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Why did they solicit public feedback then? And why did they misrepresent public feedback and refuse to acknowledge that most people want net neutrality? Obvious

by bllguo 9y ago

Why did they solicit public feedback then? And why did they misrepresent public feedback and refuse to acknowledge that most people want net neutrality? Obviously they aren't beholden to what the public wants, but the latter is clearly scummy, is it not?

sflicht 9y ago
Isn't it because this is required by the Administrative Procedures Act?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Soliciting and addressing public feedback is; ignoring and/or misrepresenting it is not (and may, in fact, help support a finding that the act was arbitrary and capricious in the light of the information available to the agency at the time of the decision, though that's—even with that fact established—a fairly difficult case to make.)
- Delmania 9y ago
  Yes, the intent is to let the public weigh in, help the committee make an informed decision as opposed to a capricious and arbitrary one. The decision is clearly arbitrary, as Pai has stated from the beginning he's going to do this, has blatantly ignored everyone, and is now on record as having insulted us. In terms of capricious, that's harder to prove. Between the EFF and the various attorneys general, this will be tied up in federal court.
  - harryh 9y ago
    Arbitrary means random. I don't think that Ajit Pai flipped a coin to make this decision.
    - nerfhammer 9y ago
      adjective based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. "his mealtimes were entirely arbitrary" synonyms: capricious, whimsical, random, chance, unpredictable; (of power or a ruling body) unrestrained and autocratic in the use of authority. "arbitrary rule by King and bishops has been made impossible" synonyms: autocratic, dictatorial, autarchic, undemocratic, despotic, tyrannical, authoritarian, high-handed; mathematics. (of a constant or other quantity) of unspecified value.
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    - catnaroek 9y ago
      > Arbitrary means random. This is false both in mathematics and in everyday language.
      - harryh 9y ago
        It also means due to personal whim. I don't think it was this either. Pai has reasons for his choice. Many, of course, disagree with these reasons or think they are bad reasons but they are reasons nonetheless. It wasn't an arbitrary decision.
        Delmania 9y ago
        It's "arbitrary" because Pai, on multiple occasions, indicated he will not take the comments into effect. Even after the reports of the faked comments, the calls to delay the vote by some senators, the faked DDoS attack, he still went through with it. There's also allegation he violated the FCC's process. He was determined to ram this through no matter what. That's arbitrary.
        harryh 9y ago
        No, that just means it's not a democracy. One can listen to a bunch of comments, disagree with them, and choose to do the opposite of what they say without being arbitrary. His determination actually demonstrates the lack of arbitrariness. Arbitrary choices are held lightly and easily changed. This was the opposite.
        Delmania 9y ago
        That's capricious, not arbitrary. If Pai wanted this to go by the book, he would have pushed the vote out until the investigations into the fraudulent comments was completed, at the least. Someone who was determined to see this go through, but not in an arbitrary fashion, would have waited until the various issues with the process were resolved, and then held the vote. Pai was determined to hold this vote no matter what, that's arbitrary.
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    The intent is to let different parties bring their concerns to the attention of the FCC. It is not a vote. Every public comment could advocate for one thing, and the FCC is perfectly in its right to do the other. The only federal elections are for the President, Senators, and Representatives. This is not a direct democracy.
    - Delmania 9y ago
      Administrative Review Act.
ISL 9y ago
It is often required to solicit feedback before a rule change. Those in charge of the rule change are not generally required to follow the feedback. The direct feedback mechanism is voting for those who determine the composition of the rule-making bodies.
- Retric 9y ago
  One more step. The direct feedback mechanism is voting, for people who draw maps that determine who get's elected to have the power to determine the composition of the rule-making bodies. You could even argue it's how people spend their money that determines who has money to chose who get's to draw the maps etc.
  - ISL 9y ago
    Agreed, especially upon the final point. I try to engage in commerce with entities that do/make good things.
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  I'm not sure I'd use the term "direct feedback mechanism" to describe voting for an elector who votes on a President who appoints a commissioner to a five person committee for five year terms.
- zpallin 9y ago
  It's required because it's supposed to help inform the FCC of pending legal challenges. FCC and other government agencies are supposed to take those comments seriously to avoid implementing bad rules and attracting expensive lawsuits in order to save the government (and ultimately the peoples') money.
- sliverstorm 9y ago
  They are not legally beholden to follow the feedback, but if the FCC is supposed to be an unelected dictatorship, why even require feedback?
ikeboy 9y ago
They are required to solicit comments and to consider them. Many comments are cited in the Order. Could you give examples of them "misrepresenting public feedback"?
- pfranz 9y ago
  The FCC has dismissed the public's feedback[1]--they never considered it and did a poor job of soliciting it in the first place. The servers went down during the feed back process, the interface for solicitation was confusing and there wasn't much effort to prevent spam. There were 22 million replies (the previous record was 3.7 million during the last net neutrality debate). Even if you write most of that off as spam or duplicate, form-comments, that's still an immense amount of feedback. To dismiss it all is misrepresenting it. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/why-the-fcc-ignored-public-opinion-in-its-push-to-kill-net-neutrality/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/why-the-fcc-igno...
  - ikeboy 9y ago
    You're complaining about servers going down while acknowledging that the number of comments was unprecedented? And your link doesn't support your claim: >The Pai staffer who spoke with reporters acknowledged that there were legitimate comments from both sides in the net neutrality docket. In Pai's draft order, the FCC comprehensively addresses all the serious comments that made factual and legal arguments, the official said.
    - pfranz 9y ago
      > You're complaining about servers going down while acknowledging that the number of comments was unprecedented? Yes I am. My point is that they did a poor job at soliciting feedback--not that they didn't get a lot. The fact the volume was so high just shows how important it was for this issue. If servers are going offline, then you can show good faith by extending the comment period or addressing it in some other manor. Being "required to solicit comments and to consider them" doesn't mean you only consider a subset containing legal arguments.

