17 ms·

I'm on the FCC. Please stop us from killing net neutrality

966 points by mjfern 9y ago

luckydude 9y ago
I feel helpless. In this and in many things that this administration has brought on. Vote? Yeah, right. Sign a petition? Yeah, right. I feel like unless there are real ramifications to the people doing this stuff, nothing we do matters.
- throwaway5752 9y ago
  You're a dope if you don't vote. It's impolite to mention this, but it is not a political problem, but a Republican problem. A Democratic administration's FCC enacted Net Neutrality, a Republican one is attempting to dismantle it. Vote for Democrats at every level of government, in every election possible. This will change some day, but today the Republican party has lost its mind and morals. To be clear, I'm not calling you a dope.
  - thesmallestcat 9y ago
    What a delightfully simplistic view of politics. You know about the Blue Dogs, right?
    - throwaway5752 9y ago
      Yes. And?
      - thesmallestcat 9y ago
        And so you could have a single-party system and you'd end up with a split of conservatives and liberals. It's not about party, at least not about blindly voting for one party.
        throwaway5752 9y ago
        This is not about liberalism or conservativism at all. It would be lovely if the current Republican party was about conservativism. This is not about political philosophy, this is about party and who exercises power in those parties.
        thesmallestcat 9y ago
        Not all Dems support Net Neutrality, not all Republicans oppose it, which contradicts your point.
        trivial 9y ago
        There are some people that think the earth is flat or that lizard shape shifting aliens control the highest level of every government does that make them a fair representation of the views of humanity as a whole? There are significant differences between the two parties.
        omginternets 9y ago
        Most Dems support NN, and most Reps oppose it. You know this.
        robotresearcher 9y ago
        He's not advocating voting blindly. He's advocating voting for the party that actively supports net neutrality.
    - Para2016 9y ago
      He's posting from "throwaway" which means he knows his entire statement is completely biased and absurd. As if voting "D" without knowing a thing about the candidate is a good idea.
      - throwaway5752 9y ago
        Yes. I'm posting from a "throwaway" which is 5 times older than your account, has almost 15 times as much karma, and contains exactly the same amount of personally identifiable information. Happy Thanksgiving.
        Para2016 9y ago
        Wow, just saw your reply. I'm happy you have so much karma! That must mean a lot to you. Have a wonderful holiday season!
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      The Blue Dogs are a very belated rearguard action against the partisan realignment that had largely completed when they were formed, and as the realignment progresses and solidifies they have rapidly become irrelevant.
  - brian-armstrong 9y ago
    It's worth noting that Ajit was installed by Obama
    - Zren 9y ago
      Obama installed the Republican nominee since the FCC can't have more than 3 comissioners from the same political party (thus there's always a 2v3 balance). > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai#Career > In 2011, Pai was then nominated for a Republican Party position on the Federal Communications Commission by President Barack Obama at the recommendation of Minority leader Mitch McConnell. He was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on May 7, 2012, > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission#Commissioners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss... > Only three commissioners may be members of the same political party.
    - bbatsell 9y ago
      As an independent agency, the FCC is required to have two members from a minority party, and when a spot opens up, a new member is traditionally given to the President by the minority party. (Pai was Mitch McConnell's choice.)
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - ep103 9y ago
      A lot of people are asking this on the various forums, but is misunderstands what actually happened. Many of the major regulatory bodies work in the same way. At the top of the body, there is a board of political appointees. For the FCC, there are 5 commissioners. Of these 5 Commissioners, 2 are always Democrats, and 2 are always Republicans. That last one, the chair of the committee is always the current sitting President's choice. This is done this way, to keep some stability among the various administration heads across washington. So during Obama's term, a Republican chair opened up on the commission when Meredith Baker resigned to lobby for NBC. That meant a Republican needed to be appointed to the commission, so Obama asked Mitch McConnell for Mitch's recommendation, and Mitch chose Ajit Pai. When Trump took office, the sitting chair of the commission Thomas Wheeler (Obama's nominee) resigned, and Trump elevated Ajit Pai. Trump then filled Ajit Pai's Republican seat with another Republican, and now the board is majority Republican. So Ajit Pai was not Obama's recommendation. Ajit Pai was Mitch McConnel's choice for the then open Republican Chair on the FCC Commission. Its a little strange, but this is traditionally how its always been done. Now as to your other question: this last sentence is just conjecture, but we know from the Russia investigations that Trump had a tendency to demand loyalty pledges from his appointees, so I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised to find that Ajit Pai is marching so steadfastly towards this single policy agenda, despite all of the obvious flack and harm it is incurring on him and the nation in general.
  - taohansen 9y ago
    both parties don't make decisions i consider sane or particularly clever yet those are the only two parties i may vote for with any chance of success. the voting system is broken by outmoded/gamed structures (gerrymandering, an electoral college), and all-or-nothing outcomes (if i vote for one candidate and they don't win, i may make no second or third choice with which then to put my voting power behind). i simply feel an unrelenting despair when engaging in the realm of politics. it's two devils on a stage lording over minions who condemn and pollute the miracle of human life daily with short-sighted greed and a stunning lack of ethics. a revolution is out of the question because the very tool that was meant to fight back against such sloven corruption no longer disbands after war but simply persists against an invisible Enemy none of us can touch, see or feel. what is this insane existence we find ourselves in where the only choice i have is to acquiesce or ineffectually protest?
    - Buttons840 9y ago
      Considering donating to fairvote.org, I do. I should confess I don't know much about how they actually use my money but I support their stated goal of improving our voting systems.
    - ep103 9y ago
      From any given viewpoint, both parties may not be ideal. But within both of those parties are numerous different ideological groups. On the right, the major wings range from evangelicals, libertarians, neoconservatives, "traditional", and so on. On the left, the parties tend to fall into a mix of "Blue Dog" democrats, Clintonians, progressive caucus, black caucus, and a whole bunch of single issue and identity issue groups. No matter what your particular viewpoint is, one of those groups likely aligns with most of it. During primaries, those different groups hash out against each other, and then redirect the party as a whole. So the key, then, is to find the smaller groups and politicans that more closely reflect your beliefs, and lend your support to them. Yes, our two party system doesn't allow for second and third choices on a single ballot. But what it does allow for is for you to vote for your preferred candidates (the above caucuses) in primaries as your first choice, and then vote for your second choice in the general if your favorite candidate didn't win or run in a specific primary.
    - 9y ago
  - averagewall 9y ago
    Democrats use drones to kill innocent or presumed-guilty people in other countries. Are you sure their lives don't matter compared to net neutrality? They're also responsible for harsh sentences for drug offences which is a major reason for all the imprisoned people in the US. Net neutrality is still more important than all those ruined lives? The housing shortage in San Francisco is democrats too. Maybe with money saved from rents to landlords could be spent on rents to non-neutral ISPs. It's far from a simple as "always vote democrat". That kind of naive arrogance is why the US has two entrenched parties that both maintain the status quo of terrible things you don't like.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - bkanber 9y ago
      > Democrats use drones to kill innocent or presumed-guilty people in other countries. That's not a Democrat thing, that's an American thing. We don't have enough data to say democrats use drones more than republicans. GW Bush was the first President to have access to drones period, and it was not yet a mature technology nor at the beginning of his term. Obama was the first President to have drones available for his first term, and yes he did use them. President Trump is using drones just as much as Obama did, and in fact Trump has taken the White House out of the command loop and is giving more authority to the CIA to execute drone strikes! So not just drone strikes, but drone strikes with little accountability, ordered neither by an elected official or the military but instead the CIA. Also, President Trump rolled back Obama's mandate that drones can't be used outside of war zones. Don't forget that President Reagan signed that drug sentencing act into law. The housing shortage in SF is NIMBYs, not democrats. It just happens that democrats are overrepresented in SF so you are using a correlation as causation. > Net neutrality is still more important than all those ruined lives? It's not a binary decision. But losing net neutrality could lead to some pretty awful social and economic effects 20 years down the line. It can lead to even more class inequality, lower education levels, increased crime, and potentially even a major recession or crash as our tech sector productivity decreases due to the anticompetitive environment. > It's far from a simple as "always vote democrat". That I agree with.
  - usaar333 9y ago
    > Vote for Democrats at every level of government, in every election possible. And this is why a lot of us feel powerless with this issue. I live in an area where every elected official from local to federal is a Democrat. (obvious exception being the president, a Republican that actually lost the popular vote by 3 million). Needless to say, my federal representatives strongly support NN.. but they are in the minority. Hence, why voting feels meaningless for me.
    - creaghpatr 9y ago
      You can lobby the Democrats to change their platform from identity politics to economic issues and then they won’t alienate the voters that left them in 2016.
  - whataretensors 9y ago
    America cannot be divided by D and R. Nobody fits cleanly in either category if they have any independent thought. It's completely ridiculous that my views on internet regulation should be aligned with my views on the school system. Our government might just need to be completely rebuilt to include more granularity. And we should toss these lossy classifiers that only serve to dehumanize one another.
  - syril 9y ago
    eat shit you communist slime
    - throwaway5752 9y ago
      Happy Thanksgiving. May you and your loved ones have an enjoyable holiday.
  - dahart 9y ago
    > You're a dope if you don't vote. Are we all dopes if we buy that voting on this issue is going to once and for all solve the problem of corporations continuing to take more control and extract more money from the internet? This "vote" has come up for discussion every year for a decade at least. Some years I vote and some, I admit, I haven't bothered. But it keeps coming back. No matter how many times we vote no, it keeps re-appearing. The elephant is the room is privacy & encryption. We're asking elected officials to protect our freedoms for us, when we have the technical means to protect ourselves. ISPs shouldn't have the right to look at the contents of traffic at all. The issue of whether they get to charge more for some routes is a side-show compared to the issue of whether they have the right to look at our traffic. If we focused on privacy, and built a system that encrypted routing information and blocked it from prying commercial interest eyes like ISPs, we wouldn't need to have a debate, and we wouldn't need to vote.
- loteck 9y ago
  I suspect a lot of people feel this way. You're right, your individual vote isn't remarkable. And yet, voting is the only legal direct action any normal person can take. If only there was some way you could convince more people in your community to vote with you. Then you might have something.
- pitaj 9y ago
  This is the exact problem I have with bureaucratic regulatory frameworks. The ones making the regulations have essentially zero accountability to the people.
- mratzloff 9y ago
  Go to a town hall. Call. Both of these are more important than voting (which you should also do).
- rconti 9y ago
