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There are reasons why he is demonized. He has dramatically cut access to the Internet for poor people through the lifeline program despite numerous speeches whe

There are reasons why he is demonized. He has dramatically cut access to the Internet for poor people through the lifeline program despite numerous speeches where he has purported to champion access for those users. He uses his chairmanship to accuse people of being socialists who support Venezuela and want to undermine capitalism. He refused dozens of interview requests before finally giving a partisan and vitriolic interview to Breitbart. He has also coordinated with the GOP to a degree that is not at all normal for the FCC chair: “The collusion became so obvious that Senate Democrats officially asked Pai and his Republican colleague to hand over emails covering their interactions over concerns that what they were doing was seriously improper. Pai and O'Rielly simply refused to hand anything over.” Under Wheeler, we saw the FCC become strongly partisan for the first time. “Under Democrats, about eight percent of votes on major orders split along party lines. Under Republicans, only four percent split on party lines. Under Chairman Wheeler, 26 percent of votes on orders have passed with yes votes from the Democratic Chairman, Commissioner Rosenworcel, and Commissioner Clyburn, with Republican Commissioners O’Rielly and Pai dissenting. The difference from the past is stark.” (note the 26% number includes all votes whereas the 4% and 8% numbers include only major policy decisions. If we considered only major policy decisions the percentage of partisan votes under Wheeler would be even higher: https://techpolicyinstitute.org/2016/02/16/the-partisan-fcc/ https://techpolicyinstitute.org/2016/02/16/the-partisan-fcc/ ) Many arguments for Pai’s views assume he will inject much more competition into the ISP space despite not making efforts to address the systemic issues that Google Fiber hit around digging up roads to lay redundant cables (since no shared access is granted) or fighting through lawsuit after lawsuit to be able to use utility poles. Meanwhile he is open to further monopolization in the cell phone industry where he has already admitted he would strongly consider allowing us to go from four to three major wireless carriers: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-open-to-reducing-number-of-major-nationwide-wireless-carriers/article/2622255 http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fcc-chairman-ajit-pai-open... Meanwhile he was a high level lawyer for Verizon and stands to greatly benefit (along with his friends) when T-Mobile and Sprint merge as well as when Verizon Fios gets much more freedom to overcharge and segment Internet service instead of becoming a dumb pipe selling data throughput as a commodity. It is honestly perplexing he wouldn’t need to recuse himself. In short, a partisan stooge with vested interest in the telecom and ISP industry is not a reasonable leader for our supposedly nonpartisan FCC. You can demand that everyone “civilly accept loss” but I really see no reason why that is helpful, a good idea, or even reasonable given the situation. I wish it would be a serious issue in the 2020 campaign but, let’s be honest, America has plenty of other problems and it won’t even be a minor factor. tldr: You should expect to be demonized when you transform an independent agency into a partisan hit job on poor people and the average consumer while enriching yourself, your former coworkers, and an army of lobbyists for the monopolistic telecom and ISP industries.

