13 ms·

Today is the last chance to comment on the proposal to kill net neutrality

172 points by kbyatnal 9y ago

HealthGoth 9y ago
What is the chance of this thing passing?
byuu 9y ago
I'm all for everyone commenting so at least it's well known how far this FCC is going against public opinion, and encourage everyone to make their voices heard. But, and I hate to be the cynic here, does anyone really believe that even if all 323 million Americans commented in opposition to killing net neutrality, that Ajit Pai would relent? It's all but guaranteed he's going to do this. The only question is when, not if :(
- colanderman 9y ago
  What are the checks and balances here? He's not an elected official (so he can't be voted out), and he knows his time is up as soon as the executive branch turns blue again. So of course he will do his best to please the ISPs in whose coddling arms he will find refuge after his tenure. Best I can think of is Congress passing a law to enforce net neutrality.
  - notalawyer 9y ago
    So the federal regulatory agencies actually have fairly unchecked power; it's one of their flaws. Lawyer boyfriend has remarked that they are actually rather unconstitutional in the sense that they have broad powers to make what are effectively laws, and constitutionally, only Congress can do that. That being said, Congress has rightly delegated the ability to manage things like radio transmissions, the environment, food and drugs, etc. to bodies that have more time and domain knowledge, and under a decent president and Congress, we wouldn't have to worry about bad actors making their way to the tops of these organizations. And frankly, do you really have faith that Americans would do any better having to elect tens or hundreds of people to various positions in regulatory bodies?
  - matt4077 9y ago
    It's the same as for any government employee. First, obviously, the law. It's not actually within his power to just write something down and sign it to make it the law of the land. There's a process that has to be followed, of which the comment period is but one step. Regulatory decisions are also required to, in general terms, make sense and be fair. The new EPA head is currently coming to the realisation that there are limits to his power, especially when he's trying to change rules which had just recently been created: quickly flip-flopping on regulatory issues is an open invitation to be sued by, for example, companies that have based decisions on the assumption of regulatory stability. It's also really hard to argue convincingly to abolish a rule, when the almost unchanged group of people has just made the convincing case for that rule a year ago. But beyond those squabbles, he is accountable to the people who hire and fire people in his position: the President and Congress. The assumption being that people realise it is the Republican Party who deserves the blame for this disaster of an idea.
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    I think that FCC can make some net neutrality rules, but I think the real win is if congress sets the ISP's status to title II common carrier. We already have the laws for that, they've just never been able to get it through so instead we are at the whim of the guy in office at the FCC
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  Its a system for commenting, not voting. Of course any American with an opinion should be encouraged to comment but if all 323 million actually did, that would not be productive. The bot programmers and TV programs on both sides don't seem to respect this.
- aphextron 9y ago
  This is just a microcosm of the greater political climate created in the US over the past 40 or so years. Business interests completely control every single legislative decision made. We're all just along for the ride now.
  - kevinh 9y ago
    It seems a bit disingenuous to call out imply all sides are the same when one party put into place these rules and the other party is removing them.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    With the importance of lobbying the people who will benefit financially from legislation will be able to afford most lobbying and ultimately almost always get their way. That's a real problem.
  - etplayer 9y ago