  I'm just tired. I'm tired of fighting all these pro-tech and pro-freedom fights going back decades, to the Clipper chip and the CDA. I'm tired of trying to figure out if the hyperbole (this time it's CRITICAL you act!) is deserved, whether the issue is that serious, and whether we're really on the right side of the issue in the first place. I'm tired of trying to figure out if contacting my (Democrat) lawmaker will make a difference if they've already signaled opposition anyway. I'm tired of wondering if an angry tweet to a Chairman who clearly doesn't have my best interests at heart anyway will make a damn bit of difference. And anyway, somebody's twitter bot army is already doing the opposite of what I'm doing, times a million, and the FCC comments stuffing is doing far more than I would ever choose to do (legally, morally, and ethically). More generally, with regards to this atrocious administration, I know the entire point is to just go after everyone who opposes 'them' in the most craven, cynical, and childish manner possible, to wear 'them' down and rub 'their' face in it for daring to suggest they're terrible people, but all of this internet freedom stuff vastly predates most of the people in power. I read just the other day that, if enacted, this will almost certainly be declared unconstitutional in the courts anyway, so what's the point? I'm just tired.
  - luckydude 9y ago
    You and me both, bud. I really fear for our country. I used to be proud to be an American, these days I'm ashamed. I'm half Dutch and went back to the Netherlands with my family this summer and it was so frigging pleasant. The discourse was sane, they actually work together to fix stuff. As painful as it is to form a government there sometimes, I much prefer their system to ours. We look pretty crazy from the inside, we look bat shit crazy from the outside.
jacobreg 9y ago
What is the most effective avenue to voice my concerns?
- brian-armstrong 9y ago
  Call the FCC. Call your representatives. Make sure they know that you're in their district and that you vote. When the FCC ran demos of broadband over power, it caused a tremendous amount of radio disturbance. Ham radio operators saw the disturbance on their licensed parts of the spectrum. They feared the FCC was killing Ham radio. So they wrote letters. Lots of letters. The FCC heard them and abandoned the trial of that technology.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  with your wallet.
- Something1234 9y ago
  I'm working on composing letters to my state representatives for a contingency plan(city broadband). I read on reddit, that it might be more effective than directly contacting my federal representatives(I plan on doing that too.) I'll post my letters if there's any interest in them. Would these letters be of any use?
  - ep103 9y ago
    Yes. All elected politicians monitor public input on major issues. It usually goes something like this: 1) Comcast lobbyist: Hey politican, we'll donate 10k to your campaign this year, and another 100k+ if it becomes a tight race, just promise you'll vote against net neutrality if that ever happens, ok? 1a) Comcast, that's a deal. 2) Office Aid: Hey politican, after the FCC announced today, our phones are ringing off the hooks. People are really upset about this Net Neutrality thing. 2a) Okay, poll our constituents, and figure out just how many votes I'll lose if I vote for this thing. 3) If the number of votes > than the amount of votes the politican thinks (s)he can buy via the lobbyist's money, they change their position. So your letters greatly affect step 2. Of course, its less cut and dry than above. Democratic politicans by and large believe in NN. Republican politicans these days rarely do. And polls are expensive and slow, so sometimes step 2a is skipped entirely and the politican makes a gut call based on the amount of feedback they receive. But the point it, yes, your letters matter.
jimmaswell 9y ago
What indication is there that the current FCC would ever change course, no matter how loudly the constituents complained? Is the only goal of all the current outcry simply awareness?
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  There's value in taking away a tyrant's velvet glove, if you'll pardon me the hyperbole. Don't let them hide behind doublespeak about how this is what people really want and it's just a few malcontents making noise. Make it very, very abundantly clear that they're ignoring the desires of the people they claim to represent. It may not change anything now, but it gets the attention of on-the-fence voters and unites and galvanizes the opposition.
mc32 9y ago
Would someone outline the pros and cons of the FCC vs FTC overseeing regulation of the internet?
- faster 9y ago
  Net Neutrality prevents abuses; the FTC can step in after a violation reaches critical proportions. It's like the difference between parking in a locked garage in a bad neighborhood, and having a car alarm to let you know when your window has been broken and all your stuff stolen.
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    How does it work with FCC today though? What if a company (say Verizon) throttles some traffic (say Youtube), how would the punitive part work from the part of the government.
- austincheney 9y ago
  You could make the valid argument that no matter how beneficial net neutrality may be it isn't within the regulatory authority of the FCC to define or enforce such according to the agency's definition per their charter. This is perhaps the best argument for killing net neutrality. The common consideration is that killing net neutrality poses a direct and immediate harm to consumers of potential discriminatory practices from a small industry of commercial entities operating in a capacity similar to utility providers. That said it would fall squarely within the regulatory confines of the FTC. I think something like net neutrality is important and necessary, but I also think there is something more immediately important. I want the FTC to regulate the online advertising industry. I am tired of slow websites even though I get 900mbps up and down at my house. I am also tired of the excessive spyware and occasional malware that comes from online ads. Online advertising really is most horrid part of any online experience.
  - mc32 9y ago
    Thanks. I definitely agree that ad bloat is getting out of hand and users would benefit from leaner pages. For now gone are the days Google thought load times longer than 600ms were a no go in germs of user experience --that legacy is definitely gone in Google Mail.
valine 9y ago
It’s amazing how the FCC can go against the American people when there is such overwhelming support for net neutrality.
- joshmn 9y ago
  I think you mean it's amazing what money can buy.
  - ytwySXpMbS 9y ago
    At a base level, it's amazing that money counts as free speech.
- mc32 9y ago
  I think it was amazing it was the USSC that saved the 'net from overreaching gov reg (communications decency act).
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Mob support for NN does not justify it. There's a reason we let domain experts make technical decisions.
  - _jal 9y ago
    ...And you believe that's what is happening with this decision?
    - the_common_man 9y ago
      Well, people who are anti-NN would never voice their opinion in this climate. They will get downvoted to hell.
      - ikeboy 9y ago
        I recall trying to argue against NN years ago here and getting down voted. It's interesting that economists largely are against NN as well. http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii
exabrial 9y ago
Sorry I'm not buying into the panic. Between wide scale TLS deployment and larger swaths of bandwidth available, I'd rather see free market solutions so these regulatory powers can't be abused. Net neutrality only matters if your ISP can decrypt your traffic and there is a limited share of bandwidth available.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- brian-armstrong 9y ago
  You are probably a little bit ignorant of how the internet works to make this comment. The big players are already peering with residential ISPs. That means there's a fiber line that connects Google to Comcast, to use an example. They pay for these arrangements. The little guys have to use transit. They don't have enough clout or money to peer. Without net neutrality, ISPs could start severely degrading those connections. And there's nothing TLS can do to stop that.
  - extra88 9y ago
    Yes. Comcast and other big ISPs think you belong to them, that other businesses should pay to get to you, despite the fact that you, the ISPs actual customer, already paid so you can get to those businesses and they can get to you. And yes, TLS doesn't conceal the domain names from your ISP and that's all they need to pick winners and losers. It can somewhat conceal different kinds of connection (e.g. peer-to-peer protocols like BitTorrent) but those aren't hard to spot through traffic analysis and Ajit Pai explicitly thinks ISPs should be able to block them, as Comcast was doing to BitTorrent traffic.
  - visarga 9y ago
    Users need to get directly involved in protecting the content they desire. In the long run we need a cross between TOR and bittorrent to create a distributed cache to avoid throttling. Local "metropolitan" bandwidth is very fast, hard drives have expanded 10x in 10 years. An alternative is to use WiFi mesh networks.
RpFLCL 9y ago
>Reach out to the rest of the FCC now. Tell them they can’t take away internet openness without a fight. How? As this article mentions, their comment system had issues (spam and DDoS) and the only other avenue I've seen is to beg our representatives (who aren't part of the December vote) to do _something_. It was a clean and concise piece, but I was hoping that an insider would provide a new course of action. I've seen action across online media from users (reddit, Twitter, etc) as well as among peers. But not as much from the platforms themselves. Remember SOPA? Do those pushing for this really not hear the public's outrage yet?
- brian-armstrong 9y ago
  Call them. Write them. The internet comments don't really amount to much. But if you call or write, they will at least have a tally of how many complaints they've received. They may not see your complaint specifically but at least it counts, unlike internet complaints
  - nightski 9y ago
    I'm happy to do so. But in the end should we even need to do this crap? Isn't it just so obvious how bad this is that our representatives should be fighting it without calls? It just baffles me.
    - dboreham 9y ago
      Corruption is baffling?
    - kilroy123 9y ago
      Yes. That's called democracy.
      - cmurf 9y ago
        Well actually I'd call it a kakistocracy at a the moment.
    - 9y ago
stretchwithme 9y ago
In Switzerland, any legislative action can be put on the ballot with enough signatures. Citizens can actually block what the Federal Assembly does. In the US, we get to comment on it. And they get to say "That's nice."
- ep103 9y ago
  No, actually. If comments are largely against what a regulatory body is proposing to do, it can be used in court against the regulatory body in court to block the action. That just very, very rarely happens. When captured, regulatory agencies tend not to try to pass measures that very obviously go against public opinion, or are too complex to arise public wrath. This is a special situation that's only happening due to arrogance of the Trump administration, and the fact that he simply does not care about appealing to voters outside his base. If and When this passes, it will be immediately challenged in court, and this will be one of the things brought against the FCC. That's why the FCC conspired with ISPs to flood their own public opinion pages with comments from ISPs several months ago. Again though, this is all not normal. Its a damn important thing to remember in Alabama and in 2018, however. What I haven't been able to find any good articles on, however, is how strong those safeguards actually are.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > This is a special situation that's only happening due to arrogance of the Trump administration Pai was nominated by Obama on McConnell's recommendation [1]. Trump only elevated him to Chairman. I'm curious about his personal motivations. Is it as simple as him having served as associate general counsel at Verizon? Is it a legalistic interpretation, that the FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate this? Or about the role of government in general? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai
    - umanwizard 9y ago
      It’s possible that he actually believes Net Neutrality is bad policy. I’m for net neutrality but I at least recognize that it’s possible to disagree in good faith.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
"There is something not right about a few unelected FCC officials making such vast determinations about the future of the internet." Is she talking about 2015 or 2017?
- labster 9y ago
  2017, because in 2015 the FCC acted on the advice of the people. Now, they act opposed to 98.5% of the unique comments from the public.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Where by “people” you probably mean the lobbyists from Google/Facebook/Netflix and other internet companies who would have to share a fraction of their fat profit margins to deliver their stuff to you. As the present predicament shows “advice of the people” means jack squat to the FCC, just like it did in 2015.
    - labster 9y ago
      Those companies contribute a significant part of their margins to deliver content to you, including paying for servers, programmers, sysadmins, and so on to actually make the product. And then by colocating, peering, or other arrangements that pay for their own connection to the internet. I pay for my connection, they pay for theirs, that seems entirely fair. It's not my fault I have to pay more than they do because of no competition in last mile service -- that's the FCC's fault.
- xenadu02 9y ago
