https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/fcc-joe-biden-dei/2023/11/20/id/1142976/By Eric Mack | Monday, 20 November 2023 01:08 PM EST
This is apparently what was referenced within the past week of control of the internet. GraybeardIgnoring the warnings of Senate Republicans this week, President Joe Biden's Federal Communications Commission is pushing forward with its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda to take control of the Internet under the guise of "a fringe left-wing legal theory about discrimination."
Senate Commerce Committee Ranking Member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, denounced FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel voting to enact "Digital Discrimination," by forcing broadband providers to expansive, indeterminate, and crippling liability under the "disparate impact" standard.
Ostensibly it is authorizing leftist activists in the federal government to put a "heavy hand" on the scale, Cruz argues.
"Despite admitting there's 'little to no evidence' of discrimination by telecommunications companies, Democrats are hoping to convince the American people that broadband Internet is so racist they need to plow ahead with government-mandated affirmative action and race-based pricing," Cruz wrote in a statement. "The only beneficiaries of this Orwellian 'equity' plan are overzealous government regulators who want to control the Internet."
Cruz had led 27 Senate Republicans' letter to Rosenworcel warning against the vote later last week to authorize the Biden DEI initiative at the FCC, but she ignored it, his office lamented.
"Your Draft Order, which largely follows a Biden administration diktat, will create crippling uncertainty for the U.S. broadband industry, chill broadband investment, and undermine Congress' objective of promoting broadband access for all Americans," the letter read. "We urge you to adhere to the will of Congress and conform to the plain meaning of section 60506 to avoid causing serious damage to the competitive and innovative U.S. broadband industry."
The telecommunications industry has opposed the framework, arguing the policy will hamper investment in communities by requiring unnecessary regulations. In a statement after Wednesday's vote, The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the industry's main trade association, called the new rules "potentially unlawful."
The group also said the FCC was seeking "expansive new authority over virtually every aspect of the broadband marketplace.
"Many, if not most, long-standing, uniform business practices could be seen to have differential impacts on consumers with different income levels," the group said.
During Wednesday's FCC hearing, Brendan Carr, one of the agency's commissioners, argued the new policies opened the agency up to potential litigation and would hamper operations by the telecommunications industry.
"It's not about discrimination," Carr said, denouncing the "power grab." "It's about control."
Conservative legal expert Mike Davis founded the Internet Accountability Project (IAP) to watch over Big Tech and government attempts to tip the scales against conservatives.
"These latest moves shift the balance between governmental oversight and individual freedoms heavily toward the government," Davis said in a statement this week. "Excessive government control from the Biden administration would curtail the very essence of a free and open digital environment, compromising privacy rights and growing the alliance between Big Tech and the federal government."
The move will "stifle innovation" and restrict freedoms under the guise of equity, just as Biden Democrats intended, according to Davis.
"President Biden's pronounced efforts to extend government control over the expansive tech landscape point toward an unprecedented level of government intervention in Americans' digital lives and basic freedoms," Davis added. "Consolidation of power over the tech space within the government, working in tandem with its corporate allies in Big Tech, will stifle innovation, freedom of speech, and freedom of association.
"Diversity of ideas and technological advancements will suffer."
Eric Mack | editorial.mack@newsmax.com
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
