Are you suggesting that country folks cannot avail themselves to information as easily as city dwellers? The Daily Caller, Gatewaypundit, Fox News, Truth Social, Gab and suchlike sites are more accessible to the former than WaPo, CNN, Mother Jones and whatever? Seriously?
Can testify to this one. Very few people had internet when I was growing up, and even today, it's more common to get news through AM radio or TV than over the web. The former is exclusively right-wing, the latter less so though Cable is a class marker, so "neutral" is as left as things get if you're rural and poor. Rich people in rural areas, and yes there are plenty of them, have more options (and are far more likely to be political liberals). We could pick up an NPR station on FM, though this was best done where no one could hear you.
Did you know that AOL still exists?
But in any case, once you get past all of those hurdles, service providers are free to throttle access to any site they fancy, and cater to whatever they think will make customers in a particular region happy. The Democrats tried to pass a law outlawing these practices, but it
died in the House, so in practice it has been up to the current president to set the tone for the FCC.
WTF? The Australian National Broadband Network (NBN) is universally maligned and regarded as a clusterfuck, but it is much better than what you have. Except for families living on their 20,000 hectare sheep farms and a couple of dozen hamlets out back we got it good. I live in a small town 380 kilometres from Adelaide and I subscribe to the cheapest and slowest available internet connection available here. At a nominal 15Mb/s (actual speed is typically 12Mb/s) I can watch anything Youtube has to offer at any resolution without buffering. For an extra 40 bucks a month I could have a nominal 100Mb/s (actual speed is typically 90Mb/s). This range is available to most of the rural population in this country. As for throttling certain sites, that is illegal, and no ISP dares do that.
We do have some AM radio stations, but almost everybody listens to the many FM stations we have available here. With the retirement of Alan Jones
a few years ago we don't have much in the way of right wing nut shock jocks on the radio waves any more. Not that they ever featured much to begin with. I used to enjoy listening to country talkback programs when doing deliveries. Most the talk was about the local weather and local sports. Also local weather. And local sports. Sometimes the two intermingled, like when a cricket match between two local teams in Cessnock was almost interrupted by the weather.
Talk on local stations does transcend parochial matters. Opinions get heated every time the State of Origin series is on. That is a Qld v. NSW conflict. Rugby League territory. Similar flare-ups arise between Vic, SA and WA in regard to that other footy code, Aussie Rules. Rural talkback even touches on international issues, such as when New Zealand's Allblacks beat Australia's Wallabies in yet another Rugby Union series or when the English cricket team fluked a win even after the Aussies indulged in some (premeditated! Cunts!) ball tampering.
Politics is touched on when the Ballina Council fucks up the restoration of the greens at the lawn bowls club after a flood, or the sorry state of the town's public swimming pool. Religious discussion? Nothing. Nobody cares about the neighbour's views about that. The big sausage sizzle at the upcoming Jacaranda festival is so much more important.
We have big problems down here in Australia, but compared to the US we have it good.
