This whole thing just has me stumped as to how we even got into this position. How in the hell does a single bureaucrat have this kind of power in the US to make a unilateral decision affecting millions of people and billions of dollars in commerce?
Next, the FCC's legal mandate to deal with net neutrality is vague. This is why the 2010 rules were overturned in court, and barring a new law being enacted, the legality of the 2015 rules are ultimately in the hands of the courts. Until the courts decide, the FCC can create rules based on their interpretation.
The 2010 rules were overturned in court because the FCC has very little power if it classifies ISPs under Title I, but lots of authority under Title II.
Now some of the questions before a federal court are about the 2017 repeal, including 1) was the FCC's reversal of the Title II classification justified and 2) was the proceeding handled fairly under the Administrative Procedures Act.
The challenges to the 2017 reclassification are about whether the FCC justified the change and followed the required procedures, not whether it has the authority.
In the US, the battle has been going on for more than a decade. Look at how google search, youtube, reddit and even HN has changed. The last major holdout was facebook, but we've seen what happened to them. It wasn't by accident or because ordinary people wanted it. It's what the elites wanted. What the people want has never really mattered. Not in the US, not in europe, china, russia, etc.
And with the constant merging of content providers and ISPs, the internet will become more like TV for most people.
What's funny is how we had so much facebook spam here ( when it was really a non-story ) and so little coverage of such a monumentally important tech topic like net neutrality. I'm guessing between facebook and net neutrality stories only, facebook accounted for 99% and net neutrality accounted for 1% on HN.
One would think that "hacker" news would care about the important story and not political fluff. But hacker news hasn't been "hackerish" for a while now.
The FCC is not a single bureaucrat, it's a five seat commission limited to three members of any one political party; in practice, approximately (not exactly because of term timing), that means three members of the party holding the Presidency and two of the other major party.
I'm a firm believer that both parties have their hands dirty in one way or the other, but in this instance, it doesn't seem to be so in this case.
This response is kind of ironic in context of net neutrality being repealed considering it is a decision which empowered those who are neither elected nor appointed by elected people against the will of the overwhelming majority of the citizens.
Net neutrality was part of Obama's presidential platform, and the first attempt at codifying NN rules happened under his first FCC commissioner in 2010.
Both parties are not the same with respect to net neutrality.
The Democrats have publicly embraced net neutrality, but have done nothing to ensure it. Even in 2016, the Democrats official stated position was to do nothing, leaving it in the hands of the courts. Both parties actual actions have the same results.
I don't know where the "Democrat's official stated position" comes from, but I have a pretty good idea as to why Democrats weren't talking often about NN in 2016: Wheeler's FCC solved the problem. The ninth circuit upheld the 2015 rules. That's not nothing.
WA passed a law to ensure it. That's not nothing. Waiting for a decision and hoping the status quo sits (I mean it's a great story to ride on the coattails of and tell your constituents you did something), is nothing.
I'll admit I had missed the 2016 ruling on the issue. I may be overly cynical on it, but as I skimmed the briefing it seemed the ISPs still had some court options available. Even if I'm wrong there, they still had the chance to prevent the current situation and ignored it.
2) No one would praise a party for making laws to a problem that is otherwise fixed. Talk about feeding into the republican talking point of democrat bureaucrats.
In short: Don't spend effort fixing something that ain't broken.
This is on the GOP because they made something worse. It's not on the dems for "not making something even better". Make the GOP pay for it if you don't like it. Blaming dems for shit they didn't cause is in part why they lost the election.
This is crap. The bill was introduced and ignored, though they found time to pass a bill amending the same 1934 Communications act that covers net neutrality in the session to improve caller ID.
The issue wasn't remotely fixed at the time, and they chose to fix it in an easily reversible way. Unless they expected an eternal reelection, the Democrats caused this too. They lost the election because they can't rely on being slightly less terrible than the Republicans.
Democrats were either incompetent at predicting the GOP would unwind this when they said they were gonna. Or they liked the idea if it being unwound and being able to blame the GOP for it.
And like I said, not their first day at the rodeo, so the former is impossible. They are definitely not incompetent, they definitely knew the regulations would be unwound. And they definitely did nothing about it as if their either didn't care, or they liked the idea of using it to rile up their base for campaign donations and votes.