Ajit Pai Now Trying To Pretend That Everybody Supported Net Neutrality Repeal
from the allergic-to-the-truth dept
By now it's abundantly clear that the Trump FCC's repeal of net neutrality was based largely on fluff and nonsense. From easily disproved claims that net neutrality protections stifled broadband investment, to claims that the rules would embolden dictators in North Korea and Iran, truth was an early and frequent casualty of the FCC's blatant effort to pander to some of the least competitive, least-liked companies in America (oh hi Comcast, didn't see you standing there). In fact throughout the repeal, the FCC's media relations office frequently just directed reporters to telecom lobbyists should they have any pesky questions.
With the rules now passed and a court battle looming, FCC boss Ajit Pai has been making the rounds continuing his postmortem assault on stubborn facts. Like over at CNET, for example, where Ajit Pai informs readers in an editorial that he really adores a "free and open internet" despite having just killed rules supporting that very concept:
"I support a free and open internet. The internet should be an open platform where you are free to go where you want, and say and do what you want, without having to ask anyone's permission. And under the Federal Communications Commission's Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which takes effect Monday, the internet will be just such an open platform. Our framework will protect consumers and promote better, faster internet access and more competition."
'Course if you've paid attention, you know the FCC's remaining oversight framework does nothing of the sort, and is effectively little more than flimsy, voluntary commitments and pinky swears by ISPs that they promise to play nice with competitors. With limited competition, FCC regulatory oversight neutered, the FTC an ill-suited replacement, and ISPs threatening to sue states that try to stand up for consumers, there's not much left intact that can keep incumbent monopoly providers on their best behavior (barring the looming lawsuits and potential reversal of the rules).
Over in an interview with Marketplace, Pai again doubles down on repeated falsehoods, including a new claim that the repeal somehow had broad public support:
Marketplace....this is not a popular decision. Millions of people have written in opposition to it. Public opinion polling shows most Americans favor net neutrality, not your open internet rule. And I wonder why you're doing this then? If public opinion is against you, what are you doing?
Pai: First of all, public opinion is not against us. If you look at some of the polls —
Marketplace: No, it is, sir, come on.
Pai: If you look at some of the polling, if you dig down and see how these polls were constructed, it was clearly designed to reach a particular result. But even beyond that —
Marketplace: It's not just one, there are many surveys, sir.
Pai: The FCC’s job is not to put a finger in the wind and decide which way the winds are blowing, it's to look at the facts and make a sober judgment based on what the law is. And that is exactly what we've done here. Moreover, the long-term interest is in building better, faster, cheaper internet access. That is what consumers say when I travel around the country, and I’ve have spoken to consumers in Los Angeles to the reservation in South Dakota, places like Dahlonega, Georgia. That is what is on consumers’ minds. That is what this regulatory framework is going to deliver.
First Pai tries to claim that the public supported his repeal, then when pressed tries to claim that the polls that were conducted were somehow flawed. Neither is true. In fact, one recent survey out of the University of Maryland found that 82% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats opposed the FCC's obnoxiously-named "restoring internet freedom" repeal. And those numbers are higher than they were just a few years ago. That the public is overwhelmingly opposed to Pai's repeal is simply not debatable.
When discrediting the polls doesn't work, Pai then implies consumers aren't smart enough to realize that gutting oversight of indisputably terrible ISPs like Comcast will be secretly good for them. He then tries to insist that public opinion doesn't matter and that he's simply basing his policy decisions on cold, hard facts. Which, for a guy that claimed during the repeal that net neutrality aids fascist dictators, made up a DDOS attack, ignored countless widelesly respected internet experts and based his repeal entirely on debunked lobbyist data--is pretty amusing.
Whether Pai's repeated lies result in anything vaguely resembling accountability remains to be seen. But based on the volume of time Pai spends touring flyover country, it's pretty clear he's harboring some significant post-FCC political aspirations. Those ambitions are likely to run face first into very real voters (especially of the Millennial variety) harboring some very real annoyance at his gutting of a healthy and open internet.
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Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, net neutrality, public support
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We have enough people parodying the usual trolls; your work is unnecessary, sir.
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Please explain what Bode has lied about and how you know he lied. Be sure to cite your evidence so it can be verified.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Oh, way to go, Paul Blue!
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Try again Richard.
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You just don't want to be cut out of a job. How much are you paid per comment?
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I receive no compensation, monetary or otherwise, for posting comments here.
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Too bad I know you won't tell us what it was called, because such a vote never happened.
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Oh right, because it's all BS.
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They'd already announced it while the rules were in effect. Oops.
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'Propaganda' really isn't the word I expected that comment to end with.
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...it's to put a finger on the scales until I get the result I want.
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You lose.
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Yes, they were clearly designed to try to reflect reality, something you don't seem to like.
I'd have laughed hard at his face then told him "I didn't know you were a comedian!" right after.
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Putting aside his lie about how his actions were guided by law, is this an admission he deliberately ignored the comments in violation of required procedure?
