It’s been a bit since we’ve talked about 3D printing, which I mostly took to mean that the world realized that there was no massive threat here and that we all collectively decided to make this a non-controversy. Early on there was some noise made about larger companies viewing the ability for the public to manufacture certain things at home with these printers being a copyright, patent, or trademark concern. And sure, there was some of that. Especially when it came to guns. But, by and large, 3D printing has become a full on thing for hobbyists and maker communities.
Perhaps one of the widest applications of 3D printing has been in the automotive parts space. There are plenty of sites where you can get print files for auto parts, and some car manufacturers have actually gone ahead and released those files to those sites themselves. Or, if you’re Honda, apparently, you decided that all of this is trademark infringement and shotgun-blast takedown requests to all the 3D print sites you can find.
Recently, I noticed a part that I made for my Honda Accord was removed from Printables, the newly rebranded 3D printing repository offered by Prusa. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for it, but I didn’t think anything else about it…until reports of a mass deletion started popping up on Reddit.
“I can confirm to you that we have received a letter from a lawyer representing Honda, informing us that we were required to remove any model which used ‘Honda’ in the listing, the model itself, or one of several trademarks/logos also associated with Honda,” a Prusa spokesperson told The Drive in an email. “This will also be related to the naming of the files it self (sic), as for Honda this would be considered as a violation of their trademark/patents.”
As you often find the moment trademark law is mentioned in one of these disputes, the source post from The Drive falls all over itself to mention that Honda must enforce its trademarks or risk losing them. That is only as true as a nuance-free, single sentence about trademark law could possibly be, of course. Honda does have to enforce its trademarks… when there are instances of public confusion as to the source of products. That isn’t what’s happening here. By and large, every one of these files that is being taken down is including Honda trademarks merely as descriptions of what cars the part is going to work with. Using logos and such is likely a valid concern, but that isn’t the same as file names and descriptions.
Honda hit several other sites with the same takedown requests. And, because this is all monumentally stupid, what gets taken down and what doesn’t appears to directly relate to the order in which words in the description are used.
A lot of it comes down to wording. Some files that were taken down were named something along the lines of “Honda Civic Cup Holder,” whereas others were titled similar to the likeness of “Cup Holder for Honda Civic.” The order of that wording matters and could be the reason Honda responded in the way it did, and it’s why Prusa obliged by taking down all items that referenced the Honda brand.
As with all great comedy, there is logic in there… but that logic is petty and dumb. Prusa thinks similarly, claiming that it’s reaching out to other manufacturers to help them see that there is no threat here, only an opportunity to drive more car sales given that customers can have ready access to replacement parts should they break down.
The comments on the post drive home the downside for Honda, as well. The most poingant of them was probably, “Time to start using torrent files again.” Or, hey, maybe Honda could back off this desire for total control a tad and embrace the maker community instead, since they’re going to get their 3D print files one way or the other.
We just got done noting how the telecom industry has been pushing misleading editorials in Arizona to derail the nomination of popular and well-qualified telecom and telecom reformer Gigi Sohn to the FCC. The editorials are full of false claims that Sohn has a terrible track record on media diversity, shoveled by organizations with longstanding financial ties to AT&T.
Telecom monopolies are now terrified that the Sohn appointment won’t just break 2-2 commissioner gridlock (they created) at the agency, it will mean the restoration of meaningful federal oversight over one of the least popular and least competitive industries in the Internet ecosystem.
The entirety of the GOP, always in perfect lockstep with AT&T and Comcast on every issue (despite feigned party interest in “antitrust reform”), blanketly refuses to vote for Sohn. She can still be appointed exclusively with Democratic votes, which is why AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Charter lobbyists are now targeting Democratic Senators who are looking vulnerable during the upcoming midterms.
Manchin remains undecided after meeting her, his office confirmed. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), facing a tough reelection battle this November, said he’s “continuing to evaluate her record” after a similar meeting. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who is facing attacks from a GOP opponent over the nominee, didn’t respond when asked about Sohn.
How are telecom lobbyists doing this? Well, one, as noted above, is by spreading false claims through co-opted policy groups and op-eds that she has a bad record on media and minority diversity (again, that’s patently false if you ask anybody who knows Sohn or spends 5 minutes looking at her policy history). They’ve also gotten the Fraternal Order of Police to attack Sohn with some feverish gibberish.