  Bullshit is so easy to spread. People willing to peddle falsehoods often end up winning if they can just repeat the lies until everyone else gets tired of repeating themselves. Network neutrality started in the early 2000s because some ISPs started blocking VPNs and other services. Network Neutrality was simply how the internet had always worked prior to that. The FCC wanted to take a light hand toward regulation but preserve neutrality so they imposed NN regulation. Verizon sued to overturn the regulations. The battle went back and forth several times. Eventually the courts said the FCC had the authority to impose the regulations but had to reclassify ISPs as common carriers to do so. That’s what the FCC did in 2015. Because the courts said so. Because Verizon sued to block network neutrality and overturn the way the internet had always worked up until that point. The telco and cable companies all have handshake agreements not to “overbuild” - that is to lay lines in each other’s territory - because that would trigger competition. They hijack DNS queries to serve ads for mis-typed domain names. They hijack HTTP responses. They’re rolling out bandwidth caps. If you think they aren’t going to exploit the rollback of NN for rent-seeking purposes then you’re naive at best. P.S. they couldn’t exist without right of way to lay cables on other people’s private property! The internet and WWW were invented using government research money. ATT, Verizon, Comcast, et al are the ultimate welfare queens who exist thanks to suckling on the government teat.
jupiter90000 9y ago
If what is happening now is that the 2015 vote for net neutrality rules is to be repealed, couldn't a later FCC vote again to return to the 2015 rules?
- baldajan 9y ago
  I've asked myself the same question. But back in 2015, when the rules were put in place, there was a controversy (Netflix and a court ruling) and people cared. When will the next time people "care" to put it back in? Just how politics work.
- shmerl 9y ago
  They will try to prevent it by passing a fake NN law through the Congress, that will "put discussion to an end", and will make future fixes even harder.
netsec_burn 9y ago
Nick Gillespie: Your plan will, according to a write up in Politico, and I think this is accurate, it quote, "will jettison rules that prohibit internet service providers from blocking or slowing web traffic or creating so called paid internet fast lanes." Question for you, do you think fast lanes will become a thing? What is the value of a internet fast lane? Ajit Pai: The answer to the first is we're not sure. We've never seen them before and that's part of the reason why I thought the rule in particular was, that was adopted in 2015, was very premature banning something that's simply didn't exist. I took the time to read Ajit's argument here. It's completely mislead. If murder hadn't happened in a certain area yet, would it be "too preemptive" to outlaw it? Fast lanes DO exist in other countries right now. This is outrageous.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  > "If murder hadn't happened in a certain area yet, would it be 'too preemptive' to outlaw it?" But even with murder, the law doesn't stop murders before they happen, but rather only acts retroactively (and that is for good reason). > "Fast lanes DO exist in other countries right now." But this is ignoring the whole debate: proponents of net freedom don't consider fast lanes to be a problem.
  - jackmott 9y ago
    >But this is ignoring the whole debate: proponents of net freedom don't consider fast lanes to be a problem. yes we do
  - saulrh 9y ago
    > But this is ignoring the whole debate: proponents of net freedom don't consider fast lanes to be a problem. I think that this is the part that I can't comprehend. The railroads misbehaved so badly that the government had to break rail transportation as an industry to kill them. Ninety years later we're still using long-haul semi trailers for everything. Bell's abuse of its monopoly was similarly severe. How do people hold this belief without becoming laughingstock?
    - 9y ago
jlgaddis 9y ago
It's probably futile, but you might sign this "Do Not Repeal Net Neutrality" [0] petition on the White House petitions site. It already has over 100,000 signatures -- the threshold at which the White House is supposed to, at minimum, respond to it. Since we can't vote on this and our representatives aren't voting on it either, it's worth a shot. [0]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/do-not-repeal-net-neutrality https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/do-not-repeal-net-...
- micaksica 9y ago
  There are plenty of absolute crackpot petitions on there at this stage that undermine the legitimacy of this one by being placed alongside it. I believe this motion is futile as well.
- ep103 9y ago
  battleforthenet.com and democracy.io are two much more direct alternatives. Battleforthenet will be over the phone (and therefore be a bit more influenential), so I recommend it. But democracy.io (from the EFF) will have you contact all of your representatives directly, via email, within a minute or two. I highly recommend them.
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    I don't understand the "contact all of your representatives". As I mentioned in the comment you replied to, "our representatives aren't voting on it". You think that somehow we're going to cause our reps to put pressure on or "sway" the FCC? No, their votes have already been bought.
frogcoder 9y ago
This is how China "blocking" web site from most of the world other than China. When many sites are blocked out right, many more are accessible but painfully slow. On the other hand, if you go to any major Chinese site, it would be lightning fast. By doing this, those foreign sites are rendered almost useless.
- jquery 9y ago
  China has net neutrality. You are quite naive if you think NN is a solution to censorship. Browse eff.org for more than a few minutes to see that NN doesn't even scratch the surface of underlying issues. I don't want NN because then everyone will think the internet is just fine, when NN is a joke of a solution that doesn't even cover anything more than the FTC already covers.
  - unityByFreedom 9y ago
    > China has net neutrality. China most definitely does not. Even if they did, it'd be unenforced. State-run tech services would get preferential treatment. Actually, that's how it works now. > I don't want NN because then everyone will think the internet is just fine, when NN is a joke of a solution that doesn't even cover anything more than the FTC already covers. The FTC won't stop ISPs from slowing access to content they don't own. ISPs are communications services and rightly monitored by the Federal Communications Commission. > You are quite naive if you think NN is a solution to censorship. Browse eff.org for more than a few minutes to see that NN doesn't even scratch the surface of underlying issues. I don't think the above commenter was claiming NN is a solution to censorship, rather that without it, content is more silo-ed and access becomes more difficult, adding to the censorship problem. Censorship is a human problem that tech can help with.
    - jquery 9y ago
      > The FTC won't stop ISPs from slowing access to content they don't own. ISPs are communications services and rightly monitored by the Federal Communications Commission. ISPs are communications services just like trucks are communications services because they carry mail and shipments. No. The internet is far more complicated than postage, and the FCC is not equipped to handle it. > China most definitely does not. Even if they did, it'd be unenforced. State-run tech services would get preferential treatment. Actually, that's how it works now. So you realize that a good name doesn't make a good policy. That's a good step. > I don't think the above commenter was claiming NN is a solution to censorship, rather that without it, content is more silo-ed and access becomes more difficult, adding to the censorship problem. Censorship is a human problem that tech can help with. You aren't going to lose access to your favorite polemic website or torrenting because of NN or lack-thereof. That would be immediately met by FTC lawsuits. Far more critical to censorship is YouTube demonetization and SEO shinanigans, but I don't see the front-page of reddit giving a damn about subreddits being blocked from the "Hot" feed.
protomyth 9y ago
We don't have a group that scares the hell out of politicians like the NRA. This crap comes up every year no matter what the party in power is. Until we find people with a killer instinct and skill, we will keep loosing. No one fears the EFF. Someone with some clout needs to form a single-issue (no other politics allowed) net neutrality advocacy organization that effectively frames anyone who opposes net neutrality as an evil villain.
tanilama 9y ago
Can this be realistic stopped? What if FCC just don't give a fuck and proceed? Serious question
- syril 9y ago
  the fcc already said that they won't be swayed. nothing will be changed by NN being repealed.
BrainInAJar 9y ago
Nationalize the internet. I'm not kidding. We paid for it in the first place, and if it's such a critical piece of economic infrastructure that market intervention needs to be mitigated, the solution is to nationalize it. How? Take the municipal broadband idea, and scale it up. It's not really hard. Net neutrality only privileges one set of multi-billion-dollar corporations over another set of multi-billion-dollar corporations. Nationalize the lot of it.
- RandomInteger4 9y ago
  There's a problem with that idea, which is that then the internet is at the mercy of those in congress who want to shut down the government all the time, because they won't pass a budget unless we go on a governmental starvation diet, while at the same time giving tax breaks to the rich.
  - BrainInAJar 9y ago
    Just like how policing, the military and roads stop when congress decides to shut things down
  - slimshady94 9y ago
    Then let's replace the government with open source AI and ML algorithms. End corruption!
    - RandomInteger4 9y ago
      Given how well that works for YouTube at the moment, I'm not so sure that's a good idea.
avs733 9y ago
Ajit Pai's home address is: 4868 Old Dominion Dr Arlington, VA 22207 That is public information.
sysdyne 9y ago
EME supported by the same racket that wants neutrality. What is going on?
johansch 9y ago
Wasn't sure what being a "member of the FCC" meant: https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/jessica-rosenworcel https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/jessica-rosenworcel
- heyheyhey 9y ago
  So is Ajit Pai her superior? Must be an interesting workplace with her being so vocally against it.
shmerl 9y ago
> I think the FCC needs to work for the public Unfortunately Pai and Co, think that FCC needs to work for ISP monopolists and not for the public...
aerovistae 9y ago
CSS / JavaScript challenge: remove whatever is blocking you from scrolling on that page. I could not figure it out for the life of me after 20 min messing with the it in the dev tools. Deleting the paywall is easy enough, but what is stopping the scrolling?
- RandomInteger4 9y ago
  Try ublock origin. I didn't get either a paywall or scroll-blocking. Must be one of the ads?
  - aerovistae 9y ago
    wow that works great! i had abp but it didnt do that
- awirth 9y ago
  body gets a class ".bx-client-overlay" that has "overflow: hidden!important" which hides the scrollbar
  - aerovistae 9y ago
    Yeah I saw that, but even after I removed it and the scrollbar showed back up, I still couldn't scroll with it.
yalogin 9y ago
Ajit Pai is an abomination. He is on the same level as Trump in shamelessness and probably more corrupt.
doggydogs94 9y ago
The obvious way to reinstate net neutrality is via legislation. Congress has the power to do this.
VeronicaJJ123 9y ago
Just for the record I support Ajit Pai on this issue. Putting this comment just to show that not all on HN disagree with FCC.
severian1778 9y ago
nope. Small ISP's need to thrive against monopolies.
billrobertson42 9y ago
They seem hell bent on passing these new rules regardless of what anyone else says or does. I'm afraid that it will have to come to lawsuits after the fact to stop this course of action.
shamaku 9y ago
They buried this on reddit.
- orthecreedence 9y ago
  It's the very first post on my home feed. I don't think it's being buried (the one I'm seeing is /r/politics).
jakeogh 9y ago
NN is an excellent example of framing by naming. Imagine if it was called the the "More Internet Regulation Act". Prima facie it's a more accurate name. Since this is going to happen (reverting to the way it was for ~25 years), I'll point out that an echo chamber forms by default because most of us who might spend time arguing about it don't see a good reason to. Aside... the largest cable provider decided it would be a good idea to edit a cleartext page on the way to me ('helpfully' inserting a JS popup about upcoming metering changes), I called and canceled my decade old ~$90/mo acct on the spot when the refused to put it in writing that they would not edit my inbound data in the future. Consumer reaction is equiv to voting. See NFL. Spare me variations on the 'normies don't care' arg.
- pmx 9y ago
  A lot of Americans have entirely no choice in their broadband provider. Many areas have a single provider who actively prevents any other company providing access in that area. Those customers don't have the luxury of calling up and cancelling unless they're happy to go without broadband. "Vote with your wallet" only works outside of monopolies.
  - lerpa 9y ago
    So maybe you found the actual problem. And forcing anyone providing network services to be common carrier just makes it less likely for competition to happen.
    - folknor 9y ago
      How do you draw that conclusion?
- kelnos 9y ago
  > ... I called and canceled my decade old ~$90/mo acct on the spot So... what do you do for internet access now? Oh, you have more than one legitimate option in your area? Lucky you. Many people don't.
xpac 9y ago
If you're wondering, how the wonderful invisible hand of the market would use "net freedom" - say hello to Portugal. https://mobile.twitter.com/rokhanna/status/923701871092441088 https://mobile.twitter.com/rokhanna/status/92370187109244108... I don't see how this benefits anybody besides the ISP. It just makes them find a multitude of reasons why $everybody should pay double and triple to get a proper connection.
- zerostar07 9y ago
  some portuguese say it makes their internet affordable https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/799qzu/in_portugal_internet_providers_are_starting_to/dp1t9q3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/799qzu/in_portugal_...
