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72% of Consumers Don't Know What Net Neutrality Is
- EADGBE 9y agoAnother great opportunity to explain net neutrality without linking out to another resource. Man, so close.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- anm89 9y agoThis is a really bizarre use of the word consumer, essentially equating it one to one with the word citizen.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dieterrams 9y agoSurvey methodology and all that, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if most of the affected population didn't know. Net Equality would have likely perked up more interest.
- leeoniya 9y ago> Net Equality would have likely perked up more interest. yeah, marketing is nuanced like that and i think this distinction would have made a good difference. net-favorism, anti-throttling, anti-discrimination, equal-access would have also done better, i think.
- losteric 9y agoI can't think of a hot name, but net neutrality is fundamentally about preserving a free market of information.
- Spivak 9y agoYou have to be careful about that, because there's nothing in net neutrality that prevents restricted data silos, censorship, takedowns; it's really only about forbidding a specific network management practice that allows ISPs to impose a time cost on sites and services they disapprove of.
- jacksnipe 9y agoWhile accurate, it's a little misleading to phrase it like this. Imposing a significant time cost makes certain types of applications unusable.
- anonymfus 9y agoNotice that "free market" is a contronym: concurrent market and unregulated market are opposite things here.
- shmageggy 9y agoAnti-throttling is great. It's better rhetorically (who wants their data throttled?) and arguably clearer too, since that's what it comes down to in the end -- the ability for ISPs to throttle some content more than others.
- hueving 9y agoNo, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear that is a general bandwidth rate limit, which I think almost nobody has any problems with. It doesn't correctly communicate that it's different rates for different target sites.
- sullichin 9y agothese are all better names than net neutrality.
- splintercell 9y agoNet equality - Perfect name to ensure that it becomes a great hot button issue along ideological lines in America when it clearly isn't one right now. In America, 'equality' is not considered as a universally positive word.
- MBCook 9y agoI agree. I think shmageggy's 'anti-throttling' is much closer to something workable. Heck, anti-racketeering or anti-collusion may be better.
- dieterrams 9y agoDepends. Equality of opportunity, equality of the vote, equal in the eyes of the law, those are largely uncontested. Income/outcome equality is certainly a hot button issue.
- michrassena 9y agoNet neutrality has to be one of the most poorly marketed concepts of the past decade. When you're head-to-head with global companies with tremendous budgets, it's a good idea to have people trained in PR doing your branding. The biggest failure of the net neutrality movement was it did nothing to undermine the belief that net neutrality represented a change in the status quo. It would have been better to lead with the idea of big business (telecoms) or the government (FCC) meddling with the Internet. This highlights an unfortunate aspect of our public sphere. The unvarnished truth is rarely enough to influence public opinion. Those of us in the computers, and engineering must recognize that rhetoric based on emotion is a more effective tool when communicating with the general public. Facts are necessary but not sufficient.
- seanp2k2 9y agoI'm not convinced that facts are even necessary right now. You can literally just make stuff up and make up arguments around it, then scream about it until people start getting onboard.
- dragonwriter 9y agoThat's always been true, and frequently been exploited throughout history.
- SkyMarshal 9y agoGood point. The telecom industry started this back in the 2000s with their astroturf "Hands off the Internet" campaign, implying NN was about applying new regulations to the Internet. NN's big failure was in not finding an effective way of pushing back against that.
- sharkweek 9y agoDoesn't surprise me at all - the level of energy in the most recent protests around the repeal was optically quite a bit lower than previous efforts. We were basically warned this would happen too, that Net Neutrality opponents just keep beating the drum until the general population got tired of resisting.
- ocdtrekkie 9y agoI'd argue that at this point, the protests are arguably irrelevant. Ajit Pai has made his position clear, he has no intention of changing it. With a Republican Presidency, the FCC has a Republican majority, and votes on party lines. The only alternate path to this issue is Congress, which is also Republican. No Congressmen cares strongly enough about net neutrality (it's not an issue that's going to lose them reelection) to risk breaking the party line over. In short, submitting comments to the FCC or protesting is nearly completely irrelevant because Ajit Pai is gonna be Ajit Pai. I think there's a less than 1% chance that the Open Internet Order is not revoked.
- SkyMarshal 9y agoEverything you say is true, but the protests and public comments need to happen anyway, for the record, since the current regime won't be in power forever.
