The Consequences of the FCC's New SMS Law
Around this time last year, the FCC voted to repeal net neutrality and give internet service providers (ISPs) the power to prioritize the speeds of certain websites over others instead of treating them all equally. On Wednesday, it just did the same thing for text messaging.
Under the Communications Act of 1934, there are two main classifications for data carriers, like ISPs and cell services: Title I and Title II. Title II, the much stricter of the two, classifies these services as telecommunications services, meaning that all the data they transmit, like websites or text messages, must be given equal priority and same download speeds. Title I, on the other hand, classifies these services as information carriers, meaning they're only obligated to store data and can choose to do whatever else they want with it, like blocking it.
Last year, the Net Neutrality repeal changed the classification of ISPs from Title II to Title I, meaning ISPs would have the power to throttle or prioritize whatever web services they want for whatever reason they wanted. This meant that, if Microsoft chose to, they could pay Comcast or another ISP to slow down the speed at which Google's search engine was able to operate while speeding up the loading times of Bing. Or, if the ISP chose to, they could slow down a service like Netflix until Netflix gave in and paid them a large sum of money.
Essentially, by switching the classification of a service form Title II to Title I, the FCC will allow that corporation to play God over whatever data they transmit, which is exactly what they did for text messaging earlier this week. This change in the classifications will give cell carriers a power over instant messaging that they haven't had since 2015, when they were first classified as Title I services before that, allowing them to censor and throttle whatever information they choose, just like they did before being classified as Type II services. For example, in 2007, Verizon infamously blocked texts from an abortions rights group. Other carriers, like Sprint and T-Mobile, have also participated in similar activities in the past.
Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/12/18137795/fcc-text-message-rule-classification-spam
https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/fcc-classifies-text-messaging-as-information-service
https://slate.com/technology/2017/05/dont-freak-out-about-the-fccs-new-approach-to-net-neutrality.html
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/fcc-has-made-same-mistake-text-messaging-it-did-net-neutrality
Under the Communications Act of 1934, there are two main classifications for data carriers, like ISPs and cell services: Title I and Title II. Title II, the much stricter of the two, classifies these services as telecommunications services, meaning that all the data they transmit, like websites or text messages, must be given equal priority and same download speeds. Title I, on the other hand, classifies these services as information carriers, meaning they're only obligated to store data and can choose to do whatever else they want with it, like blocking it.
Last year, the Net Neutrality repeal changed the classification of ISPs from Title II to Title I, meaning ISPs would have the power to throttle or prioritize whatever web services they want for whatever reason they wanted. This meant that, if Microsoft chose to, they could pay Comcast or another ISP to slow down the speed at which Google's search engine was able to operate while speeding up the loading times of Bing. Or, if the ISP chose to, they could slow down a service like Netflix until Netflix gave in and paid them a large sum of money.
Essentially, by switching the classification of a service form Title II to Title I, the FCC will allow that corporation to play God over whatever data they transmit, which is exactly what they did for text messaging earlier this week. This change in the classifications will give cell carriers a power over instant messaging that they haven't had since 2015, when they were first classified as Title I services before that, allowing them to censor and throttle whatever information they choose, just like they did before being classified as Type II services. For example, in 2007, Verizon infamously blocked texts from an abortions rights group. Other carriers, like Sprint and T-Mobile, have also participated in similar activities in the past.
Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/12/18137795/fcc-text-message-rule-classification-spam
https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/fcc-classifies-text-messaging-as-information-service
https://slate.com/technology/2017/05/dont-freak-out-about-the-fccs-new-approach-to-net-neutrality.html
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/fcc-has-made-same-mistake-text-messaging-it-did-net-neutrality
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