. Senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). To them, Rosenworcel seems to lean too far to the right.
Markey "wants an FCC commissioner who is unequivocally committed to pro-consumer, pro-competition policies," said Markey. "Recent actions from Commissioner Rosenworcel have called that commitment into question."
She seems to sit on the fence a lot. While she's spoken out in favor of net neutrality, she hasn't voted to defend it.
Yes, it is currently the Democrats holding up Rosenworcel (as covered in a previous story) which is why this story says "Congress" and not "Republicans" when it comes to her renomination.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/21/trump_fcc_net_neutrality_haters/
But the implication in the article is that it is the Republicans that are holding up her re-appointment. Isn't "for political reasons" deliberately vague?
Meanwhile there is nothing vague about the violent title of the article. It makes very clear where the author's bias lies.
In case you hadn't noticed, objective comment is no longer relevant in the age of perception management - what some who think the Trump campaign broke new ground refer to as "post-truth". I recommend the (rather long) documentary "HyperNormalisation" from Adam Curtis for an interesting take on this.
"objective comment is no longer relevant in the age of perception management"
objective comment is no longer relevant when people are trained/conditioned by a failing school system, corrupt politicians, and a willing media, to *FEEL* instead of *THINK*.
Feelings should be the LEAST relevant thing. Instead, they're put in front of everything else.
And the debate over "net neutrality" is more of a battle of semantics and feelings than it is about logic and reason. Sick, sad, truth.
Just to prove there's no conspiracy here, and that you were reading way too much into "political reasons", I've added a link to the senate Democrats arguing over it so everyone's definitely on the same page.
As for the headline, I wrote it and I don't feel particularly either way about NN - I just recognize when an incoming administration is gearing up to make changes.
C.
Given that Trump's whole campaign was basically founded on a platform of "opposing political correctness and speaking ur branes", it seems ironic that some of his supporters are so incredibly thin-skinned.
To the point where it's impossible to write a news story doing anything other than unconditionally praising their idol, without being accused of bias.
You may think that, but it's due to your conditioning. You see an article peppered with nasty little smears about Trump and to you they look like simple truth, because that's what you've been told they are. Others know better and are not at all pleased to see such baseless bias creeping into the Reg articles, so we complain.
You want an example? Let's look at the first paragraph:
"Supporters of net neutrality are preparing to defend FCC regulations passed two years ago in the face of what is increasingly looking like a determined effort by the Trump Administration to undermine them."
I don't recall those regulations having "passed" anything. Obama's cronies just rammed them down America's throat by fiat. Then Trump's presumed policy of removing this sweeping 'regulation from on high' is cast as "undermining," a term describing a destructive act. That sort of language is pure bias, and people who think so have every right to oppose it without being told they are being unreasonable.
You're forgetting your history, John.
Net Neutrality was in trouble, and the laws now in progress were hard fought for (as per the article) so that everyone is equal on the internet, and a low cost startup could compete with massive companies (which could afford higher carrier costs)
If this is being brushed away, it is bad for net neutrality and it is bad for us. Therefore calling it "bad" is not a bias, but the truth. Unless, of course, you don't like "net neutrality" ?
> "Net Neutrality was in trouble, and the laws now in progress were hard fought for (as per the article) so that everyone is equal on the internet, and a low cost startup could compete with massive companies (which could afford higher carrier costs)"
History, history. Olius, I remember Net Neutrality being a controversial idea, not an existing thing that needed saving. That's history.
> "Laws now in progress"
Huh? These are not laws, they are regulations handed down from a bunch of Bureaucrats with orders that they be obeyed by all the people. I do agree that they were hard fought-for; plenty of high dollar lobbying went on for sure. But that does not confer legitimacy upon them.
And your assertion that this is all about equality can be strongly argued against. I won't attempt to declare a stance here, but I look at who was pushing this thing (Obama, et al), and since I object to most of his many many executive orders I have to assume these regulations exist for the same ideological reasons, and they are therefore suspect.
> "Unless, of course, you don't like 'net neutrality' ?"
What if I don't? Does that make me "bad?" Is it forbidden to oppose something labeled "neutral?" Is that all it takes in your world to shut down opposition?
"Is that all it takes in your world to shut down opposition?"
Ah, spoken like a true Trumpeter.
You expressed an opinion. You are free to do so.
I disagreed with that opinion. I am also free to do so.
You have not been "shut down", I have not delved in to El Reg's servers and deleted your comment. Your opinion still stands, and I still think it is wrong.
Free speech at its best.
The rest of what you said isn't worth my time arguing with - one of your points is simple pedantry, the other shows you haven't really been paying attention. So I'll freely ignore it.
"The rest of what you said isn't worth my time arguing with..."
Not even your confusion about the difference between between laws and regulations? Or is that the "pedantry" one? Do you really think laws and regulations are more or less the same?