More recently, the telecom lobby appears to have hired former Senator Heidi Heitkamp (who’s been having an…interesting year) to run a crunch time social media campaign under the banner of something called the “One Country Project”:
Meanwhile, a political advocacy group headed by former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) just launched a $250,000 social media advertising campaign against Sohn, set to run for three weeks starting over the congressional recess. This group, the One Country Project, has accused Sohn of dismissing rural America, pointing to comments in which the nominee accused policymakers of “disproportionately” steering broadband dollars to those communities and giving urban dwellers the short shrift — an attack coming as Biden this week launches a “rural infrastructure tour,” including a focus on broadband.
Only after the Politico piece ran, did the group publicly announce it had launched a “six figure ad campaign aimed at raising awareness” by trying to claim that Sohn — who, again, has spent years trying to ensure even coverage of broadband to neglected U.S. communities (something you can confirm with five minutes of research) — is somehow the enemy of rural America:
The group, which of course doesn’t share funding sources, basically takes a bunch of Sohn comments, then distorts them to claim she hates rural America:
Sohn has made several public comments that call into question her commitment to rural communities, such as her testimony to the House Energy & Commerce Committee where she stated “policymakers have focused disproportionately on broadband deployment in rural areas of the United States” or her claims that FCC broadband policies have “made it really easy” for rural broadband companies “to basically suck at the government teat to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.”
If you actually read Sohn’s testimony, Sohn was pointing out that U.S. telecom policy (which basically involves throwing unchecked billions at AT&T and Comcast in exchange for networks that are always mysteriously half delivered) isn’t exclusively a rural U.S. problem. Urban broadband gaps remain a significant problem, and broadband affordability impacts rural and urban Americans alike.
Why a group purportedly self-tasked with representing the concerns of rural Americans would actively misrepresent Sohn’s positions isn’t clear, but it’s not particularly difficult to guess given the variety of other flimsy attacks on Sohn of late, and the telecom and media (Rupert Murdoch) industry’s long history of using proxy groups as public policy marionettes to impact legislation and policy decisions.
Some of this falls on the shoulders of the Biden policy advisors.
They lagged on even announcing the Sohn choice for nine months, showcasing precisely the level of importance they’ve affixed to telecom and media policy. They could have announced her appointment alongside the speedy appointment of FTC boss Lina Khan, whose nomination terrified telecom execs afraid of reform. They’ve also repeatedly stumbled on pushing the confirmation vote over the line.
Still, while many Biden appointments have been hit or miss, Sohn is hugely qualified and widely respected across both sides of the aisle in DC. Sohn’s so popular, and the goals of telecom monopolies (less competition, more revenue, no oversight) are so viciously unpopular, they’ve been forced to fabricate flimsy complaints and funnel them through proxy organizations in a bid to derail the popular nomination.
If Sohn’s nomination is scuttled, it will come at the hands of Senators Joe Manchin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Kyrsten Sinema, or Mark Kelly, who will, not coincidentally, parrot the false justifications for opposing Sohn’s nomination concocted by the telecom lobby. And, in the process, scuttle a popular nominee with a very clear track record of supporting all the things they’ll profess to be concerned with.
If successful, it will set a high water mark for modern U.S. corruption and the games we play to pretend that’s not a problem. It will leave a permanent and violent scar on the political and policy landscape, loudly advertising once again that the voice of the public (which overwhelmingly supports holding telecom and media giants meaningfully accountable) simply doesn’t matter in our purported democracy.
So much of the debate about Section 230 is based on an incorrect understanding of its procedural benefits, and the completely false idea that it’s a special gift to “big tech”. A new paper (which we wrote about yesterday) by Elizabeth Banker from the Chamber of Progress dives deep into the real benefits and beneficiaries of Section 230, and this week she joins us on the podcast to discuss how the law protects small companies, individuals, and free speech.