- denzil_correa 9y ago
  Portugal (EU) has a slightly nuanced problem within Net Neutrality. EU does have net neutrality but they also allow Zero Rating based on some criteria [0]. I am unsure on the procedure to allow Zero Rated services. If the default choice is "Allow until regulations violated", a simple change in default choice to "Ask for EU Approval" would prevent such scenarios. [0] http://berec.europa.eu/eng/netneutrality/zero_rating/ http://berec.europa.eu/eng/netneutrality/zero_rating/
- maho2nd 9y ago
  Khanna’s original tweet implies that Meo is blocking or limiting certain “packages” unless you pay for them, the way that you can’t watch HBO without the right cable plan. But that's wrong. It’s an add-on to general-purpose mobile subscriptions, which let you access any service — including the ones above. The idea is apparently that if you’re into apps like Snapchat and Facebook (or... LinkedIn, I guess), you pay around $8 a month to specifically get more “Social” data, so you can use your regular allotment for everything else. It looks a lot like the “Vodafone Pass” service in the UK, where subscribers can pay for unlimited access to a similar stable of services.
  - gerbilly 9y ago
    >if you’re into apps like Snapchat and Facebook [...] you pay around $8 a month to specifically get more “Social” data... Ugh. This kind of cable plan confusopoly is so annoying. I hate how marketing creates all these plans and promotions, then expects us jump through hoops to figure them out. What a waste of time playing these silly games.
Modj 9y ago
Bottom line: This gov. is looking for more control. Comcast, Verizon, AT&T... are looking for more profit.
- lerpa 9y ago
  It's not like NN would make them have more competition, either. Which, if they are greedy bastards that make anything for a profit, would make instead of charging to access some websites, get that same money from raising prices to everyone, easy as pie.
  - Modj 9y ago
    Fairly sure the prices are already set at max for the existing system, so yeah, more competition needed. Corporations are for profit. Governments are for control. No mutual exclusivity in this one. Fast lanes lead to more money through a system change, and are a simple way to facilitate control, entrench existing controls, and contain dissent.
jondubois 9y ago
I was kind of confused why many big tech companies are for net neutrality. As someone who doesn't trust big tech companies, it made me doubtful. But I guess it makes sense; big tech companies have a lot of power right now because of net neutrality and they don't want it to fall into the hands of ISPs... Big internet companies that currently have direct guaranteed access to users don't want to be forced to make deals with middlemen who work for ISPs. Getting rid of net neutrality will allow ISPs to claim a piece of the pie. They will be able to cut into the profit margins of the most profitable companies while allowing the least profitable ones to get a discount. Getting rid of net neutrality would be similar to how it works in commercial real estate; if your business isn't doing well, you can make a deal with your landlord to get a discount on your rent... The rent prices are inconsistent. But if the landlord always sees a long queue of customers outside your shop, they may be tempted to increase your rent. The main concern I have with removing net neutrality is what would happen to peer-to-peer services... Maybe some ISPs will attempt to block them.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
exxo_ 9y ago
Maybe it's time to have national referendums...
gigama 9y ago
If you thought foreign (aka Russian) interference via social media was bad, imagine your internet service provider having discretionary control over the priority of your news and information feed. It would be like telephone companies being allowed to decide which calls to allow through and relegating the rest to busy signals.
unabridged 9y ago
This is just one step to internet becoming a utility. If the companies take it too far and mess with sites people like, the next set of politicians will make it a utility like water or power.
mychael 9y ago
I used to support net neutrality. Then I did my homework on the issue and realized so many of the arguments in favor of net neutrality rely on fear-mongering and a false history of the internet.
- robert_foss 9y ago
  Sorry, which arguments are fear-mongering?
- takeda 9y ago
  Could you explain what false history are you taking about? Internet from the beginning treated all traffic the same, this was because: - lack of technology to do deep packet inspection at large scale - competition, during dial-up times anyone with a phone could become an ISP, the phone did not discriminate due to regulation, then ISDN and DSL came and due to regulations telcos were required to lease their lines to anyone keeping the competition During those times Internet was neutral and all sites were treated the same. In last decade we switched to cable which has regional monopoly and doesn't have such regulation. They already were used to control what we could see and for how much. Earlier we had to deal with cable because we had no choice. High speed internet came and caused wave of "cord cutters" because people hated how the cable companies treated them. The cable companies do not like that movement, because with Internet they are losing control. So why not make Internet like a cable? Provide basic access and allow paid access to premium sites. Perhaps consumers wouldn't have to pay, maybe the sites would? And if the users don't like it what they going to do, switch from Comcast to Comcast? There is also another issue that no one talks about and is even more important. Current cable companies are also media companies and already have power over traditional media (did you wonder why they never talk about NN?). This change essentially gives them freedom to perform censorship. They can alter/slow down/block sites they don't agree with. This gives them power to decide which sites users will see and which sites will survive and can and will be used for political gains. Imagine replacing ads and cutting income for the site, or replace ads with messages that contradict articles. It slowing down the site to be practically unusable. I can't believe anyone would be ok with giving power to companies (ones that have monopoly and consumer don't even have choice to vote with their wallets) what sites we are allowed to see or not.
gaius 9y ago
Google et al want the infrastructure to be dumb pipes so they can direct traffic by manipulating search results. Ending NN is bad for them but it is yet to be shown it will be bad for the consumer. You're your ISP's customer but Google's product.
- thirdsun 9y ago
  Ending net neutrality is, while not in their longterm interest, just fine for Google & Co. - they are already established players that are able to afford the bandwidth and overcome whatever other barriers ISPs might come up with. It's the future services and companies that might challenge Google, Facebook and Netflix someday. They won't be able to enter the market due to not being able to afford access to the fast lane.
Jedi72 9y ago
I dont necessarily agree with the following but its a devils advocate argument I rarely see shared, and it has a lot of merit. Like everything, this issue is shades of grey. Bandwidth is a limited amd expensive resource. When government mandated price controls are in effect ("Net neutrality" is a marketing meme) this expense is effectively socialised across the entire country. It is illegal for a telco to go to a hospital and offer a dedicated nine 9s reliable robot surgery link (technically its just illegal to charge a fair economic price for it but same/same). So the cost gets divided up, averaged out, and smalltime users end up paying a big chunk of the cost while people above the magic median point get massive benefits. YOU subsidise the cost of the BigCorp. video conference call between Sydney and Tokyo every day. You subsidise the cost of your neighbour streaming The Bachelor every night, and make it illegal for me to pay a higher price for the quality of service I need to work. Its a total mismanagement of resources. If the consumer was forced to bear the true economic cost of their internet usage then of course heavy users (like Netflix subscribers...) would end up paying more. Not directly to Netflix but the true cost of their product still goes up. This is obviously bad for Netflix/Youtube/the top 1%, who are the ones extracting wealth from this thing we call the internet. These whales love having their infrastructure costs socialised. You dont even have to be a Google customer for you to be giving them money, no wonder they're so rich! Blocking freedom of people to publish on the web doesn't have much to do with net neutrality. This is big company lobbying and public propaganda from the tech industry. Tech companies are the new oil barons, in 80 years when the bio lobby is pushing for access to proprietary databases and end "Data detention" (you heard it here first) we'll look at tech giants the way we look at oil companies lobbying for clean coal now.
- Isn0gud 9y ago
  You are right, but if you ever been to a country without net neutrality then you will notice that the "free" volume goes down and the facebook/youtube does not count towards the volume. Do it's basically doing exactly what everybody fears. However, if you would charge facebook/google for using the infrastructure it would be another case... But let's be honest, they never let that happen.
- JohnStrange 9y ago
  net neutrality != government mandated price controls, so the argument goes nowhere. Companies can charge whatever they want. The other problems you describe could be solved by making false advertising illegal. Don't offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited transfers or any of this mumbo-jumbo if you can't technically fulfill the promise. It's not your neighbors fault if he uses the Internet for whatever he wants to use it, whether that includes high or low bandwidth use, and if that interferes with your streaming, it's your ISPs problem to fix the issue or sell plans with proper bandwidth limits.
ht85 9y ago
I see a lot of the discussion revolving around price, but I don't think this is the issue at all. Wiping net neutrality would give ISPs - and by extension their shareholders / backers - leverage over any online content producer who cares about the US market. To me the most worrying scenario is "hey guys, we might want to moderate our content more heavily, or we might be taken out of Comcast gold package next year".
sytelus 9y ago
I think the best possible investment one can ever make is politics. These people have probably got paid million or less dollars and they would generate the reruns of literally 10s of billions of dollars. Nearly guaranteed 10000X returns in just year or two is unheard of anywhere else. I wish politicians were available as ETFs.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  > I think the best possible investment one can ever make is politics. It's not an investment. It's a birthright —at least at the top levels. Good luck being a politician if your family doesn't already have ties with this caste.
reacweb 9y ago
It seems each time lobbyists and lawyers achieve to pass a law against democratic will, it generates a lot of efforts to cancel it. This means many years of mess and fights where lobbyists and lawyers will make a lot of business. Bad behavior is rewarded.
pdimitar 9y ago
Seriously? You are on the FCC and expect other people to fix your problems? What are you doing, playing Solitaire all day? YOU NEED TO BE DOING STUFF RIGHT NOW, not tomorrow, not next week. Now. Call ISPs which are against NN repeal. Tell them to pull all the strings they have available. Call senators. Do counter-lobbying, aren't you americans big fans of lobbies? I don't care what you do. DO SOMETHING. The internet is in danger. And you come forward and tell us that we have to do something. Wow. We really are doomed.
- specialist 9y ago
  Alas, that's not how policy making works. She doesn't have the votes. But if you/we bring the heat, the other commissioners will see the light. Then opponents of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness will wait until the heat cools off, and then try again while no ones looking. Been there, been done like that.
  - pdimitar 9y ago
    Yes, and they will keep trying. Corruption won't be stopped by seeing the light I am afraid. But I have no solution to the problem, I admit. Still, whoever can help should help, like right now.
- mratzloff 9y ago
  1) She is one of five FCC commissioners. She and one other oppose changes to net neutrality. On her own, she can't keep the status quo. 2) You have no idea what she is doing in the background. 3) Mass public outrage is the only way the public is ever heard. She is asking the public to mobilize to help her fight this change. Her voice is an important one, since she is on the FCC and views these changes as dangerous.
cabaalis 9y ago
I am in favor of net neutrality. But the way you win this argument is not to support it en masse, or to blindly ask your representatives to support it because you think it's good. You have to craft an argument that overcomes the "This is not the government's right or responsibility to control" response. This is what the conservative talking heads are spouting, this is what average Americans believe in and stand behind, and changing this argument is how you win.
- mikebenfield 9y ago
  I see very little reason to think that persuading people by rational argument is an effective way to make policy happen.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
mhb 9y ago
Further thoughts on why the end of net neutrality will be fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15765461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15765461
matthew349hall 9y ago
So if it passes there will be a court case right? Because if not, I'm taking to the streets.

