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More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

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Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#241

Post by coldtea »

dingo_bat wrote: post #13

FCC 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.

>So the fact that many comments were faked is irrelevant anyway.

First, what the FCC "explicitly said" and what they did is not necessarily the same. They are humans, and they could just as well be affected by opinion comments and their general tangent.

Second, other (common) people read them, and developed a perception of general consensus and what others thing based of them. If those people read fake comments, that's of concern in itself.

Third, the entity that did such a thing should be exposed, especially if its tied to some corporate player. What other foul means have they used, if they stooped to this?

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#242

Post by coldtea »

zbentley wrote: post #233
CydeWeys wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

>Sure, but we have (ideally/optimistically) a representative democracy, and not a direct government-by-the-people.

You say it as if it's a good thing.

Representative "democracy" is seldom representative, and is a watered down version of actual democracy.

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#243

Post by mrgordon »

indubitable wrote: post #184
snuxoll wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would hopefully bite them in the ass if I had any faith in a Trump-appointed judicial branch. The FCC is required to take public comments into account when making regulations, this should be a fairly straightforward lawsuit.

Taking comments into account is different than simply having an opt-in vote which translates to who's e-petition can go the most viral (and let's not even get into fraud). And this is very much a good thing. In this case, even if I might agree with having some issue with net neutrality being repealed - I think most people have no clue at all what's going on and are voting based on fear mongering and sensationalism. F…

I agree with gbrown. Pai’s statements are so untruthful and nonsensical that I can’t figure out why he thinks it could help even after reading many comments by him. His most clear argument is that it will somehow increase investments into ISP infrastructure (citing, I think, what happened in Portugal) while he simultaneously says we have no way to know what effects repealing it will have until we try it. Meanwhile a million people have shared the images of the bucketed plans from Portugal charging $9.99 extra for social networking and things like that.

The man is totally full of BS.

As for your comment that he was an Obama appointee, he was actually selected by Mitch McConnell but I know it’s a common trope to blame everything on Obama.

“Though an Obama appointee, Pai does not share Obama’s progressive views and is by no means someone Obama would have chosen to lead the commission. Rather, there’s a tradition of letting the minority party pick two commissioners, since the majority can only legally hold three seats; in nominating Pai — at the recommendation of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican — Obama was sticking to that tradition.”

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#244

Post by mrgordon »

gbrown wrote: post #203
indubitable wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking comments into account is different than simply having an opt-in vote which translates to who's e-petition can go the most viral (and let's not even get into fraud). And this is very much a good thing. In this case, even if I might agree with having some issue with net neutrality being repealed - I think most people have no clue at all what's going on and are voting based on fear mongering and sensationalism. F…

> what percent of people could explain why Pai thinks repealing net neutrality is a good idea? Well, he says things like "increasing competition", and talks about "burdensome regulations", but I honestly don't believe he thinks repealing net neutrality will benefit consumers. I don't care who appointed him, to me he's an obvious, lying shill.

Agreed. See my comment next to yours also. The minority party appoints 2/5 of the FCC so Obama was just appointing Mitch McConnell’s pick (but being Obama he gets all the blame for it!)

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#245

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

dboreham wrote: post #224
pdkl95 wrote: post #142

Earlier 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…

They asked for it but they didn't pay for it.

The customer paid the ISP for bandwidth and Netflix pays AWS for outbound bandwidth. Both parties are paying providers for the requested capacity. ISPs in other countries can provide service at lower prices that US ISPs so I find it hard to believe this is a cost of service argument. The truth is that cable TV is being displaced by network delivered video and the ISPs know they can’t easily replace the cable revenue b6 jacking up internet access fees. Repealing net neutrality provides cover to shift revenue from cable to internet.

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#246

Post by coldtea »

TehCorwiz wrote: post #189
return0 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consent was given in the ballot box, No?

The FCC is appointed, not elected. And the current President, who appoints the FCC chairperson, lost the popular election by 3 million votes.

Nope, he just got 3 million votes less - but the way the voting system works is that absolute number of votes doesn't count, how they're distributed in states count.

The current President didn't design this system, and the opponent could just as well have benefited by it (and previous presidents had).