It can always get dumber. As you’ll recall, last year Florida man governor Ron DeSantis, as part of his big push to become the new populist leader of ignorant people, pushed for a law to force social media websites to host political content they didn’t want to host. He convinced the subservient Florida Legislature to pass that bill, but not before his staff personally teamed up with lawyers from Disney to insert a buffoonish theme park exemption, that said the law didn’t apply to you if you owned a theme park in Florida. The bill’s author admitted flat out on the floor of the Florida Legislature that this was done to protect Disney from having to worry about the law.
Of course, that was back in the before times, when the GOP wanted to cater to Disney, the largest employer in Florida, and a company that is often deeply connected to that state’s politics. It was little surprise that the company was able to get that obviously, blatantly corrupt and silly carveout, because that’s how it works.
But, over the past month or so, the idiotic narrative has shifted, and now Disney is part of the latest dumb culture war, based on it coming out against a differently stupid culture war bill from DeSantis to enable parents to sue teachers for teaching anything the parents feel is inappropriate for the age of their children — a law that has no purpose other than to create a massive chilling effect in classrooms.
Leaving aside the constitutional issues with that bill, the social media bill was quickly tossed out as unconstitutional on multiple levels by a federal district court judge. Florida has appealed, and that case will be heard soon. While the judge mentioned the Disney exemption, it mattered very little to the overall analysis of why the bill was unconstitutional. It was just, shall we say, additional color. Without it, the ruling was clear, the bill would still be equally unconstitutional. However, the judge noted that the exclusion itself was problematic:
The State asserted in its brief that the [Disney exemption] provision could survive intermediate scrutiny, but the proper level of scrutiny is strict, and in any event, when asked at oral argument, the State could suggest no theory under which the exclusion could survive even intermediate scrutiny. The State says this means only that the exclusion fails, but that is at least questionable. Despite the obvious constitutional issue posed by the exclusion, the Legislature adopted it, apparently unwilling to subject favored Florida businesses to the statutes’ onerous regulatory burdens.
But, of course, now that Disney is no longer a “favored Florida business,” DeSantis (again, his own Legislative Affairs Director, Stephanie Kopelousos, worked with Disney and the legislature to insert — in her words — the “New Disney Language” into the bill) wants to take this benefit away.
Just so we put this all in perspective: Ron DeSantis pushed for and passed an unconstitutional social media content moderation bill, which included an equally unconstitutional carveout for Disney, to protect the largest employer in his state. The following year, because of Disney’s timid opposition to another unconstitutional bill, DeSantis now wants to remove the unconstitutional exemption to the unconstitutional bill to punish Disney for its political speech.
Can they all lose?
DeSantis has put out a proclamation seeking to have the Florida Legislature (who, remember, his office gave the Disney language to) remove the Disney language to punish them. Florida’s legislative session already wrapped up last month, but DeSantis has called them to a new special session for what appears to be a “bash Disney” special session. There are apparently some other anti-Disney proposals that he wants them to consider as well, but the key one is now to remove this exemption.
So, to be clear: Disney is a terrible company for many, many reasons (often detailed here). The social media bill is clearly unconstitutional. The Disney theme park exemption was both unconstitutional and a shameful public display not just of the corrupt level of coordination between Disney and the government, but the shamelessness with which they knew they could do that kind of meddling. The exemption shouldn’t exist. The law shouldn’t exist. The education law is equally problematic, and a full frontal attack on teachers’ autonomy in creating the best lesson plans for students.
But, deliberately attacking a company, and making legislative moves to punish that company in direct response to that company’s speech (especially political speech) is also unconstitutional retaliation. Even if the underlying move — getting rid of the exemption — is the right thing to do. What’s even more ridiculous is that by doing something like this, DeSantis hands Disney all the ammo it needs to go point out that this is retaliation for its political speech (though, in this case, they’re unlikely to bother, since the entire bill is going to be tossed out as unconstitutional anyway).
Of course, it’s quite clear that DeSantis honestly doesn’t care about what’s constitutional, or what’s right, or what’s in any of these laws. He wants to run for President in 2024, and the only way to do that is to fuel the moral outrage machine better than the last President.
And so here we are. In the most ridiculous place on earth.
In early 2020, Peter Brimelow, the founder of the incredibly sketchy site VDARE, sued the NY Times for calling him an “open white nationalist” among other similar things. Brimelow and VDARE have only spent two decades or so pushing for “ethno nationalism,” that “America is not a melting pot,” and that we need to “preserve and celebrate the distinctive culture of America.” Also “diversity per se is not a strength, but a vulnerability.” It also claims that it’s fighting to “keep America American.” Those all come from his website.