966 points by mjfern 9y ago

I feel helpless. In this and in many things that this administration has brought on. Vote? Yeah, right. Sign a petition? Yeah, right. I feel like unless there are real ramifications to the people doing this stuff, nothing we do matters.

throwaway5752 9y ago
You're a dope if you don't vote. It's impolite to mention this, but it is not a political problem, but a Republican problem. A Democratic administration's FCC enacted Net Neutrality, a Republican one is attempting to dismantle it. Vote for Democrats at every level of government, in every election possible. This will change some day, but today the Republican party has lost its mind and morals. To be clear, I'm not calling you a dope.
- thesmallestcat 9y ago
  What a delightfully simplistic view of politics. You know about the Blue Dogs, right?
  - throwaway5752 9y ago
    Yes. And?
    - thesmallestcat 9y ago
      And so you could have a single-party system and you'd end up with a split of conservatives and liberals. It's not about party, at least not about blindly voting for one party.
      - throwaway5752 9y ago
        This is not about liberalism or conservativism at all. It would be lovely if the current Republican party was about conservativism. This is not about political philosophy, this is about party and who exercises power in those parties.
        thesmallestcat 9y ago
        Not all Dems support Net Neutrality, not all Republicans oppose it, which contradicts your point.
        trivial 9y ago
        There are some people that think the earth is flat or that lizard shape shifting aliens control the highest level of every government does that make them a fair representation of the views of humanity as a whole? There are significant differences between the two parties.
        omginternets 9y ago
        Most Dems support NN, and most Reps oppose it. You know this.
      - robotresearcher 9y ago
        He's not advocating voting blindly. He's advocating voting for the party that actively supports net neutrality.
  - Para2016 9y ago
    He's posting from "throwaway" which means he knows his entire statement is completely biased and absurd. As if voting "D" without knowing a thing about the candidate is a good idea.
    - throwaway5752 9y ago
      Yes. I'm posting from a "throwaway" which is 5 times older than your account, has almost 15 times as much karma, and contains exactly the same amount of personally identifiable information. Happy Thanksgiving.
      - Para2016 9y ago
        Wow, just saw your reply. I'm happy you have so much karma! That must mean a lot to you. Have a wonderful holiday season!
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    The Blue Dogs are a very belated rearguard action against the partisan realignment that had largely completed when they were formed, and as the realignment progresses and solidifies they have rapidly become irrelevant.
- brian-armstrong 9y ago
  It's worth noting that Ajit was installed by Obama
  - Zren 9y ago
    Obama installed the Republican nominee since the FCC can't have more than 3 comissioners from the same political party (thus there's always a 2v3 balance). > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai#Career > In 2011, Pai was then nominated for a Republican Party position on the Federal Communications Commission by President Barack Obama at the recommendation of Minority leader Mitch McConnell. He was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate on May 7, 2012, > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission#Commissioners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss... > Only three commissioners may be members of the same political party.
  - bbatsell 9y ago
    As an independent agency, the FCC is required to have two members from a minority party, and when a spot opens up, a new member is traditionally given to the President by the minority party. (Pai was Mitch McConnell's choice.)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - ep103 9y ago
    A lot of people are asking this on the various forums, but is misunderstands what actually happened. Many of the major regulatory bodies work in the same way. At the top of the body, there is a board of political appointees. For the FCC, there are 5 commissioners. Of these 5 Commissioners, 2 are always Democrats, and 2 are always Republicans. That last one, the chair of the committee is always the current sitting President's choice. This is done this way, to keep some stability among the various administration heads across washington. So during Obama's term, a Republican chair opened up on the commission when Meredith Baker resigned to lobby for NBC. That meant a Republican needed to be appointed to the commission, so Obama asked Mitch McConnell for Mitch's recommendation, and Mitch chose Ajit Pai. When Trump took office, the sitting chair of the commission Thomas Wheeler (Obama's nominee) resigned, and Trump elevated Ajit Pai. Trump then filled Ajit Pai's Republican seat with another Republican, and now the board is majority Republican. So Ajit Pai was not Obama's recommendation. Ajit Pai was Mitch McConnel's choice for the then open Republican Chair on the FCC Commission. Its a little strange, but this is traditionally how its always been done. Now as to your other question: this last sentence is just conjecture, but we know from the Russia investigations that Trump had a tendency to demand loyalty pledges from his appointees, so I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised to find that Ajit Pai is marching so steadfastly towards this single policy agenda, despite all of the obvious flack and harm it is incurring on him and the nation in general.
- taohansen 9y ago
  both parties don't make decisions i consider sane or particularly clever yet those are the only two parties i may vote for with any chance of success. the voting system is broken by outmoded/gamed structures (gerrymandering, an electoral college), and all-or-nothing outcomes (if i vote for one candidate and they don't win, i may make no second or third choice with which then to put my voting power behind). i simply feel an unrelenting despair when engaging in the realm of politics. it's two devils on a stage lording over minions who condemn and pollute the miracle of human life daily with short-sighted greed and a stunning lack of ethics. a revolution is out of the question because the very tool that was meant to fight back against such sloven corruption no longer disbands after war but simply persists against an invisible Enemy none of us can touch, see or feel. what is this insane existence we find ourselves in where the only choice i have is to acquiesce or ineffectually protest?
  - Buttons840 9y ago
    Considering donating to fairvote.org, I do. I should confess I don't know much about how they actually use my money but I support their stated goal of improving our voting systems.
  - ep103 9y ago
    From any given viewpoint, both parties may not be ideal. But within both of those parties are numerous different ideological groups. On the right, the major wings range from evangelicals, libertarians, neoconservatives, "traditional", and so on. On the left, the parties tend to fall into a mix of "Blue Dog" democrats, Clintonians, progressive caucus, black caucus, and a whole bunch of single issue and identity issue groups. No matter what your particular viewpoint is, one of those groups likely aligns with most of it. During primaries, those different groups hash out against each other, and then redirect the party as a whole. So the key, then, is to find the smaller groups and politicans that more closely reflect your beliefs, and lend your support to them. Yes, our two party system doesn't allow for second and third choices on a single ballot. But what it does allow for is for you to vote for your preferred candidates (the above caucuses) in primaries as your first choice, and then vote for your second choice in the general if your favorite candidate didn't win or run in a specific primary.
  - 9y ago
- averagewall 9y ago
  Democrats use drones to kill innocent or presumed-guilty people in other countries. Are you sure their lives don't matter compared to net neutrality? They're also responsible for harsh sentences for drug offences which is a major reason for all the imprisoned people in the US. Net neutrality is still more important than all those ruined lives? The housing shortage in San Francisco is democrats too. Maybe with money saved from rents to landlords could be spent on rents to non-neutral ISPs. It's far from a simple as "always vote democrat". That kind of naive arrogance is why the US has two entrenched parties that both maintain the status quo of terrible things you don't like.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - bkanber 9y ago
    > Democrats use drones to kill innocent or presumed-guilty people in other countries. That's not a Democrat thing, that's an American thing. We don't have enough data to say democrats use drones more than republicans. GW Bush was the first President to have access to drones period, and it was not yet a mature technology nor at the beginning of his term. Obama was the first President to have drones available for his first term, and yes he did use them. President Trump is using drones just as much as Obama did, and in fact Trump has taken the White House out of the command loop and is giving more authority to the CIA to execute drone strikes! So not just drone strikes, but drone strikes with little accountability, ordered neither by an elected official or the military but instead the CIA. Also, President Trump rolled back Obama's mandate that drones can't be used outside of war zones. Don't forget that President Reagan signed that drug sentencing act into law. The housing shortage in SF is NIMBYs, not democrats. It just happens that democrats are overrepresented in SF so you are using a correlation as causation. > Net neutrality is still more important than all those ruined lives? It's not a binary decision. But losing net neutrality could lead to some pretty awful social and economic effects 20 years down the line. It can lead to even more class inequality, lower education levels, increased crime, and potentially even a major recession or crash as our tech sector productivity decreases due to the anticompetitive environment. > It's far from a simple as "always vote democrat". That I agree with.
- usaar333 9y ago
  > Vote for Democrats at every level of government, in every election possible. And this is why a lot of us feel powerless with this issue. I live in an area where every elected official from local to federal is a Democrat. (obvious exception being the president, a Republican that actually lost the popular vote by 3 million). Needless to say, my federal representatives strongly support NN.. but they are in the minority. Hence, why voting feels meaningless for me.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    You can lobby the Democrats to change their platform from identity politics to economic issues and then they won’t alienate the voters that left them in 2016.
- whataretensors 9y ago
  America cannot be divided by D and R. Nobody fits cleanly in either category if they have any independent thought. It's completely ridiculous that my views on internet regulation should be aligned with my views on the school system. Our government might just need to be completely rebuilt to include more granularity. And we should toss these lossy classifiers that only serve to dehumanize one another.
- syril 9y ago
  eat shit you communist slime
  - throwaway5752 9y ago
    Happy Thanksgiving. May you and your loved ones have an enjoyable holiday.
- dahart 9y ago
  > You're a dope if you don't vote. Are we all dopes if we buy that voting on this issue is going to once and for all solve the problem of corporations continuing to take more control and extract more money from the internet? This "vote" has come up for discussion every year for a decade at least. Some years I vote and some, I admit, I haven't bothered. But it keeps coming back. No matter how many times we vote no, it keeps re-appearing. The elephant is the room is privacy & encryption. We're asking elected officials to protect our freedoms for us, when we have the technical means to protect ourselves. ISPs shouldn't have the right to look at the contents of traffic at all. The issue of whether they get to charge more for some routes is a side-show compared to the issue of whether they have the right to look at our traffic. If we focused on privacy, and built a system that encrypted routing information and blocked it from prying commercial interest eyes like ISPs, we wouldn't need to have a debate, and we wouldn't need to vote.
loteck 9y ago
I suspect a lot of people feel this way. You're right, your individual vote isn't remarkable. And yet, voting is the only legal direct action any normal person can take. If only there was some way you could convince more people in your community to vote with you. Then you might have something.
pitaj 9y ago
This is the exact problem I have with bureaucratic regulatory frameworks. The ones making the regulations have essentially zero accountability to the people.
mratzloff 9y ago
Go to a town hall. Call. Both of these are more important than voting (which you should also do).
rconti 9y ago
I'm just tired. I'm tired of fighting all these pro-tech and pro-freedom fights going back decades, to the Clipper chip and the CDA. I'm tired of trying to figure out if the hyperbole (this time it's CRITICAL you act!) is deserved, whether the issue is that serious, and whether we're really on the right side of the issue in the first place. I'm tired of trying to figure out if contacting my (Democrat) lawmaker will make a difference if they've already signaled opposition anyway. I'm tired of wondering if an angry tweet to a Chairman who clearly doesn't have my best interests at heart anyway will make a damn bit of difference. And anyway, somebody's twitter bot army is already doing the opposite of what I'm doing, times a million, and the FCC comments stuffing is doing far more than I would ever choose to do (legally, morally, and ethically). More generally, with regards to this atrocious administration, I know the entire point is to just go after everyone who opposes 'them' in the most craven, cynical, and childish manner possible, to wear 'them' down and rub 'their' face in it for daring to suggest they're terrible people, but all of this internet freedom stuff vastly predates most of the people in power. I read just the other day that, if enacted, this will almost certainly be declared unconstitutional in the courts anyway, so what's the point? I'm just tired.
- luckydude 9y ago
  You and me both, bud. I really fear for our country. I used to be proud to be an American, these days I'm ashamed. I'm half Dutch and went back to the Netherlands with my family this summer and it was so frigging pleasant. The discourse was sane, they actually work together to fix stuff. As painful as it is to form a government there sometimes, I much prefer their system to ours. We look pretty crazy from the inside, we look bat shit crazy from the outside.