- austincheney 9y agoIt is a balance of ignorance. I really do believe most people don't know and don't care about net neutrality no matter how beneficial it may be to them in the most immediate sense. At its core the net neutrality debate is a fight between media providers and transmission. It is clear to most tech literate people that net neutrality is a very good thing. Less clear is that media (including privacy) regulation is also a good thing. The transmission side of the argument is clearly in the camp of the Republicans (as noted by campaign contributions) while the media companies (think social media and online advertising) is clearly in the camp of the Democrats (as noted by campaign contributions). The primary weapon in matters of media versus transmission is ignorance of the issue at hand. The media side has very powerful weapons in that they control the content. If they fear regulation coming they can provide content to bolster their users. Think back to the SOPA legislation. These companies are largely unregulated and nothing scares them more than regulation. The transmission side just has to be persistent to win their argument and hope they can hang on long enough to out last the patience and technical understanding of the public. This strategy has won wars and can easily win political arguments. The transmission side of the argument is also fearful of regulation, but these guys have to walk a fine line. If they can dodge regulation because regulators are more interested in limiting online media then so be it, but this isn't the ideal outcome for these guys. Ideally the transmission companies would like a slice of that unregulated online media revenue, but it only makes sense if both media AND transmission remains loosely (at best) regulated. This requires a lot of careful political maneuvering and not upsetting political constituents.
- SolarNet 9y agoCracked even ran a commentary video [0] where all the hosts misunderstood how the internet works entirely (Netflix pays millions of dollars to Tier 1 providers (pre-Comcast deal even) every year, they don't use the networks for free, and Comcast didn't build them (nor own the companies that did) they only build the last mile - which is supposed to be maintained by their subscribers, not be used as a monopoly to be greedy with - they also pay Teir 1 providers to provide connectivity and maintain the internet). [0] https://youtu.be/EfAAHLTlhmU?t=35m30s https://youtu.be/EfAAHLTlhmU?t=35m30s
- ruffrey 9y agoWhich is even more impressive when you consider how many FCC comments in favor of net neutrality were received.
- Maakuth 9y agoThis brings to my mind some Sony Music executive defending their malware-enabling CD DRM - - "Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care?"
- hammock 9y agoMore likely that the executive didn't know what a rootkit was, and was just told what it does (?)
- oneplane 9y agoThat brings to mind a (probably unimplementable) thought I had around the same time: disallow people that do not understand what things are to make choices about it that affect everyone.
- snewk 9y agobut what would congress do?
- jarcoal 9y agoI would believe that 28% of people have heard of it, but there's no way that many people know what it is.
- nsxwolf 9y agoThe general public cares about net neutrality about as much as they care about DNSSEC. I wonder how many people think their internet is already like a cable package - that they paid for a package that includes Google and Facebook and whatnot.
- almiron10 9y agoCan someone point to the best ELI5 article, or tell me the best metaphor? I think I don't do a great job trying to explain net neutrality to family members.
- jandrese 9y agoDo you know how you have to pay extra to your ISP to watch Netflix or Youtube? You don't because of Net Neutrality. If they are old enough you can use this metaphor: Anti-Net Neutrality is for turning the Information Superhighway into toll roads. If they need further explanation, go with the highway analogy. Imagine if all of the roads in the country were privately owned, but still free to use. You pay your tax and the money is distributed among the companies. Now the company that services your neighborhood decides that they want more money, so they erect tollbooths at the entrance to the neighborhood but tell companies that they'll wave the toll if you're going to a certain company. So Wal*Mart might pay the fee and get you free access, while Mom&Pop shops can't afford it so you have to pay a toll to visit them. They claim it is necessary because the Mom&Pop shop gets too much traffic and they aren't helping to pay for the roads in your neighborhood, even though the shop is in the next town over and the extra traffic doesn't really cost the road company anything.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoFor the first one, even before Net Neutrality, we didn't have to pay extra to watch Netflix or Youtube. And for the second. Imagine that your neighbors are ordering stuff from Amazon. Amazon is making lots of money delivering to the homes. However, they are overloading our neighborhood roads with their vehicles. Our neighborhood roads have become congested because of Amazon. Now Amazon is saying that this congestion is solely our problem. However, since they are the ones making money from our roads, we want them to pay their fair share for profiting from our roads. We are only doing this for big corporations like Amazon who are not paying their fair share and causing us congestion. We have never tried to make mom and pop stores pay this fee.
