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This doesn't seem like the best outlet to protest the FCC's stance on net neutrality. The people that are going to be affected most by this (if it does work) ar

This doesn't seem like the best outlet to protest the FCC's stance on net neutrality. The people that are going to be affected most by this (if it does work) are going to be the rank and file at the FCC who have no decision making power and only hold a job there. The FCC has 2k employees and most of them don't even work in the relevant bureau that deals with net neutrality. When news outlets say the "FCC's plan for net neutrality", what they really mean is the plan that Tom Wheeler and his office put together. You're going to hurt the wrong people if you do this and it succeeds. Why not write to your Congressperson instead or think of something that doesn't adversely affect a ton of people who don't have anything to do with the net neutrality debate?

TheCraiggers 12y ago
That's one way of looking at it. The other way is that we treat the FCC as an entity. We make it tough for that entity to do everything in order to put pressure on the top. It's not like the employees have zero power there. And while it may indeed be near-zero power, I still feel that they have more power as an employee of the FCC than I do as a member of the faceless public. Maybe this will empower a scared employee to come forward and speak out. Or maybe you're right and they do have zero power there, but maybe they'll understand what's at stake and call their representative. Also, it's not like we're throttling these employee's home connections. We're not slowing down their daughter's access to Wikipedia at home, we're slowing down their connection to Facebook while at work.
protonfish 12y ago
That's like saying you shouldn't fight a war by attacking the soldiers.
talmand 12y ago
Writing your rep in Congress is a waste of time with as many form letters they receive pretty much demanding everything under the sun. You would be just easily ignored noise. If this type of bandwidth throttling limit is to work it would have to target a much larger group than the FCC. The entire federal government might be a start. But management might like that as it would likely lead to increased productivity. One would have to focus on that list of people outside of work somehow. Maybe a day of slow loading YouTube videos for all the customers of certain ISPs with a banner explaining what's going on. All in all, I don't think anything like this could work unless you're willing to accidentally suck in a lot of people that are not involved.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> This doesn't seem like the best outlet to protest the FCC's stance on net neutrality Its not a protest of the FCC's stance on net neutrality, its a protest of a media rumor of the stance of the FCC chair in a proposal under discussion at the FCC that has been denied by the FCC chair. Literally no one at the FCC (well, except maybe the minority on the commission that were overtly opposed to net neutrality before the recent Open Internet Order was struck down) has publicly endorsed anything like the rumored position. > When news outlets say the "FCC's plan for net neutrality", what they really mean is the plan that Tom Wheeler and his office put together. But when they say it would "allow a fast lane", they mean that a couple of news outlets had anonymous sources that claimed something like that (which other outlets have grabbed and reported the fact that other outlets have reported it), and Wheeler himself has rather forcefully denied it. Now we've got some news outlets claiming, based on the original leaks, and not paying attention to later information, that the "fast lane" is part of the FCC proposal, and others, based on assuming the original leaks were completely accurate, but trying to reconcile the later denial into a coherent narrative, that the FCC "reversed course" on the "fast lane" proposal.
- pdabbadabba 12y ago
  Well, yes and no. The FCC is considering a proposed rulemaking that would require ISPs to disclose their policies to consumers, ban blocking of legal content, and prohibit "commercially unreasonable" traffic discrimination. http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/openinternet.pdf http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/openinternet.pdf The specific regulations, of course, have not been drafted, but if these are the only three policies the FCC has in mind, it seems reasonable to infer that the ban on "commercially unreasonable" discrimination, implies that "commercially reasonable" discrimination is permissible. The devil, of course, is in the definition of ""commercially unreasonable." But it seems like there is good reason to worry that this would permit something like a fast lane and, thus, it seems like a good idea for those of us who think this is a bad idea to begin mobilizing. That all said, I do think that throttling the entire FCC to dialup speeds is a stupid idea. As others have pointed out, this will harm many more people than are actually involved in the regulatory decision in any way, and is unlikely to make a difference in the thinking of the actual regulators in the face of the reams of actually well-thought-out comments they will be receiving from lawyers and internet policy experts. It also ignores the fact that the "slow-lane," if it does come to exist, is very unlikely to be at anything like dialup speeds. Given the FCC's overall commitment to increased broadband penetration (which has been amply demonstrated, I think) I doubt that anyone at the FCC would be inclined to find such discrimination "commercially reasonable." If you really want to have an impact, maybe you should band together and write a comment letter.

