There was also a lot of direct copypaste spam on the pro-NN side https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*Sc4-R2waeRrGnNL90...
John Oliver[0] might have had something to do with that.
More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
231–240 of 343 posts
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm up for net neutrality, but what do you about one or two pigs hogging the network? This quotes netflix as having 37% of traffic in N.A. http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/01/20/netflix-boasts-37-... It's like you build an autobahn for everyone, and then one monster haulage company moves in and dominates the road, and the road isn't really as useful as envisaged.
Everyone worries about slippery slopes, but I think that limits should exist. Perhaps if you are consuming more than 10% of Internet’s bandwidth, you should have to pay some kind of tax to ISP’s, and those funds should then be required to be reinvested in the network to make it more reliable or increase bandwidth. That seems like it would be an all-around win.
Just remember, the people watching Netflix are the ones consuming the bandwidth. I agree, though, the watchers of Netflix should pay a tax so the rest of us don't get our network congested to the point our torrents are slowing down. :)
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#233FCC has explicitly said that they have ignored any opinion comments. They have only considered comments which bring new facts or a legal opinion. So the fact that many comments were faked is irrelevant anyway.
The government governs by the consent of its citizens. It is never acceptable for the government to ignore the opinions of its citizens, and anyone in government claiming otherwise should be removed. I utterly reject your claim that we should just acquiesce in the face of such malignancy.
Sure, but we have (ideally/optimistically) a representative democracy, and not a direct government-by-the-people. That means that we nominate people we trust, and surrender some of our direct decision-making and opinion-influence authority to them when we vote for them. There are slightly more direct ballot measures and such at more local/municipal/state levels, but even those often take the form of "statement of purpose/priority"-type resolutions that the public expresses support for, and their elected representatives translate them into policy, or delegate that translation, et cetera.
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really wish people would stop using the "he/she won/lost by 3 million popularity votes" line. Something I don't think people realize: 3 million people isn't that many. Considering there are ~325M American citizens, ~231M are eligible to vote, with ~63M and ~66M actual votes going to the Donald and Hilldog respectfully, the margin between the two runners is pretty small. The Donald collected 27.2% of eligible votes,…
> Something I don't think people realize: 3 million people isn't that many. It's not that many in relative terms, but it's certainly a lot of people. It's more than the population of some countries and 20 US states.
> It's more than the population of some countries and 20 US states.
That last part (the margin of victory was tiny relative to some state populations) provides valuable insight into how broken the Electoral College is as a selection system.
(I don't mean that small-in-population states are solely responsible for electoral skew, but they're a good example of the problem.)
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a ISP's customer wants to spend 100% of their bandwidth talking to netflix (or anybody else), that's their business. Netflix is sending that data only because the ISP's customer's asked for it . > autobahn An ISP isn't a shared commons. It's offering a service to transit data to/from other hosts on the internet, usually metered at either a fixed rate per unit time, or by the total carriage "weight" (bandwidth). Co…
"If a ISP's customer wants to spend 100% of their bandwidth talking to netflix (or anybody else), that's their business. Netflix is sending that data only because the ISP's customer's asked for it." I'm not sure you can rebut (parents) hypothetical with an appeal to free markets ... since it is free markets in telecom service that net neutrality subverts for (what is, in my opinion) the greater good. "An ISP isn't a…
> appeal to free markets
This isn't about markets (free or regulated). The entire point[1] of an ISP is to (for a fee) carriage IP packets. Just like UPS/FedEx (for a fee) carriage you physical packages. I'm appealing to the simple idea that both of those businesses have an obligation to fulfill the service the customer paid for.
If ISPs costs are too high, they should e.g. raise their {monthy flat rate,per-bit bandwidth fee} or any claim that they provide access to the internet as an internet service provider is fraud.
> ISP was indeed, to some degree, a shared commons.
The internet is a shared commons. The actual carriage of packets from your house to the internet is usually some kind of leased flat rate or pay-per-use service. You are not sharing your ADSL line or contractually guaranteed portion of your local cable line's bandwidth.
[1] obviously they also handle associated technical minutia like assigning IP addresses
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
The FCC is appointed, not elected. And the current President, who appoints the FCC chairperson, lost the popular election by 3 million votes.
>And the current President, who appoints the FCC chairperson, lost the popular election by 3 million votes. There is no "popular election" in the American system. Consent is, and has always been, given by proxy through the electoral college, as defined in the US Constitution. If you want to invalidate Trump's authority because of that, you have to invalidate every election prior as well, and claim that the US governm…
And if there was a popular election, then there's no guarantee the result would be the same. Under the current system, the candidates focus their campaign on the voters with the most influence ("swing states"). Maximizing popular vote would require different methods.
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#237Just like the election, I wonder if the people behind this care if they get caught as long as they get what they want first. There doesn't seem to be much precedent for overturning laws or elections that were subject to misinformation campaigns.
[I am not a lawyer] Only Congress passes laws (statutes). The FCC is a regulatory body. It has statutory authority (delegated by Congress) to create regulations, not statutes (laws). Proposed FCC regulations have to go through a process defined by statute. Publication and comment are part of that process. Irregularities in the process may form the basis of judicial challenge. Whether what is described here constitute…
Regulations can also be much more easily (and quickly, especially in the face of large changes in executive or congressional personnel/party/attitude) reversed, amended, or removed. The "rules" (mostly per-dept) mandating gradual phase-in, discussion, and phase-out of federal department regulations are much more likely to be bent and/or broken in the face of political sea changes. Not necessarily a good thing, but should be noted nevertheless.
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
>When people vote for president, they vote for a bundle of positions on thousands of issues. Some issues are never discussed in any debate or media at all and presidents have as far as the public is concerned roughly zero position on them (for example, NN). I don’t disagree with you on this at all, but again I think it boils down to ‘elections have consequences’. I don’t think that just because an issue was judged no…
Sure, I agree. But I don't think it's fair to say he has the consent of the governed; rather that our system does not support that notion in any meaningful way. He is using his power against the will of the people explicitly.
The entire job of contemporary elected officials is to use their power against the interests of the people, in order to enact their sponsors' agendas. The booster speeches kowtowing to non-profitable public interests are nothing but wool being pulled over our eyes.
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure: "Pissing off customers has failure points" is the core of the anti-NN arguments. There's no need to regulate what ISPs can do with the traffic - if they slow down access to some websites, or stop providing access to some of them or increase prices on the access of the "entire internet", then the customers would go to competitors who do not impose such restrictions.
What competitors? Many Americans have access to one ISP, and if they have access to more than one, it's often a false choice (DSL v Cable, e.g.) where the speeds are not comparable. I live in Chicago, the third most populous US city, and I have access to only AT&T and Comcast. I've searched for alternatives, but RCN isn't allowed to service my area for some reason, WOW! doesn't serve my area. So I'm stuck with Comcas…
That's a different argument from Net Neutrality. What you should argue for is that localities cannot interfere with IP traffic via franchising the rights to provide telecom/cable services.
Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure: "Pissing off customers has failure points" is the core of the anti-NN arguments. There's no need to regulate what ISPs can do with the traffic - if they slow down access to some websites, or stop providing access to some of them or increase prices on the access of the "entire internet", then the customers would go to competitors who do not impose such restrictions.
Of course, that’s assuming that competitors will pop up to do that. Sadly, the airline, cable, cellular plan and ISP industries have all demonstrated that oligopolies are alive and well - you can bet that ISPs will use the new income from enhanced market segmentation to shut out competitors, not improve their service.
The lack of competition in cable/telecom is purely caused by local rules.