#comcast discrimination

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How cable monopolists tricked conservatives into shooting themselves in the face

No matter how hard conservative culture-war cannon-fodder love big business, it will never love them back. Take network policy, where rural turkeys in Red State America keep on voting for Christmas, then profess outrage when Old Farmer Comcast gets to sharpening his ax.

For two years, the FCC has been hamstrung because MAGA Senators refuse to confirm Gigi Sohn, leaving the Commission with only four commissioners. What do the GOP have against Sohn? Well, to hear them tell of it, she’s some kind of radical Marxist who will undermine free enterprise and replace the internet with tin cans and string.

The reality is that Sohn favors policies that will specifically and substantially benefit the rural Americans whose senators who refuse to confirm her. For example, Sohn favors municipal fiber provision, which low-information conservatives have been trained to reflexively reject: “Get your government out of my internet!”

Boy, are they ever wrong. The private sector sucks at providing network connectivity, especially in rural places. The cable companies and phone companies have divided up the USA like the Pope dividing up the “New World,” setting out exclusive, non-competing territories that get worse service than anyone else in the wealthy world. Americans pay some of the highest prices for the lowest speeds of any OECD nation.

For ISPs, bad service is a feature, not a bug. When Frontier went bankrupt in 2020, we got to look at its books, which is how we discovered that the company booked the one rural customers with no alternative as “assets” because they could be charged more for slower, less reliable service:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/frontiers-bankruptcy-reveals-cynical-choice-deny-profitable-fiber-millions

We also learned that Frontier had calculated that it could make an extra billion in profit by bringing fiber to three million households, but chose not to, because it would take a decade to realize those profits, and during that time, executives’ stock options would decline in value as analysts punished them for making long-term bets.

We can bring fiber to rural America, and when we do, amazing things happen. McKee, Kentucky — one of the poorest places in America — used federal grants and its New Deal era rural electrification co-op to bring fiber to every household, using a mule called Ole Bub to run it over difficult mountain passes, and the result was an economic miracle:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

The only Americans who consistently say they like their ISPs are people who live in the 700+ small towns that have run their own fiber, mostly in Red States:

https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

Small wonder that rural Americans prefer muni fiber to commercial ISPs’ offerings. When Trump’s FCC Chair Ajit Pai gave them billions in subsidies to improve rural connectivity, the monopolists spent it pulling new copper lines, not fiber — which would have been thousands of times faster.

Given all that, it takes a lot to convince rural Americans that municipal fiber is bad for them. Specifically, it takes disinformation. More specifically, it takes the lie that municipal fiber would result in “government interference” in users’ communications.

Boy, is this ever wrong. Private companies are free to set their own content moderation policies, and can discriminate against any viewpoint they wish. They can and do remove “lawful but awful” speech like racist diatribes, vaccine denial, election denial, and other conservative fever-dreams.

Contrast that with local governments, who are bound by the First Amendment, and prohibited from practicing “viewpoint discrimination.” This means that if a local government allows one viewpoint on a subject, they are generally required to allow all other viewpoints on that subject. This is how we get the Satanic Temple’s excellent stunts, like demanding that towns that display Christian icons on public lands also display statues of Baphomet right next to them.

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/17/639726472/satanic-temple-protests-ten-commandments-monument-with-goat-headed-statue

When your town government runs 100gb fiber into your basement or garage, it will have a much harder time blocking you from, say, running a Mastodon instance devoted to election denial or GhostGun production than your commercial ISP will. Convincing American conservatives to hate municipal broadband was a gigantic self-own:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/17/turner-diaries-fanfic/#1a-fiber

Even worse is what rural America has been sold instead of municipal fiber: Starlink, the My Pillow of broadband. Starlink sells itself as blazing-fast satellite broadband, but conspicuously fails to talk up the fact that every Starlink user in your neighborhood competes for the same wireless spectrum as you, so the service can only get slower and more expensive over time:

https://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/bad/starlink-nov-2022-data-caps.html

There’s been a concerted smear campaign against Sohn, and one of the major talking points is that Sohn is anti-cop because she sits on EFF’s board, and EFF wants to place limits on police access to commercial surveillance data. Which is wild, because one of EFF’s demands is limits on geofenced reverse warrants, where cops ask Google to reveal the identity of everyone who was in a specific place at a specific time. If you’ve heard about geofenced warrants lately, it was probably in the context of conservative outrage at their use in rounding up the January 6 insurrectionists.

Now, the primary use of these is to target Black Lives Matter demonstrators and other protestors, and EFF advocates for the normal Fourth Amendment rights that everyone is guaranteed in the Constitution. Conservative pundits didn’t give a damn about geofenced warrants until the J6 affair, and now they do — but they still insist that Sohn should be disqualified from sitting on the FCC because she shares their outrage at the abuse of private surveillance data by law enforcement.

