from the SSDD dept
Telecom and media giants have been working time beyond regulation to dam Gigi Sohn from being seated on the FCC. That has concerned a sleazy smear campaign, seeded within the press by non-profits linked to firms like Information Company, AT&T, and Comcast, falsely accusing Sohn of being a radical extremist who hates Hispanics, rural Americans, cops, puppies, and freedom.
With Sohn freshly re-nominated by the Biden administration, the assaults not too long ago started anew, with trade seeding homophobic attacks in pleasant press retailers, and Information Company, one among a number of firms behind the assaults, feebly attempting to falsely body Sohn (genuinely widespread throughout each side of the aisle) as an unhinged radical in its opinion section.
After fifteen weeks of this bullshit, Sohn at this time confronted an unprecedented third listening to earlier than Congress, throughout which she was more blunt about precisely why her affirmation stays caught in DC purgatory (trace: it’s not as a result of she lacks expertise, isn’t certified, or isn’t widespread):
[I have faced] “15 months of false and deceptive assaults on my file and my character. My trade opponents have hidden behind darkish cash teams and surrogates as a result of they worry a practical, pro-competition, pro-consumer policymaker who will help insurance policies that may carry extra, sooner, and lower-priced broadband.”
She’s appropriate. The GOP is successfully a hand puppet for telecom and media giants scared of the FCC having a useful voting majority. They’re determined to maintain all of the senseless handouts they obtained through the Trump administration, whether or not that’s the gutting of the FCC’s shopper safety authority, the repeal of web neutrality guidelines, or the elimination of media consolidation limits.
Democrats carry their very own share of the blame. President Biden’s nomination of Sohn was inexplicably delayed 9 months. Chuck Schumer has constantly didn’t whip the votes essential to get Sohn over the end line. Maria Cantwell has regularly pandered to GOP calls for for pointless, further present trials. Senators Mark Kelly, Joe Manchin, and Catherine Cortez Masto have dragged their ft on offering vital votes, even at instances parroting baseless industry claims with out reality checking.
The nice irony right here is that even when Sohn will get confirmed and seated I’m extremely uncertain that the Rosenworcel FCC has the political spine to do even 1 / 4 of the issues trade is apprehensive about. This concept that the FCC, an company that has been below trade’s thumb for greater than a era (with solely temporary, fleeting exceptions), will probably be dramatically reformed through the addition of one precise reformer is grade college considering and scare mongering.
Take into accout, the FCC for 4 years below Trump was little greater than a senseless rubber stamp for trade. And for almost two years below Biden, telecom (Comcast, AT&T) and media (Information Company) giants have managed to maintain the FCC caught in partisan purgatory with out the votes essential to take any actions deemed remotely controversial by trade or the precise wing.
That’s six straight years that the nation’s telecom and media regulators haven’t been in a position to do their jobs… as a result of the nation’s greatest media and telecom giants don’t need them to.
That’s a shocking and embarrassing stage of corruption and regulatory seize any means you slice it.
Filed Underneath: broadband, corruption, digital divide, fcc, gigi sohn, high speed internet, media, regulators, regulatory capture, telecom
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