FCC Suspends Net Neutrality Comments, As Chairman Pai Mocks 'Mean Tweets' (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes:Thursday the FCC stopped accepting comments as part of long-standing rules "to provide FCC decision-makers with a period of repose during which they can reflect on the upcoming items" before their May 18th meeting. Techdirt wondered if this time to reflect would mean less lobbying from FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, but on Friday Pai recorded a Jimmy Kimmel-style video mocking mean tweets, with responses Gizmodo called "appalling" and implying "that anyone who opposes his cash grab for corporations is a moron."

Meanwhile, Wednesday The Consumerist reported the FCC's sole Democrat "is deploying some scorched-earth Microsoft Word table-making to use FCC Chair Ajit Pai's own words against him." (In 2014 Pai wrote "A dispute this fundamental is not for us five, unelected individuals to decide... We should also engage computer scientists, technologists, and other technical experts to tell us how they see the Internet's infrastructure and consumers' online experience evolving.") But Pai seemed to be mostly sticking to friendlier audiences, appearing with conservative podcasters from the Taxpayer Protection Alliance, the AEI think tank and The Daily Beast.
The Verge reports the flood of fake comments opposing Net Neutrality may have used names and addresses from a breach of 1.4 billion personal information records from marketing company River City Media. Reached on Facebook Messenger, one woman whose named was used "said she hadn't submitted any comments, didn't live at that address anymore and didn't even know what net neutrality is, let alone oppose it."

Techdirt adds "If you do still feel the need to comment, the EFF is doing what the FCC itself should do and has set up its own page at DearFCC.org to hold any comments."

Comments

Deaf

[thegreatbob]

First read that as DeafFCC. I'll leave it that way, because the shoe fits.

First Comey now this

[rsilvergun]

can we at least _pretend_ we're still a democracy?

Re:First Comey now this

[PopeRatzo]

can we at least _pretend_ we're still a democracy?

It's easier to just pretend I am the Bat-Man.

Re:First Comey now this

[penandpaper]

It's more than half. The majority of humans are idiots. Which ,thinking about it, could be a filter to Fermi's Paradox. As civilization advances it must reconcile higher concentrations of energy and power in larger segments of the population including the underbelly and idiots.

You can be smart in one thing and an absolute dolt in another. Politics in democracy forces us to make decisions even though we are a laymen and a dolt for such topics. Maybe the benevolent dictator is better.

Re:First Comey now this

[Plus1Entropy]

We still are, believe it or not. There have been many checks against Trump's power in the short time he's been President, mostly from the judiciary, but also some from Congress as well. The new FBI director will require Congressional approval, and there are at least a few Republican Senators who are wary enough not to put some toady in... I hope.

The areas where Trump has far more latitude are things like the Department of Justice, immigration enforcement, regulatory agencies, etc. So it's not surprising to see him have the most effect there.

Of course the final check on him is impeachment, potentially. But (I didn't know this because I didn't live through it) apparently Watergate took 2 years to unfold before Nixon resigned... So no matter what, even if the Russia thing turns out to be the worst it could be, we're in for the long haul.

Re:First Comey now this

[monkease]

Right? Who'da thunk it?

Regulation actually preserving freedom??

I guess there are some situations that the universal application of severe quasi-intellectual philosophies like Objectivism don't really work for. Go figure.

Re:First Comey now this

[TheRaven64]

Two Winston Churchill quotes are probably more relevant:

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time

and

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Re:First Comey now this

[Ol Olsoc]

We still are, believe it or not. There have been many checks against Trump's power in the short time he's been President, mostly from the judiciary, but also some from Congress as well. The new FBI director will require Congressional approval, and there are at least a few Republican Senators who are wary enough not to put some toady in... I hope.

You are correct. From what I have been told, the word is out that there will be no new director until a special prosecutor is appointed.

Which is odd that the party of investigations would even oppose a special prosecutor. The sooner they can get their man declared completely innocent the better for them.

When you are happy to have a special prosecutor extend his investigation so far that it ended up the horrors of a blowjob between two consenting adults, you would think that treason would be something they want their chosen one to be cleared of in short order.

But (I didn't know this because I didn't live through it) apparently Watergate took 2 years to unfold before Nixon resigned... So no matter what, even if the Russia thing turns out to be the worst it could be, we're in for the long haul.

The impeachment process is designed to be slow and deliberate, so yes, it does take a long time.

The wild card in this whole thing is that we are no longer talking about an consenting adult female giving oral sex to an adult male philanderer. We're talking about what amounts to espionage. It's easy to make a stage show about old Slick Willie, one hella lot harder to be shown supporting what may have transpired.

Which in itself makes the firing of Comey very interesting. What happens if these investigations show some clear criminal activity that is a danger to the United States?

Clinton's blowjob wasn't even a crime, Nixon's shenannigans were just a stupid cover-up that could have easily been avoided (think about how Reagan managed to deflect that the Republicans were actually selling weapons to an avowed enemy of the US through an elaborate scheme - Wikipedia has a fascinating outline of that sordid affair.

This long winded BS on my part is just to note that unless the Republican Party is willing to be tarred and feathered with the responsibility of defending what might come out, the 25th amendment might be invoked. That one is a lot quicker to go down.

Re:First Comey now this

[silentcoder]

> As it is now, what you and Lessig describe is exactly what we have right now
No. What Lessig is proposing is making the Maine and Nebraska systems applicable in all states.

