[italophil]

'Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders both want big tech treated as, in Bannon’s words in Hong Kong this week, “public utilities.”'

This is bizarre to me. Especially considering that ISP are not considered "public utilities" and net neutrality might be revoked.

[ufmace]

That's about the stage this kind of stuff is at. Nothing's firm enough for any action to actually happen... yet. But it's interesting that there are significant forces on both the Left and Right starting to call for this. Don't expect any concrete, coherent policy proposals yet, this is just a sign that this is more likely to happen in the future. Do expect wild proclamations and contradictory, nonsensical policies proposed. That's the seeds from which new political movements are born and their platforms are built from.

[maxsilver]

> Especially considering that ISP are not considered "public utilities"

Depends on who you ask. The people who think parts of big tech should be treated as public utilities typically also believe ISPs should already be considered utility companies, and typically support net neutrality (or whatever they believe net neutrality to be, anyway).

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

I think part of this is because the ISPs actions are seen as purely done for businesses reasons not ideologies/censorship reasons. I think the net neutrality fight with regard to ISPs so far is mainly viewed as big companies fighting each other with regard to who pays whom what. The action of some of these other companies is seen as censorship.

[s17n]

ISP's are heavily (though not always effectively) regulated.