FCC's Ajit Pai: By Making Sure The Internet Is Open And Free... It Will Inspire North Korea And Cuba To Censor
from the say-what-now? dept
I should note, upfront, that I've had the chance to meet FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai a couple of times, and always found him to be interesting and knowledgeable, as well as engaged on important issues. Yet, for whatever reason, when it comes to net neutrality issues, the former Verizon lawyer (clue number 1) seems to have gone off the deep end, tossed all logic and intellectual honesty out the window, in an effort to just lash out angrily with whatever he's got. We've talked about his incoherent attack on Netflix and his sudden and newfound love of transparency (never noted before...).But his latest move just strips whatever credibility he may have had on the subject completely away. He's insisting that the FCC's new net neutrality rules (which he opposes) will inspire North Korea and Iran to further control and censor the internet (which they already control and heavily censor). And he's not arguing this in a "they hate us for our freedom" way, but he's actively lying and claiming that this move -- a move to guarantee openness and not censorship online -- will give the North Korean and Iranian governments the political cover to censor the internet. Let's be frank, Pai's statements are complete nonsense.
“If in the United States we adopt regulations that assert more government control over how the Internet operates ... it becomes a lot more difficult for us to go on the international stage and tell governments: ‘Look, we want you to keep your hands off the internet,’” he said.Except, uh, the "rules" being described are ones that just say "the internet needs to be open and free from interference, censorship and discrimination." I don't see how anyone could legitimately claim this will somehow undermine a message of internet freedom. But watch Pai work himself up into a moral panic over a complete misrepresentation of what's happening:
“Even if the ideas aren’t completely identical, you can appreciate the optical difficult in trying to make that case," he added.
In the background, meanwhile, countries such as North Korea and Cuba are trying to exact more control of the Internet through an arm of the United Nations called the International Telecommunication Union, he warned.He's right that there are questions about internet governance -- and we've covered the various discussions on that for a while now. But the FCC's rules to protect an open and free internet is not about "internet governance" or Cuba or North Korea censoring the internet at all. It takes a special kind of desperation to try to argue that preserving an open and free internet is actually about telling oppressive authoritarian regimes that it's okay to censor and lock down the internet. No one believes it at all, and it just takes away whatever credibility Pai may have had on the subject.
Nations such as Turkey and China are also enacting new controls in their own countries and “testing the waters to see how much they can get away with,” Pai said.
“I think the U.S.-based system of Internet governance has served us very well and I hope we don’t do anything to jeopardize that in the near future.”
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Filed Under: ajit pai, china, cuba, fcc, internet governance, net neutrality, north korea, title ii
Reader Comments
The First Word
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I refuse to label myself as a Democrat or Republican because both represent aspects of government that I despise, however if I was ever forced to choose one, this guy would make it an easy call.
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Pot, meet kettle
Commissioner Pai should ask himself: Is a "free and open Internet" one where the government has access to all the information that crosses it?
Because I for one, do not see that as free, nor open.
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Pai would say anything at this point. Keeping the internet free is not comparable to Chinese censorship in any reality.
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So the FCC will now look to implement Title II as a way to enforce net neutrality where it does have a mandate. This became necessary when the major telcoms started a 'nice business you have there Netflix' of wanting Neftlix to pay for what those telcoms had already been paid for by it's customers. This happened within a week of Verizon winning it's court case.
The telcoms have no reason to bitch, having brought this on themselves. Commissioner Pai has lost before he's started on this one as the actions and evidence speaks for itself on what will happen without Title II.
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Re: Pot, meet kettle
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Ajit? More like Idjit, amirite?
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Re:
There's a reasonw hy I refer to him as Idiot Paid.
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Re: Re: Pot, meet kettle
Judging by Mr. Pai the DEA needs to look into the FCC ASAP.
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Who you calling a Dummy, dummy?