>"or corruption"
Yet the winner now was far more corrupt than she could ever hope to be. She was accused, and no evidence was ever presented, of a pay-for-play scandal in her foundation. Trump used HIS foundation - and we have actual PROOF - to bribe not one but TWO state attorney generals not to prosecute him for fraud ! Lots of whispers do not a case make.
Now I personally don't think Clinton's hands were really clean -few career politicians are, but compared to Trump they are sparkling bloody diamonds of righteousness ! It's really quite amazing just how much grime Trump managed to get on such tiny little hands.

> She demonized half the electorate
No - she didn't. She really didn't. The "basket of deplorables" statement was idiotic- but it was also quoted completely out of context to pretend it meant something entirely different to what she actually said. She NEVER accused Trump voters of being that basket - she said SOME OF THEM were. If anything she grossly underestimated how many.

>She chastised the Bernie supporters
Mostly, actualy, that was one small subset of her supporters, she didn't do that. And frankly a small subset of Bernie's supporters DESERVED that -as evidenced by the fact that Bernie ALSO chastised them. His exact words were: "I neither need nor want your votes".

>She played into peoples fears and prejudices to get them to support her.
No - that would be Trump. Unless you count their fear of an autoritarian demagogue who sucked up to racists - in which case those are actually LEGITIMATE fears which it was the duty of EVERY politicians to warn and guard against. Still is actually.

> She made it clear that she would reward corruption on her behalf
Example please ? You do KNOW that pizzagate never happened right ?

>She played into the desire the same way Sanders did by promising everything they wanted
That's a bullshit misrepresentation of what either of them said, AND she only adopted those liberal policies because HIS success proved that a huge swath of the democrat voters WANT those policies. If anything her fault was NOT really believing in them. And the greatest misrepresentation of those positions is the claim that they would cost too much - which is a flagrant lie based on hoping you don't know how 'cost' is calculated. The cost of something is NOT equal to the price you pay for it. It's equal to the price - value. Costs come in free varieties:
If price = value: then the item costs nothing, and the only loss is the opportunity cost (you lose the opportunity to buy something else instead) - and it's an individual calculation if it's worth it everytime and NO answer is always right.
If price > value: then it's a dumbfuckish purchase and only an idiot would make it. Spending more money on what is already the most overspent military in the world would be a great example of that - Trump and the republicans love that though.
If price Trump did not campaign on the abolishment of constitutional rights for any American citizen
The proposed Muslim registry DEFINITELY would abolish a constitutional right (the 4th amendment) for American citizens based on their religion (so it ALSO violates the 1st). His current immigration proposals ALSO violate the fourth (like the idea that you can use somebody's skintone or language as probable cause to ask for proof of citizenship). That was just one of many proposals of his that did EXACTLY what you just said he didn't do.

>Clinton was very anti-gun, did you not see the primaries?
Nobody said otherwise, I said she was never coming to 'take your guns' - just like Obama didn't in 8 years of republicans promising he would do it next week. In fact, Obama's ONLY gun actions actually REDUCED gun control in the USA. What Clinton DID say she stood for was common sense, intelligent gun regulatio

Why so serious?

[Okian Warrior]

As Chairman Pai Mocks 'Mean Tweets'

Chairman Pai knows what's best and you people need to stop being so mean to the Trump regime. He was elected by the largest margin in modern history and he's the CEO of the country, so if he doesn't want Net Neutrality, you shouldn't complain because he's got the best people around him.

You should feel lucky that you're being allowed to comment at all.

Why so serious?

Mean tweets are clearly hate speech, and Chairman Pai is clearly onboard with the movement to suppress it.

I mean - commenting on policy is one thing, but we can't let people make hate speech now, can we?

Where are your priorities?

Re:Net Neutrality is a pile of crap... and it stin

[Plus1Entropy]

Net neutrality boils down to a set of networking rules and principles that could be laid out in no more than about 8 pages.

While the rules themselves might only require 8 pages, what's missing is procedure, enforcement, oversight, penalties, etc. All of those things are necessary if the rules themselves are to have any meaning.

Consider this simple rule: "People aren't allowed to kill each other." By your logic, these 7 words are the extent to which the laws against murder should be defined. Any additions beyond that must be for nefarious purposes.

Re:Fuck Agit Pai.

[Anonymous Coward]

USA voted hillary. USA wanted this not to happen. All the shit trumpalina does = not voted for by the USA.

Re: STOP BEING MEAN

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about the OP but I'm long past attempting to converse and reason with conservatives. It shouldn't be my responsibility to always argue from their stance back to a middle ground, so I'll take the modern conservative approach and simply discard their perspectives entirely and push my own.

Unfortunately, as liberals continue to lose battles, they'll increasingly employ the "winning" tactics of conservatives to promote their own agendas. We'll have an ugly America either way, but it may snap conservatives back into sanity and real discussions. I gave up after 2016 when this disgrace was elected.

Re:Fuck Agit Pai.

[Rob Y.]

Noone's saying Trump wasn't elected. Just that the majority USA voters don't want his bullshit. After all, that's what was being implied by "USA want's this to happen". Sure, Trump is in a position to make this happen - thanks to the Electoral College and any number of other factors. That does not mean USA (i.e. the majority of American citizens) want him to.

And what the hell does 'Running up the score in California' mean. You could just as easily say "Running up the score in a bunch of over-represented low population states". But again, we're talking about what the people want - not what the screwy Electoral system produced.