Month: May 2018

In a monumental decision that will resonate through election season, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted 52-47 to reinstate the net neutrality protections the Federal Communications Commission decided to repeal last December.

For months, procedural red tape has delayed the full implementation of the FCC’s decision to drop Title II protections that prevent internet service providers from blocking or throttling online content. Last week, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai confirmed that the repeal of the 2015 Open Internet Order would go into effect on June 11. But Democrats put forth a resolution to use its power under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to review new regulations by federal agencies through an expedited legislative process.

Under the CRA, only a simple majority is needed to pass legislation. With Republican Senator John McCain currently hospitalized and all Democrats on board, only a single Republican needed to vote in favor of restoring net neutrality rules. However, Senators Susan Collins, Joe Kennedy, and Lisa Murkowski all broke from their GOP colleagues and ensured that the resolution passed.

Initial remarks this morning kicked off with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying that “this resolution takes us in the wrong direction,” and insisting that it’s a partisan attempt to drum up a campaign issue. (That last part is actually true.) McConnell didn’t address any specifics about why he opposes the FCC net neutrality protections. Republican Senator Roger Wicker also voiced his opposition and expressed hope that senators would instead vote for watered-down legislation that Senator John Thune, a Republican who has received nearly $1 million in donations from the telecom industry, introduced on the floor today.

Democrats focused on rebutting falsehoods and highlighting specific issues that are affected by net neutrality. Senator Marie Cantwell knocked down the lie that net neutrality protections slowed down investment in networks. This conservative talking point has been the foundation of the argument against Title II classification for ISPs. Cantwell told the room:

In the year following the rule that went into place, the entire industry shows that the total capital expenditures increased by more than $550 million above the previous year’s investment. For example, in [its] 2017 earnings report, Comcast, the nation’s largest broadband provider, noted that its capital expenditures increased 7.5 percent—nine-billion dollars—and that it continued to make deployments on platforms like the X1 and wireless gateways. Likewise, AT&T spent $22 billion on capital investments of $20 billion from the previous year. In fact, 2016 represents the industry’s highest single year jump in broadband network investment since 1999.

Other Democrats spoke at length about how important net neutrality is for local news, emergency response, rural users, and the economically poor, as well as small businesses. Senator Ron Wyden emphasized that the end of net neutrality will have a direct impact on consumers and the services they choose to use like online video streaming and video games. “There is no vote that this body is going to take in 2018 that will have a more direct impact on the wallets of Americans than the one is going to happen in a few hours,” Wyden insisted.

Senator Collins was already on board in the lead up to today’s vote, but Kennedy and Murkowski were both undecided as recently as Tuesday. Net neutrality activists like Fight for the Future launched a pressure campaign urging the two senators’ constituents to demand they vote yes on the CRA measure. By all appearances, the campaign worked. Kennedy’s vote came as a bit of surprise because in March he introduced legislation that was clearly the work of big telecom lobbyists. The bill still allowed ISPs to provide paid prioritization services and other loopholes that still amount to internet fast lanes and don’t preserve the fundamental net neutrality principle that all traffic on the internet should be treated equally.

In the past several months, ISPs have pushed hard to jam a net neutrality bill through Congress that would pay lip service to the fundamental guidelines the Obama-era rules put in place. But activists have warned that complicated Frankenstein legislation that makes it through this Republican-controlled Congress is unlikely to include the firm prohibition of throttling, blocking, or paid-prioritization of web traffic. Further, overturning legislation is far more difficult than overturning federal agency rules.

The CRA isn’t used very often, but Republicans did successfully employ the procedure last year to repeal FCC rules that prevented ISPs from selling users’ browsing data without their consent. Still, today’s vote means the proposal will have to go the House where Democrats will need to convince 25 Republicans to support net neutrality in order for the measure to pass—and they have until January of next year to do it. The viper pit of morons in that chamber will likely get distracted by Diamond and Silk or some shit before they ever get close to a positive vote.

Still, we’ve seen Republicans willing to bend to pressure with today’s vote, and it proves that activism is working. As the midterm elections get closer and Representatives get hammered on taking a position that polling shows 86 percent of Americans oppose, we could see things turn around fast.

[C-SPAN]

China’s ride-sharing behemoth Didi is trying to make its platform safer for users after a 21-year-old woman was allegedly murdered by one of its drivers.

For starters, its carpooling service, Hitch, will no longer let drivers and passengers rate and tag the appearances of one another. Drivers have reportedly given female passengers tags like “long legs,” “adorable girl,” “goddesses,” and “beauties.”

Aside from eliminating all personalized tags and ratings, Didi will also make Hitch passengers’ personal information and profile pictures visible only to them, showing drivers and other users only a default image, according to a company blog post published on Wednesday.

What’s more, Hitch drivers will be required to use facial recognition for every trip to ensure that the correct person is using the driver account. The female passenger murdered was allegedly picked up by a driver using his father’s Hitch account. Drivers across Didi’s other ride-sharing services will be required to pass a facial recognition test each day before beginning their trips.

Didi also said in its announcement that it is going to redesign its Emergency Help button. As stands, when someone clicks the button, real-time audio is recorded, a Didi representative monitors the call and follows up, and the users’ trip information is sent to their emergency contacts. The update will allow users to connect with the police, an ambulance service, a traffic emergency hotline, or the company’s emergency helpline. The button will also be made more visible within the app, the company said.

The Hitch service is currently unavailable between 10pm and 6am as Didi continues to evaluate its new evening safety measures. The company noted that people on trips that start before 10pm but may exceed that time will be sent a safety reminder before they depart.

Perhaps one of the most extreme precautions floated in the post involved recording the audio of every single trip. Didi noted that users would have to consent to being recorded before using the app, and that the recordings wouldn’t be stored on their phones, but rather encrypted and stored on the company’s servers. They would be deleted every 72 hours. The company argues that this proposal is the best way to resolve disputes, rather than weighing the accounts told by passengers and drivers. But it’s hard to see how such a supremely invasive security measure will put drivers and passengers at ease. Working toward minimizing violence and sexual harassment shouldn’t start with more surveillance, but more rigorous background checks and accountability.

Didi says it plans to roll out its new security measures by the end of the month, after the public has a chance to weight in.

These issues are not unlike the ones U.S.-based ride-sharing services are grappling with. At least 103 Uber drivers in the country have allegedly sexual assaulted or abused their passengers in the last four years, according to a CNN investigation. And how Didi handles its issues is not inconsequential to the rest of the world—the Chinese company is extending its reach beyond its home country. Last month, Didi launched its service in Mexico. The ride-sharing service also just got approval to test autonomous vehicles in California as well as opened a research lab in the U.S. last year.

[Bloomberg]