this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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Wait, what? They're only just now doing this?

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[–] [email protected] 134 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Wait, what? They're only just now doing this?

I get that it took awhile. But why do people always criticize the people doing the right stuff rather than the people causing harm?

Take the win!

[–] stembolts 62 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Exactly what you said. Take the win.

That faulty line of thinking (shitting on everything) is the same line of thinking that "lets imperfect get in the way of good."

"Oh, this action was late. Bad!"
"Oh, this action only solves part of the problem. Stop trying! Bad!"
"Oh, the rich will just use a loophole to get around this! Bad!"

If repubs can convince critics that doing nothing is better than doing something, repubs win. A seemingly very effective exploitation of the narcissism of the online critic.

The term useful idiot comes to mind.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

People scoff when you mention these sentiments have been proven to be pushed by foreign state agencies to create voter apathy too.

Shit look how much people espouse 'green washing' on Lemmy then pretend like they're the one true enlightened ones. Mean they're stuck doomscrolling on an even less regulated platform than Facebook or Reddit pretending like converted efforts of state propaganda isn't pushed here.

Like guys, anarchist and communist viewpoints are just fine when you aren't pushing parroted fascist rhetoric. Few people have issues with you being further left than American progressives. They're the Lemmy equivalent of vegan jokes now lol.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Not only that, but the explanation is right there, in the article:

Democrats were stymied for nearly three years because they did not take majority control of the five-member FCC until October.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

To exit a room, it's better to apply pressure to a door than to a wall.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago

I agree! It is fine to have to have a degree of cynicism but too much and nothing gets done. Celebrate every step in the right direction.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

I emailed the Ars Technica article to my Trump voting mother on jackass what's his face when Trump appointed him and accused her of harming the internet. We have a no-politics rule now because of how angry I grew over time with that orange fuck. It was my idea. Saved our relationship.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's a waste of time criticizing organizations that are beyond being reformed like the Republican party is. The Democratic party can and must do better and should hear about their screwups, the Republican party just needs to be rendered irrelevant entirely and doesn't need to see it coming.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If this was the '90s or '00s or early '10s, I'd agree with you. There were a lot of conservative Democrats in congress that were taking up potentially liberal seats and some Democrats (Clinton) pushed conservative initiatives even further in order to win.

Now, I constantly see cynical Democrats blaming everything on Democrats, even if it's out of their control. Blame Republicans when Republicans are to blame so we can beat them. Blaming Democrats is often counterproductive.

Example, post. This is good. Let's continue to do good.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The reason the right has been kicking liberal asses lately is their unity. That unity was mostly due to the torrent of dark money from billionaire foundations like the Koch network pushing an agenda, but none the less they moved this country so far right it will take decades to change things. The left needs to learn to stop attacking the few people we still have in power so hard and look at the bigger picture. You will never get progressive change quickly, it takes a long coordinated movement. It’s an election year and we know our options are Biden against the anti-thesis of progressivism. Lets rally now and push Biden for change after the election when we have ensured we elected someone who could actually listen.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thank you!

Imo, it made sense to attack Democrats 15 years ago who weren't representing their constituents (more recently, Sinema comes to mind). But we're past that. Now it's time to back our people, get more of them in office, push progressive ideals to the public, and get things done.

For example, saying Democrats don't do enough to protect abortion access is counterproductive. You have to support more liberals so they have the power to make change.

Same with net neutrality. Saying it took them too long doesn't help. They got it done. Celebrate it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

"Democrats suck because they didn't do enough to stop Republicans" is an argument that makes me rage

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Thanks - I forgot about this episode of the Intercept podcast. Good to re-listen.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (3 children)

They're not being criticized for doing the right thing. They're being criticized for the negative aspect. Many others have answered it, but the way you're framing this is kinda strange.

You'd equally criticize anyone else that you thought had the power to save a drowning man but sat there watching for a while before finally saving him.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (15 children)

Now imagine their replacement actively wants to drown people and for some reason there are people who think both sides are reasonable choices and others are backing the pro-drowning guy.

I'll take the guy who took his time. And yeah, I'm going to call out the critics.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Saving a drowning man doesn’t have people trying stand between you and the drowning man. Just because a new president comes to power doesn’t mean he just gets to change things from previous administrations on a whim. Those powers that helped see it pass don’t just disappear. Government is fights and compromises and those take time. You deal with the other party and special interests paying whoever they can to move forward or obstruct anything to their advantage. Right or wrong it’s reality of government. Changes in government rarely are bi-partisan enough to pass quickly.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

You and I don't disagree here. The guy I replied to is arguing that we shouldn't really even be asking why it took this long, because we eventually got it. The act of questioning why it took this long shouldn't immediately get a response of "at least it's reversed now, stop complaining". The guy saving the drowning man could very well have very valid reasons as to why he's waiting, that we don't know. But if we don't know them, we kinda have to ask don't we?