All this raises the question: why have all these Red State senators made it their mission in life to block the appointment of an FCC commissioner who would deliver so many benefits to their constituents? It’s hard to say, of course, but Luke Goldstein has a suggestion in today’s American Prospect:

https://prospect.org/politics/democratic-majority-at-the-fcc-still-blocked/

“A torrent of lobbying money from the telecom industry has flooded Washington to block Sohn’s arrival at the FCC. AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and T-Mobile doled out over $23 million lobbying Washington this year.”

And why would these companies spend millions to block Sohn from sitting on the Commission? Because she would help the Democratic majority pass policies that make broadband cheaper and faster for America, especially rural America where costs are highest and service is worst, and this will limit the telco monopolists’ profits.

There’s a new Democratic senate majority that’ll sit in 2023, so perhaps Sohn will finally be seated and start delivering relief to all Americans, even the turkeys who can’t stop voting for Christmas.

[Image ID: A hunter in camo firing a rifle whose barrel has been bent back to point at his own face. A muzzle flash emerges from the barrel. The hunter wears a MAGA hat. Behind the hunter is a telephone pole with many radiating lines. In the bottom left corner of the image is a 1950s-style illustration of a broadly smiling salesman, pointing at a box that is emblazoned with the logo for ALEC.]

#pluralistic #ripoffs #skylink #frontier #monopoly #dark money #january 6 #geofenced warrants #first amendment #1a #municipal fiber #alec #useful idiots #self-owning . #net neutrality #culture wars #gigi sohn #fcc #turkeys voting for christmas #starlink

[mariacallous]

On October 19, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-2 to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to reinstate the agency’s 2015 decision that brought internet service providers (ISPs) under the agency’s jurisdiction as Telecommunications Carriers. This action is necessary because the Trump FCC repealed the previous rule in 2018 at the request of the ISPs. Predictably, the telecom industry and its allies in Congress have come out with guns blazing in opposition to the recent FCC proposal.

Also, predictably, the debate is being mischaracterized around a few tried-and-true buzz phrases that obscure the importance of what is being proposed.

The term “net neutrality” was coined in 2003 by Columbia professor Tim Wu. It was an innovative nomenclature that picked up on the ability of the ISPs to discriminate for their own economic advantage. Net neutrality became commonly described as whether the companies could create “fast lanes” and “slow lanes” for internet traffic. That such a problem was not hypothetical was demonstrated five years later when the Republican FCC fined Comcast for slowing the delivery of video content that could compete with cable channels.

For the longest time, both advocates and opponents of net neutrality have spoken in terms of preventing “blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization” by ISPs. It is, however, a mischaracterization of the policy challenge that cheapens the importance of the real issue: that the nation’s most important network has no public interest supervision.

Mischaracterizing net neutrality as “blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization” also creates an opening for ISPs to proclaim they are now against such practices. “We do not block, slow down or discriminate against lawful content,” Comcast’s web page proclaims. It is interesting to note that “paid prioritization”—the ability to provide a better connection for Netflix, for instance, if it is willing to pay extra for it—has been dropped from the litany of things the company promises never to do.

When I was Chairman of the FCC at the time of the 2015 rules, the ISPs kept saying they would accept a rule that was limited to “blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization.” In support of this position, I was summoned to Capitol Hill by the leaders of the Republican-controlled House and Senate Commerce Committees—the committees with oversight of the FCC. In polite but forceful language, they told me that if the FCC enacted a rule dealing with anything other than “blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization,” they would use their authority to make my life uncomfortable. When the FCC enacted a rule creating broad regulatory authority over ISPs, they kept their promise.

In order to broaden the public’s understanding of the issue beyond what the ISPs wanted to talk about, we tried a new name for the proceeding and the subsequent rule. In place of “net neutrality,” we talked about the “open internet.” It was an effort to remind everyone that open access to essential networks is an age-old proposition.

As far back as England’s emergence from feudalism around 1500, there has been a common law concept that essential services have a “duty to deal.” The operator of the ferry across the river, for instance, could not favor one lord’s traffic over another’s; everyone had access, and everyone had to pay. When the telegraph was introduced in the United States 350 years later, the concept was applied to that new essential service. The Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860 provided, “messages received from any individual, company, or corporation, or from any telegraph lines connecting with this line at either of its termini, shall be impartially transmitted in the order of their reception.” When the telephone came along, the same concept was applied to it as a common carrier.

The Communications Act of 1934, under which the FCC operates today, established in Title II’s statutory language, “It shall be the duty of every common carrier engaged in interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio to furnish such communication service upon reasonable request therefor.” The Communications Act also established the concept that the actions of Title II carriers must be “just and reasonable.” That is the hidden agenda of the ISPs: to be allowed to make their own rules without any review as to whether those actions are “just and reasonable.”

The effort to define the open internet as being about “blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization” is a misleading head fake, a definitional misdirection that allows the ISPs to claim they would never block or throttle while leaving wide open their ability to make their own rules for everything else.

