Dead People Mysteriously Support the FCC's Attack on Net Neutrality
techdirt.comThis makes sense, actually. Dead people tend to be older, and have less stake in newer bandwidth-intensive applications.
It makes sense, until you go search the comment database for your family members and find out how many of them have nearly identical opinions in support of repealing Title II.
This site[1] will help you search the database. I read a number of comments that start out with some variation of "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama Administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation. I urge the Federal Communications Commission to end the bureaucratic regulatory overreach of the internet known as Title II..."
It's amazing how many people spontaneously had the same opinion on a handful of days in May and July this year! /s
[1]: https://www.comcastroturf.com/
Edit: You were making a joke, weren't you... (woosh)
Being we've had foreign governments messing with our democracy using social media and hacking, this should be fully investigated. I'm not claiming they are interfering, only saying we should rule out the possibility using our best forensics.
I don’t know why we have to point fingers abroad, when there is so much incentive at home to fudge these results from the telecom companies about to be deregulated.
It seems the goal is to rule it out -- in other words, use the political will centering on interference from abroad to kick start the investigation Ajit Pai is so loath to initiate.
It's a political gambit.
I think the concern here is that the line between home incentive and foreign incentive has become indecipherably blurred by recent events with this administration.
We're finding out that people across the entire breadth of the Trump administration have ties to shady Russian dealings. Given the criticism over certain media outlets, and how those are increasingly intertwined with the delivery of said media, it seems a fair question to raise.
BOTH are problems.
But beyond that, why would you put an unauthenticated public comment form on the internet and not expect it to be filled with 90% rubbish. I mean, have we not learned anything?
Public forms on the internet != democracy.
> Public forms on the internet != democracy.
I disagree. I think that's exactly what democracy is. That's why the Founding Fathers decided the US should be a republic.
>messing with our democracy
The U.S. has had a flawed democracy regardless of foreign meddling. Americans do not even elect their president directly.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#Democracy_Inde...
Do not most nations elect the head of state indirectly?
Here in Sweden the largest block with most seats get to chose the Prime minister and the seats a decided through the general election. Each seats in turn do not represent a set number of voters, but rather represent different areas in order to not let higher population areas completely dominate low population areas. As a result, citizens of the island of gotland which its two seats has almost half the normal amount of voters per seat, based on the idea that people from there should be represented by at least two different political parties and out of 349 seats it don't really make any difference in the big picture.
Democratic systems are complex. It doesn't make it flawed.
If by "flawed" you mean it isn't a true democracy, I would say that I don't think it was ever intended to be one. It was designed to function as a republic and prevent mob rule.
>Americans do not even elect their president directly.
This is a design feature, not a bug. The founding fathers would close your trouble ticket citing the federalist papers.
Much as I like the Federalist papers, the idea that the last word on governance was written >200 years ago is foolish. After all, the founding fathers didn't believe in concepts like universal suffrage or standing armies, and yet here we are with both. I wish people would stop citing them like some sort of religious authorities instead of just relatively wise men whose ideas worked well in an earlier era but have since been fetishized to the point of irrationality.
Personally I want to get rid of representative government as soon as possible and move towards a participatory model instead.
That's a bit of a red herring, don't you think? Of course the problems in American democracy can't be reduced to a single source, but that's not what was being said. Simply that foreign interference is certainly a proven problem
I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but I can’t let the response go unsaid: democracy does not require direct elections. The founding fathers were not naive idiots who didn’t know how to design an election.
No offence by why are the founding fathers put on such a high pedestal in the U.S.? Everything they did had a reason but some of those reasons do not make sense anymore. The electoral college was put in place to give more saying to the south but that's not needed anymore. Gun ownership was put in place to protect from militias but again, that's not the case anymore, why keep all of these laws?
The Electoral college wasn't put in only at the request of the South. A number of smaller states wanted it (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware); because, they feared political domination by the larger states. Same fundamental reason that there is both the House and the Senate.
The big concession to the South with the 3/5 compromise which primarily had an effect upon the representation in the House, and correspondingly an effect on the Electoral College.
> Same fundamental reason that there is both the House and the Senate.
Actually the reason there is both the House and the Senate is that the Senate was intended to represent the voice of the states in the federal government. It wasn't supposed to be only about how many votes the people of each state get. Senators were originally appointed by the state legislatures.
That was changed in a fit of populism in the early 20th century and has caused only problems ever since.
No, gun ownership was put in place to allow citizens to form militias to protect themselves FROM the government.
In a day and age where even our local police departments have grenade launchers, MRAPs and other military surplus gear, our right to cling to our handful of pea shooters and pretend like we can overthrow anything has also become a relic of times past.