I mean, anyone with half a brain can see all of that and come to the opinion that Brimelow is an ignorant, bigoted piece of trash. But apparently, he wants to draw the line at “open white nationalist” and that VDARE is “an anti-immigration hate website.”
The lawsuit did not go well. Less than a year after it was filed, the judge dismissed it easily. As the judge noted, calling someone a white nationalist is a statement of opinion. The judge actually notes that referring to him as an “open white nationalist” without any links potentially pushed the opinion over to fact, because the “open” part implied that he had embraced the term, but since the Times deleted “open” and linked to SPLC, it changed it to opinion:
To some, it may be essentially synonymous with “anti-immigration,” a descriptor that Plaintiff cannot plausibly deny; to others, it may be synonymous with “white supremacist,” which suggests a belief in a racial hierarchy that is not specific to the United States. There is no single, precise understanding of the term “white nationalist” that is falsifiable such that The Times’s characterization of Plaintiff as such constitutes a statement of fact. Furthermore, the link to the SPLC’s website, as objectionable as Plaintiff finds it, provides the previously missing underlying basis for the characterization. Therefore, the Court finds that the final version of the January Article referring to Plaintiff as a “white nationalist” presents only non-actionable opinion.
There’s also the problem of showing actual malice — meaning did the NY Times know that it was false to call him that when it did — and the court… says that’s not going to fly.
Plaintiff must plausibly allege that The Times knew, or recklessly ignored information suggesting, that he did not hold “white nationalist” views, but published that characterization anyway. Plaintiff’s criticism of The Times’s apparent acceptance of the SPLC’s characterization and disregard of Plaintiff’s objections notwithstanding (see Pl. Opp. 16-17), there is ample basis in the material of which the Court has taken judicial notice for The Times to reasonably have deemed Plaintiff’s views as falling within a broad colloquial understanding of the term “white nationalist.” The Times’s decision not to validate Plaintiff’s preferred characterization and the differences he perceives between “white nationalism” and “civic nationalism” does not constitute recklessness. Rather, The Times was within its right to base its description of Plaintiff on its own evaluation of Plaintiff’s published writings and other public commentary and on the analysis of an organization The Times perceived as having relevant expertise, namely the SPLC.
So for this and a few other reasons, the court tossed the case. Brimelow appealed and in November the 2nd Circuit upheld the lower court ruling dismissing the case. Brimelow filed a cert petition to the Supreme Court, which (quite reasonably) refused to hear the case.
That takes us up to now. Last week, Reuters reported that the NY Times was now suing Brimelow under NY’s anti-SLAPP law. The article is next to useless, as it talks about how it’s a first of a kind lawsuit, but doesn’t really explain how, or bother to link to the actual filing. Thankfully, the amazing @puppyleak user on Twitter found the filing for me after my own docket searching came up empty.
So, now we can dig in and explain why this is a “first of its kind” lawsuit and provide the info Reuters skipped over. As you may recall, in November of 2020, NY finally (after years and years of trying) amended its anti-SLAPP law to be more like the gold standard of anti-SLAPP laws (before that it covered only a very, very narrow slice of lawsuits).
In the recent trial in which the NY Times defeated Sarah Palin’s bogus defamation lawsuit, the judge had noted that the newly amended anti-SLAPP law could apply to cases that started before the law was changed. That is, the anti-SLAPP law could be used retroactively.
The case from Brimelow was filed before the amended anti-SLAPP law, and the lower court’s dismissal came basically a few weeks after the law was changed, but at a point when all of the briefing had been done. In other words, unlike in a normal anti-SLAPP situation, the NY Times was unable to use the anti-SLAPP law during the case itself to get it kicked out and to get attorney’s fees.
So, what’s new here is that the NY Times is now taking the rulings of a few judges in NY, who have said that the law is retroactively applicable, and arguing that Brimelow’s case was a SLAPP, and he should pay for their fees. Because this option wasn’t available at the time they sought to dismiss the case, they are now filing this new case in order to take advantage of that aspect of the law.