    There's an interesting essay about democracy in America (well, there are hundreds if not thousands probably) but what's unique is that it's a criticism levelled against the idea of democratic pluralism, and from where it emerges - the 'tolerance' of the democracy, the idea that rather than the individual action expounded by the classical liberals (for all their faults) there is now a system in which representative voices are heard - whether those are religious or ethno-groups or worker groups or business groups. The key part, though, is that the group is recognised as legitimate by the others and only then will it be tolerated. The idea of this tolerance is a kind of peaceful existence, which, the author argues, is inadequate for democracy but makes us feel good. The essay is "Beyond Tolerance" by Robert Wolff, and it's part of a three essay book called Critique of Pure Tolerance, which as the name may not suggest to the reader is written from a strongly left-wing point of view (it even contains an essay by Frankfurt School critical theorist Herbert Marcuse!). You can read the PDF of it here, I hope others are as enlightened by it as I was: https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Wolff_Moore_Marcuse_A_Critique_of_Pure_Tolerance.pdf https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Wolff_Moore_Marcuse_A_Criti...
    - pas 9y ago
- chaostheory 9y ago
  It's cheap to comment. You and I just did it now (max time 5-10 min), just like it's cheap to participate in mail-in vote ballots as a citizen
  - purple-again 9y ago
    Sorry citizen, your signature doesn't match the signature we have on file. Better luck next cycle.
    - jethro_tell 9y ago
      That can happen from anywhere. It's more likely to happen when you have people walking in off the street and filling out ballots.
    - chaostheory 9y ago
      My point is that it's so cheap, easy, and fast to do that it's more of a waste of time rationalizing all the reasons how it potentially won't work.
- cmurf 9y ago
  There's nothing wrong with being cynical in this case, the FCC's politics are quite clearly in favor of those who want internet asymmetry, to slow or outright ban certain content on their infrastructure, to permit the charging of higher fees not based on usage but on content, and so on. This is the very definition of self-interest, and it's not democratic. So there's no reason to hate being a cynic, it's completely rational.
- boona 9y ago
  > I'm all for everyone commenting so at least it's well known how far this FCC is going against public opinion From where I'm standing, I don't see a huge opposition against this move apart from a vocal minority. I believe it's due to the fact that at this stage the arguments are academic, and as such highly debatable. If they kill net neutrality and people see substantive impacts on their wallets or service, that will be the time to take up arms. At this point in time, I don't see it happening.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  Root of the problem was the creation of this power center, FCC, to begin with. Once created, it was given that it was going to be abused. The powers that are enforcing ISP monopolies, and are against municipal broadband, are part of the problem.
anotherbrownguy 9y ago
It's unfair to ISPs (some of it is their own doing like introducing "unlimited data" purely based on the assumption that most users wouldn't use their data at the same time, which companies like Google and Netflix capitalized on by building high bandwidth services on top of it) but since Google and Netflix are capable of manipulating consent of internet users and will not let FCC rollback "net neutrality", ISPs will have to stop innovating, keep giving terrible service and pass their costs to consumers.
- colanderman 9y ago
  ISPs are always free to throttle all services. Or (gasp) stop lying about so-called "unlimited" plans.
  - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
    Don't worry, that is exactly what they'll end up doing. Hope you have alternatives.
    - shuntress 9y ago
      Net Neutrality is the idea that ISP cannot target only specific addresses/services when they throttle your connection.
      - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
        I know what Google and Netflix want to tell you what it is but I also know what it actually is (https://www.fcc.gov/document/restoring-internet-freedom-notice-proposed-rulemaking https://www.fcc.gov/document/restoring-internet-freedom-noti...).
        matt4077 9y ago
