12-14-17

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines on Thursday to repeal landmark 2015 rules that intended to ensure a free and open Internet, as protesters gather to oppose the change. The 3-2 ruling sets up a court fight over a move that opponents fear will recast the digital landscape….

Bomb Threat Temporarily Stops Regulators as ‘Net Neutrality’ Rules Are Abolished

Source Jim Yackel

#netneutrality #internet #soros #tech #viral #trending

MORE from Due Diligence on this hot topic:

Did A Cartoon Mouse Just Kill The Internet? (Video) click here 

Hot! US FCC Votes to Repeal Net Neutrality Rules Here’s What the Future Will Be Like. The Good, Bad and the Ugly (Videos) click here

Regulators abolish ‘net neutrality’ rules in heated hearing that was stopped because of a BOMB threat as protesters rallied outside

• Net neutrality is the principle that internet providers treat all web traffic equally
• Obama-era 2015 rules prohibited telecom companies from blocking or slowing down apps that rival their own services
• Now the FCC’s Trump-appointed majority has repealed the rule along party lines, and protesters descended on Washington to oppose the plan
• One Democratic commissioner said Republicans were ‘handing the keys to the Internet’ to a ‘handful of multi-billion dollar corporations’ 
• The Republican chairman said of the time before the rule was adopted, ‘The Internet wasn’t broken in 2015. We weren’t living in a digital dystopia’
• The hearing room was cleared briefly following a phoned-in bomb threat so explosive-sniffing dogs could be brought in 

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted along party lines on Thursday to repeal landmark 2015 rules that intended to ensure a free and open Internet, as protesters gather to oppose the change.

The 3-2 ruling sets up a court fight over a move that opponents fear will recast the digital landscape.

The meeting was evacuated before the vote for about 10 minutes on the basis of what Commission Chairman Ajit Pai called ‘advice from security,’ and resumed after sniffer dogs checked the building.

An FCC official told DailyMail.com that police had concerns after a bomb threat was phoned in.  

Pai’s victory is also a win for internet service providers like AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. that opposed the regulations, popularly known as net neutrality rules, and hands them power over what web content consumers can access.

Democrats, Hollywood and companies like Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. had urged Pai, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, not to rescind the Obama-era rules barring service providers from blocking, slowing access to or charging more for certain content. 

Consumer advocates and trade groups representing content providers have planned a legal challenge aimed at preserving those rules.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters on Thursday that ‘the administration supports the FCC’s efforts. And at the same time the White House certainly has and always will support a fair and free Internet.’ 

Someone called in a bomb threat during the FCC vote. Eventually the�� emoji will be similar to the �� emoji #NetNeutrality pic.twitter.com/IEOqcI7V3O 

FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, a Democrat and daughter of South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, said in the runup to the vote that Republicans were ‘handing the keys to the Internet’ to a ‘handful of multi-billion dollar corporations.’

Clyburn addressed protesters outside, raising a clenched fist, before the hearing began.  

Pai has argued that the 2015 rules were heavy handed and stifled competition and innovation among service providers.

‘The Internet wasn’t broken in 2015. We weren’t living in a digital dystopia. To the contrary, the internet is perhaps the one thing in American society we can all agree has been a stunning success,’ he said on Thursday.

But companies like Netflix, worried about speed-throttling and other barriers to video streaming, lashed out quickly.

‘We’re disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity & civic engagement. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix stands w/ innovators, large & small, to oppose this misguided FCC order,’ the company tweeted.

WHAT IS ‘NET NEUTRALITY’? 

Net neutrality is the principle that internet providers treat all web traffic equally, and it’s pretty much how the internet has worked since its creation. But regulators, consumer advocates and internet companies were concerned about what broadband companies could do with their power as the pathway to the internet – blocking or slowing down apps that rival their own services, for example. 

WHAT DID THE GOVERNMENT DO ABOUT IT?

The FCC in 2015 approved rules, on a party-line vote, that made sure cable and phone companies don’t manipulate traffic. With them in place, a provider such as Comcast can’t charge Netflix for a faster path to its customers, or block it or slow it down.

The net neutrality rules gave the FCC power to go after companies for business practices that weren’t explicitly banned as well. For example, the Obama FCC said that ‘zero rating’ practices by AT&T violated net neutrality. The telecom giant exempted its own video app from cellphone data caps, which would save some consumers money, and said video rivals could pay for the same treatment. Pai’s FCC spiked the effort to go after AT&T, even before it began rolling out a plan to undo the net neutrality rules entirely.

A federal appeals court upheld the rules in 2016 after broadband providers sued.

WHAT DO TELECOM COMPANIES WANT?

Big telecom companies hate the stricter regulation that comes with the net neutrality rules and have fought them fiercely in court. They say the regulations can undermine investment in broadband and introduced uncertainty about what were acceptable business practices. There were concerns about potential price regulation, even though the FCC had said it won’t set prices for consumer internet service. 

WHAT DOES SILICON VALLEY WANT?

Internet companies such as Google have strongly backed net neutrality, but many tech firms have been more muted in their activism this year. Netflix, which had been vocal in support of the rules in 2015, said in January that weaker net neutrality wouldn’t hurt it because it’s now too popular with users for broadband providers to interfere. 

Several state attorneys general have said they will work to oppose the ruling, citing problems with comments made to the FCC during the public comment period. Other critics have said they will consider challenging what they consider to be weaker enforcement.

Net neutrality supporters rallied in front of the FCC building in Washington before the vote, and some Congress members were expected to join.

Amid chants of ‘Hey hey, ho ho, Chairman Pai has got to go!’, several dozen people stood in the cold to hear activists speak out against the change.

Online protesters included celebrities like ‘Star Wars’ actor Mark Hamill.

The 2015 rules were intended to give consumers equal access to web content and prevent broadband providers from favoring their own content. Pai proposes allowing those practices as long as they are disclosed.

Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman who heads a trade group representing major cable companies and broadcasters, told reporters earlier this week that internet providers would not block content because it would not make economic sense.

SOURCE Daily Mail

====================================================================================

DISCLAIMER: Ads seen on this page or on this site 

are NOT endorsed by NOR are they placed by Due Diligence

THIS ARTICLE ENDS HERE

===========================================================================