The issue isn’t “net neutrality.” The issue isn’t even about an “open internet.” The issue that is once again before the FCC is whether those that run the most powerful and pervasive platform in the history of the planet will be accountable for behaving in a “just and reasonable” manner.

It is the conduct of the ISPs that is in question here. Because telephone companies were Title II common carriers, their behavior had to be just and reasonable. Those companies prospered under such responsibilities; as they have morphed into wired and wireless ISPs, there is no reasonable argument why they, as well as their new competitors from the cable companies, should not continue to have public interest obligations.

Don’t be misled by the all-too-convenient framing that net neutrality is all about blocking and throttling. The real issue is why such an important pathway on which so many Americans rely should be without a public interest requirement and appropriate oversight.

[mysteriouseggsbenedict]

i have to begin pride month by calling comcast which is actually a hate crime i’m experiencing discrimination and oppression 

#joke #if that isn't obvious #thoughtsofaug #HAPPY PRIDE THOUGH

[lenbryant]

(LATimes) Michael Hiltzik: The revival of network neutrality - Los Angeles Times

Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel shepherded a restoration of network neutrality at the FCC.

(Jonathan Newton / Pool)

In the midst of its battle to extinguish the Mendocino Complex wildfire in 2018, the Santa Clara County Fire Department discovered that its internet connection provider, Verizon, had throttled their data flow virtually down to zero, cutting off communications for firefighters in the field. One firefighter died in the blaze and four were injured.

Verizon refused to restore service until the fire department signed up for a new account that more than doubled its bill. 

That episode has long been Exhibit A in favor of restoring the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to regulate broadband internet service, which the FCC abdicated in 2017, during the Trump administration.

This is an industry that requires a lot of scrutiny.

— Craig Aaron, Free Press, on the internet service industry

Now that era is over. On Thursday, the FCC — now operating with a Democratic majority — reclaimed its regulatory oversight of broadband via an order that passed on party lines, 3-2.

The commission’s action could scarcely be more timely.

“Four years ago,” FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel observed Thursday as the commission prepared to vote, “the pandemic changed life as we know it. ... Much of work, school and healthcare migrated to the internet. ... It became clear that no matter who you are or where you live, you need broadband to have a fair shot at digital age success. It went from ‘nice to have’ to ‘need to have.’ ”

Yet the commission in 2017 had thrown away its own ability to supervise this essential service. By categorizing broadband services as “information services,” it relinquished its right to address consumer complaints about crummy service, or even collect data on outages. It couldn’t prevent big internet service providers such as Comcast from favoring their own content or websites over competitors by degrading the rivals’ signals when they reached their subscribers’ homes. 

“We fixed that today,” Rosenworcel said.

The issue the FCC addressed Thursday is most often viewed in the context of “network neutrality.” This core principle of the open internet means simply that internet service providers can’t discriminate among content providers trying to reach your home or business online — they can’t block websites or services, or degrade their signal, slow their traffic or, conversely, provide a better traffic lane for some rather than others.

The principle is important because their control of the information highways and byways gives ISPs tremendous power, especially if they control the last mile of access to end users, as do cable operators such as Comcast and telecommunications firms such as Verizon. If they use that power to favor their own content or content providers that pay them for a fast lane, it’s consumers who suffer. 

Net neutrality has been a partisan football for more than two decades, or ever since high-speed broadband connections began to supplant dial-up modems. 

In legal terms, the battle has been over the classification of broadband under the Communications Act of 1934 — as Title I “information services” or Title II “telecommunications.” The FCC has no jurisdiction over Title I services, but great authority over those classified by Title II as common carriers.

The key inflection point came in 2002, when a GOP-majority FCC under George W. Bush classified cable internet services as Title I. In effect, the commission stripped itself of its authority to regulate the nascent industry. (Then-FCC Chair Michael Powell subsequently became the chief Washington lobbyist for the cable industry, big surprise.)

Not until 2015 was the error rectified, at the urging of President Obama. Broadband was reclassified under Title II; then-FCC Chair Tom Wheeler was explicit about using the restored authority to enforce network neutrality. 

But that regulatory regime lasted only until 2017, when a reconstituted FCC, chaired by a former Verizon executive Ajit Pai, reclassified broadband again as Title I in deference to President Trump’s deregulatory campaign. The big ISPs would have geared up to take advantage of the new regime, had not California and other states stepped into the void by enacting their own net neutrality laws. 

A federal appeals court upheld California’s law, the most far-reaching of the state statutes, in 2022. And although the FCC’s action could theoretically preempt the state law, “what the FCC is doing is perfectly in line with what California did,” says Craig Aaron, co-CEO of the consumer advocacy organization Free Press. 

The key distinction, Aaron told me, is that the FCC’s initiative goes well beyond the issue of net neutrality — it establishes a single federal standard for broadband and reclaims its authority over the technology more generally, in ways that “safeguard national security, advance public safety, protect consumers and facilitate broadband deployment,” in the commission’s own words. 

