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Comment by 4ad | Hacker News Reader

> It's the “right entity” because of the responsibility assigned to it by Congress.

I was not aware the US Congress has jurisdiction over the entire planet.

I'll bite. They don't, but they very much do have jurisdiction over the operation of domestic corporations engaged in interstate commerce, which this clearly is.

Correct, and that is an US-internal dispute between whoever is responsible (FCC seems to think it is) and that particular company. But this HN discussion is not about that at all. Most of the comments here about jurisdiction in space. FCC has no jurisdiction on that, although they surely seem to think they do, and it's bewildering to see all the US-centric comments who also think that.

Is what Swarm did bad? Yes, if we were to take FCC at face value (why should we?). Should the FCC be allowed to reprimand this american company? Probably, assuming FCC is telling the truth. Should the FCC act like the universal arbiter of space? No, it should not, and the sociopolitical attitude displayed here is much worse and harmful than the space pollution from Swarm.

Where is anybody saying the FCC is the universal arbiter of space? As I said, the FCC is only involved because it's a US company. If it was a Russian company, it would involve the Russian government, etc.

Nowhere is the FCC acting as the "universal arbiter of space". And no reason has been given for not taking the FCC at face value on this.

And I disagree with the "sociopolitical attitude being bad". I fully believe that this "endanger other's things and don't care about it" attitude given by Swarm is the more dangerous one.

Events have clearly overtaken our regulatory frameworks. Political events are seeming to move towards nation state isolationism recently but reality is showing we need more supranational cooperation and regulations.

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