Thus, this is unique, as you rarely see an anti-SLAPP law used as a plaintiff in filing a new lawsuit, but it’s the unique situation in New York of the expanded anti-SLAPP law combined with the agreement among judges that it applies to open cases that began prior to the expansion of the anti-SLAPP law. So, the NY Times had to wait until everything played itself out, and then the only way to seek to use the anti-SLAPP law to recover its costs was to file this new, separate lawsuit.
If the NY Times wins, the new NY anti-SLAPP law says that Brimelow must pay its legal fees.
Oh, and there is one small tidbit in the lawsuit that isn’t going to help Brimelow. The complaint notes that while waiting for the Supreme Court to respond to his cert petition, Brimelow wrote an article admitting that even though there was “almost universal skepticism” about his case, he was keeping it going because “[t]he paper’s arrogance, dishonesty and malevolence are simply beyond words” and noting “who does it think it is?” Also: “the New York Times case has just infuriated me.” All of that… is not a good look if you don’t want to be shown to be filing SLAPP suits in which you’re suing someone out of personal animus, rather than legitimate legal claims.
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Five crime scene investigators wearing white Tyvek suits and purple Latex gloves pace through a Tennessee woodland in a slow wave, searching for areas of sunken ground and other clues that might indicate a gravesite. The chill morning air is scented with loam, leaves, pine needles — and a hint of human decay.
The agents mark three suspicious depressions in the dirt with red flags and discuss their options for investigating further. One student asks about dowsing rods.
“You want to use some?” replies Arpad Vass, an instructor at the National Forensic Academy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where law enforcement officers come to learn how to use science to solve crimes — at least in theory. “I use them on everything.”
[Smash cut to shocked gasps/facepalms.]
Arpad Vass is not happy his psuedoscience has been criticized. Not happy at all. He has issued a response via his business’s (Forensic Recovery Services) website. The headline itself is a treat, reading like something composed by other people who have often had their credentials and/or assertions challenged/debunked by journalists.
BRILLIANT SCIENTIST AND INVENTOR HAS BECOME A TARGET BY PEOPLE BENT ON DESTROYING HIS GOOD NAME AND REPUTATION. RENE EBERSOLE AUTHORS AN INTELLECTUALLY DISHONEST ARTICLE FILLED WITH LIES OF OMISSION.
The introduction (and it’s a long one) is credited only to “Admin,” but it sounds like something Vass might have written himself. It’s a pretty fun read, especially since it’s supposed to be the beginning of an unassailable defense of Vass and his dowsing for dead bodies.
Dr. Vass is a brilliant scientist with a breathtaking resume who has invented an amazing machine that is revolutionizing law enforcement investigation procedure.
OK. Most people wouldn’t put “brilliant” in this sort of sentence and no evidence is presented that Vass’ new machine is “revolutionizing” anything.
More on the machine:
Dr. Vass recently invented a machine he calls the QUANTUM OSCILLATOR (QO) that uses resonance frequencies to locate comparative objects in the environment. As mind-blowing as it might be, Dr. Vass can find your relatives from the resonance frequencies given off by fingernail clippings.
[Studio audience]: HOW DOES IT WORK!?!?
Your fingernail clippings (reference sample) will have a similar resonance frequency as your ancestry. Dr. Vass will first do his best to narrow the search with anecdotal information. Then using a comparative sample, in this case your fingernail clippings, his machine will point to where your great-great-great grandfather was laid to rest.
This product is indeed patented. And it looks a whole lot like a slightly more complicated form of dowsing.
By the time readers actually get to the rebuttal supposedly written by Vass, they may already be exhausted. Pressing on, you’ll hear Vass claim Ebersole is a deceptive journalist with a hidden agenda and that her article for The Marshall Project is “fake news.” So, you know, real hard-hitting, deeply-factual stuff.
Despite claiming Ebersole’s discussion of his dowsing training was “misleading and inaccurate,” he admits he does “train” law enforcement officers to use dowsing rods to locate bodies.
Do I also discuss and demonstrate dowsing? – well, yes I do. The QO was actually invented to overcome some of the negative aspects of dowsing (e.g., environmental factors) that would interfere with the detection of bone. Can dowsing locate bone? The answer is yes and I know why. I explain this to the students and let them try it for themselves.