I'm not a gun nut. I don't own a gun. I don't buy into gun rights for everyone regardless of the human cost.
However. I think you grossly underestimate just how many guns there are in the U.S. There's like 300 million guns floating around, enough to arm every able-bodied adult.
It's not the futility that's preventing armed revolution in the U.S., it's that despite all the crying people do their lives are really good enough that they have something to lose by tearing the whole system down.
I can't predict who would prevail, but if there was a major crisis that sparked a serious revolution that involved millions or tens of millions of U.S. citizens in armed revolt. It might not be as open and shut as you imagine. Military, police, state and local governments aren't going to automatically and universally side with the federal government. It could spiral out of control in ways you can't imagine. And who knows, maybe foreign powers get involved and depending on the circumstances who's to say who they side with.
We're no where near close to anything like that though, so of course it can be hard to contemplate. Imagining that it's impossible is just a lack of imagination though.
The problem that gun legislation faces is that it will take generations to feel reasonable impact of anything but the most draconian laws, and the most draconian laws would never pass. And unfortunately we're short sighted. If something can't be done in a year or an election cycle, it's hopeless. If the results aren't instant and tangible, what was the point? It's a real problem, the lack of long term planning and the willingness to pay for two pounds of cure instead of an ounce of prevention at ten times the price.
> Military, police, state and local governments aren't going to automatically and universally side with the federal government.
They would side with whoever pays them.
The electoral college is not obsolete.
50% of the US population lives in 10 states.
Don't you think the other 40 states would like a say too? Or do you (mistakenly) believe the concerns of urban citizens are identical to those living in rural areas?
Why should their vote matter more because they have decided to live in an unpopular location?
Because we live in a Federated Republic of States not a direct Democracy, and the nation you decide to live in was explicitly set up to be governed in a way where a few large states (Virginia at that time) did not have a stranglehold on power over the rest.
> why keep all of these laws?
Because it takes agreement from three quarters of the states to change the constitution for good reason, and three quarters of the states aren't convinced we don't need them anymore.
>No offence by why are the founding fathers put on such a high pedestal in the U.S.?
Because they were exceedingly well educated, with a knowledge of the rise and fall of nations, and of the shortcomings of human nature. They designed a system of checks and balances that gives the individual the best chances at success in such a world. The reasoning behind these decisions are well documented in the Federalist Papers.
> They designed a system of checks and balances that gives the individual the best chances at success in such a world
In which loopholes have been found and exploited to such a degree that these checks and balances now gives the individuals with enough moral terpitude the best chance at success at the expense of most individuals.
Why doesn't someone do the same thing but for net neutrality? Just make a bot to spam with fake or dead names in favor of neutrality to balance it out. The FCC apparently won't do anything either way so why not
This is a technically creative approach, and I think the internet's future is unfortunately going to be something like this.
But I for one would rather take the high road. Please call your senator(s) and representative(s) and let them know how upset this all is making you!
> the internet's future is unfortunately going to be something like this
It's not the future; it's been going on for a long time. The Chinese and Russian governments have long run large astroturfing propaganda operations, astroturfing by U.S. businesses (and I assume those in other countries) is an old story, and the last U.S. presidential election was swamped by social media propaganda operations, foreign and domestic.
How about ditching Web 2.0 entirely? It's time to head to Web 3.0, an era where the Internet will be truly decentralized and free.
So we are talking about people pretending to be people they aren’t, and your solution is decentralize the whole thing?
Yes, but how? I got really into Semantic web stuff maybe 5-6 years ago and I thought it would have taken over by now but it seems to have withered for lack of development. You're welcome to email me with your thoughts if you prefer.
Sorry about the others downvoting you. If you dig into my comment history, I've written about a few ways to do this.
Great suggestion.
Will it be unicorn-fart powered, or are you thinking some sort of genie-based system?
Because they'll be denounced as hypocrites and possibly prosecuted. We're not dealing with people who play fair here, and playing legal jeopardy when you're in the defensive posture is self-defeating. There are other tactics that are more effective and don't compromise the moral position to the same degree, eg digging into the financial interests of the opponent, exposing their operations (as in this story) etc.
When I mention the moral level I don't mean in a kindergargertenish way. The moral dimension of conflict is a key part of modern military strategy, because success in war, as an elaboration of politics, depends heavily on public buy-in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist...
> However, if you go to his house on 11 Tee Pee Row, you will unfortunately speak to a kind person who will tell you that John has been passed away since 2016 and no one else there has the same name.
This is my new favorite name for a residential street.
If net neutrality is axed I'm moving to Berlin to live on Max-Beer street. With HN throttled I'll need a new addiction.