Although Verizon’s actions in the 2018 wildfire case did not violate the net neutrality principle, for instance, the FCC’s restored regulatory authority might have enabled it to set forth rules governing the provision of services when public safety is at stake that might have prevented Verizon from throttling the Santa Clara Fire Department’s connection in the first place.

Until Thursday, the state laws functioned as bulwarks against net neutrality abuses by ISPs. “California helped discourage companies from trying things,” Aaron says. Indeed, provisions of the California law are explicit enough that state regulators haven’t had to bring a single enforcement case. “It’s been mostly prophylactic,” he says — “telling the industry what it can and can’t do. But it’s important to have set down the rules of the road.” 

None of this means that the partisan battle over broadband regulation is over. Both Republican FCC commissioners voted against the initiative Thursday. A recrudescence of Trumpism after the November election could bring a deregulation-minded GOP majority back into power at the FCC. 

Indeed, in a lengthy dissenting statement, Brendan Carr, one of the commission’s Republican members, repeated all the conventional conservative arguments presented to justify the repeal of network neutrality in 2017. Carr painted the 2015 restoration of net neutrality as a liberal plot — “a matter of civic religion for activists on the left.” 

He asserted that the FCC was then goaded into action by President Obama, who was outspoken on the need for reclassification and browbeat Wheeler into going along. Leftists, he said, “demand that the FCC go full-Title II whenever a Democrat is president.”

Carr also depicted network neutrality as a drag on profits and innovation in the broadband sector. “Broadband investment slowed down after the FCC imposed Title II in 2015,” he said, “and it picked up again after we restored Title 1 in 2017.”

Carr chose his time frame very carefully. Examine the longer period in which net neutrality has been debated at the FCC, and one finds that broadband investment crashed after a Republican-led FCC reclassified broadband as an information service in 2002, falling to $57 billion in 2003 from $111.5 billion in 2001. 

Investment did decline between 2015, when net neutrality rules were reinstated, and 2017, when they were rescinded — by a minuscule 0.8%. It hasn’t been especially robust since then — as of 2002 it was still running at only about 92% of what it had been two decades earlier. 

As the FCC observed in Thursday’s order, “regulation is but one of several factors that drive investment and innovation in the telecommunications and digital media markets.” 

The commission cited consumer demand and the arrival of new technologies, among others. Strong, consistent regulation, moreover, opens the path for new competitors with new ideas and innovations — and can bring prices down for users in the process.

The truth is that network neutrality has been heavily favored by the public, in part because examples of ISPs abusing their power were not hard to find. In 2007, Comcast was caught degrading traffic from the file-sharing service BitTorrent, which held contracts to distribute licensed content from Hollywood studios and other sources in direct competition with Comcast’s pay-TV business. 

In 2010, Santa Monica-based Tennis Channel complained to the FCC that Comcast kept it isolated on a little-watched sports tier while giving much better placement to the Golf Channel and Versus, two channels that compete with it for advertising, and which Comcast happened to own. The FCC sided with the Tennis Channel but was overruled by federal court.

Even barring a change at the White House, the need for vigilant enforcement will never go away; ISPs will always be looking for business models and manipulative practices that could challenge the FCC’s oversight capabilities, especially as cable and telecommunications companies consolidate into bigger and richer enterprises and combine content providers with their internet delivery services.

“This is an industry,” Aaron says, “that requires a lot of scrutiny.”

#long post #refrigerator magnet #michael hiltzik #net neutrality #internet #utility #fcc #better than four years ago #politics #republicans #internet is a utility

[pashterlengkap]

