Net Neutrality is a Fancy Term for Internet Socialism

I was probably not clear. There are wireless trunks with lots of bandwidth but that's because they use high power microwaves point to point. That's not possible in a distribution network. What I am comparing is wireless distro networks like 4G and 5G and the equivalents in neighborhood fiber or fiber to the home. Those are both broadband distribution systems. Microwave trunking is a different tech

In any case it doesn't help your case for government involvement. Private distro and private trunking is always better, neither needs any government "help".

Socialists are cynical about society, and naive about government. Conservatives are skeptical about government, and also skeptical about society (else they would reject the very idea of government).

That is well stated.

Great points and distinctions but Centurylink, for example, is not a 'happy society' element. It was and still is a cultural creature born as an RBOC, from US West to Qwest to its current name, a regional monopoly born of Ma Bell but now with unrestrained reach to ever larger dominance. Verizon and others are similar.

In short, entities like these former RBOCs are quasi-government union-controlled organized groups that understand and desire the world of Ma Bell type regulation and anticipate new regulation because regulation BENEFITS THEM.

The old RBOCs which comprise most of the major data carriers today never understood what it means to be a part of our 'society'. They understood what it means to be part of government.

The old RBOCs had no idea how to compete, how to market, how to innovate, seriously. Corporate-wise, they prefer to be back in the simple confines of boundaries set by government, notably, democrats.

A couple of 'happy elements' of our 'wants and affections' as you describe them are listed below here but one of them is succumbing to the state's democrat party line because if they don't, they're gone.:

The happy element (maybe now not so happy) that is succumbing, that must succumb, is linked here: https://residential.wavebroadband.com/internet-freedom

This promising upstart started with a handful of people that worked tremendously hard to gain a foothold in the burgeoning last mile of internet connectivity. Then they had to bow before the altar of Net Neutrality. Here is what they now proclaim:

There is a lot of news about the FCC changes to Net Neutrality. Here is Wave’s position:

Wave does:

* Provide the same access speed for all content providers onto our network
* Empower customers to freely use services that directly compete with our own offerings
* Invest in our network to give our customers the internet speed, capacity and services they want most
* Respect the privacy of our customers

Wave has never and will NOT:

* Take money from content providers to make their sites faster than their competitors’
* Impede the performance from providers who offer services that compete with us
* Block or throttle consumer access based on internet content
* Track users’ internet activity
* Sell our customers’ information

It is well known that content providers (like social media, video sites, and ecommerce platforms) track, use and sell customer information. Wave does not engage in this type of activity.

Wave has always conducted business in line with the new law signed by Washington governor, Jay Inslee, on 3/5/2018. The new bill makes Washington the first state to set up its own net neutrality requirements to protect an open internet.

Not that they believe any of it, they must bow before the state and its governor. This is their state-mandated virtue signaling. The Governor of Washington State is Jay Inslee, a former school teacher. This upstart company is acting like a group of teacher's pets presenting the Governor a shiny red apple.

The internet is more than just entertainment and shopping. It is, as evident by this forum, a means to educate, inform, argue, debate, become aware. It's not a 'want', it's a vital tool that communities use to discuss issues. Communication is an essential human activity. The internet elevates and broadens communication in a way never seen before.

Q 5/18/18 "There is no bigger threat to 'them' than the public being awake and thinking for themselves."

The Internet is the battleground between Progressives and Constitutionalists. That which controls the Internet controls thought and speech.

It is evident today the internet helped Donald Trump win the presidency. For progressives, the election of Trump is an unparalleled existential threat on the future of their organization. Their liar surrogates in the old centralized media cannot stand against the onslaught of people equipped with informing themselves via the internet. In their view, the internet absolutely must be controlled.

Now my confusion is in the awareness that we DO need some rules governing interactions among elements of the internet. Just as Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution cites the Commerce Clause:

The Congress shall have power to ...

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

the elements of the domestic internet need regulation BECAUSE the very things that the little upstart company signals above such as taking money to foster unfair competition, impede competitors, block/throttle access, track/spy on users, sell customer info, all of these and more are already in play by the RBOC progeny. Without rules, the RBOC progeny will tend to make consumers pay through the nose to keep or establish service levels at what have been assumed to exist or what are now taken for granted.

Therefore, there is no doubt that rules of the internet game need to be established with some nonpartisan agency of the US government acting as referee. But Net Neutrality is not the rules framework needed because it does not regulate, it controls. Big difference. It allows politicization of internet utilities.

