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So was the support. The NN debate online was a massive propaganda warfare campaign between two teams of huge corporations, neither of which had any of our inte

So was the support. The NN debate online was a massive propaganda warfare campaign between two teams of huge corporations, neither of which had any of our interests in mind. We were squeezed in the middle of it and everyone was pressured to take sides.

ineedasername 6y ago
I haven't come across accusations that pro-NN were systematically submitting fraudulently support comments to the FCC. Absent that, there's no "both sides" argument here.
- dexen 6y ago
  The pro-NN were systematically publishing fraudlent, alarmist opinion pieces in the media. That the channel is different and more dignified (citizen feedback vs big-name publications) doesn't make it any better.
  - betterunix2 6y ago
    Actually it makes a big difference, because the FCC has an obligation to consider comments submitted as part of the public comment process.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Anti-NN were doing the same, so on that account perhaps they're equally awful. But defrauding the democratic process of public commentary & input into the policy making decisions of a major governmental organization rises to quite a higher level.
- travismark 6y ago
  the WSJ piece mentions fake comments on both sides (paywall..) https://www.wsj.com/articles/fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-marred-by-millions-of-fake-comments-11620309351 https://www.wsj.com/articles/fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-ma... "Investigators also found 9.3 million comments supporting net neutrality that used fictitious identities, most submitted by one California college student majoring in computer science."
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Well, that's pretty awful, and I appreciate the counter point. However, I'd draw a distinction between the actions of a single person that don't equate to the large scale coordinated attacks of the same sort by Anti-NN groups.
sharklazer 6y ago
This! People forgot the whole "why should we pay for this, when we can politically club the providers over the head?" arguments here. Netflix was having interconnect issues, and didn't want to pay for a reasonable solution, so they made a hissy fit and progagandized the issue. And I will also admit that I DID OPPOSE NN regulations, as they were "specified" (if any one remembers, they were only released AFTER being accepted by the FCC). Specifically in the "why fix what's not broken?" sense (ref stratechery for a more detailed consideration than I can give: https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/) . It was not clear to me that they would provide any benefits that propaganda claimed. It was also clear to me that the quite reasonable thing of Netflix to pay Comcast (and other Tier 3 providers) to skip interconnect issues, which was being done before the whole argument came up, would also possibly come under scrutiny by the new regulation. And so I threw up my arms and said "If real technical solutions are going to be abandoned because of some misunderstanding of technology, I'm not on board". The vitriol that still exists over this from people who this never really effected nor even understood the technical problem. Moreover, I was appalled at the lack of care here to even consider this from a technical perspective. Complete blindness to consideration due to tribalism. Now were people wrong to use other's info without consent, sure! I 100% agree there. Downvotes, commense!
- khawkins 6y ago
  Companies like Google and Facebook were running around screaming Chicken Little about how companies like Verizon and Comcast will use their monopolistic powers to dominate public speech, screw over users, and screw over startup competitors. Interesting where we ended up today. The propaganda framed it like sites like Netflix would be really fast because they could afford to pay for it and startup competitors would be very slow, but economic incentives would have actually caused the exact opposite. A startup video hosting site is of relatively no burden to an ISP compared to a behemoth like Netflix so they would have no reason to slow down the startup speeds. If the startup succeeds because it has a competitive advantage to Netflix, then when they become big they get a new customer they can bully into keeping their speeds high. Yes ISPs will take a cut of the fees they charge content providers, but they will also be able to pass those savings onto the average consumer because the Netflix customer, who is already using most of the internet bandwidth, is helping pay for the service connection. Market forces would force streaming services to go up in price and ISP costs to go down. It would be generally fairer.
protomyth 6y ago
My problem was I never saw a technical definition that a system admin could follow. I was very worried that basic spam blocking would break a badly written law. For those who don't think that would be possible, then you haven't had the pleasure of watching a law with good intentions ban you from using Drop Box.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ineedasername 6y ago

I haven't come across accusations that pro-NN were systematically submitting fraudulently support comments to the FCC. Absent that, there's no "both sides" argument here.

dexen 6y ago
The pro-NN were systematically publishing fraudlent, alarmist opinion pieces in the media. That the channel is different and more dignified (citizen feedback vs big-name publications) doesn't make it any better.
- betterunix2 6y ago
  Actually it makes a big difference, because the FCC has an obligation to consider comments submitted as part of the public comment process.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Anti-NN were doing the same, so on that account perhaps they're equally awful. But defrauding the democratic process of public commentary & input into the policy making decisions of a major governmental organization rises to quite a higher level.
travismark 6y ago
the WSJ piece mentions fake comments on both sides (paywall..) https://www.wsj.com/articles/fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-marred-by-millions-of-fake-comments-11620309351 https://www.wsj.com/articles/fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-ma... "Investigators also found 9.3 million comments supporting net neutrality that used fictitious identities, most submitted by one California college student majoring in computer science."
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Well, that's pretty awful, and I appreciate the counter point. However, I'd draw a distinction between the actions of a single person that don't equate to the large scale coordinated attacks of the same sort by Anti-NN groups.

sharklazer 6y ago

This! People forgot the whole "why should we pay for this, when we can politically club the providers over the head?" arguments here. Netflix was having interconnect issues, and didn't want to pay for a reasonable solution, so they made a hissy fit and progagandized the issue. And I will also admit that I DID OPPOSE NN regulations, as they were "specified" (if any one remembers, they were only released AFTER being accepted by the FCC). Specifically in the "why fix what's not broken?" sense (ref stratechery for a more detailed consideration than I can give: https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/ https://stratechery.com/2017/pro-neutrality-anti-title-ii/) . It was not clear to me that they would provide any benefits that propaganda claimed. It was also clear to me that the quite reasonable thing of Netflix to pay Comcast (and other Tier 3 providers) to skip interconnect issues, which was being done before the whole argument came up, would also possibly come under scrutiny by the new regulation. And so I threw up my arms and said "If real technical solutions are going to be abandoned because of some misunderstanding of technology, I'm not on board". The vitriol that still exists over this from people who this never really effected nor even understood the technical problem. Moreover, I was appalled at the lack of care here to even consider this from a technical perspective. Complete blindness to consideration due to tribalism. Now were people wrong to use other's info without consent, sure! I 100% agree there. Downvotes, commense!

khawkins 6y ago
Companies like Google and Facebook were running around screaming Chicken Little about how companies like Verizon and Comcast will use their monopolistic powers to dominate public speech, screw over users, and screw over startup competitors. Interesting where we ended up today. The propaganda framed it like sites like Netflix would be really fast because they could afford to pay for it and startup competitors would be very slow, but economic incentives would have actually caused the exact opposite. A startup video hosting site is of relatively no burden to an ISP compared to a behemoth like Netflix so they would have no reason to slow down the startup speeds. If the startup succeeds because it has a competitive advantage to Netflix, then when they become big they get a new customer they can bully into keeping their speeds high. Yes ISPs will take a cut of the fees they charge content providers, but they will also be able to pass those savings onto the average consumer because the Netflix customer, who is already using most of the internet bandwidth, is helping pay for the service connection. Market forces would force streaming services to go up in price and ISP costs to go down. It would be generally fairer.

protomyth 6y ago

My problem was I never saw a technical definition that a system admin could follow. I was very worried that basic spam blocking would break a badly written law. For those who don't think that would be possible, then you haven't had the pleasure of watching a law with good intentions ban you from using Drop Box.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]