indubitable 9y ago
Your post is perhaps the essence of the issue. We are talking about people raging over Pai's position on net neutrality. Instead of discussing this, you respond with a slew of things that mostly absolutely nothing to do with net neutrality. Let's say I ask the average person who is raging about net neutrality, what are your views on the proposed modifications of the lifeline program and the vote split ratio under recent FCC chairpeople? Nobody is going to have any clue whatsoever about any of this. And if they did they what it's about, I imagine they'd be even more confused by your argument which seems to be mostly just citing clickbait [1] with even more sensationalized language added on top. So for instance let's take that lifeline program. Did he "dramatically cut access to the internet for poor people through the lifeline program"? No. In part a response to massive abuse, they chose to be more judicious about how money is handed out - primarily as it relates to Tribal lands where, I presume, the government has more difficulty with know-your-customer requirements. What happens is people who don't even setup infrastructure instead of resell access they purchase from a third party, and then artificially and fraudulently inflate subscription numbers raking in up to $34.25/"user"/month -- $9.25 in the normal lifeline subsidy, and a $25 'enhanced' subsidy on top of it. You'd apparently have guys setting up Wi-Fi hotspots and then claiming people using them were "customers", thus qualifying the "service provider" for the subsidy. They "charge" the user $34.25/month, the government pays for it. Imagine a Starbucks getting up to $34.25/month from the government for each person who used their Wifi. Their proposed changes aim to get more control on how money is going out so they would only allow the max subsidy ($34.25) for companies who are actually deploying permanent infrastructure in rural areas. Urban areas and resellers in rural areas would still qualify for the standard $9.25/month subsidy. The prohibited Wi-Fi hotspotting as qualifying as an ISP, and set minimum standards of quality. They also removed a rule that locked consumers into a Lifeline provider for a minimum of a year - enabling them to swap providers as they see fit. And they've also proposed fines in the tens of millions against the "ISPs" who were fraudulently abusing the program. Notice how the things you cite never really dig into the details? Instead they just use labels, aspersions, and completely misleading statements. I mean again you can definitely disagree with the FCC's actions on the above. Perhaps instead of cracking down on abuse in this way they could have instead tried to strengthen know-your-customer laws, presumably with support from Tribal governments. Why didn't they decide to go this route? What would have been more desirable? What nuance is there in Tribal - US legal relations? But instead of actually talking about things like this they lead with hyperbolic sensationalism that you then repeat, and spread -- and next thing you know everybody's acting a fool thinking the sky is falling and Pai is Lucifer incarnate. [1] - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/28/fcc_chairman_ajit_pai/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/28/fcc_chairman_ajit_p...

indubitable 9y ago

Your post is perhaps the essence of the issue. We are talking about people raging over Pai's position on net neutrality. Instead of discussing this, you respond with a slew of things that mostly absolutely nothing to do with net neutrality. Let's say I ask the average person who is raging about net neutrality, what are your views on the proposed modifications of the lifeline program and the vote split ratio under recent FCC chairpeople? Nobody is going to have any clue whatsoever about any of this. And if they did they what it's about, I imagine they'd be even more confused by your argument which seems to be mostly just citing clickbait [1] with even more sensationalized language added on top. So for instance let's take that lifeline program. Did he "dramatically cut access to the internet for poor people through the lifeline program"? No. In part a response to massive abuse, they chose to be more judicious about how money is handed out - primarily as it relates to Tribal lands where, I presume, the government has more difficulty with know-your-customer requirements. What happens is people who don't even setup infrastructure instead of resell access they purchase from a third party, and then artificially and fraudulently inflate subscription numbers raking in up to $34.25/"user"/month -- $9.25 in the normal lifeline subsidy, and a $25 'enhanced' subsidy on top of it. You'd apparently have guys setting up Wi-Fi hotspots and then claiming people using them were "customers", thus qualifying the "service provider" for the subsidy. They "charge" the user $34.25/month, the government pays for it. Imagine a Starbucks getting up to $34.25/month from the government for each person who used their Wifi. Their proposed changes aim to get more control on how money is going out so they would only allow the max subsidy ($34.25) for companies who are actually deploying permanent infrastructure in rural areas. Urban areas and resellers in rural areas would still qualify for the standard $9.25/month subsidy. The prohibited Wi-Fi hotspotting as qualifying as an ISP, and set minimum standards of quality. They also removed a rule that locked consumers into a Lifeline provider for a minimum of a year - enabling them to swap providers as they see fit. And they've also proposed fines in the tens of millions against the "ISPs" who were fraudulently abusing the program. Notice how the things you cite never really dig into the details? Instead they just use labels, aspersions, and completely misleading statements. I mean again you can definitely disagree with the FCC's actions on the above. Perhaps instead of cracking down on abuse in this way they could have instead tried to strengthen know-your-customer laws, presumably with support from Tribal governments. Why didn't they decide to go this route? What would have been more desirable? What nuance is there in Tribal - US legal relations? But instead of actually talking about things like this they lead with hyperbolic sensationalism that you then repeat, and spread -- and next thing you know everybody's acting a fool thinking the sky is falling and Pai is Lucifer incarnate. [1] - https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/28/fcc_chairman_ajit_pai/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/28/fcc_chairman_ajit_p...