They can make up their own minds after they learn the proper way to use the antennae, the correct materials of which to make them, and the pros and cons of this technology – yes, you read correctly: TECHNOLOGY. It’s not witchcraft or voodoo, it’s actual technology still being used today.
First off, dowsing can’t locate bones. In all the words Vass expends here, he points to no scientific study that backs this claim. All scientific research dealing with dowsing shows it’s no better than a coin toss. In fact, it may be worse than a coin toss since law enforcement officers wouldn’t waste their time being instructed by someone flipping coins. But they do waste their time (and our money) being taught by Vass that dowsing is a legitimate method for finding dead bodies.
There are no official dowsing rods at hand, but that doesn’t matter. “You can use the flags,” Vass offers. “Bend them like you would coat hangers.”
So, basically anything you have on hand is the “correct material.”
Since Vass doesn’t have science or facts on his side, he’s reduced to issuing rebuttals that don’t actually rebut anything Ebersole asserted.
To claim dowsing is the ‘pseudoscience of witching’ is completely misleading and indicates to me that the unnamed experts Rene interviewed have never looked into the science behind the technology.
The 2021 dowsing ‘study’ was, in my opinion, ‘useless’ because in order to properly dowse, you must be instructed in proper techniques and theory, use the right materials, and be informed of possible of interferences, which did not apply in that study.
In other words, dowsers must be prepped by someone who believes dowsing works before dowsing will work for them. That’s not how science works. That’s how confirmation bias works.
Vass cannot simultaneously claim that the rods respond only to emanations from dead bodies (like “piezoelectricity” [more on that in a moment..]) while claiming a scientific study is wrong because people weren’t fully instructed in how to operate the rods. Either they move in response to outside stimuli or they don’t.
It’s not just Vass’ claims about dowsing being science that are unbelievable. Other assertions made in his so-called rebuttal sound like someone making stuff up to sound better and smarter than they actually are. This doesn’t sound like a scientist talking. This sounds like Donald Trump:
While Ms. France is correct that getting a patent doesn’t mean that it works, Rene failed to mention that when we submitted it to the patent office, the lawyers asked us to come up to Washington, D.C. for a demonstration because they didn’t believe it worked as claimed.
The lawyers were so impressed by the engineering and effectiveness, they wanted to fast-track the patent through National Security channels.
None of this sounds plausible. I can’t find any information from the USPTO that suggests there’s a NatSec acceleration option. The USPTO doesn’t care if you can make a working prototype. It’s just there to ensure it doesn’t infringe on previous patents. And it certainly doesn’t care enough to ask inventors to meet with its lawyers.
Vass also takes some time to bash other scientists who work with dead bodies but, you know, with actual science.
Regarding anthropology professors Bartelink and Gill-King, who claim that the QO is not scientifically valid (Rene never indicates that they have any expertise regarding radio frequencies, resonance frequencies, physics, electrical signatures, or antennae theory, etc.), how are they qualified to comment on dowsing or the QO?
It is doubtful, in my opinion, that these anthropologists had even heard of piezoelectricity (or knew that bone has this property) until Rene talked to them and told them what I said. Have they ever called me to discuss my technology, gone out on a search with me, looked into how the QO works, or talked to people who do? Of course not.
I’m sure these people have heard of “piezoelectricity.” They — like pretty much everyone else — probably don’t consider it relevant to dead bodies. Piezoelectricity has its uses, and can be detected and measured, but almost all research focuses on living people and what this can contribute to healing fractures. There is also some research being performed to see if this energy can be harvested (from LIVING people) and stored as they generate it via movement.
What you’re not going to find (outside of this vague citation froman organization with ties to Vass) is scientific research saying dead bodies can be located via detection of piezoelectricity emanating from human remains.
Vass appears to sincerely believe dowsing for dead bodies works. I don’t believe he’s just running a con on law enforcement and non-profit search-and-rescue entities. But that doesn’t make him right. It just makes him someone who shouldn’t be trusted to instruct law enforcement officers or suggest dowsing as an option during search-and-rescue efforts. Until Vass is able to produce scientific research that backs his dowsing claims, he should probably stop claiming accurate reporting about his training efforts and firm belief in pseudoscience to be “fake news.”