HN is so fast I use it to test my internet issues. It’ll be hard to throttle it.
Additionally, why would any ISP throttle a site with as little traffic as HN?
Edit: I say "little" in comparison to the seriously high traffic sites like Netflix or Google.
I'm imagining a situation where Susan Startuper wants her HN fix 20x a day just like everyone, but refuses to pay for the "Hacker Channel" subscription with her ISP. She still gets access but only at 128kb/s. In some areas there's just one ISP and it doesn't offer the Hacker Channel. DNS resolution of news.ycombinator.com fails for all of its customers.
Max-Beer street would start looking pretty good, especially if Max-HN was also available there. I'd be interested to know what, if any, effect the demise of net neutrality would have on American service providers with foreign customers.
They're not doing it for bandwidth conservation, it's a way to extract rent from companies that are (already paying someone for) using the internet to reach their customers.
> This is my new favorite name for a residential street.
There's a "Wildgoose Chase" in the Clarence Valley, Australia.. I find that one pretty good
I'm partial to Five Card Draw. The street, not the game. Now how do I get dead people to vote for things I want?
Easy! Browse this database to select the telecom firm you find most compatible with your ethical standards:
https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?id=TEC
Drill down to find a list of firms who can recruit dead people and random special interests (see here from some of the interest groups who will rent you their outrage: http://stopthecap.com/2009/10/02/special-report-astroturf-ov... ).
Handily enough, you also get an idea of what it costs right on Open Secrets. I wish medical price lists were this easy, and I bet there are some dead people who think so, too.
Funny you say that. I used to drive by that street on the way to school.
You may also like Lake Jackson, TX where you can shop at the Aldi on This Way St or eat at the Wurst Haus on That Way St.
It is fairly clear at this point that FCC as an agency is a captive of business interests.
It should be treated as openly hostile to the interests of the general public.
You might say that of most governmental agencies and the Congress as well.
The U$ is an oligarchy in all but name.
I'd just like to point out, hopefully without being accused of shilling, that part of Net Neutrality legislation involves the quiet reclassification of ISPs as title ii common carriers.
These are regulations designed for phone companies in the 1930s. Why should you worry? Because all network traffic will be subject to extremely broad obscenity laws.
I will try to find the legislation shortly, but effectively, causing "offense" or transmitting "obscene" material gives the federal government an excuse to prosecute you.
Suddenly, posting on 4chan can get you thrown in prison.
Edit: found it[0], I dont understand why no one is aware of this. I plead that you take a moment to check the link, as this is a dangerous extension of government power, especially in combination with current surveillence.
You're not shilling, you're just wrong. Its requirement is to be obscene with intent to abuse, threaten, or harass another person which is a strong safeguard most people want. It prevents revenge porn and the like. Not all porn.
Edit: The other provision requires the sender of obscenity to know the recipient is under 18 - this is worth re-evaluating in the light of two consensual teenagers, but is nowhere near the sky-is-falling everyone-goes-to-prison since it's hard to prove you know recipients of an anonymous message board.
Also, while I can't find a definition for obscenity, a later section bars the transmission of it over cable and subscription services. So it would seem that the sort of material that is already being transmitted on Cinemax, HBO, or the Playboy Channel is not what is considered "obscene". I see there are still pornography shops and strip clubs still around, so whatever the definition of "obscene" must be, it must not involve garden variety, hardcore pornography.
> Also, while I can't find a definition for obscenity
not even the supreme court can define obscenity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
Do you believe that "harass" and "abuse" are well defined?
It doesn't bother you that a sizable proportion of mostly harmless messages on Facebook, Twitter, 4chan, etc are suddenly potential felonies? And that they can be used to target innocent individuals by the federal government?
What happens when a legitimate whistleblower becomes a problem, and suddenly an angry twitter rant becomes an excuse for arrest?
Your questions are all assuming you are already correct. This won't be a productive conversation if you keep trying to start from there when I've already pointed out how you were originally wrong. Additionally, anti-cyberbullying laws which deal with this exact scenario we are discussing (obscenity with intention to harass/abuse) already exist in nearly all US States, so no I am not worried about our social consensus at the federal level.
> I've already pointed out how you were originally wrong
I don't see that. The GP accepted your statement, that it requires intent to harass and abuse, and commented on it.
Also, why should the GP accept your analysis? Do you have expertise?