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Republicans are Slimeballs
GOP are full of hateful people, greedbags like Pai, bigots, Jesus Freaks, control freaks.............sick and tired of this Party.The Day it dies I will celebrate.Every day of the week I can easily find at least 3 News pieces on the doing something really hateful towards others.For years now this has gone on..............the old Republican Party is long dead and the new one is full of extremists who ram thru their views on the rest of us.
Most Dems support Net Neutrality...a few of them won't and will take the money.
Most GOP support creating a toll road and fleecing the public...and if it happens this is going to be exported to the greater World .I can see the rest of the World forced into a toll road as well.
Obama is a Dem and he went out to state his position on Net Neutrality....the GOP do the opposite.
And then you got the assholes like CRUZ who says it is like Obamacare for the Net and we all know the brain dead GOP followers lap that stuff right up (of course they do not understand how to even look at Win Explorer) .
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A free and open Internet will put more and more information out there. More information might inspire citizens of not so free countries to desire some of that freedom. Citizens who want freedom are the bane of totalitarians, thus they will censor.
But something that pisses off totalitarians and inspires citizens of totalitarian governments is a good thing, isn't it?
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Re: Republicans are Slimeballs
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Ajit Pai is the true dingo
https://i.imgur.com/TDKstwT.jpg?1
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Yesss, let the crazy flow through you
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Can see what his attempted argument is but it fails badly...
Problem 1:
He is throwing out how the Internet actually functions. If you disconnected the US from the rest of the net (which sadly some a-holes in DC attempted to do with SOPA and CISPA effectively creating a "Great Firewall" to control piracy...), the Internet would still exist and function albeit smaller and with a lot less websites. The whole concept and design of it negates any one country from controlling the entirety of it.
Problem 2:
On the front of country dictators having more excuses with Title II classification; that would be hypocritical for the simple fact that the ISPs of those nations are STATE OWNED AND REGULATED themselves. How can one say that "well the Internet is now in control of a government so we need to censor it" when their own governments control citizen access already.
Problem 3:
Oppressive countries already use the excuse that the US influences the net and thats why they regulate the access of their populations. Title II is going to do nothing to solidify that claim because ISPs are already government regulated (...though very lightly and with much favoritism thanks to the best lobbyists money can buy and the nonsense "Information Service" classification...).
All in all though his whole rambling nonsense ignores the fact that dictators will find an excuse to censor their people from the online world regardless of whatever we do to regulate ISPs. That is why they are dictators.
It really is an act of desperation to use this far reaching attempt at justification because it has absolutely no merit. It's disgusting to see what a mess agencies which were designed to work for the people have become thanks to lobbyist and friendship appointments by politicians. Holding an appointment at an agency that is set to regulate and watchdog an industry you once lobbied for should be an automatic disqualification, no exceptions. Since it isn't, we get idiots like this guy...
He does score points on how many logical fallacies he can shove into one statement:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-emo tion
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity
even a little bit of https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope in there I think
Probably a few more can be pulled from his words too, but Im bored now...
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No one believes it at all, and it just takes away whatever credibility Pai may have had.
FTFY. Why should he lie less on other issues if he's willing to expose himself with such stupidity on this issue to please his masters?
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Re: God help us....
Anyone with any real brains would be a direct threat to his/her fellow employees and most especially to the management staff. Thus, we get guys like the moron in this article..
And regarding the subject of this reply, we're beyond his/her help now.
'Help me, Obiwan Kenobi...'
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Re: Re: Republicans are Slimeballs
When asked properly, anyway. If you ask them "do you support the FCC regulating ISPs under Title II" you'll probably get a lot of no's. If you ask "do you support regulation requiring ISPs to treat all internet traffic equally", that's probably what they would answer yes to. I don't actually have any data, I'm just speaking from general knowledge of how the phrasing of survey questions affects the outcome. If anyone has links to specifics, let's check it out.
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Re: Can see what his attempted argument is but it fails badly...
Even that much is misleading, because it's not as though they're unregulated now. This would be a change of regulation, but not adding regulations where there are currently none.
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Re: Republicans are Slimeballs
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Now that they've completely gone rogue
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