The Commerce Clause established uniform rules for producers from different states for the purpose of preventing states from levying unjust taxes and fees on out-of-state products. To govern interstate commerce, the UCC was established and one idea is for information and digital content to be considered as products subject to the UCC. The UCC is tried and true whereas Net Neutrality is susceptible to political whim.

More work needs to be done. Where is the GOP Congress on this? They need to message that Net Neutrality is not needed and is not tested whereas the UCC is tested and fits the need for establishing rules of the game.

Islands in WA State use microwave modulated line of sight direct to homes using radios placed to capture and relay the broadband right into the home.

Microwave broadband is line-of-sight but can be configured by other elements to be brought right to homes as microwave, captured by a dish element with attached wire into a home WIFI modem/router.

In the case above, the island users link to a microwave backbone on the mainland by transceiver elements mounted on water towers, A room under the tower contains switches, splitters, load balancing equipment wired to the water tower transceiver allowing the microwave broadband to beam to repeaters/radios in a direct line of sight to user’s homes. This was put in place by some retired tech persons who were frustrated for years by delays involving Comcast proposing to lay underwater cable to the islands.

Microwave broadband can of course also be received and transmitted by line to fiber interface gear and then carried on fiber, also cable.

LV.Net in Las Vegas is a big deal in this.
https://www.lv.net

These ‘Upstarts’ as I call them view RBOC progeny as existential threats to themselves. So they tend to stand around Net Neutrality because there is nowhere else to go. They are not leftists, they are small businesses operating on a playing field with RBOC dinosaurs, unions, and leftist politicians.

But there is somewhere else to go but the GOP Congress and state legislatures need to get a handle on the problem. For ideas where to go outside of Net Neutrality see near the end of post #43.

Your point to point microwave internet is a one-off, expensive, and useless for a population more than say 30 households. In contrast 4G and 5G can serve thousands. A WISP can easily serve hundreds of homes with a single omni antenna. The LV.net is primarily a WISP. Sure they offer a point to point microwave option, but to how many customers? I'd be surprised if it is a dozen.

You are arguing against physics. The airwaves are limited. Fiber does not attenuate much and supports much higher frequencies than free space. Fiber backbones will always beat microwave backbones. Backbones don't matter very much in the big picture and under NN. What matters is distribution.

What matters most for true NN, as opposed to fake political NN is competition. Distribution competition will be wired and wireless and combinations. The "upstarts" you refer to have been around for decades, but most people are too greedy about BW to accept a wireless solution. But wireless will keep getting better and capture more of the market. A lot of that capture will be RBOC cell service, but some will be upstarts.

Your motion of the dichotomy is fairly accurate, but it boils down to spectrum holders and unlicensed spectrum providers, for the most part. An "upstart" is not going to buy spectrum, nor can they lay a lot of fiber. So instead they will combine the strengths of fiber (as you mention) to trunk to the omni antenna for distribution. And in fact they have been doing it for decades. I did a WISP myself in the early 2000's although not commercially, just for neighbors.

Your point to point microwave internet is a one-off, expensive, and useless for a population more than say 30 households. In contrast 4G and 5G can serve thousands. A WISP can easily serve hundreds of homes with a single omni antenna. The LV.net is primarily a WISP. Sure they offer a point to point microwave option, but to how many customers? I'd be surprised if it is a dozen.

You are arguing against physics. The airwaves are limited. Fiber does not attenuate much and supports much higher frequencies than free space. Fiber backbones will always beat microwave backbones. Backbones don't matter very much in the big picture and under NN. What matters is distribution.

What matters most for true NN, as opposed to fake political NN is competition. Distribution competition will be wired and wireless and combinations. The "upstarts" you refer to have been around for decades, but most people are too greedy about BW to accept a wireless solution. But wireless will keep getting better and capture more of the market. A lot of that capture will be RBOC cell service, but some will be upstarts.

Your motion of the dichotomy is fairly accurate, but it boils down to spectrum holders and unlicensed spectrum providers, for the most part. An "upstart" is not going to buy spectrum, nor can they lay a lot of fiber. So instead they will combine the strengths of fiber (as you mention) to trunk to the omni antenna for distribution. And in fact they have been doing it for decades. I did a WISP myself in the early 2000's although not commercially, just for neighbors.

> “Your point to point microwave internet is a one-off, expensive, and useless for a population more than say 30 households.”