- WillPostForFood 9y agoDo you know how you have to pay extra to your ISP to watch Netflix or Youtube? You don't because of Net Neutrality. That's a good scare tactic, but isn't very informative (or necessarily true). Net Neutrality only came into effect on June 12, 2015. I don't think people will recall paying extra to watch Netflix or YouTube before that date (because they weren't). And paying extra probably won't be the effect if net neutrality is rolled back, so it will undermine the argument to reinstate it. The problem is that we need net neutrality to help balance the power against big vertically integrated Media/ISPs like Comcast and Time Warner. But it is more about the future potential abuse, so people won't care until there is some event that really affects a lot of people.
- __sha3d2 9y agoIf you're here, you can likely set up a VPN on a VPS provider. Do yourself a favor and spend the $5 / month for an instance. Get your hands on your parent's, spouse's, friend's, sibling's phones and get it set up for them too. Nobody needs to put up with this bullshit from ISPs or the Government. There is a great and easy to follow tutorial from DigitalOcean here: digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-an-openvpn-server-on-ubuntu-16-04. Edit: It seems as though this post is rubbing people the wrong way. I'm sorry to anyone offended by this post, that was not my intent. In my mind, one can simultaneously watch out for their own safety online and advocate for sensible internet policy.
- wmf 9y agoThis won't help you if your ISP decides to penalize all VPN traffic or all traffic that doesn't pay protection money. Also, you're throwing normal people under the bus; the point of net neutrality is to fix the Internet for everyone, not just geeks.
- __sha3d2 9y agoSecure your own face-mask before securing the face-mask of those sitting around you. A couple situations where it will help you: The justice department issues a subpoena for your IP address because you visited a website about a protest, your ISP wants to sell your internet history to the highest bidder. I am fully cognizant that we need to be working on NN at a collective level but individual protection is incredibly important in 2017. Edit: To answer the comment below that I cannot reply to -- I am the VPN provider and I wouldn't do me like that.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sanityUnbounded 9y agoYou could do that. However you then paint a target on your back saying "FBI please hack me" under the rule 41 change.
- fallmonkey 9y ago28% know what it is? That's more surprising to me actually.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago22% (6% answered not sure). But to be clear, 22% SAY they know what it is. I guarantee that if asked to explain what it actually is, some chunk of that 22% would get it wrong. Anecdotally, most people I talk to IRL believe it will either lower their cable bill or remove their bandwidth cap.
- dkla1120 9y agoOr it's just more Government regulation that is trying to control the internet and prevent free market competition.
- WillPostForFood 9y agoI think the counter one liner to that is something like: Net Neutrality keeps big companies from controlling what you can access on the internet. But not totally comfortable with that because "access" is overstating.
- CaptSpify 9y agoI would also counter with: The ISPs are where they are because they in the opposite of a free market.
- WillPostForFood 9y agoGood point, I think this is important to highlight, and might appeal to people reluctant to support net neutrality. If one supports competition and free markets, recognize that the ISP business is not free and open to competition, and used regulation to gain monopoly or duopoly status. We need some regulation to either try and create competition, or at least prevent abuse of their current monopoly/duopoly status.
- miguelrochefort 9y agoIf you agree with net neutrality, you probably don't understand it.
- vorotato 9y agoOkay comcast.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- root_axis 9y agoQuite a provocative statement to make without providing any substantiation for it.
- bradjohnson 9y agoDo you understand it?
- Torai 9y agoToday I learned that US Citizens = Consumers
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ThinkingGuy 9y agoUnless you live completely off the grid, and are totally self-sufficient, growing your own food, making your own tools, etc. you're a consumer (in the economic sense) in some way or another.
- RugnirViking 9y agoBut I can be a consumer without being a US citizen. The study wasn't done on global consumers, it was conducted solely on US citizens. It might seem petty, but its important to be specific when reporting scientific results even for pop sci. This article chops and changes between consumers and US citizens a lot which could cause confusion
- Torai 9y agoAre ISPs really going to stop abiding by Net Neutrality rules? Wouldn't that offer a big competitive opportunity for an ISP that supports Net Neutrality?