by bllguo 9y ago

sflicht 9y ago

Isn't it because this is required by the Administrative Procedures Act?

dragonwriter 9y ago
Soliciting and addressing public feedback is; ignoring and/or misrepresenting it is not (and may, in fact, help support a finding that the act was arbitrary and capricious in the light of the information available to the agency at the time of the decision, though that's—even with that fact established—a fairly difficult case to make.)
Delmania 9y ago
Yes, the intent is to let the public weigh in, help the committee make an informed decision as opposed to a capricious and arbitrary one. The decision is clearly arbitrary, as Pai has stated from the beginning he's going to do this, has blatantly ignored everyone, and is now on record as having insulted us. In terms of capricious, that's harder to prove. Between the EFF and the various attorneys general, this will be tied up in federal court.
- harryh 9y ago
  Arbitrary means random. I don't think that Ajit Pai flipped a coin to make this decision.
  - nerfhammer 9y ago
    adjective based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. "his mealtimes were entirely arbitrary" synonyms: capricious, whimsical, random, chance, unpredictable; (of power or a ruling body) unrestrained and autocratic in the use of authority. "arbitrary rule by King and bishops has been made impossible" synonyms: autocratic, dictatorial, autarchic, undemocratic, despotic, tyrannical, authoritarian, high-handed; mathematics. (of a constant or other quantity) of unspecified value.
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  - catnaroek 9y ago
    > Arbitrary means random. This is false both in mathematics and in everyday language.
    - harryh 9y ago
      It also means due to personal whim. I don't think it was this either. Pai has reasons for his choice. Many, of course, disagree with these reasons or think they are bad reasons but they are reasons nonetheless. It wasn't an arbitrary decision.
      - Delmania 9y ago
        It's "arbitrary" because Pai, on multiple occasions, indicated he will not take the comments into effect. Even after the reports of the faked comments, the calls to delay the vote by some senators, the faked DDoS attack, he still went through with it. There's also allegation he violated the FCC's process. He was determined to ram this through no matter what. That's arbitrary.
        harryh 9y ago
        No, that just means it's not a democracy. One can listen to a bunch of comments, disagree with them, and choose to do the opposite of what they say without being arbitrary. His determination actually demonstrates the lack of arbitrariness. Arbitrary choices are held lightly and easily changed. This was the opposite.
        Delmania 9y ago
        That's capricious, not arbitrary. If Pai wanted this to go by the book, he would have pushed the vote out until the investigations into the fraudulent comments was completed, at the least. Someone who was determined to see this go through, but not in an arbitrary fashion, would have waited until the various issues with the process were resolved, and then held the vote. Pai was determined to hold this vote no matter what, that's arbitrary.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  The intent is to let different parties bring their concerns to the attention of the FCC. It is not a vote. Every public comment could advocate for one thing, and the FCC is perfectly in its right to do the other. The only federal elections are for the President, Senators, and Representatives. This is not a direct democracy.
  - Delmania 9y ago
    Administrative Review Act.

ISL 9y ago

It is often required to solicit feedback before a rule change. Those in charge of the rule change are not generally required to follow the feedback. The direct feedback mechanism is voting for those who determine the composition of the rule-making bodies.

Retric 9y ago
One more step. The direct feedback mechanism is voting, for people who draw maps that determine who get's elected to have the power to determine the composition of the rule-making bodies. You could even argue it's how people spend their money that determines who has money to chose who get's to draw the maps etc.
- ISL 9y ago
  Agreed, especially upon the final point. I try to engage in commerce with entities that do/make good things.
CobrastanJorji 9y ago
I'm not sure I'd use the term "direct feedback mechanism" to describe voting for an elector who votes on a President who appoints a commissioner to a five person committee for five year terms.
zpallin 9y ago
It's required because it's supposed to help inform the FCC of pending legal challenges. FCC and other government agencies are supposed to take those comments seriously to avoid implementing bad rules and attracting expensive lawsuits in order to save the government (and ultimately the peoples') money.
sliverstorm 9y ago
They are not legally beholden to follow the feedback, but if the FCC is supposed to be an unelected dictatorship, why even require feedback?

ikeboy 9y ago

They are required to solicit comments and to consider them. Many comments are cited in the Order. Could you give examples of them "misrepresenting public feedback"?

pfranz 9y ago
The FCC has dismissed the public's feedback[1]--they never considered it and did a poor job of soliciting it in the first place. The servers went down during the feed back process, the interface for solicitation was confusing and there wasn't much effort to prevent spam. There were 22 million replies (the previous record was 3.7 million during the last net neutrality debate). Even if you write most of that off as spam or duplicate, form-comments, that's still an immense amount of feedback. To dismiss it all is misrepresenting it. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/why-the-fcc-ignored-public-opinion-in-its-push-to-kill-net-neutrality/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/why-the-fcc-igno...
- ikeboy 9y ago
  You're complaining about servers going down while acknowledging that the number of comments was unprecedented? And your link doesn't support your claim: >The Pai staffer who spoke with reporters acknowledged that there were legitimate comments from both sides in the net neutrality docket. In Pai's draft order, the FCC comprehensively addresses all the serious comments that made factual and legal arguments, the official said.
  - pfranz 9y ago
    > You're complaining about servers going down while acknowledging that the number of comments was unprecedented? Yes I am. My point is that they did a poor job at soliciting feedback--not that they didn't get a lot. The fact the volume was so high just shows how important it was for this issue. If servers are going offline, then you can show good faith by extending the comment period or addressing it in some other manor. Being "required to solicit comments and to consider them" doesn't mean you only consider a subset containing legal arguments.