Elon Musk’s antisemitism is scaring away huge advertisers from X

It started last week with a widely shared tweet. Billionaire X owner Elon Musk agreed with a poster on his diminishing platform that Jewish communities have been pushing “hatred against whites” and are now reaping an invasion by “hordes of minorities” — both allude to the conspiratorial “Great Replacement Theory” that suspects a world-controlling Jewish cabal’s plan to replace white people with darker-skinned folks. Related: Mike Johnson says his pals would use trans laws to spy on naked girls He argued that trans people shouldn’t have rights because his friends were peeping Toms. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk wrote in response to the post. Get the Daily Brief The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you: Subscribe to our Newsletter The very next day, Media Matters, the respected media watchdog group, released a report revealing just how prevalent hate speech like Musk’s is on X. “As X owner Elon Musk continues his descent into white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories,” the nonprofit wrote last Thursday, “his social media platform has been placing ads for major brands like Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast) next to content that touts Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. The company’s placements come after CEO Linda Yaccarino claimed that brands are ‘protected from the risk of being next to’ toxic posts on the platform.” Before the day was out, IBM released a statement saying that it had “suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.” “IBM has zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination,” the tech giant added. Apple followed shortly after. By Friday, the advertiser revolt included Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery, and the Max streaming platform. With hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue out the door and a continually decreasing user base — which has already shrunk by 13% since Musk’s takeover in October 2022 —Musk and X CEO Linda Yaccarino’s vow earlier this year that the disintegrating platform would become profitable again by 2024 has become just another post that didn’t age well. On Sunday, Musk tried to deflect attention away from his antisemitic comment by writing, “This past week, there were hundreds of bogus media stories claiming that I am antisemitic. Nothing could be further from the truth. I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all.” This past week, there were hundreds of bogus media stories claiming that I am antisemitic. Nothing could be further from the truth. I wish only the best for humanity and a prosperous and exciting future for all.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2023 But by the following Monday, with his business strategy crumbling around him at his own hands, Musk laid blame for fleeing advertisers on the messenger, suing Media Matters for reporting the facts of X’s hateful, unmoderated content. “Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform,” according to Musk’s complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. “Media Matters designed both these images and its resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.” “Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Musk is a bully who threatens meritless lawsuits in an attempt to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate,” Media Matters President Angelo Carusone said in the statement. Musk has “admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified.” By Tuesday, Musk was attempting to buy sympathy for his antisemitism with a pledge to throw money at the Israel/Gaza conflict.… http://dlvr.it/SzJNwl

[influencermagazineuk]

Major Advertisers, Including Disney, Halt Campaigns on X Amidst Surge in Antisemitic Speech

In response to a reported increase in antisemitic speech on Elon Musk's social media platform X, major advertisers are pausing their ad campaigns. Notable companies such as Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Sony Pictures, and Lionsgate, as well as tech giants Apple and IBM, have decided to distance themselves from the platform. Disney, currently gearing up for the release of "Wish" on November 22, has joined the growing list of advertisers suspending their campaigns on X. This decision is particularly significant as Elon Musk had previously acknowledged Disney and Apple as among the platform's largest advertisers, expressing gratitude for their continued support. Lionsgate has also opted to withdraw its ads from X, coinciding with the release of its Hunger Games prequel in theaters. Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, Sony Pictures, and Comcast NBCUniversal have followed suit, with the latter being noteworthy due to X CEO Linda Yaccarino's recent departure from the company to join X. The exodus of advertisers began with IBM, which took action following a report by nonprofit Media Matters for America. The report revealed that X was placing ads for major companies, including Apple, Bravo (NBCUniversal), IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity (Comcast), next to content that promoted Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. IBM promptly suspended all advertising on X, stating, "We have zero tolerance for hate speech and discrimination." In a concerning development for X, both Disney and Apple's decisions to pause their ad buys come on the heels of Elon Musk's controversial post on the platform. Musk's response to a user's comment, perceived by many as antisemitic, sparked criticism and backlash. The White House has condemned the reported proliferation of antisemitic content on X, emphasizing that it goes against core American values. X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who has been actively working to regain advertisers' trust, defended the company's position on Twitter. She stated that X has consistently advocated for an end to discrimination and antisemitism on its platform. Yaccarino, who joined X earlier this year, has faced challenges in managing the fallout from Musk's public comments. While Musk envisions X as an "everything app" with diverse services, including dating, live video, and financial transactions, the company heavily relies on advertising revenue. The departure of major advertisers is likely to increase financial pressure on X, highlighting the ongoing challenges the platform faces in addressing and preventing hate speech. Read the full article

[reddancer1]

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is responsible for producing some of the most extreme far right state and federal legislation, from Stand Your Ground gun laws and voter ID laws that discriminate against people of color, to laws against reproductive rights, union organizing, and the right to protest.

But who exactly is writing these laws?

ALEC is funded by big corporate interests, but by the time ALEC passes their draft laws along to legislators to implement, ALEC has generally removed its fingerprints -- not to mention the fingerprints of the industries themselves -- so it appears as if the legislators are introducing the bills independently.

Although the industries don’t sign their names to the bills, we do know which corporations fund ALEC, and which -- mainly due to public pressure -- have dropped out.

Thanks to public pressure, since 2011, over 100 major corporations have dropped out of ALEC, including Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Procter & Gamble, Kraft, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, Bank of America, General Motors, Visa, Sprint, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, eBay, BP, T-Mobile, ExxonMobil, Verizon, and AT&T.

But many other corporations continue to participate, including Altria, Koch Industries, UPS, FedEx, Pfizer, Duke Energy, Charter Communications, Comcast, and Anheuser-Busch. They need to feel the heat!

ALEC is also fighting off an IRS whistleblower complaint filed by Common Cause, alleging that ALEC claimed to be a charity but actually operates as a political lobby. By claiming this bogus exemption, ALEC’s member corporations are able to take tax deductions on the millions of dollars they spend each year lobbying through ALEC, leaving taxpayers with the short end of the stick.

