Back in 2015, then-Commissioner of the FCC Ajit Pai submitted a lengthy paper detailing his reasons for voting against the incoming net neutrality rules. He made a lot of predictions about harm those rules would cause — predictions that, as fellow Commissioner Clyburn points out today, pretty much all failed to come true. Read More
Category: Policy
FCC’s Ajit Pai: ‘When it comes to an open Internet, Twitter is part of the problem’
FCC Chairman and net neutrality eliminator-in-chief Ajit Pai has thrown Twitter and other online services under the bus in order to show that it’s not just broadband providers that can exert control over internet content. “When it comes to an open Internet, Twitter is part of the problem,” he explained. “The company has a viewpoint and uses that viewpoint to… Read More
Uber faces another lawsuit over data breach
In light of Uber failing to report the massive data breach that affected potentially 57 million passengers and drivers worldwide, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson has filed a multimillion-dollar consumer protection lawsuit against the transportation company. The breach included the names and driver’s license numbers of at least 10,888 Uber drivers in Washington and, under… Read More
Senators introduce revenge porn bill
Senators Kamala D. Harris (D-CA), Richard Burr (R-NC) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), as well as Rep. Jackie Speier introduced a bill today to address revenge porn. The bill, Ending Nonconsenual Online User Graphic Harassment (ENOUGH) Act of 2017, is d…
View More Senators introduce revenge porn billFCC doubles down on its dead-wrong definition of how the internet works
In May, when the FCC released an early draft of its plan to undo 2015’s strong net neutrality rules, I pointed out that its case rests almost entirely on a deeply incorrect definition of how the internet works. There can be no mistake now that this misrepresentation is deliberate; the agency has reiterated it in even stronger terms in the final draft of the proposal. Read More
Net Neutrality advocates plan protests for December 7 at Verizon stores
On December 14, the FCC will vote on whether or not to roll back Obama-era policies protecting a free and open internet. In fact, during yesterday’s announcement of the upcoming vote, the FCC neglected to mention the historic 22 million comments on the issue, the majority of which were negative.
In response, protests are being held on December 7 at Verizon retail stores across the country. Read More
FCC releases final draft of ‘Restoring Internet Freedom,’ which would not do that
The FCC yesterday announced a December 14 vote on “Restoring Internet Freedom,” an order that, far from restoring freedom to the internet, would allow it to be restricted in new and harmful ways. Actually, when you think of it as restoring internet freedom to ISPs and cable companies, it makes a lot more sense. At any rate, the Commission has released the text of the order, as… Read More
Facebook will show which Russian election troll accounts you followed
Facebook is building out a tool to show which Facebook Pages or Instagram accounts associated with Russia’s Internet Research Agency election troll farm you Liked or followed. Launching by the end of the year as part of the Facebook Help Center, the tool will show a list of all the IRA accounts you followed.
The IRA is a group based in St. Petersburg, Russia with ties to the Kremlin. Read More
Senator Schatz on net neutrality: “This has to be a real political movement”
Following the news yesterday morning that the FCC will be voting on the proposal to kill net neutrality come December 14, officials and advocacy organizations have been issuing statements left and right decrying the impending upending of the inte…
View More Senator Schatz on net neutrality: “This has to be a real political movement”Facebook’s ad system shown failing to enforce its own anti-discriminatory policy
Results from a new ProPublica investigation suggest the tech giant is failing at even simple self-policing. Read More
View More Facebook’s ad system shown failing to enforce its own anti-discriminatory policyNew York attorney general slams the FCC for ignoring net neutrality comments investigation
If the FCC’s refusal to acknowledge the vast public outcry against its plan to gut net neutrality isn’t enough of an outrage, its total disinterest in investigating how that same comment system may have been gamed by fake users posing as real Americans adds a bit more insult to injury. Suspicions arose earlier this year that a person or an organization of some kind was… Read More
The FCC’s craven net neutrality vote announcement makes no mention of the 22 million comments filed
For someone who claims to be working for the American people, Ajit Pai sure doesn’t seem to care what they have to say. In his announcement today that the FCC would vote whether to roll back net neutrality rules on December 15, he made no mention of the inconvenient fact that his proposal had attracted historic attention, garnering over 22 million comments — the majority of… Read More