The Federal Communications Commission was created for the same reasons we invented traffic laws, fire departments, & the national park system — to take care of public resources. Every sane human being wants the natural world to be more-or-less healthy & we all need to use the roads sometimes, which is why we have systems to keep shared resources in good shape. And let’s face it — with no rules to protect wilderness areas & wildlife, our species could easily fill the Grand Canyon with billboards, garbage, & Starbucks franchises in less than a decade. Like parks & roads, our networks of communication — radio waves, telephone wires, the internet, etc. — are vital public resources. The FCC was meant to be like a big, invisible traffic-cop who directs information-flow on our electric roads to keep things orderly — but US politics turns even the most useful enterprises into bureaucratic devices used by the ruling class to dis-empower, dishearten, & dispossess the poor. Today’s FCC does not work for the good of the many but for the good of the moneyed few who want to destroy net neutrality & overturn the democracy of information — the very thing they were created to protect….

The FCC Has Turned to the Dark Side

& Is Determined to Kill Net Neutrality

Because the major media organs in the United States are worse than useless, many are blissfully unaware that the free internet is under siege by online corporations, media conglomerates, & internet service providers (ISPs) wielding new, sophisticated tools of censorship. And while the FCC has so far been profoundly unhelpful in the internet era, 2017 may be the year they finally stop pretending to care about what the public thinks. Especially now that Ajit Pai — a former attorney for Verizon Communications Inc. who spends his vacations publicly vowing to crush net neutrality — is Trump’s appointed chairman of the FCC.

There is no point in sugar-coating this — things are not looking good for independent media, journalists, digital activists, or people who care about free speech. In March, congress got rid of the FCC rules keeping ISPs from selling data they collect about your online habits. In April, FCC chairman & former Verizon associate Pai proposed changes to FCC policies that would basically allow corporations like Verizon, AT&T, & Comcast to edit the internet. And, in May, the FCC voted 2–1 in favor of Pai’s rule changes.

Why the FCC’s Attack on Net Neutrality Is a BIG Deal

Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that energy companies decided to offer low-level, spotty electricity for poor people, a better “premium” plan with fewer brown-outs for people with a bit more money, & an even better “pro-version” for rich people — even though they all use the same power lines. There would be riots, right? We regulate these companies because it would be awful if electric or water utilities were allowed to sabotage the quality of our water or electric current for profit. And insult is added to injury if you consider the fact that most cables, pipes, & other systems are built on or under public property!

But this is exactly what internet service providers will be able to do if Pai’s rules are adopted — except it will be much, much worse for several reasons….

Throttling

A big difference between electricity or water & the internet is that the internet is full of content — news, art, blogs, libraries, software, services, forums, & markets, along with at least a zillion other things. Right now, the FCC regulates ISPs under Title II of the Communications Act, which basically means that Comcast cannot needlessly sabotage the speed of the internet for poor folks to make more money by charging the slightly-less-poor for a “premium plan.” Limiting bandwidth is one way to slow the internet down & it is called throttling. Ajit Pai — who very recently worked for a major ISP — says that regulating ISPs as utilities under Title II is unnecessary because ( according to Verizon’s former attorney ) these corporations will just voluntarily choose not to generate billions for shareholders by throwing us all under the bus.

Thank god, right?

For a moment there, I thought we were going to get throttled…!

Zero-Rating

“Zero-rating” is a the similar but even scarier practice of charging more to access the internet in general while not charging to access their own content — or the content of businesses that pay to be in the ISP’s zero-rated bundle. The end-result is that people — especially the poor, who ( as usual ) get the short end of the American Dream-Stick — have an incentive to use zero-rated content even if better free or open-source alternatives exist. Mobile providers — which are not regulated under Title II — can already do this. And a lot of money is made by providers that mix advertising with clever zero-rating practices, which explains why it is so hard to an put ad-blocking program on most phones.

For obvious reasons ( including this article ), this site is unlikely to ever be zero-rated. Nor will 99.9% of the rest of the internet — particularly the non-profit, independent, educational, & open-source ones. We cannot be profitable & therefore have zero value to publicly-traded corporations like AT&T, Verizon, or Comcast, whose executives are legally liable for choices that knowingly damage the profits of shareholders.