[littleblogbeautifulthings]

Speaking of dollars, there are a lot of them flowing from our favorite corporations into the pockets of lawmakers who support harmful legislation—a shocking amount actually. Hand-in-hand with the effort to shop from queer-owned businesses is the process of divesting from duplicitous companies, the sort that is waving a rainbow flag with one hand and paying to pass a discriminatory bathroom bill with the other.

Data for Progress, a think tank using data science to fight for a more equitable future, found that Fortune 500 corporations have, collectively, given nearly $3 million to anti-queer politicians in the past decade. Of those companies, 30 also sponsored Pride events or celebrated Pride in some way in 2022. At the top of the list is Toyota, with a donation amount of $601,500. Much of those dollars went to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who ordered state officials to investigate child abuse claims against parents who provide healthcare to their transgender children.

Toyota isn't alone by a long shot. AT&T is the runner-up, having given more than $300,000 to a long list of anti-queer politicians, and Comcast has given $121,350 to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians as well. According to news and analysis site Popular Information, CVS Health's corporate PAC has donated over $250,000 to "54 members of Congress who received a zero rating in HRC's Congressional scorecard for the 116th Congress." For a full list of corporations who are celebrating Pride online while funding discrimination against the queer community, the tracker designed by Data for Progress is a great resource. While it would be hard to boycott all of these corporations (I drive a Toyota and, alas, can't exactly afford to dump it because of this revelation), sharing this information helps us to make more mindful consumer choices. Coupled with a list of queer-friendly or queer-owned businesses, this information can help us vote with our dollars and show companies that we absolutely care who they support. It's not enough to put #LoveIsLove in one's bio—we need those in positions of power to show up for our safety in real ways.

#lgbt rights #lgbtq community #queer community #queer rights #lgbt positivity

[deadlinecom]

[hakesbros]

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This day in history

#15yrsago Science Fiction Writers of America reinstates E-Piracy Committee — new name, same chairman https://memex.craphound.com/2007/11/29/science-fiction-writers-of-america-reinstates-e-piracy-committee-new-name-same-chairman/

#15yrsago Universal Music CEO’s fears illustrated in funny webcomic https://web.archive.org/web/20071130023109/http://hijinksensue.com/2007/11/29/robots-are-everywhere-and-they-eat-old-peoples-medicine-for-fuel/

#10yrsago America’s “Six Strike” copyright punishment system on hold until 2013 https://torrentfreak.com/six-strikes-anti-piracy-plan-delayed-till-121128/

#10yrsago Big Tobacco will have to run a national advertising campaign apologizing for lying about health risks from smoking https://web.archive.org/web/20131031154351/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/28/tobacco-companies-lied-smoking-danger

#10yrsago Bill O’Reilly-watching climate-change-denier is moved to tears by polar melting documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzw1dZNWiL8

#10yrsago Grey Album remastered by golden-eared engineer https://www.forbes.com/sites/leorgalil/2012/11/28/the-story-behind-the-newly-remastered-version-of-the-grey-album/?sh=7d997c5e8775

#5yrsago Net Neutrality is just for starters: municipal networks are the path to paradise https://www.wired.com/story/net-neutrality-fiber-optic-internet/

#5yrsago Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren introduce a bill to provide $146B in aid to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands https://theintercept.com/2017/11/28/bernie-sanders-puerto-rico-elizabeth-warren-propose-146-billion-marshall-plan-for-puerto-rico/

#5yrsago Incentives matter: America’s for-profit medical industry thrives on massive wastage, unnecessary procedures, overbilling and overtreating https://www.propublica.org/article/a-hospital-charged-to-pierce-ears-why-health-care-costs-so-much

#5yrsago US Army doxes itself, reveals $100 million NSA spy program that got flushed before it was ever used https://www.ibtimes.com/army-spent-100-million-intelligence-system-it-never-used-nsa-leak-says-2620733

#5yrsago Student debt: more people, paying more money, and mounting year on year https://jacobin.com/2017/11/student-debt-data-higher-education

#5yrsago Mass incarceration and disenfranchisement of brown people was the key to GOP control in Alabama, but thanks to criminal justice reform, black people can vote against child-molester Roy Moore https://www.salon.com/2017/11/29/roy-moores-poetic-justice-could-alabamas-criminal-justice-reform-haunt-gop/

#5yrsago Morgan Stanley, with a long rapsheet for corporate crimes, says Jeremy Corbyn holding them to account would hurt them worse than the worst Brexit https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/27/corbyn-becoming-pm-is-worse-threat-to-british-business-than-brexit-says-bank">

#5yrsago Comcast flushed its 3 year old net neutrality promise down the memory hole the instant the FCC announced its plan to allow network discrimination https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/comcast-deleted-net-neutrality-pledge-the-same-day-fcc-announced-repeal/

#1yrago The once and future mass-resignation and what it means for working people https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/29/ordinance-of-labourers/#we-all-quit

#pluralistic

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Become a Full Stack Developer Apprenticeship

Taking a full stack developer apprenticeship is one of the best ways to learn how to be a software engineer. The process is relatively straightforward and is designed to help you learn all the aspects of programming. The apprenticeship program offers a step-by-step approach that takes you through the various areas of web development, including front-end development, back-end development, data analysis, and web security.