Nope. It’s very affordable, much less in monthly fees than Comcast equivalent.

$20 to $25 a month unlimited high-speed data AND with amortization of gear; the user community owns it.

$20 to $25 a month unlimited high-speed data AND with amortization of gear; the user community owns it.

That's shared. If a "community" signs up for a trunk and runs wifi from there, that's clearly an ISP. Competes with the big guys and that's great. But it's not $25/month unlimited. The data is probably 100 to 500 Mb and shared among the community.

Think about other business models. Online retail and service providers would love to have shoppers from those communities. The communities can run their own WISP if they are spread out, or set of hotspots if they are not. The can get routers and access points that set data limits so they can police their internet data hogs. But most importantly the retail and services on the other end of the internet can pay for the trunk because of the customer revenue.

They don't need to provide NN because they are subsidizing, and a NN regulation would prohibit this kind of arrangement.

> “That’s shared. If a “community” signs up for a trunk and runs wifi from there, that’s clearly an ISP. Competes with the big guys and that’s great.”

Yep, it’s shared.

> “But it’s not $25/month unlimited. The data is probably 100 to 500 Mb and shared among the community.”

Broadband from the Mainland is via Startouch microwave broadband relayed cross country at Gig speeds from data centers in Yakima. Yes, once shared the DL speed was 100 to 500 Mb but that was more than enough for everyone to livestream and do other heavy bandwidth things.

It is a good deal for sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmhVwJOHmnE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBiBLG9wnDU

Chris is helping a lot of remote communities around the Puget Sound to repeat the success of DBIUA which is now more than 50 homes and growing. Everyone wants this.

Now the point is there are two adversaries in this battle for control of the internet. One is in the realm of RBOC progeny, union controlled, lefty lawyers, and the other is in the realm of leftist politicians touting Net Neutrality.

We do need some commerce rules, regulation. Now, where is the GOP on this? I’d feel a lot better if they scrapped Net Neutrality altogether and come out with an updated UCC code to handle broadband exchange and conduct. Because the evolution will be toward one big liar internet to replace the big liar media we have today.

Small DIY groups like DBIUA are afraid of the RBOC players so they clamor by default to Net Neutrality because of fear. They don’t realize at first that NN is a trap. NN will bring heavy regulation by democrats and the little DIY groups will have to jump through too many hurdles to get what is possible today.

So there are two adversaries 1) RBOC players and 2) NN.

UCC amendments are needed and Trump needs to get his people on UCC asap IMO.

Now the point is there are two adversaries in this battle for control of the internet. One is in the realm of RBOC progeny, union controlled, lefty lawyers, and the other is in the realm of leftist politicians touting Net Neutrality.

You have not stated what the actual RBOC problem is. I'm not going to watch those youtube videos.I watch a handful a month. If there's a page of text, please link that. There is the RBOC wanting their local monopoly enforcement. But if they guy is tying his trunk to someone other than an RBOC, then he should have no problem. So please state the actual problem.

Small DIY groups like DBIUA are afraid of the RBOC players so they clamor by default to Net Neutrality because of fear. They don’t realize at first that NN is a trap.

No small internet business with a clue supports NN. Most of them are at the forefront of the opposition. The RBOCs and comcast and the rest pretend to oppose it, but they have their plans ready to coopt the regulators. If you want to see the true evil of NN, wait until the RBOCs use it to sue their small competitors.

UCC amendments are needed

Let's be clear. You like taxing all comcast users to pay small internet startups that you like. No, UCC fees should be eliminated. The program is a stupid waste laying fiber literally alongside corn fields in ny county. Yes, I promoted fiber in my previous comments. But it makes no sense in rural areas. Rural backbone and distribution screams for wireless, But let each option succeed on its merits not a tax.

> “... state the actual problem.”

You answered it yourself here below:

> “The RBOCs and comcast and the rest pretend to oppose it, but they have their plans ready to coopt the regulators. If you want to see the true evil of NN, wait until the RBOCs use it to sue their small competitors.”

> “You like taxing all comcast users to pay small internet startups that you like.

You read something that was not there. I never said tax for paying small startups. The small tax would be for a government referee inside Dept of Commerce just like there are now for other activities. The referees aka government officials maintain and administer code for commerce so that everyone understands what the rules are. There need to be rules, just not the democrat kind that stifles everyone except their chosen corporate interests.

