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The Internet Government United States

FCC Chair Accused of 'Political Theater' to Please Net Neutrality's Foes (freepress.net) 23

The advocacy group Free Press on Friday blasted America's Federal Communications Commission chief "for an order that rips net neutrality rules off the books, without any time for public comment, following an unfavorable court ruling," reports the nonprofit progressive news site Common Dreams: A panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ruled in January that broadband is an "information service" instead of a "telecommunications service" under federal law, and the FCC did not have the authority to prohibit internet service providers (ISPs) from creating online "fast lanes" and blocking or throttling web content... FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a Friday statement that as part of his "Delete, Delete, Delete" initiative, "we're continuing to clean house at the FCC, working to identify and eliminate rules that no longer serve a purpose, have been on our books for decades, and have no place in the current Code of Federal Regulations...."

Responding in a lengthy statement, Free Press vice president of policy and general counsel Matt Wood said that "the FCC's so-called deletion today is little more than political grandstanding. It's true that the rules in question were first stayed by the 6th Circuit and then struck down by that appellate court — in a poorly reasoned opinion. So today's bookkeeping maneuver changes very little in reality... There's no need to delete currently inoperative rules, much less to announce it in a summer Friday order. The only reason to do that is to score points with broadband monopolies and their lobbyists, who've fought against essential and popular safeguards for the past two decades straight...."

Wood noted that "the appeals process for this case has not even concluded yet, as Free Press and allies sought and got more time to consider our options at the Supreme Court. Today's FCC order doesn't impact either our ability to press the case there or our strategic considerations about whether to do so," he added. "It's little more than a premature housekeeping step..."

FCC Chair Accused of 'Political Theater' to Please Net Neutrality's Foes

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  • Like one that isn't expecting to have elections anymore. It's clearly expect one more round in the midterms but it's also clear that after the midterms they don't think that they need to care what any of us think.

    I think the Trump voter is know they fucked up but they're in too deep. A lot of them have lost family and friends for trump. It's classic cult like behavior where the cult leader is trying to cut you off from the outside world. And it's working.

    So midterms will still go maga and then Trump
    • You and Donald, always stuck on campaign mode, and always stuck on stupid.

  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday July 12, 2025 @11:47AM (#65515252)

    broadband is an "information service" instead of a "telecommunications service" under federal law,

    ... an idiot. Still back in the era of 'the Internet is a series of tubes.' My ISP supplies me with _no_ information on their own. Only that which is provided by actuall information services, like Wikipedia, Amazon and Slashdot for subsequent transportation to customers. Actually the 'series of tubes' description comes a lot closer than what these judges cooked up.

    • My friend you need to look at how to spin these cases. Since ISPs are no longer telecommunications companies, a lot of the government fees should be removed as well (this does not translate to customers savings). Police wiretaps require court orders again. Mergers and acquisitions have less regulatory tape.

      Most importantly the barrier to entry has been lowered greatly as an ISP is not bound to telecommunications regulations. Letâ(TM)s not forget why the net neutrality argument even started. Netflix use

    • Anyone else mentally reading these as "The opposition party today criticized the current administration...."?

      It makes reading the news headlines and articles much easier.

      It also helps prevent elected officials, leaders of nonprofits, social agitators from continually promoting their personal brand and paid speaker bureau fee potential by existing solely to criticize the other party's administration.

      It is like the old advice given to a fresh just out of college hire:

      - If you come to a meeting only to point o

  • There is no Telecommunications services anymore if we don't have the internet marked as one.

    Phone companies are removing landlines:
    https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]

    Many of the top ISPs are all phone companies:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    But at the same time we're ruling the internet isn't used for communication, just information.

    Your phone runs online now, you use email to talk to people, even your sms messages are sent online along with everything else. But somehow, any random ISP can block or throttl

    • >can block
      >can throttle

      You realize a lot of ISPs block ports like HTTP, SMTP, SMB.. right? Should we allow unfettered access to services that when compromised affects the entirety of the internet? Iâ(TM)m okay with gating it behind a more expensive service since, you know, most home users donâ(TM)t need to send email to every smtp server on the internet

  • It's my first time hearing this phrase, but I'd like to clarify it a bit: Destroy, destroy, destroy. That seems to be all the people in power now are capable of doing.

    Rebuilding America will take generations. It can't even begin until this system of government is erased. And that can't be done until people get tired of the destruction.

1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2.

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