ISPs, looking to undermine, FCC authority managed to frame the whole net neutrality debate as “partisan” as to sow dissent, prevent consensus, block reform, and justify the 2017 repeal. But the idea was never really partisan. Despite headlines and DC rhetoric, a massive bipartisan majority of Americans actually supported the rules.
Why? Because net neutrality rules were imperfect, stop gap guidelines in the absence of competition to prevent telecom monopolies from politically or economically abusing their market power.
If you actually care about preventing AT&T or Comcast from ripping you off, blocking competitors, or stifling political speech, it made sense to support net neutrality (more on that here). AT&T and Comcast lobbyists cleverly turned that on its head, portraying modest level amounts of accountability as “government run amok” and “socialism for the internet.” Many politicians dutifully played along.
Of course, things have changed a little in the years since big telecom and the GOP worked hand in hand to kill net neutrality and lobotomize the FCC’s consumer protection authority. You’ve now got the same FCC Commissioners that called net neutrality “severe government over reach” trying to force the FCC to police social media, despite having none of the authority to do so.
Enter Gab CEO Andrew Torba, who like most right wingers these days, is upset because social media giants have belatedly started moderating the race-baiting propaganda the GOP now uses for recruitment in the wake of shifting demographics and an aging electorate.
Gab CEO now worries "about censorship at the ISP level, with ISP's blocking access" https://t.co/aXeOqSFywv
Hoping to cash in on the endless “Elon Musk buys Twitter” news cycle, Torba offered Musk a board seat at Gab. He noted that that the steady flood of bigotry and hate speech on the platform has made it hard to do business, forcing it to develop its own payment processors, email services, and servers (?). But he’s now worried that big ISPs will also step in and start filtering Gab content:
What we are missing at the moment is an ISP. I fear that the next big leap of censorship is at the ISP level, with ISP’s blocking access to Gab.com. You solve that problem with Starlink. Together we can build infrastructure for a free speech internet.
There are a lot of underpinning legal issues here as they apply to the debate over common carriers, but I’m not wading into that because my interest lies elsewhere.
As we’ve long noted, net neutrality wouldn’t be necessary if you had effective competition among U.S. broadband providers aimed at disrupting U.S. monopolies. But we don’t have that thanks to widespread state and federal corruption, and we aren’t likely to have it anytime soon.
Due to the limit of physics, Starlink lacks the capacity to offer satellite broadband to more than like 800,000 subscribers worldwide anytime soon. About 20-40 million Americans lack access to broadband, and another 83 million live under a monopoly. So again, Starlink is a helpful niche solution, not a truly disruptive force.
Back to net neutrality. The repeal didn’t just kill net neutrality rules, it basically gutted much of the FCC’s consumer protection authority and power over these monopolies. So by supporting the repeal of net neutrality (again, just because AT&T, Comcast, and Ted Cruz said it was bad) many on the right effectively undermined any way to hold telecom monopolies accountable for pretty much anything.
A lot of partisan pundits who applauded that had no actual idea what they were applauding. And a lot of the right wing politicians who demonized net neutrality have long since been twisting themselves into pretzels to justify their attacks on “big tech.” Enter this weird myopia where big tech has been widely criticized, and companies like AT&T and Comcast have been treated like adorable little angels.
Amusingly, telecom lobbying and policy guys on Twitter got immediately nervous and defensive about Torba’s comments:
ISPs probably wouldn’t just censor a site like Gab outright, because it would upset potential customers and campaign contributors. Especially a company like Dallas-based AT&T, which actively created and funded OAN. But as the EFF notes, ISPs are still part of the infrastructure free speech stack and do still pose a risk to speech online, and it’s adorable that Gab executives noticed.
But after the right wing worked arm in arm with telecom for years to dismantle net neutrality and telecom consumer protection, it would be amusing if net neutrality saw a less informed push of support from the right, which, up to this point, has oddly given telecom giants a free pass.
It would also deliver ironic justice to an industry that literally had to use dead and fake people to support their attack on net neutrality because the rules had broad, bipartisan support. Especially given how hard the telecom lobby has worked to intentionally gridlock the FCC at 2-2 commissioners to keep the public from getting what it wants: a restoration of the rules.
