Tech Media Discovers FCC Staffed With Dunces, Lobbyists

Opinion: gutting consumer protections fine, but don't pick on WOW

We've talked extensively of the FCC's dysfunction the last few years, be it Kevin Martin's well, Kevin-Martin-ness, Robert McDowell's fear mongering and disdain for reality, or Michael Copps tendency to rant extensively against an idiotic idea right before he votes for it.

Techmeme's top pundits are usually absent from most of these unsexy stories, eager to generate more hits by reviewing iPhone apps or promoting their own startups than say -- exploring how the FCC's effort to gut the video franchise system resulted in a laundry list of problems for rural American communities, or digging past the surface of FCC decisions that seem pro-consumer but are really just stage shows.

Only now that Commissioners are preparing to depart for jobs at telecom think tanks or lobbying firms, are some people noticing that we haven't exactly been stocking the FCC pond with the best and brightest. This week saw countless news outlets discover for the first time that FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate is, like many of her FCC colleagues, almost completely detached from reality.

The discovery was prompted by two speeches Tate gave this week aimed at pandering to her biggest constituents. In both speeches, Tate uses her platform to placate and lobby for industry -- regurgitating false broadband stats, praising Internet filters, declaring that video games are a leading cause of college dropouts, and cheerleading for digital rights management.

Tate's first speech was absolutely nothing more than an entertainment industry sales pitch, from her promotion of the industry's preferred digital fingerprinting and filtering technology from Audible Magic (which often doesn't work), to her use of over-inflated (and proven fabricated) statistics on piracy's economic impact. She tops off her inaccuracy trifecta by loyally praising DRM as "very effective" (Tate's clearly not a Spore player).

Tate's second speech was a combination of self-promotion and telecom lobbying, the Commissioner again using inaccurate data -- this time to paint a rosy broadband industry picture in order to shill for industry deregulation, promote AT&T-backed Connected Nation, and rant against net-neutrality. But it was one sentence on World Of Warcraft that garnered more news coverage than anything Tate's done while on staff at the FCC:

quote: You might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction—such as World of Warcraft—which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide.

best not malign everybody's favorite MMORPG

The backlash was immediate, creating a firestorm of indignation among bloggers . Be warned FCC commissioners: you can wage war against consumer protections until you're blue in the face, you can distort statistics until the very fabric of the universe begins to bend, and you can shill for your favorite corporations until you collapse from the weight of their contributions and free trips to Vegas -- but you

Of course, like any good FCC Commissioner, Tate doesn't offer a source for her WOW statistics, highlighting how sourcing, science and data haven't recently been the FCC's strong suit. That's because positions are no longer based on technical specifics or science, but are forged out of partisan loyalty and a desire to please Commissioners' true constituents -- the companies they'll be lobbying for after they leave the FCC.

This dysfunction is bi-partisan in nature, and Tate's speeches this week highlight once again that maybe -- just maybe -- it's time to stock the FCC with technologists, network geniuses and experts in the field -- instead of partisan lawyers, lobbyists and yes-men and women. Not only might they objectively explore technical issues based on real science, they'd update the FCC website more than just once every half-decade