- sandov 9y agoBut it would make too much sense to criticize the artificial monopolies created by the state instead of complaining about ISPs!
- IntelMiner 9y ago"artificial monopolies created by the state" I'm sorry, what? While I'm sure you're going to beat a drum about "regulation" and "free markets" it might be worth stepping back and actually assessing the issue from a practical, rather than ideological stance Utilities naturally gravitate toward monopoly. Would you want to have multiple sewer lines running to your house, because your upstairs bathroom costs more money than downstairs with a different "provider"? Stringing up competing sets of coax cable, telephone lines or fiber optic cables is a losing proposition for the ISP's themselves Why subject yourself to competition, when you can simply carve out your own market and be "the" provider in an area? Comcast doesn't want to overlap with Time Warner, because Time Warner is the incumbent provider. Even if Comcast offered a faster internet service, they'd be building their market share from zero
- icebraining 9y agoAnd yet, in my Western European country, I have four ISPs offering service (with their own cables) to my apartment.
- rubatuga 9y agoThat's inefficient. Why not just have one?
- icebraining 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- jeremyt 9y ago100% of the remaining people don't know what net neutrality is. Pick two of them at random and their definitions will not line up. It's just a blank slate for people to project their political biases on.
- ouid 9y agoZero collisions for a birthday problem? I don't think people waste that much space on wrong definitions of net neutrality.
- danschuller 9y agoI think net neutrality would do better if was rebranded as the "free market" for the internet. Then it's got a cultural touch point that people already understand.
- whatshisface 9y agoThat wouldn't be exactly accurate. A free internet market would probably be the pairing of net neutrality repeal with the repeal of all local restrictions on running cables under roads and into appartments.
- Animats 9y agoThat's not bad. Over half the US population doesn't know that over-the-air TV still works.
- Clubber 9y agoThey miniaturize people and put them in the box like on Willy Wonka.. Duh..
- Animats 9y agoNo, not "how". Merely that it still works at all. A big fraction of the population assumes you have to buy cable to get TV. Some think that selling TV antennas is illegal. [1] [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/millennials-unearth-an-amazing-hack-to-get-free-tv-the-antenna-1501686958 https://www.wsj.com/articles/millennials-unearth-an-amazing-...
- Clubber 9y agoI recently cut the cable and installed a digital antenna with a HomeRun for the AppleTV. I wanted to make sure I get football games when the season comes around. I couldn't be happier, the picture is as good as cable. We get around 42 channels, but a few duplicates. I got Hulu which I'm not overly happy with. Playstation Vue was a lot better.
- protomyth 9y agoIt would probably help if more advocates agreed on what they mean by net neutrality. Having listened to advocates on various news networks, I'm pretty confused what they actually mean. I would also like to see an actual bill with an actual legal definition. Given how regulations work, I would hope the authors of said bill put the actual regulations in it. I still want to see one of these advocacy groups put out a proposed bill.
- mastax 9y agoI think the existing Open Internet Order does a pretty good job: https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A1.pdf https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-201A1.p... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Open_Internet_Order_2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Open_Internet_Order_2010
- protomyth 9y agoNow, someone just has to find a house rep to introduce the legislation.
- nonconvergent 9y agoSenator Isakson gave a townhall Monday. One of the questions was a rambling explainer that could be best summarized is "Net neutrality is about not censoring the internet so do you support it?" to which of course responded "I do not support censorship so we have to deregulate to ensure it." The guy practiacally showed Isakson the door.
- tchock23 9y agoMy hypothesis is it has to do with the name chosen for it. If it had a more 'consumer-friendly' name it would be more widely known. Something like 'Internet Freedom' or 'Free Internet' would have more appeal...
- xienze 9y agoThat's actually probably a worse name. There are a lot of people who think it has to do with regulating online content (in a political viewpoint sense). "Internet Freedom" would only make that worse.
- tchock23 9y agoI agree that it's technically a worse name. Net neutrality is technically not a bad name - it just doesn't resonate and the stats on awareness (somewhat) reflect that. My point was more that it needs to better resonate with consumers. I'm not an expert in naming to come up with something actually better, but I am an expert in consumer behavior and know a name that lacks clarity when I see one...
- ATsch 9y agoWell, since the Bill was named "Restoring Internet Freedom" (and in a time where it feels like every third bill is named something with "freedom") I doubt that would have made things more transparent to the average consumer.