That’s why the UCC is a good place to start as there’s a history of keeping regulations concise and short and that in turn is due to businesses needing and demanding it that way.

NN will create its own monster bureaucracy over time. It needs to be scrapped.

my confusion is in the awareness that we DO need some rules governing interactions among elements of the internet. Just as Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution cites the Commerce Clause:
The Congress shall have power to … To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
the elements of the domestic internet need regulation BECAUSE the very things that the little upstart company signals above such as taking money to foster unfair competition, impede competitors, block/throttle access, track/spy on users, sell customer info, all of these and more are already in play by the RBOC progeny. Without rules, the RBOC progeny will tend to make consumers pay through the nose to keep or establish service levels at what have been assumed to exist or what are now taken for granted.
Therefore, there is no doubt that rules of the internet game need to be established with some nonpartisan agency of the US government acting as referee. But Net Neutrality is not the rules framework needed because it does not regulate, it controls. Big difference. It allows politicization of internet utilities.

The Commerce Clause established uniform rules for producers from different states for the purpose of preventing states from levying unjust taxes and fees on out-of-state products. To govern interstate commerce, the UCC was established and one idea is for information and digital content to be considered as products subject to the UCC. The UCC is tried and true whereas Net Neutrality is susceptible to political whim.

I too confess to some “confusion” over regulation. But regulation of commerce among the several states is one thing, and - IMHO - regulation of communication has to be seen in a different light. Namely,
Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
does not establish a ceiling over the rights of the people. Rather, as
Amendment 9: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
makes plain, it is to be understood only as a floor under our rights.
The First Amendment could not list all the communication technologies of the future, of course - that would be an anachronism which would prove that it was written much later than the Eighteenth Century. But
Article 1 Section 8: The Congress shall have power . . . To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries . . .
clearly establishes that such advances were anticipated in principle by the same people who ratified the First Amendment. Hence, although “speech” does not cost money, the fact that printing presses, ink, and paper were not a free good establishes the principle that Freedom of the Press is freedom to spend your own money to use any legal (legal for anyone, not merely for those favored - i.e., licensed by - the government) means of promoting your own opinions is an inalienable right.
I interpret that to mean that the Federal Election Commission, and its very mission, are unconstitutional root and branch. The FCC stands as a difficult case only in the sense that licensed FM, AM, and TV bands are by now traditional. Otherwise they constitute clear violations of the First Amendment. The Internet (and FTM the cell phone) represents technology which transcends the rationale of the “scarce” bandwidth rationale on which the FCC edifice was erected.
Although the FCC stands as an illegitimate decider of who gets to broadcast on the AM, FM, and TV bands, it is far from the only offender - the chief offender is not even (officially) part of the government. I refer to the news wire services generally and the Associated Press in particular.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
The AP and its membership constitute all of major American journalism, and the AP “wire” constitutes a continuous, unending, virtual meeting of them all. Consequently we have nothing to expect from the AP but "a conspiracy against the public.” And that is precisely what we observe. This “conspiracy” enables/requires its membership to make the fatuous claim that “all journalists (in good standing with the membership of the AP) are objective.” How is that claim defective? Let me count the ways:

in their field - hyper topical nonfiction - there is always room for legitimate controversy due to the “fog” of conflicting early reports of any major event - the “fog of war” being merely the most excruciating example.

given the above, any claim of actual objectivity - not a claim, laudable if true, to be trying to be objective - implies that the arrogant believer of such self-praise actually is not even trying to be objective, because such a person takes his own objectivity for granted.
because journalists have rules of operation which include “If it bleeds, it leads,” which are unrelated to the public interest but intimately linked to the journalist’s ability to interest the public (a very different thing), journalism is negative. Journalists are knowingly negative, and yet they claim that journalists are objective. This amounts to suggesting that negativity is objectivity - a conceit which can be considered the very definition of “cynicism.”

Journalists are cynical about society, but since the rationale of government is precisely to constrain the failings of society, cynicism towards society inherently corresponds to faith in, even naiveté towards, government. And the combination of cynicism towards society and naiveté towards government is the defining quality of socialism. Via the medium of the AP wire, journalists conspire against society by promoting socialism.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no [government] - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

All I need to see is this picture, to know that this legislation would kill the internet.

Private companies aren’t restrained by the first amendment anyway, only the government is.

When companies become too much of a monopoly, I argue that they should be restrained by the First Amendment.