The Axis of Censorship:

ISPs, Corporate Media, & Big Social

Practices like bandwidth throttling & zero-rating are just 2 basic examples of the power ISPs could wield if that contemptible former Verizon lawyer pretending to be a public servant gets away with his evil plan. If commonsense rules are not placed on our ISPs, why would these telecommunication giants not throttle journalists who report their misdeeds? And why would Verizon not censor a story that the CEO’s golfing buddy ( who just happens to be a senator ) wants suppressed. Ending net neutrality would fatally disadvantage small business & open-source competitors and place all truly independent media, artists, & other content-producers at the mercy of a few large companies.

Subduing people-powered, open-source, & independent content would also destroy those who compete with the major media corporations for readers. Whether that is related to MSNBC placing a front-page article on the possibility Jared Kushner once met a Russian banker rather than an article about the actual threat to the survival of our already-battered right to free speech in the near future, the reader will decide. In any case, squashing independent outlets competing in an industry already dominated by 5 massive players who own more than 90% of the news-media is not likely to end well for the public.

And the good outcomes look even less likely considering that, in January, Facebook basically gave corporate media the tools to censor the social news-feeds that act as the gateway for most online-news traffic. But who knows? Maybe it will be fine, just like the Verizon guy said….

Be an Internet Freedom-Fighter

( The Cats Are Depending on Us )

This article would be a hell of a downer if it ended without a shred of hope or a list of actionable possibilities and that is not how this writer likes to operate. Ajit Pai’s rules will not be adopted for at least a few months, which gives the public a little bit of time to muster.

1. Let the FCC How Miffed You Are

Right now, the FCC is supposed to be open for public comments and, if you have not already, you can leave a comment on their website in support of net neutrality. The FCC makes it pretty confusing to find the comment page but going to www.GoFCCyourself.com ( or clicking here ) will get you to there — click “express” to leave a comment. We have already left millions of pro-net neutrality comments but somebody recently stole 450,000 identities to leave 450,000 anti-net neutrality comments & Pai is not removing them. The FCC is not elected or accountable to us in any real way — but millions of comments will act as concrete evidence of the people’s will, which may come in handy.

2. Open Accounts w/ Non-Corporate Social Media

Facebook is like an evil monster who gobbles up money that the corporate, fast-food media pays it to squish indie-media & lift their celebrity-obsessed propaganda to the top of your news-feed. If Pai’s rules are adopted, it would be bad if there was no alternative to the curated content of Big Social Media but we might avoid that by working to build up transparent, open-source social media & social news now ( before everything sucks ).

Help the internet grow viable, better social networks without all of the capitalism & censorship & click here to open an account at minds.com

Social networks need a lot of people using them to be viable and convincing enough users to migrate is really hard — but one thing all of us can do to help jump-start these platforms is to create accounts on them. Even if you still mostly use Facebook, creating profiles on other social media sites helps bolster their numbers of users, which encourages other folks to join as well. Minds.com & Social Media Revolt ( thesocial.mediarevolt.org ) are two good places to start. ( If you know of other good social sites, let me know in the comments so that I can edit them in! )

3. Do the Leg-Work to Promote Independent Media!

In the name of fighting so-called “fake news,” practices that suppress independent journalists are on the rise. This is making it increasingly hard to reach online viewers for many independent sources without big funding to promote their content. Neither censorship nor the overall 1% assault on freedom of information will go away overnight but everyone can fight news-suppression by building online communities that support indie-media & citizen-journalism with our own decentralized, grassroots distribution networks.

Remember to share content by your favorite insurgent journalists and submit them to online social news sites like Reddit, StumbleUpon, & others. And before you share an article from mainstream sources like CNN or the Wall Street Journal, try using google to find a similar article from a non-corporate website to share instead. If everyone lifts up the media they want to have, then we’ll have it!

The internet is inherently democratic but democracy is participatory — it isn’t automatic.

In solidarity,

John Laurits

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The post Net Neutrality Under Siege: The FCC & Social Media Fights the 1%’s Proxy-War on the Free Internet appeared first on John Laurits.

Originally published on www.johnlaurits.com