 So, I've actually got good news surprisingly to share with you as it relates to a free and open internet. Jessica Rosen-Warsall, proponent of net neutrality, essentially the antithesis of Ajit Pai, has been confirmed and she is now officially the new FCC chair. So she took to Twitter after her confirmation and said, It's the honor of my lifetime to lead the FCC and serve as the first permanent female chair. Thank you to the President and Senate for entrusting me with this responsibility. There's work to do to make sure modern communications reach everyone everywhere. Now let's get to it. So this is absolutely huge and if you are a supporter of net neutrality, this is a huge victory because Jessica Rosen-Warsall not only supports net neutrality, but she's made it very clear that she wants to undo what Ajit Pai did back in 2017. She wants to restore net neutrality. Now the battle isn't over yet because now the real test comes in the form of confirming Gigi Sohn, which really is up in the air. Gigi Sohn is important. She is an FCC commissioner nominated by the Biden administration who needs to get confirmed for two really important reasons. First and foremost, if she's confirmed, then that will give Democrats on the FCC the majority that they need to undo what Ajit Pai did and restore net neutrality. And second of all, Gigi Sohn is just an incredible advocate for consumers. She's anti big business when it comes to the telecom industry. And she wants to make sure that consumers have more power when it comes to the internet, when it comes to communications. So she's someone who would be an incredible ally. And I'm honestly surprised that Biden nominated her given how progressive she is in this sphere. But it's an open question as to whether or not she will be confirmed because telecom shills within the Republican Party have mounted a very strong campaign against her. And what they're doing to try to stop her from getting confirmed is using a tactic that is conspicuously similar to something that they previously purported to be against. I'm, of course, talking about cancel culture, where you bring up old tweets and try to get somebody canceled and get them fired from their job because of said tweets. As John Handel of Politico reports, Republicans angling to stymie President Joe Biden's tech and telecom agenda are turning to an increasingly familiar tactic, dredging up his nominees, mean tweets, no matter that former President Donald Trump, who remains popular in the Republican Party and has hinted at a new run in 2024, regularly wielded social media to scorch his foes before the top platforms booted him off or that GOP lawmakers, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, use their social media purchase to spar with critics. Cruz and other Republicans say their big concern is the temperaments of nominees who had served at two powerful independent agencies, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Hence, their outcry about tweets in which FCC nominee Gigi Sohn called Fox News dangerous to our democracy, while FTC pick Alvaro Bedoya labeled immigration and customs enforcement and out of control domestic surveillance agency. The GOP pushback threatens to slow Democrats' efforts to regain voting majorities at the two agencies, which play instrumental roles on issues, including net neutrality, competition and data privacy. The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked last week on Bedoya's nomination, adding to the procedural hurdles Democrats must overcome to confirm him. While multiple Republicans told Politico, they will put a hold on Sohn if she advances to the floor. So after multiple years of screeching at the top of their lungs about cancel culture, here they are doing the thing that they claim to hate. Is this not the definition of cancel culture where you bring up someone's old tweets and you cancel them? I mean, they're so hypocritical. Now, the tweets in question are as follows. So Gigi Sohn tweeted for all my concerns about Facebook. I believe that Fox News has had the most negative impact on our democracy. It's state-sponsored propaganda with few, if any opposing viewpoints. Where's the hearing about it? She also wrote, I don't give a rat if you want to still be a Republican. But if you think real Donald Trump is destroying the Constitution and this country, you must vote for Joe Biden full stop. She also wrote the dangerous Sinclair Tribune merger is officially dead. I say that FCC should look at whether Sinclair is qualified to be a broadcast licensee at all. So in some, they're using these tweets as evidence that she will go after Republican and conservative leading outlets and try to censor them. So they use cancel culture to claim that she is a sensorious cancel culture FCC nominee that should be rejected. Now, look, when she says that they should definitely look at whether or not Sinclair is qualified to be a broadcast licensee at all, that isn't a good look for an FCC commissioner. That's not a good look. That's not necessarily something that you want to say because it gives the impression that you're not impartial. It gives the impression that you will target these outlets. That being said, though, she doesn't have that much authority as a fucking FCC commissioner and they know that. So putting aside a tweet that isn't a good look for a nominee, they know what this is about. This isn't actually about mean tweets. This is about policy and they're using these tweets as a distraction from the real issue here. The real issue is net neutrality. The real issue is Gigi Stone is pro-consumer and anti-big business. And I think it's safe to characterize her as anti-big business. Yes, she does want to further regulate companies that take advantage of the American people, of the consumer. But that doesn't mean that she's sensorious. That doesn't mean that she's going to crack down on free speech. And they know this. But these Republicans are bankrolled by these industries. Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, who are lobbying hard against her and they're serving the interests of their donors who happen to dislike Gigi's own. So that's why they're against her. She's their worst nightmare. So I at this point, I would be surprised if she actually were confirmed because it just seems like, you know, there's so much momentum against Gigi Stone currently and not enough people speaking out on her behalf. I don't think many people are following this issue because net neutrality isn't at the forefront of people's minds as it was back in 2017. So because this is an issue that will likely fly under the radar, at least as it relates to mainstream political politics, I think she'd likely end up sinking. Who knows? But if she were to get confirmed, this would be huge. This means that it's almost a foregone conclusion that net neutrality would be restored by this FCC once they get that majority. But if if she's withdrawn, I don't know that Biden would nominate someone as firebrand as her. We want someone like this on the FCC advocating for people, advocating for consumers. See, currently the deck is totally stacked against consumers. We all are getting screwed, right? It's why net neutrality is an issue that both conservatives and liberals care about and socialists care about because this affects everyone. We all want a free and open Internet, hence why we support net neutrality. We all want to end these monopolies. We want more than one Internet service provider in our area. We want municipal broadband. And you see, if someone like Gigi Stone, who is a vocal supporter of municipal broadband, gets in there and she actually gets that agenda through, then, you know, companies like Comcast would be irrelevant because if you have the choice in your area, just think for a moment that in your area, you have the choice between Comcast, Verizon or a publicly owned Internet provider that offers you gigabit Internet. Who would you choose? You'd pick the publicly owned version nine times out of 10 because you own it. It sure is your tax dollars funded. So of course, you're not going to go for this private company that offers shitty service and is incredibly expensive. So they know that if Gigi Stone gets in there, this is bad for their business, which is why they're fighting against her so hard and using anything to try to bring her down. But the truth is that it's not about mean tweets. They know she's not the sensorious Shtw cancel culture person. She's someone who actually cares about the issues and the issue of net neutrality and she wants to give power back to consumers. And that is specifically what really scares them about Gigi Stone.