Become a software engineer with Catalyte

Become a full stack developer apprenticeship with Catalyte and learn from one of the most talented groups of developers in the world. Catalyte offers free in-classroom training for up to 26 weeks and an apprenticeship program for successful graduates.

In the pre-apprenticeship development program, trainees are taught full-stack development skills, including front and backend programming. After completing the program, trainees enter the workforce as junior software developers.

Catalyte’s apprenticeship program is free and open to anyone 18 years or older. The program consists of a six-month program that includes live instructor-led sessions, group collaborations, and a capstone project.

Graduates of Catalyte’s apprenticeship program get a paid, full-time job for two years. During this time, trainees develop their skills and build their portfolios of work. During this time, they also receive a training allowance, health benefits, and vision benefits.

The apprenticeship program is a great way to get into the tech industry and begin earning while learning. During the program, trainees are placed on client projects and work with teams to develop their skills. They also learn to ask for help when they need it and build their confidence through real-world client projects.

The Catalyte apprenticeship program also offers training in software performance tuning, an area that requires a higher level of programming knowledge. This includes understanding Linux shell scripting and troubleshooting programming issues with software tools.

Become a software engineer with LaunchCode

Become a full stack developer apprenticeship with LaunchCode. The program offers industry-specific training, job placement assistance, and a fellowship program. Students receive an intensive curriculum that prepares them for entry-level tech jobs. The apprenticeship program places students in local and global companies, such as Microsoft, Comcast, and EdwardJones. It saves students time and money on tuition. After graduation, students get full-time jobs with prestigious firms.

LaunchCode does not require tuition or deposits. The company receives funding through private grants and donations. It also does not discriminate against age, race, gender, national origin, or disability. In addition to apprenticeship programs, LaunchCode also offers free coding courses.

LaunchCode’s admissions process is relatively straightforward. All you have to do is visit the company’s website and complete an online assessment. The online assessment will ask you about your computing and coding experience. This assessment can take 20 minutes or so to complete. Once you submit your assessment, you will be redirected to a page where you will find a list of possible programs and options.

LaunchCode’s discovery program is a free online course that teaches the fundamentals of computer programming. Students can complete the course in one to two months. It’s a great way to get an introduction to coding.

Become a web developer with Umbrage

Become a full stack developer apprenticeship with Umbrage, one of the world’s largest and most innovative web and mobile app development companies. The 12-week program is designed for recent graduates and includes lectures from senior engineers, an internal project, and technology-specific training. The program’s focus on developing relevant skills sets you up for success in your future career.

A full stack developer can create a complete web application from start to finish. They are responsible for a variety of different parts of an application including site structuring, user experience design, presentation, layout, and data processing. Often, they work in teams. The ability to break big projects into smaller tasks is a must.

A full stack developer apprenticeship is a great way to develop professional portfolios and become certified in the field. In addition, these programs are much more focused than internships and can result in permanent employment.

Full stack development is not for everyone. However, if you have a knack for coding, it may be the best way to learn. There are several options available including vocational school, a boot camp, and online courses.

While some of the programs listed above are free, there are some that cost a pretty penny. These usually provide more support and resources than others. The price point can be tempting, but often comes at the cost of quality.

#full stack #full stack developer #full stack apprenticeship

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Media Mogul Nabs One Of 2022s Priciest Listings For $100M