        That's actually a fun read. Just loom at this section where they are making an absurd logical Yoga move to get ISPs classified as "information providers" and not a "telecommunication provider": In contrast, Internet service providers do not appear to offer “telecommunications,” i.e., “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received,” to their users. For one, broadband Internet users do not typically specify the “points” between and among which information is sent online. Instead, routing decisions are based on the architecture of the network, not on consumers’ instructions, and consumers are often unaware of where online content is stored. So instead they're classifying ISPs as "content providers", when any plain reading of the law can only result in the conclusion that a "content provider" is supposed to be a third party such as a newspaper's website or HN.
AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
I soured up on Net Neutrality after seeking what YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/Reddit did to silence voices that they don't like on their platforms. How does net neutrality matter if what travels on a perfectly neutral net is controlled anyway, actually controlled much more effectively, by a very few with agenda that goes far beyond just greed for money? "Don't open and judge my TCP/IP packets. But, I will open and judge your video uploads all day, every day." - YouTube How is that fair? No, thank you. I refuse to be fodder for something, only to be surrendered at a later point in the fight for fairness. "Bernie" taught me that lesson. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
- devopsproject 9y ago
  net neutrality ensures you can get to youtube\twitter\reddit\facebook without the ISP charging you more or throttling sites. It has nothing to to with free speech or altering the policies of individual sites. Think of it like water. Your water company doesn't care if you are flushing the toilet or taking a shower. They just give you water and charge a rate. The internet works this way now and we want to keep it that way. Opposing net nutrality means you will end up with this: http://www.wordstream.com/images/what-is-net-neutrality-isp-package-diagram.jpg http://www.wordstream.com/images/what-is-net-neutrality-isp-... They are going to create a "slow lane" and charge you more to use it.
  - AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
    The slow or fast lane doesn't matter, if I am going to be denied at the destination anyway.
    - devopsproject 9y ago
      Free speech only protects you from government persecution. It doesn't control how owners of private property react. You are still going to get banned and moderated, it will just be a lot slower and a lot more expensive for you. And if you keep getting denied you should probably try and find out why people find you so toxic and repulsive.
Danihan 9y ago
Why does it matter when domain registrars can simply yank domains for posting speech they don't like?
- colanderman 9y ago
  Individual domain registrars do not have a monopoly, nor is it apparent that they collude against free speech. ISPs do have local monopolies, and do act against net neutrality.
- LambdaComplex 9y ago
  You have a lot more choice in domain registrars than most people do when it comes to choosing an ISP.
nkkollaw 9y ago
That's amazing that a government would so blatantly go against the public interest. Your politicians might as well just admit they work for corporations instead of citizens. At least they're not implying they think people are stupid.
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  The problem is more that the public isn't interested. Only a small percentage of people know what NN even is.
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    Including Politicians. Here's 100k, NN is bad.
  - nkkollaw 9y ago
    Well, the public shouldn't have to worry about getting interested. Isn't that why one has a government, so that we don't have to worry about taking care of everything and can live our lives? Governments should do what's best for the people who have elected them, and I don't see how anyone can think that being the only country in the world where you don't have net neutrality is something good for anyone (but a handful of corporations).
alexandercrohde 9y ago
I think on the plus side, if net neutrality is killed, and ISPs start gouging the major providers (e.g. netflix, amazon, google/youtube) then it'll give huge financial incentive for those content providers to break the ISP monopoly. Google started to do so before (fiber), but the political follow-through wasn't cost effective. There is a tipping point where it is.
- convolvatron 9y ago
  how does that help anything if i have to choose a service-specific last mile? maybe i guess in the short term we pay off google by agreeing to let them monitor all the traffic and hope that keeps them sufficiently well fed they don't feel like offering preferential handling to google services and partners.