jacobreg 9y ago

What is the most effective avenue to voice my concerns?

brian-armstrong 9y ago
Call the FCC. Call your representatives. Make sure they know that you're in their district and that you vote. When the FCC ran demos of broadband over power, it caused a tremendous amount of radio disturbance. Ham radio operators saw the disturbance on their licensed parts of the spectrum. They feared the FCC was killing Ham radio. So they wrote letters. Lots of letters. The FCC heard them and abandoned the trial of that technology.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
with your wallet.
Something1234 9y ago
I'm working on composing letters to my state representatives for a contingency plan(city broadband). I read on reddit, that it might be more effective than directly contacting my federal representatives(I plan on doing that too.) I'll post my letters if there's any interest in them. Would these letters be of any use?
- ep103 9y ago
  Yes. All elected politicians monitor public input on major issues. It usually goes something like this: 1) Comcast lobbyist: Hey politican, we'll donate 10k to your campaign this year, and another 100k+ if it becomes a tight race, just promise you'll vote against net neutrality if that ever happens, ok? 1a) Comcast, that's a deal. 2) Office Aid: Hey politican, after the FCC announced today, our phones are ringing off the hooks. People are really upset about this Net Neutrality thing. 2a) Okay, poll our constituents, and figure out just how many votes I'll lose if I vote for this thing. 3) If the number of votes > than the amount of votes the politican thinks (s)he can buy via the lobbyist's money, they change their position. So your letters greatly affect step 2. Of course, its less cut and dry than above. Democratic politicans by and large believe in NN. Republican politicans these days rarely do. And polls are expensive and slow, so sometimes step 2a is skipped entirely and the politican makes a gut call based on the amount of feedback they receive. But the point it, yes, your letters matter.

jimmaswell 9y ago

What indication is there that the current FCC would ever change course, no matter how loudly the constituents complained? Is the only goal of all the current outcry simply awareness?

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
There's value in taking away a tyrant's velvet glove, if you'll pardon me the hyperbole. Don't let them hide behind doublespeak about how this is what people really want and it's just a few malcontents making noise. Make it very, very abundantly clear that they're ignoring the desires of the people they claim to represent. It may not change anything now, but it gets the attention of on-the-fence voters and unites and galvanizes the opposition.

mc32 9y ago

Would someone outline the pros and cons of the FCC vs FTC overseeing regulation of the internet?

faster 9y ago
Net Neutrality prevents abuses; the FTC can step in after a violation reaches critical proportions. It's like the difference between parking in a locked garage in a bad neighborhood, and having a car alarm to let you know when your window has been broken and all your stuff stolen.
- rdtsc 9y ago
  How does it work with FCC today though? What if a company (say Verizon) throttles some traffic (say Youtube), how would the punitive part work from the part of the government.
austincheney 9y ago
You could make the valid argument that no matter how beneficial net neutrality may be it isn't within the regulatory authority of the FCC to define or enforce such according to the agency's definition per their charter. This is perhaps the best argument for killing net neutrality. The common consideration is that killing net neutrality poses a direct and immediate harm to consumers of potential discriminatory practices from a small industry of commercial entities operating in a capacity similar to utility providers. That said it would fall squarely within the regulatory confines of the FTC. I think something like net neutrality is important and necessary, but I also think there is something more immediately important. I want the FTC to regulate the online advertising industry. I am tired of slow websites even though I get 900mbps up and down at my house. I am also tired of the excessive spyware and occasional malware that comes from online ads. Online advertising really is most horrid part of any online experience.
- mc32 9y ago
  Thanks. I definitely agree that ad bloat is getting out of hand and users would benefit from leaner pages. For now gone are the days Google thought load times longer than 600ms were a no go in germs of user experience --that legacy is definitely gone in Google Mail.

valine 9y ago

It’s amazing how the FCC can go against the American people when there is such overwhelming support for net neutrality.

joshmn 9y ago
I think you mean it's amazing what money can buy.
- ytwySXpMbS 9y ago
  At a base level, it's amazing that money counts as free speech.
mc32 9y ago
I think it was amazing it was the USSC that saved the 'net from overreaching gov reg (communications decency act).
dingo_bat 9y ago
Mob support for NN does not justify it. There's a reason we let domain experts make technical decisions.
- _jal 9y ago
  ...And you believe that's what is happening with this decision?
  - the_common_man 9y ago
    Well, people who are anti-NN would never voice their opinion in this climate. They will get downvoted to hell.
    - ikeboy 9y ago
      I recall trying to argue against NN years ago here and getting down voted. It's interesting that economists largely are against NN as well. http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/net-neutrality-ii

exabrial 9y ago

Sorry I'm not buying into the panic. Between wide scale TLS deployment and larger swaths of bandwidth available, I'd rather see free market solutions so these regulatory powers can't be abused. Net neutrality only matters if your ISP can decrypt your traffic and there is a limited share of bandwidth available.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
brian-armstrong 9y ago
You are probably a little bit ignorant of how the internet works to make this comment. The big players are already peering with residential ISPs. That means there's a fiber line that connects Google to Comcast, to use an example. They pay for these arrangements. The little guys have to use transit. They don't have enough clout or money to peer. Without net neutrality, ISPs could start severely degrading those connections. And there's nothing TLS can do to stop that.
- extra88 9y ago
  Yes. Comcast and other big ISPs think you belong to them, that other businesses should pay to get to you, despite the fact that you, the ISPs actual customer, already paid so you can get to those businesses and they can get to you. And yes, TLS doesn't conceal the domain names from your ISP and that's all they need to pick winners and losers. It can somewhat conceal different kinds of connection (e.g. peer-to-peer protocols like BitTorrent) but those aren't hard to spot through traffic analysis and Ajit Pai explicitly thinks ISPs should be able to block them, as Comcast was doing to BitTorrent traffic.
- visarga 9y ago
  Users need to get directly involved in protecting the content they desire. In the long run we need a cross between TOR and bittorrent to create a distributed cache to avoid throttling. Local "metropolitan" bandwidth is very fast, hard drives have expanded 10x in 10 years. An alternative is to use WiFi mesh networks.

RpFLCL 9y ago

>Reach out to the rest of the FCC now. Tell them they can’t take away internet openness without a fight. How? As this article mentions, their comment system had issues (spam and DDoS) and the only other avenue I've seen is to beg our representatives (who aren't part of the December vote) to do _something_. It was a clean and concise piece, but I was hoping that an insider would provide a new course of action. I've seen action across online media from users (reddit, Twitter, etc) as well as among peers. But not as much from the platforms themselves. Remember SOPA? Do those pushing for this really not hear the public's outrage yet?

brian-armstrong 9y ago
Call them. Write them. The internet comments don't really amount to much. But if you call or write, they will at least have a tally of how many complaints they've received. They may not see your complaint specifically but at least it counts, unlike internet complaints
- nightski 9y ago
  I'm happy to do so. But in the end should we even need to do this crap? Isn't it just so obvious how bad this is that our representatives should be fighting it without calls? It just baffles me.
  - dboreham 9y ago
    Corruption is baffling?
  - kilroy123 9y ago
    Yes. That's called democracy.
    - cmurf 9y ago
      Well actually I'd call it a kakistocracy at a the moment.
  - 9y ago

stretchwithme 9y ago

In Switzerland, any legislative action can be put on the ballot with enough signatures. Citizens can actually block what the Federal Assembly does. In the US, we get to comment on it. And they get to say "That's nice."

ep103 9y ago
No, actually. If comments are largely against what a regulatory body is proposing to do, it can be used in court against the regulatory body in court to block the action. That just very, very rarely happens. When captured, regulatory agencies tend not to try to pass measures that very obviously go against public opinion, or are too complex to arise public wrath. This is a special situation that's only happening due to arrogance of the Trump administration, and the fact that he simply does not care about appealing to voters outside his base. If and When this passes, it will be immediately challenged in court, and this will be one of the things brought against the FCC. That's why the FCC conspired with ISPs to flood their own public opinion pages with comments from ISPs several months ago. Again though, this is all not normal. Its a damn important thing to remember in Alabama and in 2018, however. What I haven't been able to find any good articles on, however, is how strong those safeguards actually are.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > This is a special situation that's only happening due to arrogance of the Trump administration Pai was nominated by Obama on McConnell's recommendation [1]. Trump only elevated him to Chairman. I'm curious about his personal motivations. Is it as simple as him having served as associate general counsel at Verizon? Is it a legalistic interpretation, that the FCC doesn't have the authority to regulate this? Or about the role of government in general? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajit_V._Pai
  - umanwizard 9y ago
    It’s possible that he actually believes Net Neutrality is bad policy. I’m for net neutrality but I at least recognize that it’s possible to disagree in good faith.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

"There is something not right about a few unelected FCC officials making such vast determinations about the future of the internet." Is she talking about 2015 or 2017?

labster 9y ago
2017, because in 2015 the FCC acted on the advice of the people. Now, they act opposed to 98.5% of the unique comments from the public.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  Where by “people” you probably mean the lobbyists from Google/Facebook/Netflix and other internet companies who would have to share a fraction of their fat profit margins to deliver their stuff to you. As the present predicament shows “advice of the people” means jack squat to the FCC, just like it did in 2015.
  - labster 9y ago
    Those companies contribute a significant part of their margins to deliver content to you, including paying for servers, programmers, sysadmins, and so on to actually make the product. And then by colocating, peering, or other arrangements that pay for their own connection to the internet. I pay for my connection, they pay for theirs, that seems entirely fair. It's not my fault I have to pay more than they do because of no competition in last mile service -- that's the FCC's fault.
xenadu02 9y ago
Bullshit is so easy to spread. People willing to peddle falsehoods often end up winning if they can just repeat the lies until everyone else gets tired of repeating themselves. Network neutrality started in the early 2000s because some ISPs started blocking VPNs and other services. Network Neutrality was simply how the internet had always worked prior to that. The FCC wanted to take a light hand toward regulation but preserve neutrality so they imposed NN regulation. Verizon sued to overturn the regulations. The battle went back and forth several times. Eventually the courts said the FCC had the authority to impose the regulations but had to reclassify ISPs as common carriers to do so. That’s what the FCC did in 2015. Because the courts said so. Because Verizon sued to block network neutrality and overturn the way the internet had always worked up until that point. The telco and cable companies all have handshake agreements not to “overbuild” - that is to lay lines in each other’s territory - because that would trigger competition. They hijack DNS queries to serve ads for mis-typed domain names. They hijack HTTP responses. They’re rolling out bandwidth caps. If you think they aren’t going to exploit the rollback of NN for rent-seeking purposes then you’re naive at best. P.S. they couldn’t exist without right of way to lay cables on other people’s private property! The internet and WWW were invented using government research money. ATT, Verizon, Comcast, et al are the ultimate welfare queens who exist thanks to suckling on the government teat.