- tchock23 9y agoAgreed - the word "freedom" in general is overplayed, but for a reason - it works with many Americans (for better or worse)...
- thephyber 9y agoIf you can't define it on a bumper sticker, most Americans won't "know what it is". As for the FCC, Ajit Pai, and Net Neutrality, I'm much more open-minded to the current FCC policy after having listened to him on the latest Recode/Decode podcast. His speaking patterns make him sound like he's an energetic jerk, but I don't disagree with lots of the policy agenda he mentioned. I detest the games they played with the citizen comment submission system and the "cyberattack" they claimed happened, but that seems only tangentially related. I'm not sure that the FCC is the right instrument to enact net neutrality -- I feel like demolishing arbitration and allowing consumers to sue the crap out of ISPs for unfair competition actions would go further. The FCC has only been good at restricting speech, not protecting it.
- MBCook 9y agoIf the FCC isn't the right body why change the rules? Why not leave the current status quo while Congress works on it (or until they do)?
- hueving 9y agoBecause the status quo is the wrong body setting rules. If you believe the FTC is appropriate, then the only thing to do is stop the FCC from enforcing rules and use the existing competition enforcement framework enforced by the FTC.
- maxxxxx 9y agoPai is a good talker but he reminds me of the people who talk of the free market in health care. Sounds great but when you look at reality you see quickly there is no such thing. But they still keep talking. Same for Pai's talk about innovation. All innovation that's coming from ISPs is to squeeze more money out of the system.
- colordrops 9y agoFunny, I don't agree with almost any of the policy agenda he mentioned. Could you be specific about what policies you agree with?
- dogruck 9y agoIt's likely that many people who claim to "know what net neutrality is" don't actually understand it. Perhaps the 72% is simply honest. Is every packet equal?
- overcast 9y agoSo basically the 80/20 rule, that applies to most everything. The internet is still the Blue E. Is something happening to that E? Then nothing to worry about.
- vhjkfzhjk 9y agoThey don't know, because they still have it (mostly). They will only know when they lose it.
- bensonn 9y agoI don't know what "Net Neutrality" is. I have looked and tried to find out. My best guess is that Net Neutrailty is a badly named concept that emcompasses lots of different things to different people. Maybe it means control of The Internet, or equal speeds for all sites? Besides squishy feelings is there a concrete meaning? From what I can gather the FCC changed some things which might allow groups to do things which may end up worse for end users, at least for a while. Before the FCC "repealed" it, was there a single bill/rule/law called Net Neutrality? No sarcasm in this question, just pure ignorance- what EXACTLY is Net Neutrailty?
- SolarNet 9y agoThe idea that governs the phone systems the modern internet was born from. That providers of network access must provide access to other networks equally. That the networks are neutral to the content flowing across them. This is about preventing monopolies of the physical lines.
- stuaxo 9y agoOnly 72% ? This seems quite low to me, as something that is quite esoteric to non-techies.
- vmarquet 9y agoI thought this was quite high, since the net neutrality issue had a lot of coverage in the media, see for example the two John Oliver talks about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak
- PeterStuer 9y agoIn my own experience I'd be surprised if that 22% that say they do would come even close to realy knowing even the basics. In my own 'tech-savvy' circle, I still find most people that once in a while utter the phrase 'net neutrality' not making the connection when their mobile ISP rolls out 'zero rating' for preferential apps.
- ccrush 9y agoMaybe I would have cared to speak up more for net neutrality if I didn't notice what an absolute joke it is to even worry about it at this point. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and all the news media services are heavily biased, actively censoring, and abusing the trust we have placed in them. I'm sorry I didn't have time to speak up, but what guarantee do I have that anyone would have listened? We gave away all our privacy, rights to speech, and everything else we had going in order to gain minor conveniences. The web has turned into a disgusting social engineering tool that tells you what to buy, think, and do at every step. Instead of fighting to keep our computing under our control, our data in our hands, and our upstream a combination of the two, we're all pretending net neutrality matters to anyone. What are you going to upload? Who is this affecting? Oh, poor Netflix can't actively change reviews and rating systems to lie to you about how favorably other users view their content because big old Comcast is throttling them? Well, fuck Comcast and fuck Netflix. I'm done with them. We need to reach Web 3.0. Whatever that means.