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Watch the FCC Vote On Net Neutrality Live At 10:30am Eastern

Posted by timothy on from the now-now-now dept.

New submitter giltwist (1313107) writes "Very shortly, the FCC will begin its vote on proceeding 14-28 regarding Chairman Wheeler's highly contentious Net Neutrality proceeding. Senator Al Franken called Net Neutrality the free speech issue of our time. The vote begins at 10:30am Eastern time today. Make sure to watch it live at the FCC's live stream." "A particularly full agenda" is right; it's a rambunctious crowd, too.

25 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Irony? by NuAngel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ironically, without net neutrality, I imagine the FCC's website would be in the slow-lane and we wouldn't all be able to stream this at the same time. Just sayin'.

    1. Re:Irony? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ironically, without net neutrality, I imagine the FCC's website would be in the slow-lane and we wouldn't all be able to stream this at the same time. Just sayin'.

      Nonsense. The cable companies have always known that the minor expense of giving the politicians favored access to the media is well worth it. Exhibit A: C-SPAN.

    2. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's entirely secondary to keeping the public uninformed. It is not in their interests to accelerate any of the arguments to be presented into the public discourse.

  2. Re:Will there be a transcript linked somewhere? by Sperbels · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's closed captioned.

  3. Interesting? by denmarkw00t · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So far it's not bad, but a lot of people advocating for congress to step in instead. Not sure how I feel about that vs unelected people making decisions - if only there were some way for the common people to decide what we should do...

    1. Re:Interesting? by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What is a shame is that Congress doesn't make decisions based on what is in the best interest of the general public.

      If it comes down to it, a single large company making another billion in profit or millions of people getting better and lower cost internet access, I vote for the millions of people.

      Shame Congress doesn't vote that way.

    2. Re:Interesting? by mellon · · Score: 2

      The whole point of what that person was saying is "please do not make a decision. Please do _anything_ other than make a decision. The longer you can avoid making the decision, the more likely we can finally put a stake into Netflix, those evil vampires."

    3. Re:Interesting? by Sarten-X · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Congress votes for what it thinks is in the best interest of the general public.

      The symptom you see is a result of corporations coming in and saying "we have 250,000 employees, and they benefit from this", which is then weighed against your one signature on a petition. There's also the bias in that no politician wants to be the guy who pushed a major employer out of the region, so there's a lot of pressure to accept the lesser of two evils between "my constituents lose their jobs" and "everybody (mostly outside my region) has slightly worse Internet service". Given that perspective, the politician naturally has a duty to vote for the greater good of their constituents.

      We're not losing to the big corporations... we're winning a Pyrrhic victory.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    4. Re:Interesting? by PvtVoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "if only there were some way for the common people to decide what we should do"

      That's called the free market.

      If it were left entirely to the free market, net neutrality would have been gone years ago. Careful what you wish for.

    5. Re:Interesting? by JeffOwl · · Score: 2

      There is no such thing as a free market when there are government granted monopolies.

  4. Vibrant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Comissioner Pai believes the Clinton administration and congress at the time's decision to allow the free market to allow internet growth through "unfettered and vibrant competition" was the correct one.

    Vibrant competition. His words, not mine.

    1. Re:Vibrant! by Anubis+IV · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, I got a laugh out of that too. Even so, at least he dissented, though at the end of the day, it sounds like the vote will be 3-2 in favor of passing it, with both dissenters doing so because they believe it should be left to Congress to decide, and they both seem to be in favor of eliminating net neutrality.

    2. Re:Vibrant! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You guys all have to remember that back when Clinton and Congress made that decision we were using dialup and broadband was barely even getting started. Back then there were literally hundreds of ISPs to choose from, since 90% of your home traffic went over a phone line. Odd that Ma Bell and AT&T didn't hardly get their knickers in a twist over that. Although congress was in the process of breaking them up at the time, so they probably had better shit to worry about.

      But now we're all fucked because your only choice in broadband is essentially your cable company.

    3. Re:Vibrant! by Bob9113 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      with both dissenters doing so because they believe it should be left to Congress to decide, and they both seem to be in favor of eliminating net neutrality.

      Don't kid yourself. The dissenting votes were theater, just like Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel saying they favored net neutrality. If Clyburn and Rosenworcel had voted against and the two R's had voted for, it would have broken the "along partisan lines" story that our one political party relies on. This is the only way the vote could go to achieve the three goals:

      1. Kill net neutrality.
      2. Maintaining the pretense that Obama and the dem's are fighting for net neutrality.
      3. Maintain the "bitter partisan divide" story that keeps the one party (the D's and R's) from having any competition.

      I wanted to believe in Rosenworcel and Clyburn. I posted here in support of them. But they are as full of shit as Obama. The Republicans are worse, because they don't even claim to support non-discriminatory communication networks, but they are all selling our future down the same river.

      --
      Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
  5. Re:What are they voting on? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It was just approved:
    http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=6017589503

  6. It's official - it passed by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Informative

    11:30am EST, it passed the vote, 3-2.

    1. Re:It's official - it passed by Aelanna · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ah, here it is: http://www.reuters.com/article...

    2. Re:It's official - it passed by QuietLagoon · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Wow, what a surprise.

      .
      This was destined to pass from the day it was first proposed. All the public commenting was merely window dressing to make it appear as if there were public involvement. The ISPs control the Internet (and apparently the FCC) in the United States, and this is their way of assuring they will continue to do so and profit handsomely in the process.

    3. Re:It's official - it passed by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2

      FCC Gives Initial OK To New Internet Rules

    4. Re:It's official - it passed by organgtool · · Score: 5, Funny

      On the plus side, the money this brings in will allow the ISPs to back off their threat to stop innovating!

  7. Re:Will there be a transcript linked somewhere? by mellon · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're better off not watching. I watched for about five minutes and wanted to punch somebody. The eloquence with which these spindocs are explaining why black is white is disgusting.

  8. Re:It passed. by giltwist · · Score: 2

    I think Commissioner Wheeler's final comments provide hope. "It's not about whether the internet will be open, it's about how and when rules protecting openness will be in place." He also specifically namedropped Netflix and commented that ISPs should not be double-dipping.

  9. Re:It passed. by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't act as if the war is over just because this battle is lost. This wasn't a resolution "Forever and ever for the rest of time the end." It wasn't even a real fight anyway, the outcome was already known. The "chairman" of the FCC is a lobbyist for the cable industry remember. This was just a show to make it seem like the issue was considered fairly and openly. The first real chance at correcting this is congressional action.

    And before any other cynics pipe up, cram that defeatist talk about lobbyists and partisan politics up your ass. Yes, that will add to the difficulty, it might delay it, but no, that will not forestall any possible action on it. The real barrier is public apathy. Your mother doesn't know what net neutrality is or how it will affect her. And cynically telling yourself it's an impossible fight is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Have you called your congressman? Don't say it's a lost cause just as an excuse not to try to win.

  10. Help us Google Fiber! You're our only hope by symbolset · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now would be a great time for Google Fiber to announce their nationwide rollout. "If the FCC won't fight for a free and open Internet then we must."

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  11. Media fail by jfern · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The media said that "net neutrality" fast lanes passed. Morons. We need media neutrality, too.