TheCraiggers 12y ago

That's one way of looking at it. The other way is that we treat the FCC as an entity. We make it tough for that entity to do everything in order to put pressure on the top. It's not like the employees have zero power there. And while it may indeed be near-zero power, I still feel that they have more power as an employee of the FCC than I do as a member of the faceless public. Maybe this will empower a scared employee to come forward and speak out. Or maybe you're right and they do have zero power there, but maybe they'll understand what's at stake and call their representative. Also, it's not like we're throttling these employee's home connections. We're not slowing down their daughter's access to Wikipedia at home, we're slowing down their connection to Facebook while at work.

protonfish 12y ago

That's like saying you shouldn't fight a war by attacking the soldiers.

talmand 12y ago

Writing your rep in Congress is a waste of time with as many form letters they receive pretty much demanding everything under the sun. You would be just easily ignored noise. If this type of bandwidth throttling limit is to work it would have to target a much larger group than the FCC. The entire federal government might be a start. But management might like that as it would likely lead to increased productivity. One would have to focus on that list of people outside of work somehow. Maybe a day of slow loading YouTube videos for all the customers of certain ISPs with a banner explaining what's going on. All in all, I don't think anything like this could work unless you're willing to accidentally suck in a lot of people that are not involved.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> This doesn't seem like the best outlet to protest the FCC's stance on net neutrality Its not a protest of the FCC's stance on net neutrality, its a protest of a media rumor of the stance of the FCC chair in a proposal under discussion at the FCC that has been denied by the FCC chair. Literally no one at the FCC (well, except maybe the minority on the commission that were overtly opposed to net neutrality before the recent Open Internet Order was struck down) has publicly endorsed anything like the rumored position. > When news outlets say the "FCC's plan for net neutrality", what they really mean is the plan that Tom Wheeler and his office put together. But when they say it would "allow a fast lane", they mean that a couple of news outlets had anonymous sources that claimed something like that (which other outlets have grabbed and reported the fact that other outlets have reported it), and Wheeler himself has rather forcefully denied it. Now we've got some news outlets claiming, based on the original leaks, and not paying attention to later information, that the "fast lane" is part of the FCC proposal, and others, based on assuming the original leaks were completely accurate, but trying to reconcile the later denial into a coherent narrative, that the FCC "reversed course" on the "fast lane" proposal.

pdabbadabba 12y ago
Well, yes and no. The FCC is considering a proposed rulemaking that would require ISPs to disclose their policies to consumers, ban blocking of legal content, and prohibit "commercially unreasonable" traffic discrimination. http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/openinternet.pdf http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/openinternet.pdf The specific regulations, of course, have not been drafted, but if these are the only three policies the FCC has in mind, it seems reasonable to infer that the ban on "commercially unreasonable" discrimination, implies that "commercially reasonable" discrimination is permissible. The devil, of course, is in the definition of ""commercially unreasonable." But it seems like there is good reason to worry that this would permit something like a fast lane and, thus, it seems like a good idea for those of us who think this is a bad idea to begin mobilizing. That all said, I do think that throttling the entire FCC to dialup speeds is a stupid idea. As others have pointed out, this will harm many more people than are actually involved in the regulatory decision in any way, and is unlikely to make a difference in the thinking of the actual regulators in the face of the reams of actually well-thought-out comments they will be receiving from lawyers and internet policy experts. It also ignores the fact that the "slow-lane," if it does come to exist, is very unlikely to be at anything like dialup speeds. Given the FCC's overall commitment to increased broadband penetration (which has been amply demonstrated, I think) I doubt that anyone at the FCC would be inclined to find such discrimination "commercially reasonable." If you really want to have an impact, maybe you should band together and write a comment letter.