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Which they did not do in the least.
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If two or more comments express the same idea, that makes it less likely that that idea is a mistaken outlier, assuming that the comments were not coordinated from the same root source - but otherwise, that fact is not supposed to give that idea any more weight than if it had been presented in only one comment.
He didn't express it ideally (and I'm not sure he could have, given the reputational environment he's created for himself), but I think that particular comment was just an attempt to point at the duty of the FCC to base its decisions on expert analysis rather than on public opinion.
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He didn't express it ideally (and I'm not sure he could have, given the reputational environment he's created for himself), but I think that particular comment was just an attempt to point at the duty of the FCC to base its decisions on expert analysis rather than on public opinion.
Which he also ignored, so no matter how you read it he's still wrong/lying.
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Well, of course. (Although that's not "putting aside his lie about how his actions were guided by law", as per the previous comment.) Even in my most charitable interpretation, pointing at that duty is little (if anything) more than a non-sequitur attempt at deflection.
Though I imagine he'd argue that he is basing his decisions on expert analysis, et cetera - it's just that, as he probably wouldn't admit, he's being (probably impermissibly) selective about which experts he pays attention to and which analysis he considers relevant. Indeed, I think the aforementioned "lie about how his actions were guided by law" may be arguing exactly that.
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The truth
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Re: The truth
Ah, but that isn't the truth. The truth is not that the death of net neutrality is going to make existing services more expensive or completely unavailable but rather that the death of net neutrality is what allows them to make existing services from other people more expensive or completely unavailable, making it possible to jack up the prices on their own offerings.
This is not-even-zero rating.
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Free and open Internet
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Sue them/Break Them Apart
If in 4 years we see a government run by monopolies (Plutocracy), everyone involved can point at Drumpf and say "We were just following orders.." No accountability, No shame, just money
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An Internet free of Net Neutrality
Unlimited data plans
Unlimited throttling
Unlimited price hikes
Unlimited mergers (there can be only one)
Monopolies with unlimited (and unchecked) power!
Get rid of Net Neutrality today so that the intarweb tubes can be FREE!
Free of competition!
Free of oversight!
Free of regulation!
Free of low prices!
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Marketplace is not an NPR program
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True statement
Now if we can only convince him that figuring out how to do that and then doing the exact opposite is a less than optimal strategy ...
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Any one ever raise a child??
Even if you ask it NOT TO..
You give it BASIC RULES on how not to destroy itself, but it DOES IT ANYWAY..and you have to clean up the mess.
Accidents DO happen.. And Supposedly your child LEARNS that certain things DO NOT WORK..not because you say so.
Eventually, you MIGHT get the child to listen to you, or you SHOW them WHY certain things DONT WORK.. OR HOW they DO WORK.. Or How you can MAKE them work..
GO ahead and let the Child out of the box, and Run around, and kill itself...AND you will go to jail..
What happened to those laws about FAKE NEWS?? they only cover NEWS..NOT STUPID PEOPLE, espousing Garbage given to them from a 3rd party.. WHO DOESNT CARE ABOUT YOUR KID..
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Liars/lapdogs/non-American Activities
I remember Antitrust laws, mom and pop stores on the corner,
And when you did not end up in court with your Insurance company that is now routine. All this began in the Reagan 80’s. The corruption is now a daily war of people against the multi-nationals who wrote the laws start the wars create the shortages, create laws easy broken to finance the prison corporations. I know this cannot work much longer. I pray for it to all end.
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Re: Liars/lapdogs/non-American Activities
I've never been in court, for insurance or otherwise.
Maybe actually started with the human race? Kind of seems like this has been going on LONG before Reagan and the 80s.
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CATV 2.0 Model
"go where you want, and say and do what you want, without having to ask anyone's permission".
It's all great as long as we all just CONSUME content or if we peons want to produce or server anything, we have to pay the gatekeepers dearly and/or give up all rights.
I want to run my own application server or stream content from my house to myself and my friends. Can I do that?
I see this model as being CATV 2.0. you can watch but you cannot touch.
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Unless it's illegal, immoral, offensive, terrorist-related, sexual, violent, copyright infringing, counterfeit, right-wing, left-wing, not notable, blocked, filtered, geofenced, a parody, banned by moderators, fake news, under sanctions, seized by the DHS... or any of the millions of other things that aren't allowed on the Internet.
Now we can add "not paying your ISP" to the list of things not allowed!
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'If it doesn't agree with me then it doesn't matter!'
I love how Pai first tried to argue that the polls showed that people agreed with him as though that was important, then as soon as that lie was shot down he shifted to arguing that the polls didn't actually matter and were rigged anyway.
The public consensus on the subject was highly important right until it was pointed out that it didn't agree with him, and then it was dismissed as irrelevant.
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I have to pay $100+ a month for Comcast!
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And Comcast is free to charge you that much because it's an open (not even remotely close to a) secret that odds are good you have no other option other than 'do without internet entirely'.
See, totally 'free and open'.
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