Thought-experiment: Let us imagine, that in the 1970's, that AT&T banned all conservative talk on our phone lines, and managed to find a way to enforce that?

Or, that in the 1870's, that Vanderbilt banned all Republicans from his rail lines?

Google and Facebook are clearly in that league of monopoly.

Good outline and good points about the FCC. No one on this thread that I can see is advocating anything concerning FCC regulation.

What is clearly constitutional is the scope of the Commerce Clause.

The internet is a nexus of commercial and social interests. The commercial aspects carried by the RBOCs can threaten uniformity in commerce. The UCC is the encoding of the Commerce Clause. Notice what was said about the UCC in #43. It is not the FCC that is relevant, it is the UCC and the UCC is based on the Constitution.

Here is the danger:

1. The INTERNET (and its Web) elected Donald Trump. (The info flow via the internet caused voters to be awake.)
2. To take back power, the progressive left must CONTROL THE INTERNET.

Net Neutrality is the political tool to take control of the internet for the Left. The RBOC derived corporate interests are the union controlled ‘armies’ that the Left will partner with under Net Neutrality.

But there is a trick they are using.

The trick is a false premise which is that the greedy RBOCs are going to shut down the ‘little guy’ (familiar democrat refrain). To stop this from happening the country needs Net Neutrality. Once NN is legislated, the RBOCs will be brought under heavy legislation. What people don’t know is that the RBOCs want this, why?

The RBOCs secretly want NN because it allows them to form their old union-controlled regional monopolies that they once enjoyed, and that will result in CONTROL OF THE INTERNET.

If NN is not legislated, the RBOCs will indeed stifle and shut down elements that could be used by Trump supporters or right-wing groups. The RBOC elements and CIA-Democrat controlled social media act as partners to do this already by censoring, throttling, shadow banning, denying access, sequestering any group, site, or individual they target.

If constitutional minded Americans complain about RBOC behavior, the democrats will say Net Neutrality is needed to rein in the RBOCs and then over the course of a few years, heavy regulation will put internet control into the hands of the RBOCs who will be governed by the democrat legislation in Net Neutrality. This is their war plan.

If the RBOCs are not regulated they will cause grief to politically disfavored groups. If they are regulated by NN, the democrats will control the internet. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. That’s their trick, to give two choices both of which favor their control.

Internet control means thought control, speech control, control of content

Yes, there will be Americans who sue under 1st A, 4th A and others. That is happening now. Class Action suits are in preparation. But that can take years. And ask yourself, what is the desired outcome?

The desired outcome is to have uniformity in commerce for those utilizing the internet for commercial purposes. Commercial purposes include political campaigns and support groups. Commerce also falls under social media or blogs that pay for services and for homes that pay for ISP services. In short, commerce applies to all internet activity.

When an RBOC element does business with the public, it must have uniform instruments/terms by which it does such business. This is the law under UCC. There cannot be one set of terms for specific services for one public consumer or business and the same specific services under a different set of terms for another public consumer or business. Customer A and B may have the same credit rating and want the same services, but Customer A pays less than Customer B, or Customer A is allowed access whereas Customer B is denied service; this violates the UCC. My legal $20 bill is to be treated the same as any other person’s legal $20 bill. By operation of law, this prevents political affiliation discrimination. Should a political website contract with an RBOC backed ISP for web services, the underlying terms of agreement must be the same as offered for all other contractees for the same web services.

For example, Verizon (formerly the RBOC known as Bell Atlantic) offers enterprise services:

http://www.verizonenterprise.com/industry/media/digital-media-services

If a Trump or NRA or Pro-life supporting organization contracts with Verizon enhanced media services, Verison must by operation of law provide the same level of access and service as is offered to democrat, pro-choice, Soros groups etc.

However, the rules for internet transactions have not been tied to the UCC in a clear manner. There is a growing number of incidents with RBOC elements and CIA-backed/democrat social media platforms (Google, FB, Twitter, Youtube). The Wall St. backing that owns controlling shares in large social media, also owns large stakes in RBOC entities. They all march to the same drummer. This is why so much of Corporate America seems to follow leftist talking points.

And they want control of the internet. They can’t have a repeat of the public electing a Donald Trump.