I really think you should reconsider that belief. Knowing how things differ is a critical skill to have when commenting on politics. ;-/
@Big John, but 'from on high' is how the USA has worked for a good 50 + years, ever since Congress decided to leave most of the power in the hands of the President, while they collected money from lobbyists, vested interests, etc. You might feel that Trump is above all this, but the bunch of Republican hyenas in Congress are all the same old faces we've been seeing for a long time now.
I'm going to down vote, and here's why
If the vote had been purely about Net Neutrality then yes, you get what you vote for, Simples.
But I don't recall any candidate in the entire race standing on that issue. So irrespective of the faults with American "democracy" resulting in the losing candidate winning the election, it's a package deal where votes were cast over other (many would argue more important) issues, not net neutrality.
Yes this electoral race was heavy on the name calling and very light on actual policy. Sure there was some hand waving on an extremely limited number of hot button issues but otherwise there was little distinction between the two major party candidates or even the major parties themselves.
I guess all those emails showing collusion between the NYT "journalists" and the Democrat Party mean nothing to you? And what about those wildly inaccurate election polls they put out (along with the rest of the lefty press)? Did Breitbart do that? Any of that? Not that I've seen. Instead they stand up for what they believe is right, and proclaim it proudly. Half the country agrees with Breitbart, but not the NYT.
So maybe the corporate media does claim Breitbart is twelve kinds of nasty, but those damning words are coming from a set of hacks who no longer own any clothes.
Its way too obvious who Trump is taking orders from considering his past. Up until the election, Trump was an employee of NBC (Actor on 'The Apprentice'), and later an employee of Comcast (When they bought NBC, which really seems like it should never have been allowed to happen).
He gained popularity due to all the free media coverage he received from the various news outlets, so it seems quite likely that Trump made a deal with Comcast that they would pressure their news subsidiaries to give him more coverage in exchange for Trump using his power to crush Net Neutrality.
I wouldn't be surprised that if Net Neutrality is ended that Trump doesn't return to hosting 'The Apprentice' at a highly increased amount of pay upon leaving the Oval Office.
Okay, so that gets Trump more coverage at Comcast and subs. Is that really enough to make a difference? , What caused the other corporate news orgs to act the same way? Are they all in collusion? Did the US Media really get Trump elected just to kill Net Neutrality? Wow.
The networks copy each other, so when one releases a story, the others will jump right on it and apply their own spin to it (No outlet wants to miss out on a story and lose valuable advertising dollars). Or at least look at the same sources, and once a large network starts listening to a news feed, the other will start to as well. The American people can't get enough of watching terrible people do terrible things, just look at the popularity of Paris Hilton, The Cardassians, The New Jersey Shore folk, The Duck Dynasty people, Honey Boo-Boo, etc. Trump fits perfectly into that category, so networks were trying to out-do each other in trying to cover the random and 'outrageous' stuff that he did.
People see Trump doing something racist / sexist / homophobic and think back to a time when they or their friends said/did something just as hateful and thus think that Trump fits in with them, that he is "A guy I can have a beer with". Really, anything that embarrassed him in public made him more sympathetic to people that have been embarrassed about doing something similar themselves (nearly everyone).
Comcast would certainly do everything in their power to get a sympathetic candidate in office. They stand to gain massive piles of cash in extortion money from web sites and services if Net Neutrality is killed. They had already spent astronomical amounts of money in lobbying since the conversation about Net Neutrality started. Even if Net Neutrality isn't ended, they still stand to gain quite a lot of cash in reduced corporate taxes that Trump has promised.
> "People see Trump doing something racist / sexist / homophobic..."
Correction, YOU see it. I imagine you see a lot of things that aren't there, such as intelligent Democrats who actually believe Hillary was framed.
Personally I'd love to have the superpower to change reality into exactly what I perceive it to be, but alas, reality doesn't care what I think.
This whole "net neutrality" thing is *HIGHLY* overrated, and equally misunderstood.
When you hear 'net neutrality' what do you think of. Fairness? I bet a lot of people do. but net neutrality has NOTHING to do with 'fairness'.
"Net Neutrality" has to do with REGULATING CONTENT along with the manner in which it is transmitted.
It's amazing what can be inserted into the umbrella term "net neutrality", and don't think that gummints do NOT want to do it.
The only REAL freedom is ANARCHY. A more 'sane' approach is what we have had up until the whole "net neutrality" crap, basically a set of protocol standards and simple routing rules.
Once you start mandating and regulating and fiddling and demanding and suing and punishing and CONTROLLING ACTUAL CONTENT, the entire intarwebs will be RUINED.
It would become nothing more than a pipeline for invasive and privacy-violating advertising content, directly from "them" directly to "you" at maximum throughput. No, wait...
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