Lindsey Graham calls Social Media the Wild Wild West of technology. The government is paying attention to this now because they see the impact technology/social media is having on politics and in reality all of our lives.
The real point is we have a bill already created that has bi-partisan support! Bipartisan is not a bad word, let’s imagine what we could do together. So here’s the short version and points the Committee on Energy and Commerce released to help the public understand the bill.
Highlights of the Bill
Prepared by the Committee on Energy and Commerce
The Save the Internet Act
The Save the Internet Act creates popular, bipartisan, and targeted net neutrality protections, and puts a cop on the beat to protect consumers, small businesses, and competition from abusive practices of internet service providers.
• The Save the Internet Act mirrors the similar bipartisan Congressional Review Act legislation that passed the Senate last Congress and had 182 bipartisan signers in the House. See Washington Post
• An overwhelming 86 percent of Americans opposed the FCC’s rollback of the same protections that would be enacted by the Save the Internet Act, including 82 percent of Republicans. See the University of Maryland Poll.
• The Save the Internet Act would revive necessary, common-sense provisions for defending the internet while stopping the FCC from applying more than 700 regulations under the Communications Act that is unnecessary to protecting an open internet such as rate setting. See Net Neutrality Order
The Save the Internet Act would enact true net neutrality protections that are designed for today and tomorrow without loopholes.
• The Save the Internet Act includes enhanced transparency protections, and enacts specific rules against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. It empowers the FCC to investigate consumer and business complaints, and, when necessary, fine internet service providers for violations of the
Communications Act.
• Beyond those bright-line protections, the Save the Internet Act empowers the FCC to stop internet service providers from undermining net neutrality principles through new and harmful mechanisms.
• The Save the Internet Act stops internet service providers from exploiting choke points online, such as interconnection points, by setting up a case-by-case review so these bottlenecks aren’t once again used to stifle our connections. See ARS Technica.
The Save the Internet Act enacts authorities to support broadband access and adoption for rural communities and struggling Americans.
• The Save the Internet Act revives important authorities the FCC used to fund rural broadband as part of the Connect America Fund, starting in 2011. See Bloomberg Law.
• The Save the Internet Act also restores authorities the FCC used starting in 2016 to fund broadband for low-income Americans, including veterans, seniors, students, and disabled Americans, under the Lifeline program that has subsidized phone service since the Reagan Administration but only began fully supporting internet access recently. See Lifeline Order.
• Nothing in the Save the Internet Act would diminish internet service providers’ investments in broadband. Providers did not cut back on investing, deploying, and increasing speeds in 2015 and 2016 when the kind of protections the bill restores were put in place by the FCC.
After the Trump FCC repealed those protections, investments by many of the largest providers went down despite their claims that just the opposite would happen. See ARS Technica.