172 points by kbyatnal 9y ago

What is the chance of this thing passing?

byuu 9y ago

I'm all for everyone commenting so at least it's well known how far this FCC is going against public opinion, and encourage everyone to make their voices heard. But, and I hate to be the cynic here, does anyone really believe that even if all 323 million Americans commented in opposition to killing net neutrality, that Ajit Pai would relent? It's all but guaranteed he's going to do this. The only question is when, not if :(

colanderman 9y ago
What are the checks and balances here? He's not an elected official (so he can't be voted out), and he knows his time is up as soon as the executive branch turns blue again. So of course he will do his best to please the ISPs in whose coddling arms he will find refuge after his tenure. Best I can think of is Congress passing a law to enforce net neutrality.
- notalawyer 9y ago
  So the federal regulatory agencies actually have fairly unchecked power; it's one of their flaws. Lawyer boyfriend has remarked that they are actually rather unconstitutional in the sense that they have broad powers to make what are effectively laws, and constitutionally, only Congress can do that. That being said, Congress has rightly delegated the ability to manage things like radio transmissions, the environment, food and drugs, etc. to bodies that have more time and domain knowledge, and under a decent president and Congress, we wouldn't have to worry about bad actors making their way to the tops of these organizations. And frankly, do you really have faith that Americans would do any better having to elect tens or hundreds of people to various positions in regulatory bodies?
- matt4077 9y ago
  It's the same as for any government employee. First, obviously, the law. It's not actually within his power to just write something down and sign it to make it the law of the land. There's a process that has to be followed, of which the comment period is but one step. Regulatory decisions are also required to, in general terms, make sense and be fair. The new EPA head is currently coming to the realisation that there are limits to his power, especially when he's trying to change rules which had just recently been created: quickly flip-flopping on regulatory issues is an open invitation to be sued by, for example, companies that have based decisions on the assumption of regulatory stability. It's also really hard to argue convincingly to abolish a rule, when the almost unchanged group of people has just made the convincing case for that rule a year ago. But beyond those squabbles, he is accountable to the people who hire and fire people in his position: the President and Congress. The assumption being that people realise it is the Republican Party who deserves the blame for this disaster of an idea.
- jethro_tell 9y ago
  I think that FCC can make some net neutrality rules, but I think the real win is if congress sets the ISP's status to title II common carrier. We already have the laws for that, they've just never been able to get it through so instead we are at the whim of the guy in office at the FCC
benlorenzetti 9y ago
Its a system for commenting, not voting. Of course any American with an opinion should be encouraged to comment but if all 323 million actually did, that would not be productive. The bot programmers and TV programs on both sides don't seem to respect this.
aphextron 9y ago
This is just a microcosm of the greater political climate created in the US over the past 40 or so years. Business interests completely control every single legislative decision made. We're all just along for the ride now.
- kevinh 9y ago
  It seems a bit disingenuous to call out imply all sides are the same when one party put into place these rules and the other party is removing them.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  With the importance of lobbying the people who will benefit financially from legislation will be able to afford most lobbying and ultimately almost always get their way. That's a real problem.
- etplayer 9y ago
  There's an interesting essay about democracy in America (well, there are hundreds if not thousands probably) but what's unique is that it's a criticism levelled against the idea of democratic pluralism, and from where it emerges - the 'tolerance' of the democracy, the idea that rather than the individual action expounded by the classical liberals (for all their faults) there is now a system in which representative voices are heard - whether those are religious or ethno-groups or worker groups or business groups. The key part, though, is that the group is recognised as legitimate by the others and only then will it be tolerated. The idea of this tolerance is a kind of peaceful existence, which, the author argues, is inadequate for democracy but makes us feel good. The essay is "Beyond Tolerance" by Robert Wolff, and it's part of a three essay book called Critique of Pure Tolerance, which as the name may not suggest to the reader is written from a strongly left-wing point of view (it even contains an essay by Frankfurt School critical theorist Herbert Marcuse!). You can read the PDF of it here, I hope others are as enlightened by it as I was: https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Wolff_Moore_Marcuse_A_Critique_of_Pure_Tolerance.pdf https://monoskop.org/images/5/55/Wolff_Moore_Marcuse_A_Criti...
  - pas 9y ago
chaostheory 9y ago
It's cheap to comment. You and I just did it now (max time 5-10 min), just like it's cheap to participate in mail-in vote ballots as a citizen
- purple-again 9y ago
  Sorry citizen, your signature doesn't match the signature we have on file. Better luck next cycle.
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    That can happen from anywhere. It's more likely to happen when you have people walking in off the street and filling out ballots.
  - chaostheory 9y ago
    My point is that it's so cheap, easy, and fast to do that it's more of a waste of time rationalizing all the reasons how it potentially won't work.
cmurf 9y ago
There's nothing wrong with being cynical in this case, the FCC's politics are quite clearly in favor of those who want internet asymmetry, to slow or outright ban certain content on their infrastructure, to permit the charging of higher fees not based on usage but on content, and so on. This is the very definition of self-interest, and it's not democratic. So there's no reason to hate being a cynic, it's completely rational.
boona 9y ago
> I'm all for everyone commenting so at least it's well known how far this FCC is going against public opinion From where I'm standing, I don't see a huge opposition against this move apart from a vocal minority. I believe it's due to the fact that at this stage the arguments are academic, and as such highly debatable. If they kill net neutrality and people see substantive impacts on their wallets or service, that will be the time to take up arms. At this point in time, I don't see it happening.
AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
Root of the problem was the creation of this power center, FCC, to begin with. Once created, it was given that it was going to be abused. The powers that are enforcing ISP monopolies, and are against municipal broadband, are part of the problem.

anotherbrownguy 9y ago

It's unfair to ISPs (some of it is their own doing like introducing "unlimited data" purely based on the assumption that most users wouldn't use their data at the same time, which companies like Google and Netflix capitalized on by building high bandwidth services on top of it) but since Google and Netflix are capable of manipulating consent of internet users and will not let FCC rollback "net neutrality", ISPs will have to stop innovating, keep giving terrible service and pass their costs to consumers.