Be a part of business visionaries Pete Flint, Spencer Rascoff, Ryan Serhant and extra at Inman Join New York, Jan. 24-26. Punch your ticket to the longer term by becoming a member of the neatest folks in actual property at this must-attend occasion. Register right here. Billionaire media mogul Byron Allen has bought a Malibu property beforehand owned by self-storage magnate Tammy Hughes Gustavson for $100 million, The Wall Avenue Journal reported. The transaction marks one of many priciest offers made but within the U.S. in 2022 and is probably the most an African American purchaser has ever paid for a house within the U.S. The house, which is situated in Paradise Cove and spans about 11,000 sq. toes, was listed in Might for $127.5 million. It sits on a 3.5-acre lot on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, and is straight away subsequent to WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum’s $190 million property. Allen started his profession as a comic after which based Leisure Studios/Allen Media Group, one of many largest privately held media firms within the U.S., which owns 12 cable networks, about 70 TV reveals and about 30 ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox associates throughout the U.S. His firm additionally owns the Climate Channel. Over time, he has acquired trophy properties in Aspen, New York, Maui and Beverly Hills, in line with The Wall Avenue Journal’s sources. B. Wayne Hughes, Gustavson’s late father and founding father of self-storage firm Public Storage, beforehand owned the Malibu property. In keeping with data, he bought the property for about $20 million in 2003. The mansion contains eight beds and 11.5 baths, a personal terrace with ocean views, 208 toes of seaside frontage, a tennis courtroom and two indifferent guesthouses, in line with the itemizing description. Pocketed glass doorways all through the primary residence open out to the terrace, offering ocean views from indoors and a light-filled inside. It additionally contains a winding path from the property right down to the seaside, so {that a} golf cart can be utilized to move folks from one location to the opposite. Malibu has seen plenty of high-end actual property transactions prior to now few years, together with plenty of estates bought by enterprise capitalist Marc Andreessen and his spouse, Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, for a mixed worth of about $255.5 million. Likewise, actuality TV star Kim Kardashian lately bought a property within the space for about $70 million. Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker represented the vendor and Terence Hill of BT Equities, who’s an in-house agent with Allen’s household workplace, represented the client. Along with rising his media empire, Allen has taken up a trigger to battle racial discrimination by way of a sequence of lawsuits in recent times. In 2015, he sued Comcast for not carrying Allen’s stations and networks due to racial discrimination (the case made it to the Supreme Courtroom, however was settled outdoors of courtroom), and most lately, Allen served a $10 billion lawsuit in opposition to McDonald’s for racial stereotyping and intentionally not shopping for a fair proportion of promoting from Black-owned media. That case will go to trial in Might 2023. Electronic mail Lillian Dickerson Supply hyperlink Originally published at SF Newsvine

#SF Newsvine

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Comcast Hit With Ex-Software Designer's Gender Bias Suit

Comcast Hit With Ex-Software Designer’s Gender Bias Suit

By Isaac Monterose (October 7, 2022, 4:47 PM EDT) — A former Comcast employee alleged a supervisor harassed her and even got promoted despite his reported misconduct, according to a gender discrimination lawsuit the employee filed Friday in Pennsylvania federal court…. Stay ahead of the curve In the legal profession, information is the key to success. You have to know what’s happening with…

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[relationstoday]

Comcast Hit With Ex-Software Designer's Gender Bias Suit

Comcast Hit With Ex-Software Designer’s Gender Bias Suit

By Isaac Monterose (October 7, 2022, 4:47 PM EDT) — A former Comcast employee alleged a supervisor harassed her and even got promoted despite his reported misconduct, according to a gender discrimination lawsuit the employee filed Friday in Pennsylvania federal court…. Stay ahead of the curve In the legal profession, information is the key to success. You have to know what’s happening with…

View On WordPress

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Callcenter jobs

Callcenter jobs full#

Callcenter jobs free#

"Capturing this information using AI could reduce up to a third of the interaction time that would typically be supported by a human agent," said O'Connell.

Callcenter jobs full#

"While automating a full interaction – also known as call containment or deflection – corresponds to significant cost savings, there is also value in partial containment, such as automating the identification of a customer's name, policy number and reason for calling," said Daniel O'Connell, VP analyst at Gartner. But getting bots to deal with some of the basic information could save time for everyone. Not everyone is overjoyed to find themselves talking to a bot and some people often want to connect with a real person to explain their problem. We move fast and think big to inspire whats next. This suggestion also means there are many ways "conversational AI" can be implemented and different ways savings can be calculated. At Comcast, its all about bringing your authentic and amazing self to work everyday. Gartner notes that call center operators can automate part or the entirety of call center interactions through voice or apps such as chatbots, so it's using a fairly broad definition.

Callcenter jobs free#

Reasonable Accommodation and Drug Free Workplace policy Learn more (Opens in a new window). Īpple is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to applicants with physical and mental disabilities. Afrikaans, Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese. Learn more about the E-Verify program (Opens in a new window). 3550 jobs found for call center call center customer service representative call center representative onsite - inbound customer service/call center. Customer service/call centre business (general) in Italy. If you’re applying for a position in San Francisco, review the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance guidelines (opens in a new window) applicable in your area.Īpple participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations as required by law. Īpple will consider for employment all qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Check out a sample of the 100 Call Center Manager jobs posted on Upwork Real Estate Virtual Assistant Hourly Posted 1 day ago Virtual Assistant. New York City Department of Health Learn more (Opens in a new window). No Weekends: Our Call Center Representatives work a Monday through Friday schedule, with the ability to work a 4 day work week after 30 days of employment. We will verify the vaccination status of all New York City team members who are working at an Apple Store, office, or partner store in New York City. Īpple is required to comply with a COVID-19 vaccination mandate issued by the New York City Department of Health. Call Center Call Center Management Jobs Complaint Management Jobs Email Support Customer Service Jobs Customer Support Email Communication Administrative Support Phone Communication Answering Product Questions Phone Support. Īpple will not discriminate or retaliate against applicants who inquire about, disclose, or discuss their compensation or that of other applicants. Learn more about your EEO rights as an applicant (Opens in a new window). We take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. Apple is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to inclusion and diversity.

#Callcenter jobs