The UCC needs to be amended to make clear the uniform conduct of transactions on the internet and its web. The last full revision of the UCC was in 1952. There are upcoming changes planned for the UCC this year 2018.

https://www.cscglobal.com/service/cls/ucc-timeline

UCC Article 1 should be the section that addresses what constitutes internet transactions and how they are made uniform with certain grades of products and services. UCC 1 should make it clear that all internet transactions ‘in grade’ should be treated uniformly. By ‘in grade’ is meant what level of service is paid for.

One of the arguments for Net Neutrality is that ISPs and Carriers should not be allowed to offer higher speed services to premium customers because it will shut out ‘the little guy’. General services can be considered ‘general grade’. Premium services can be considered ‘premium grade’. If a customer is willing to pay more for premium services, they must be treated the same as all other customers paying for the same premium services. Under UCC, RBOC carriers and ISPs will be able to offer premium services BUT UCC will regulate that all such services be uniform in grade. This means the democrats cannot play games of favoritism with customers via RBOC carriers/ISPs because UCC will prevent RBOCs/ISPs from legally doing so.

What is needed now is for some members of Congress to jump on this UCC angle and work with the White House to counter the democrats push for Net Neutrality. With legislation and WH endorsements, press statements can be released “ We oppose Net Neutrality because we have a better plan to preserve fairness on the internet by amending the UCC. UCC is the way to go, not Net Neutrality.”. Once this takes hold, the democrat’s NN push is weakened.

The desired outcome is to have uniformity in commerce for those utilizing the internet for commercial purposes. Commercial purposes include political campaigns and support groups. Commerce also falls under social media or blogs that pay for services and for homes that pay for ISP services. In short, commerce applies to all internet activity.

The crucial point to consider is that hardy perennial, the Fairness Doctrine. Democrats will always want it, because “fairness” gets defined by the cabal known as the AP and its membership. In order to delegitimate the Fairness Doctrine it is necessary to delegitimate the AP (and all wire services, the AP is merely the most flagrant example; all wire services tend to homogenize journalism). The real original point is unrebutted claims of objectivity (again, claims of actual objectivity, not sincere claims ofactually trying to be objective). The ancient Greeks had the same sort of issue, as the etymology of “sophist” and “philosopher” illustrate: sophist 1542, earlier sophister (c.1380), from L. sophista, sophistes, from Gk. sophistes, from sophizesthai "to become wise or learned," from sophos "wise, clever," of unknown origin. Gk. sophistes came to mean "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay," and, contrasted with "philosopher," it became a term of contempt. Ancient sophists were famous for their clever, specious arguments. philosopher O.E. philosophe, from L. philosophus, from Gk. philosophos "philosopher," lit. "lover of wisdom," from philos "loving" + sophos "wise, a sage." "Pythagoras was the first who called himself philosophos, instead of sophos, 'wise man,' since this latter term was suggestive of immodesty." [Klein] The root of both is soph, meaning “wise.” Sophists claimed wisdom; Philosophers claimed to love wisdom (but, pointedly, eshewed any claim to be inherently wise). This, IMHO, is not fundamentally different from journalists claiming objectivity, vs. (phone-in) talk show hosts who take calls representing opposing points of view - and who fail if they either do not take such callers, or if they cannot justify their own POV with facts and logic in rebuttal to them.
Journalism is a format of topical nonfiction, whose nature is inherently read-only. Journalism is on the lookout for bad news, and bad news inherently reflects badly on society and on government only in the sense that government did not do enough. Journalism is the optimum format for socialist propaganda. Socialist propagandists who undertake to be talk radio hosts fail either because they transparently do not take on opposing callers, or because those callers make better points than the host does. Naturally enough, some version of the Fairness Doctrine will always be attractive to the propagandist.
Journalists (indeed, all socialists) are sophists, and talk show hosts (indeed, all conservatives) perforce have to be philosophers.

There is a growing number of incidents with RBOC elements and CIA-backed/democrat social media platforms (Google, FB, Twitter, Youtube).

Those are separate problems and best to keep them separate. The RBOCs might try to provide better service to some users and as you suggested they can be bound by uniformity via the FTC and state agencies (prefer states myself).

The problem with Google and FB is that they will insidiously censor. Notice that NN doesn't address their bias and censorship at all, and they are some of NN's biggest supporters (obviously Netflix is the biggest). Obviously what you are suggesting (UCC to control RBOCs) is for contract uniformity, and won't help with insidious censorship.

The problems with Google and FB are solveable. Create a new internet on top of the old one and don't invite them. Create new innovative services that make Google and FB obselete. In the meantime, don't use them.