jupiter90000 9y ago

If what is happening now is that the 2015 vote for net neutrality rules is to be repealed, couldn't a later FCC vote again to return to the 2015 rules?

baldajan 9y ago
I've asked myself the same question. But back in 2015, when the rules were put in place, there was a controversy (Netflix and a court ruling) and people cared. When will the next time people "care" to put it back in? Just how politics work.
shmerl 9y ago
They will try to prevent it by passing a fake NN law through the Congress, that will "put discussion to an end", and will make future fixes even harder.

netsec_burn 9y ago

Nick Gillespie: Your plan will, according to a write up in Politico, and I think this is accurate, it quote, "will jettison rules that prohibit internet service providers from blocking or slowing web traffic or creating so called paid internet fast lanes." Question for you, do you think fast lanes will become a thing? What is the value of a internet fast lane? Ajit Pai: The answer to the first is we're not sure. We've never seen them before and that's part of the reason why I thought the rule in particular was, that was adopted in 2015, was very premature banning something that's simply didn't exist. I took the time to read Ajit's argument here. It's completely mislead. If murder hadn't happened in a certain area yet, would it be "too preemptive" to outlaw it? Fast lanes DO exist in other countries right now. This is outrageous.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
> "If murder hadn't happened in a certain area yet, would it be 'too preemptive' to outlaw it?" But even with murder, the law doesn't stop murders before they happen, but rather only acts retroactively (and that is for good reason). > "Fast lanes DO exist in other countries right now." But this is ignoring the whole debate: proponents of net freedom don't consider fast lanes to be a problem.
- jackmott 9y ago
  >But this is ignoring the whole debate: proponents of net freedom don't consider fast lanes to be a problem. yes we do
- saulrh 9y ago
  > But this is ignoring the whole debate: proponents of net freedom don't consider fast lanes to be a problem. I think that this is the part that I can't comprehend. The railroads misbehaved so badly that the government had to break rail transportation as an industry to kill them. Ninety years later we're still using long-haul semi trailers for everything. Bell's abuse of its monopoly was similarly severe. How do people hold this belief without becoming laughingstock?
  - 9y ago

jlgaddis 9y ago

It's probably futile, but you might sign this "Do Not Repeal Net Neutrality" [0] petition on the White House petitions site. It already has over 100,000 signatures -- the threshold at which the White House is supposed to, at minimum, respond to it. Since we can't vote on this and our representatives aren't voting on it either, it's worth a shot. [0]: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/do-not-repeal-net-neutrality https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/do-not-repeal-net-...

micaksica 9y ago
There are plenty of absolute crackpot petitions on there at this stage that undermine the legitimacy of this one by being placed alongside it. I believe this motion is futile as well.
ep103 9y ago
battleforthenet.com and democracy.io are two much more direct alternatives. Battleforthenet will be over the phone (and therefore be a bit more influenential), so I recommend it. But democracy.io (from the EFF) will have you contact all of your representatives directly, via email, within a minute or two. I highly recommend them.
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  I don't understand the "contact all of your representatives". As I mentioned in the comment you replied to, "our representatives aren't voting on it". You think that somehow we're going to cause our reps to put pressure on or "sway" the FCC? No, their votes have already been bought.

frogcoder 9y ago

This is how China "blocking" web site from most of the world other than China. When many sites are blocked out right, many more are accessible but painfully slow. On the other hand, if you go to any major Chinese site, it would be lightning fast. By doing this, those foreign sites are rendered almost useless.

jquery 9y ago
China has net neutrality. You are quite naive if you think NN is a solution to censorship. Browse eff.org for more than a few minutes to see that NN doesn't even scratch the surface of underlying issues. I don't want NN because then everyone will think the internet is just fine, when NN is a joke of a solution that doesn't even cover anything more than the FTC already covers.
- unityByFreedom 9y ago
  > China has net neutrality. China most definitely does not. Even if they did, it'd be unenforced. State-run tech services would get preferential treatment. Actually, that's how it works now. > I don't want NN because then everyone will think the internet is just fine, when NN is a joke of a solution that doesn't even cover anything more than the FTC already covers. The FTC won't stop ISPs from slowing access to content they don't own. ISPs are communications services and rightly monitored by the Federal Communications Commission. > You are quite naive if you think NN is a solution to censorship. Browse eff.org for more than a few minutes to see that NN doesn't even scratch the surface of underlying issues. I don't think the above commenter was claiming NN is a solution to censorship, rather that without it, content is more silo-ed and access becomes more difficult, adding to the censorship problem. Censorship is a human problem that tech can help with.
  - jquery 9y ago
    > The FTC won't stop ISPs from slowing access to content they don't own. ISPs are communications services and rightly monitored by the Federal Communications Commission. ISPs are communications services just like trucks are communications services because they carry mail and shipments. No. The internet is far more complicated than postage, and the FCC is not equipped to handle it. > China most definitely does not. Even if they did, it'd be unenforced. State-run tech services would get preferential treatment. Actually, that's how it works now. So you realize that a good name doesn't make a good policy. That's a good step. > I don't think the above commenter was claiming NN is a solution to censorship, rather that without it, content is more silo-ed and access becomes more difficult, adding to the censorship problem. Censorship is a human problem that tech can help with. You aren't going to lose access to your favorite polemic website or torrenting because of NN or lack-thereof. That would be immediately met by FTC lawsuits. Far more critical to censorship is YouTube demonetization and SEO shinanigans, but I don't see the front-page of reddit giving a damn about subreddits being blocked from the "Hot" feed.

protomyth 9y ago

We don't have a group that scares the hell out of politicians like the NRA. This crap comes up every year no matter what the party in power is. Until we find people with a killer instinct and skill, we will keep loosing. No one fears the EFF. Someone with some clout needs to form a single-issue (no other politics allowed) net neutrality advocacy organization that effectively frames anyone who opposes net neutrality as an evil villain.

tanilama 9y ago

Can this be realistic stopped? What if FCC just don't give a fuck and proceed? Serious question

syril 9y ago
the fcc already said that they won't be swayed. nothing will be changed by NN being repealed.

BrainInAJar 9y ago

Nationalize the internet. I'm not kidding. We paid for it in the first place, and if it's such a critical piece of economic infrastructure that market intervention needs to be mitigated, the solution is to nationalize it. How? Take the municipal broadband idea, and scale it up. It's not really hard. Net neutrality only privileges one set of multi-billion-dollar corporations over another set of multi-billion-dollar corporations. Nationalize the lot of it.

RandomInteger4 9y ago
There's a problem with that idea, which is that then the internet is at the mercy of those in congress who want to shut down the government all the time, because they won't pass a budget unless we go on a governmental starvation diet, while at the same time giving tax breaks to the rich.
- BrainInAJar 9y ago
  Just like how policing, the military and roads stop when congress decides to shut things down
- slimshady94 9y ago
  Then let's replace the government with open source AI and ML algorithms. End corruption!
  - RandomInteger4 9y ago
    Given how well that works for YouTube at the moment, I'm not so sure that's a good idea.

avs733 9y ago

Ajit Pai's home address is: 4868 Old Dominion Dr Arlington, VA 22207 That is public information.

sysdyne 9y ago

EME supported by the same racket that wants neutrality. What is going on?

johansch 9y ago

Wasn't sure what being a "member of the FCC" meant: https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/jessica-rosenworcel https://www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/jessica-rosenworcel

heyheyhey 9y ago
So is Ajit Pai her superior? Must be an interesting workplace with her being so vocally against it.

shmerl 9y ago

> I think the FCC needs to work for the public Unfortunately Pai and Co, think that FCC needs to work for ISP monopolists and not for the public...

aerovistae 9y ago

CSS / JavaScript challenge: remove whatever is blocking you from scrolling on that page. I could not figure it out for the life of me after 20 min messing with the it in the dev tools. Deleting the paywall is easy enough, but what is stopping the scrolling?

RandomInteger4 9y ago
Try ublock origin. I didn't get either a paywall or scroll-blocking. Must be one of the ads?
- aerovistae 9y ago
  wow that works great! i had abp but it didnt do that
awirth 9y ago
body gets a class ".bx-client-overlay" that has "overflow: hidden!important" which hides the scrollbar
- aerovistae 9y ago
  Yeah I saw that, but even after I removed it and the scrollbar showed back up, I still couldn't scroll with it.

yalogin 9y ago

Ajit Pai is an abomination. He is on the same level as Trump in shamelessness and probably more corrupt.

doggydogs94 9y ago

The obvious way to reinstate net neutrality is via legislation. Congress has the power to do this.

VeronicaJJ123 9y ago

Just for the record I support Ajit Pai on this issue. Putting this comment just to show that not all on HN disagree with FCC.

severian1778 9y ago

nope. Small ISP's need to thrive against monopolies.

billrobertson42 9y ago

They seem hell bent on passing these new rules regardless of what anyone else says or does. I'm afraid that it will have to come to lawsuits after the fact to stop this course of action.

shamaku 9y ago

They buried this on reddit.

orthecreedence 9y ago
It's the very first post on my home feed. I don't think it's being buried (the one I'm seeing is /r/politics).

jakeogh 9y ago

NN is an excellent example of framing by naming. Imagine if it was called the the "More Internet Regulation Act". Prima facie it's a more accurate name. Since this is going to happen (reverting to the way it was for ~25 years), I'll point out that an echo chamber forms by default because most of us who might spend time arguing about it don't see a good reason to. Aside... the largest cable provider decided it would be a good idea to edit a cleartext page on the way to me ('helpfully' inserting a JS popup about upcoming metering changes), I called and canceled my decade old ~$90/mo acct on the spot when the refused to put it in writing that they would not edit my inbound data in the future. Consumer reaction is equiv to voting. See NFL. Spare me variations on the 'normies don't care' arg.

pmx 9y ago
A lot of Americans have entirely no choice in their broadband provider. Many areas have a single provider who actively prevents any other company providing access in that area. Those customers don't have the luxury of calling up and cancelling unless they're happy to go without broadband. "Vote with your wallet" only works outside of monopolies.
- lerpa 9y ago
  So maybe you found the actual problem. And forcing anyone providing network services to be common carrier just makes it less likely for competition to happen.
  - folknor 9y ago
    How do you draw that conclusion?
kelnos 9y ago
> ... I called and canceled my decade old ~$90/mo acct on the spot So... what do you do for internet access now? Oh, you have more than one legitimate option in your area? Lucky you. Many people don't.

xpac 9y ago

If you're wondering, how the wonderful invisible hand of the market would use "net freedom" - say hello to Portugal. https://mobile.twitter.com/rokhanna/status/923701871092441088 https://mobile.twitter.com/rokhanna/status/92370187109244108... I don't see how this benefits anybody besides the ISP. It just makes them find a multitude of reasons why $everybody should pay double and triple to get a proper connection.

zerostar07 9y ago
some portuguese say it makes their internet affordable https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/799qzu/in_portugal_internet_providers_are_starting_to/dp1t9q3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/799qzu/in_portugal_...
denzil_correa 9y ago
Portugal (EU) has a slightly nuanced problem within Net Neutrality. EU does have net neutrality but they also allow Zero Rating based on some criteria [0]. I am unsure on the procedure to allow Zero Rated services. If the default choice is "Allow until regulations violated", a simple change in default choice to "Ask for EU Approval" would prevent such scenarios. [0] http://berec.europa.eu/eng/netneutrality/zero_rating/ http://berec.europa.eu/eng/netneutrality/zero_rating/
maho2nd 9y ago
Khanna’s original tweet implies that Meo is blocking or limiting certain “packages” unless you pay for them, the way that you can’t watch HBO without the right cable plan. But that's wrong. It’s an add-on to general-purpose mobile subscriptions, which let you access any service — including the ones above. The idea is apparently that if you’re into apps like Snapchat and Facebook (or... LinkedIn, I guess), you pay around $8 a month to specifically get more “Social” data, so you can use your regular allotment for everything else. It looks a lot like the “Vodafone Pass” service in the UK, where subscribers can pay for unlimited access to a similar stable of services.
- gerbilly 9y ago
  >if you’re into apps like Snapchat and Facebook [...] you pay around $8 a month to specifically get more “Social” data... Ugh. This kind of cable plan confusopoly is so annoying. I hate how marketing creates all these plans and promotions, then expects us jump through hoops to figure them out. What a waste of time playing these silly games.

