FCC Chairman Grilled

The FCC Chairman had to face questioning yesterday from angry Republicans who are doing the bidding of the three or four multi-billion dollar corporations that are stuffing their pockets with campaign cash. But to me, the most interesting part of the questioning was when they asked him if John Oliver from HBO had caused this...

There was a question to FCC Chair Wheeler about the effect of John Oliver’s audience registering their feelings on big ISPs charging extra fees. (In other words, if the FCC didn’t protect net neutrality, in Oliver’s view.) Wheeler says the total volume of four million filings during last year’s comment period “broke our system.” He also says the comments “ran about 3-to-1 in favor” of his general vision of Net Neutrality. Wheeler admits he heard from the White House, but that he only met with the President in the Oval Office once, just as he was talking office. House Republicans kept bringing up the number of times Wheeler heard from White House staffers, but Wheeler good-naturedly says that’s nothing new for an FCC Chairman – and it happened under Republican presidents. He’s been around Washington for most of 40 years and he doesn’t exactly need the paycheck at the Commission. As one friendly Democratic member put it in a series of questions, Wheeler once led the trade associations of both the cable and the wireless industries – so he wouldn’t do something that would harm the Internet. He aims to put a consumer-friendly “light touch” on Title II regulation, as if the Internet were a utility. He told yesterday’s hearing he had just four aims - “no blocking, no throttling, no prioritized fast lane, and transparency.” (Source: Tom Taylor's NOW Newsletter)

Get it straight, fellas. Once it's actually explained, people want this. We're not 3-1 in favor of anything these days. That might as well be 100%.