Fox News attempting to use Obamacare scare tactics to fight an open Internet
The FCC approved Net Neutrality this week. In effect it ensures the Internet will remain open. It will be regulated just like any other utility ensuring that corporations cannot gouge customers or create unfair advantages.
Fox News is at it again. It is attempting to frame the new FCC regulations that treat the Internet as a utility as a government takeover of the Internet. To be clear, Net Neutrality ensures that all have equal access to the Internet. It would be a corporate takeover of the Internet absent the new rules.
Who should be trusted more? A government one can vote out or corporations that have monopoly control over the Internet whose sole purpose is increased profits. A few months ago I wrote the piece “Is Net Neutrality Really Necessary? You’re Damn Right!” that unlike Fox News detailed the reasons why this action was a must to protect us form a Plutocracy that is all encompassing. The Internet is the last avenue available to the average citizen.
The above Fox News piece starts the process of subliminal indoctrination with a lying narrative from the beginning. Fox News reporter Peter Doocy starts the piece with misinformation.
“Ready, set, slow,” said Doocy. “Just like that the government grabs control of the Internet.” Peter Doocy made the statement after the FCC voted to effect net neutrality. It neither meant government takeover of the Internet or slow speeds. That is simply a lie.
In fact FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in four paragraphs in his Wired Magazine op-ed disproves all the misinformation in the Fox News report.
Originally, I believed that the FCC could assure internet openness through a determination of “commercial reasonableness” under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. While a recent court decision seemed to draw a roadmap for using this approach, I became concerned that this relatively new concept might, down the road, be interpreted to mean what is reasonable for commercial interests, not consumers.
That is why I am proposing that the FCC use its Title II authority to implement and enforce open internet protections.
Using this authority, I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open internet protections ever proposed by the FCC. These enforceable, bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services. I propose to fully apply—for the first time ever—those bright-line rules to mobile broadband. My proposal assures the rights of internet users to go where they want, when they want, and the rights of innovators to introduce new products without asking anyone’s permission.
All of this can be accomplished while encouraging investment in broadband networks. To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks, my proposal will modernize Title II, tailoring it for the 21st century, in order to provide returns necessary to construct competitive networks. For example, there will be no rate regulation, no tariffs, no last-mile unbundling. Over the last 21 years, the wireless industry has invested almost $300 billion under similar rules, proving that modernized Title II regulation can encourage investment and competition.
The activist community that worked very hard to get this rule change must remain engaged. Most importantly it must not allow the Right Wing, Fox News, and the broadband industry to define a false narrative that will have the masses fooled into disliking the new policy. It is important that the mistakes made with explaining Obamacare isn’t made with Net Neutrality. If there is one thing that should have been learned, the forces on the Right and their corporate masters are relentless.