colanderman 9y ago
ISPs are always free to throttle all services. Or (gasp) stop lying about so-called "unlimited" plans.
- anotherbrownguy 9y ago
  Don't worry, that is exactly what they'll end up doing. Hope you have alternatives.
  - shuntress 9y ago
    Net Neutrality is the idea that ISP cannot target only specific addresses/services when they throttle your connection.
    - anotherbrownguy 9y ago
      I know what Google and Netflix want to tell you what it is but I also know what it actually is (https://www.fcc.gov/document/restoring-internet-freedom-notice-proposed-rulemaking https://www.fcc.gov/document/restoring-internet-freedom-noti...).
      - matt4077 9y ago
        That's actually a fun read. Just loom at this section where they are making an absurd logical Yoga move to get ISPs classified as "information providers" and not a "telecommunication provider": In contrast, Internet service providers do not appear to offer “telecommunications,” i.e., “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received,” to their users. For one, broadband Internet users do not typically specify the “points” between and among which information is sent online. Instead, routing decisions are based on the architecture of the network, not on consumers’ instructions, and consumers are often unaware of where online content is stored. So instead they're classifying ISPs as "content providers", when any plain reading of the law can only result in the conclusion that a "content provider" is supposed to be a third party such as a newspaper's website or HN.

AmIFirstToThink 9y ago

I soured up on Net Neutrality after seeking what YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/Reddit did to silence voices that they don't like on their platforms. How does net neutrality matter if what travels on a perfectly neutral net is controlled anyway, actually controlled much more effectively, by a very few with agenda that goes far beyond just greed for money? "Don't open and judge my TCP/IP packets. But, I will open and judge your video uploads all day, every day." - YouTube How is that fair? No, thank you. I refuse to be fodder for something, only to be surrendered at a later point in the fight for fairness. "Bernie" taught me that lesson. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

devopsproject 9y ago
net neutrality ensures you can get to youtube\twitter\reddit\facebook without the ISP charging you more or throttling sites. It has nothing to to with free speech or altering the policies of individual sites. Think of it like water. Your water company doesn't care if you are flushing the toilet or taking a shower. They just give you water and charge a rate. The internet works this way now and we want to keep it that way. Opposing net nutrality means you will end up with this: http://www.wordstream.com/images/what-is-net-neutrality-isp-package-diagram.jpg http://www.wordstream.com/images/what-is-net-neutrality-isp-... They are going to create a "slow lane" and charge you more to use it.
- AmIFirstToThink 9y ago
  The slow or fast lane doesn't matter, if I am going to be denied at the destination anyway.
  - devopsproject 9y ago
    Free speech only protects you from government persecution. It doesn't control how owners of private property react. You are still going to get banned and moderated, it will just be a lot slower and a lot more expensive for you. And if you keep getting denied you should probably try and find out why people find you so toxic and repulsive.

Danihan 9y ago

Why does it matter when domain registrars can simply yank domains for posting speech they don't like?

colanderman 9y ago
Individual domain registrars do not have a monopoly, nor is it apparent that they collude against free speech. ISPs do have local monopolies, and do act against net neutrality.
LambdaComplex 9y ago
You have a lot more choice in domain registrars than most people do when it comes to choosing an ISP.

nkkollaw 9y ago

That's amazing that a government would so blatantly go against the public interest. Your politicians might as well just admit they work for corporations instead of citizens. At least they're not implying they think people are stupid.

0xfeba 9y ago
The problem is more that the public isn't interested. Only a small percentage of people know what NN even is.
- jethro_tell 9y ago
  Including Politicians. Here's 100k, NN is bad.
- nkkollaw 9y ago
  Well, the public shouldn't have to worry about getting interested. Isn't that why one has a government, so that we don't have to worry about taking care of everything and can live our lives? Governments should do what's best for the people who have elected them, and I don't see how anyone can think that being the only country in the world where you don't have net neutrality is something good for anyone (but a handful of corporations).

alexandercrohde 9y ago

I think on the plus side, if net neutrality is killed, and ISPs start gouging the major providers (e.g. netflix, amazon, google/youtube) then it'll give huge financial incentive for those content providers to break the ISP monopoly. Google started to do so before (fiber), but the political follow-through wasn't cost effective. There is a tipping point where it is.

convolvatron 9y ago
how does that help anything if i have to choose a service-specific last mile? maybe i guess in the short term we pay off google by agreeing to let them monitor all the traffic and hope that keeps them sufficiently well fed they don't feel like offering preferential handling to google services and partners.