I'm yet to see anyone get the reason for it taking this long and not accept it. It's been ~6 months since they got back the FCC. The complaint isn't over a measly 6 months. That's an acceptable amount of time really. The first assumption is usually that they've had the ability to reverse it much closer to when Biden took office. Waiting until near to the end of a 4 year term is a really long time.

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[–] [email protected] 131 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"Democrats were stymied for nearly three years because they did not take majority control of the five-member FCC until October."

Biden's first pick got held up in the Senate for a couple years and then replaced in 2023, until that seat was filled nothing was gonna happen.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 7 months ago (2 children)

No way, everyone knows that Biden can easily change all of the federal government whenever he wants to but just chooses not to because he's a big meanie and only ever does anything so that he's just 1% less bad than Trump.

/s

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago

While true, there was a major, global crisis still going on in 2021. It's not as though an FCC commissioner pick was the top priority after the Orange Turd screwed everything about Covid up as best as he could. Biden announced in October of '21 and then Congress was slow to confirm his pick.

Context matters.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI) played a key role in establishing a policy and regulatory path for an FCC under Republican Party control, led by Chairman Ajit Pai.

When Ajit Pai was kicked out of the FCC spot he was hired by AEI to be a lobbyist.

Fuck Ajit Pai and the people who put him in power.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

Fuck Ajit Pai and the people who put him in power.

... and hire him for well-paying lobbyist jobs, where he has intimate knowledge of the people and systems involved.

I aggravates me to no end that this is a thing for many bureaucrats ... leave your gov't position (likely with a full pension) and land a job that uses your insider info.

[–] __init__ 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Anyone know what the actual changes are, what they mean for us? Is this just preventing ISPs from prioritizing/throttling certain sites?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

The main thing is ensuring all internet traffic is treated equally, basically like you said. ISPs can't block, throttle, or prioritize content. Some examples:

  • Comcast can't throttle Netflix to make their own Peacock service seem better.
  • Providers can't say that you have unlimited usage of Netflix, but other video services count towards your monthly quota. Some mobile providers in other countries do this.

They also made two other changes. Directly from their press release:

  • Safeguard National Security – The Commission will have the ability to revoke the authorizations of foreign-owned entities who pose a threat to national security to operate broadband networks in the U.S. The Commission has previously exercised this authority under section 214 of the Communications Act to revoke the operating authorities of four Chinese state-owned carriers to provide voice services in the U.S. Any provider without section 214 authorization for voice services must now also cease any fixed or mobile broadband service operations in the United States.
  • Monitor Internet Service Outages – When workers cannot telework, students cannot study, or businesses cannot market their products because their internet service is out, the FCC can now play an active role.
[–] __init__ 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for writing all that out.

Monitor Internet Service Outages

This one is interesting. I wonder if that means they can enforce some kind of minimum uptime? For areas that have a lot of outages.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

What about cell service providers selectively throttling your speed based on an estimate of the video resolution you are streaming? What about cell service providers counting tethering separately from normal data?

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Anyone want to guess the political affiliation of those who did everything they could to hold this back?

But you already know.

Thank goodness for this news. This is reason alone to celebrate.

Take that, Pai.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Pepridge Farms remembers when this was a bipartisan issue. In less than a single year the telecoms paid off enough Republicans to completely polarize the issue.

This is actually against the very idea of conservatism, since it's changing the way the internet has always worked.

Conservatives in our government are simply up for the highest bidder. It really is that simple.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Wait, what? They’re only just now doing this?

Better late than never.

~Anti~ ~Commercial-AI~ ~license~ ~(CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0)~

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

There was a long fight over Biden's nomination of Gigi Sohn to the FCC, during which the FCC was deadlocked at 2-2.

Sohn ultimately withdrew as a candidate about a year ago. Then Anna Gomez was nominated and confirmed last fall, giving Democrats a 3-2 majority. That's when they started working on net neutrality.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

It's been in the cooking pot for a while. It just took a while to come to fruition

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I'm glad for the win, but until this is something that's formally legislated by Congress we're just going to be ping-ponging back and forth depending on which party has majority control of the FCC. What we really need are Congresspersons who are savvy enough to understand and address modern tech problems effectively.

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