Lacking direct democracy, it's not even necessarily a bad system in itself (whatever one believes for the current president). It might even be more representative of the average American than the popular vote (if e.g. the majority of the 3 million votes are concentrated in a particular state or two. IIRC the President got something like 50 million votes?

Imagine an exaggerated (but possible) case where 3 states push 50 million votes for one side, and the 49 rest of them push 47 million votes for the other side between them. Would you say that would be a good result, to have a president that has a majority that is based on 3 out of 52 states?

It might not have been as bad in the elections, but a huge part of those 3 million votes where mostly from one state, not distributed more or less evenly across the country. Which is the kind of issue the idea behind the election system wanted to avoid.

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#247

Post by mmcconnell1618 »

dsr_ wrote: post #164
chrischen wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix doesn’t hog the network. You do, by downloading Netflix data, but then again you are also paying for that data.

And Netflix is also paying for that data, albeit out of profits generated by you paying them. Everyone pays for their connection to the notional Internet. Individual households tend to pay for all-you-can-eat of a nominal speed, which is fractionally provisioned upstream at whatever rate the ISP thinks that they won't get too many complaints about - typically 10:1. Medium and large companies either buy all-you-can-ea…

Cable TV is dying and you’re correct that this is an attempt to secure higher rent for the internet service that is displacing cable

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#248

Post by _asummers »

notyourday wrote: post #239
_asummers wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is an argument that goes along with it. The refrain (and argument given by parent) about NN is that you can use your voice as a consumer to go elsewhere (to another competitor) in a non-NN world if they are dissatisfied with their ISP's NN policies. The problem I outlined shows that isn't really an option for many Americans.

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#249

Post by dingo_bat »

wfo wrote: post #201
travmatt wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much, elections have consequences and interpretations of federal regulations is the quintessential example of that. There are means by which the other branches could restrain or affect these interpretations, but I have a hard time believing most voters didn’t or couldn’t ascertain the intentions of most candidates regarding net neutrality this past election cycle.

When people vote for president, they vote for a bundle of positions on thousands of issues. Every person who has voted for a president has voted against their own policy positions, often hundreds or thousands of their own policy positions. 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). It is of course…

> hoping he would destroy a free and open Internet

Many of us disagree with the equivalence between nn and "free and open internet".

Re: More Than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

#250

Post by wanderingbort »

acdha wrote: post #197
keypress wrote: post #100

Earlier 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.

Beyond the observation that ISP customers are paying lots of money so they can use things like Netflix, I wanted to expand on a key point made by DiThi and others: Netflix gives away free servers to cache popular content near the users so the ISP doesn’t need to pay for the bandwidth to stream multiple copies of the same thing: https://openconnect.netflix.com/ My ISP (RCN) uses this and we’ve never had a slowdown usi…

> Netflix gives away free servers to cache popular content near the users so the ISP doesn’t need to pay for the bandwidth to stream multiple copies of the same thing

You have to be a decently large ISP to qualify. So, this is helpful to big players BUT big players can also afford a PoP in a major hub where they can likely directly peer with Netflix.

This is also a "black-box" system on your network, likely behind your edge firewalls and DMZs. So, you will have to deploy extra network infrastructure and monitoring protect the rest of your network from Netflix. If it was outside your edge routing/firewalling it may as well be on a peer network.

So, this isn't exactly a "free pass" for anyone to have superior Netflix service. And it would only serve Netflix. The ISP I worked with had a few racks devoted to this type of machinery (Google Global Caches, Akamai CDN edge nodes etc). We were not large enough to qualify to host an OpenConnect Box.

Even with one you have the additional issue that most last-mile providers don't exactly have a 40gigabit back-haul to all of their DSLAM or CMTS PoPs. So, some part of "congestion" happens down stream of the data centers. This is why companies like Comcast will put one of their On-Demand video storage boxes in that giant green box that is at the end of your street. You are literally talking with a server next door. OpenConnect style boxes cannot compete with that proximity and that deployment strategy is partially responsible for one of the "smoking guns" in this debate where people claim proof that Comcast slows Netflix in favor of their services.

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