Modj 9y ago

Bottom line: This gov. is looking for more control. Comcast, Verizon, AT&T... are looking for more profit.

lerpa 9y ago
It's not like NN would make them have more competition, either. Which, if they are greedy bastards that make anything for a profit, would make instead of charging to access some websites, get that same money from raising prices to everyone, easy as pie.
- Modj 9y ago
  Fairly sure the prices are already set at max for the existing system, so yeah, more competition needed. Corporations are for profit. Governments are for control. No mutual exclusivity in this one. Fast lanes lead to more money through a system change, and are a simple way to facilitate control, entrench existing controls, and contain dissent.

jondubois 9y ago

I was kind of confused why many big tech companies are for net neutrality. As someone who doesn't trust big tech companies, it made me doubtful. But I guess it makes sense; big tech companies have a lot of power right now because of net neutrality and they don't want it to fall into the hands of ISPs... Big internet companies that currently have direct guaranteed access to users don't want to be forced to make deals with middlemen who work for ISPs. Getting rid of net neutrality will allow ISPs to claim a piece of the pie. They will be able to cut into the profit margins of the most profitable companies while allowing the least profitable ones to get a discount. Getting rid of net neutrality would be similar to how it works in commercial real estate; if your business isn't doing well, you can make a deal with your landlord to get a discount on your rent... The rent prices are inconsistent. But if the landlord always sees a long queue of customers outside your shop, they may be tempted to increase your rent. The main concern I have with removing net neutrality is what would happen to peer-to-peer services... Maybe some ISPs will attempt to block them.

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exxo_ 9y ago

Maybe it's time to have national referendums...

gigama 9y ago

If you thought foreign (aka Russian) interference via social media was bad, imagine your internet service provider having discretionary control over the priority of your news and information feed. It would be like telephone companies being allowed to decide which calls to allow through and relegating the rest to busy signals.

unabridged 9y ago

This is just one step to internet becoming a utility. If the companies take it too far and mess with sites people like, the next set of politicians will make it a utility like water or power.

mychael 9y ago

I used to support net neutrality. Then I did my homework on the issue and realized so many of the arguments in favor of net neutrality rely on fear-mongering and a false history of the internet.

robert_foss 9y ago
Sorry, which arguments are fear-mongering?
takeda 9y ago
Could you explain what false history are you taking about? Internet from the beginning treated all traffic the same, this was because: - lack of technology to do deep packet inspection at large scale - competition, during dial-up times anyone with a phone could become an ISP, the phone did not discriminate due to regulation, then ISDN and DSL came and due to regulations telcos were required to lease their lines to anyone keeping the competition During those times Internet was neutral and all sites were treated the same. In last decade we switched to cable which has regional monopoly and doesn't have such regulation. They already were used to control what we could see and for how much. Earlier we had to deal with cable because we had no choice. High speed internet came and caused wave of "cord cutters" because people hated how the cable companies treated them. The cable companies do not like that movement, because with Internet they are losing control. So why not make Internet like a cable? Provide basic access and allow paid access to premium sites. Perhaps consumers wouldn't have to pay, maybe the sites would? And if the users don't like it what they going to do, switch from Comcast to Comcast? There is also another issue that no one talks about and is even more important. Current cable companies are also media companies and already have power over traditional media (did you wonder why they never talk about NN?). This change essentially gives them freedom to perform censorship. They can alter/slow down/block sites they don't agree with. This gives them power to decide which sites users will see and which sites will survive and can and will be used for political gains. Imagine replacing ads and cutting income for the site, or replace ads with messages that contradict articles. It slowing down the site to be practically unusable. I can't believe anyone would be ok with giving power to companies (ones that have monopoly and consumer don't even have choice to vote with their wallets) what sites we are allowed to see or not.

gaius 9y ago

Google et al want the infrastructure to be dumb pipes so they can direct traffic by manipulating search results. Ending NN is bad for them but it is yet to be shown it will be bad for the consumer. You're your ISP's customer but Google's product.

thirdsun 9y ago
Ending net neutrality is, while not in their longterm interest, just fine for Google & Co. - they are already established players that are able to afford the bandwidth and overcome whatever other barriers ISPs might come up with. It's the future services and companies that might challenge Google, Facebook and Netflix someday. They won't be able to enter the market due to not being able to afford access to the fast lane.

Jedi72 9y ago

I dont necessarily agree with the following but its a devils advocate argument I rarely see shared, and it has a lot of merit. Like everything, this issue is shades of grey. Bandwidth is a limited amd expensive resource. When government mandated price controls are in effect ("Net neutrality" is a marketing meme) this expense is effectively socialised across the entire country. It is illegal for a telco to go to a hospital and offer a dedicated nine 9s reliable robot surgery link (technically its just illegal to charge a fair economic price for it but same/same). So the cost gets divided up, averaged out, and smalltime users end up paying a big chunk of the cost while people above the magic median point get massive benefits. YOU subsidise the cost of the BigCorp. video conference call between Sydney and Tokyo every day. You subsidise the cost of your neighbour streaming The Bachelor every night, and make it illegal for me to pay a higher price for the quality of service I need to work. Its a total mismanagement of resources. If the consumer was forced to bear the true economic cost of their internet usage then of course heavy users (like Netflix subscribers...) would end up paying more. Not directly to Netflix but the true cost of their product still goes up. This is obviously bad for Netflix/Youtube/the top 1%, who are the ones extracting wealth from this thing we call the internet. These whales love having their infrastructure costs socialised. You dont even have to be a Google customer for you to be giving them money, no wonder they're so rich! Blocking freedom of people to publish on the web doesn't have much to do with net neutrality. This is big company lobbying and public propaganda from the tech industry. Tech companies are the new oil barons, in 80 years when the bio lobby is pushing for access to proprietary databases and end "Data detention" (you heard it here first) we'll look at tech giants the way we look at oil companies lobbying for clean coal now.

Isn0gud 9y ago
You are right, but if you ever been to a country without net neutrality then you will notice that the "free" volume goes down and the facebook/youtube does not count towards the volume. Do it's basically doing exactly what everybody fears. However, if you would charge facebook/google for using the infrastructure it would be another case... But let's be honest, they never let that happen.
JohnStrange 9y ago
net neutrality != government mandated price controls, so the argument goes nowhere. Companies can charge whatever they want. The other problems you describe could be solved by making false advertising illegal. Don't offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited transfers or any of this mumbo-jumbo if you can't technically fulfill the promise. It's not your neighbors fault if he uses the Internet for whatever he wants to use it, whether that includes high or low bandwidth use, and if that interferes with your streaming, it's your ISPs problem to fix the issue or sell plans with proper bandwidth limits.

ht85 9y ago

I see a lot of the discussion revolving around price, but I don't think this is the issue at all. Wiping net neutrality would give ISPs - and by extension their shareholders / backers - leverage over any online content producer who cares about the US market. To me the most worrying scenario is "hey guys, we might want to moderate our content more heavily, or we might be taken out of Comcast gold package next year".

sytelus 9y ago

I think the best possible investment one can ever make is politics. These people have probably got paid million or less dollars and they would generate the reruns of literally 10s of billions of dollars. Nearly guaranteed 10000X returns in just year or two is unheard of anywhere else. I wish politicians were available as ETFs.

loup-vaillant 9y ago
> I think the best possible investment one can ever make is politics. It's not an investment. It's a birthright —at least at the top levels. Good luck being a politician if your family doesn't already have ties with this caste.

reacweb 9y ago

It seems each time lobbyists and lawyers achieve to pass a law against democratic will, it generates a lot of efforts to cancel it. This means many years of mess and fights where lobbyists and lawyers will make a lot of business. Bad behavior is rewarded.

pdimitar 9y ago

Seriously? You are on the FCC and expect other people to fix your problems? What are you doing, playing Solitaire all day? YOU NEED TO BE DOING STUFF RIGHT NOW, not tomorrow, not next week. Now. Call ISPs which are against NN repeal. Tell them to pull all the strings they have available. Call senators. Do counter-lobbying, aren't you americans big fans of lobbies? I don't care what you do. DO SOMETHING. The internet is in danger. And you come forward and tell us that we have to do something. Wow. We really are doomed.

specialist 9y ago
Alas, that's not how policy making works. She doesn't have the votes. But if you/we bring the heat, the other commissioners will see the light. Then opponents of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness will wait until the heat cools off, and then try again while no ones looking. Been there, been done like that.
- pdimitar 9y ago
  Yes, and they will keep trying. Corruption won't be stopped by seeing the light I am afraid. But I have no solution to the problem, I admit. Still, whoever can help should help, like right now.
mratzloff 9y ago
1) She is one of five FCC commissioners. She and one other oppose changes to net neutrality. On her own, she can't keep the status quo. 2) You have no idea what she is doing in the background. 3) Mass public outrage is the only way the public is ever heard. She is asking the public to mobilize to help her fight this change. Her voice is an important one, since she is on the FCC and views these changes as dangerous.

cabaalis 9y ago

I am in favor of net neutrality. But the way you win this argument is not to support it en masse, or to blindly ask your representatives to support it because you think it's good. You have to craft an argument that overcomes the "This is not the government's right or responsibility to control" response. This is what the conservative talking heads are spouting, this is what average Americans believe in and stand behind, and changing this argument is how you win.

mikebenfield 9y ago
I see very little reason to think that persuading people by rational argument is an effective way to make policy happen.
- deleted 9y ago
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mhb 9y ago

Further thoughts on why the end of net neutrality will be fine: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15765461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15765461

matthew349hall 9y ago

So if it passes there will be a court case right? Because if not, I'm taking to the streets.