Rereading it, I can now see your view, thanks. I don't know enough about the legal definitions of "harass" and "abuse", but I suspect it comes down to your personal level of confidence of whether government abuses this narrow bit in the first place, and secondly whether the entire public would just let this quietly slip by in the public courts without demanding some sort of self-correction action (judicial, legislative, or executive). I am not a gambling man, but I think my position on both of these chances are both reasonable and the most probable, with high confidence. (Edit to add: a sibling in this tree says it better, to paraphrase: "laws can be challenged and reinterpreted, it is a mistake to assume they do not")
In case it isn't obvious, I'm not a lawyer. No one should accept my analysis, because I'm a stranger on the internet, or a Turing-Test-succeeding imitation of one. Likewise, I'm not going to accept OP's analysis for the same reasons. But I will participate in a discussion that allows readers to explore alternate ideas and viewpoints, chasing an overly-idealistic goal of inspiring each of us into self-driven personal growth. Because that's a virtue worth striving for no matter which side of the argument you are on.
Apparently this was an argument brought up back in 2014 as well[1]. While it focuses more on TV and porn instead of phones and 4chan, in the end the FCC only managed to actually use this power via the nature of the medium (since TV uses spectrum). The only internet that could fall under this is mobile internet, which already doesn't fall under net neutrality (since a lot of carriers have been introducing zero-rating for plans for awhile now without resistance).
[1]https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140623/07052927656/rep-i...
Weren't they re-classified as telecoms so that the FCC would be able to regulate them at all?
People are already aware of this, and furthermore arguments over obscenity standards can be heard on their own merits, as has been the case for many decades already. They're not beyond challenge.
This is not the case. Also there's no net neutrality legislation -- there's an order from the FCC that's been in place since 2015.
And the law you are referring to isn't from the 1930s. It's the 1996 Telecom Act.
Here's what the order said about that section:
We also note that the restrictions on obscene and illicit content in sections 223 and 231(to the extent enforced)1647—as well as the associated limitations on liability—in many cases, do not vary with the classification decisions in this Order, and thus likewise are not encompassed by the forbearance in this Order.1648 To the extent that certain of these provisions would benefit broadband providers and could instead be viewed as provisions that are newly applied to broadband providers by virtue of the classification decisions in this Order, it would better promote broadband deployment, and thus better serve the public interest, if we continue to apply those provisions.1
Footnote -> We note that many of the relevant provisions in these sections stem from the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which federal courts have enjoined from being enforced. COPA amended the Communications Act by adding sections 230(d) and 231 and amending parts of sections 223(h)(2) and 230(d)–(f). See Child Online Protection Act, Pub. L. No. 105-277, §§ 1401–05, 112 Stat. 2681-736–2681-741 (1998). After COPA reached the Supreme Court twice, a federal court held that COPA is unconstitutional and placed a permanent injunction against its enforcement. The decision was affirmed on appeal, and petition for writ of certiorari has been denied. See ACLU v. Reno, 31 F. Supp.2d 473 (E.D. Pa. 1999) (enjoining the enforcement of the Act), aff’d, 217 F.3d 162 (3rd Cir. 2000), vacated and remanded, Ashcroft v. ACLU, 535 U.S. 564 (2002) (finding that the Act’s reference to contemporary community standards on its own does not render it unconstitutional and the 3rd Circuit must consider additional matters), aff’d, ACLU v. Ashcroft, 322 F.3d 240 (3rd Cir. 2003), aff’d and remanded, Ashcroft v. ACLU, 542 U.S. 656 (2004) (instructing that the district court should update the factual record and take into account current, applicable technologies); ACLU v. Gonzales, 478 F. Supp.2d 775 (E.D. Pa 2007) (entering a permanent injunction against enforcement of the Act after holding that it is facially unconstitutional), aff’d, ACLU v. Mukasey, 534 F.3d 181 (3rd Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 1032 (2009). The Communications Decency Act (CDA) (Pub. L. No. 104-104, §§ 501–02, 110 Stat. 56, 133–36), which amended section 223 of the Communications Act, has also been overturned in part, by the Supreme Court. See Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (1997). However, the constitutionally offensive parts of the CDA were amended by the PROTECT Act, which is still good law. See Prosecutorial Remedies and Tools against the Exploitation of Children Today (PROTECT) Act, Pub. L. No. 108-21, § 603, 117 Stat. 650, 687 (2003)
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pd...
I've been trying to tell people this for a while - I do believe in net neutrality, but the title II classification is a boondoggle, and those laws need serious rewrite. I'm not seriously concerned about getting arrested for downloading pornography - When was the last time you heard of someone getting arrested for shouting "Fuck!" over the phone? - But I am concerned that those laws were written for Bell Telephone, and survived the breakup and re-integration of the Baby Bells. I don't think they're at all a good fit for how the internet works.
It seems to me the Internet has been tamed, by in large. But it has to do more with the overlord companies swallowing most of it, and then subjecting everyone to their own regulations. Even if you're on the outside, you can't exist without services that require you to play by their rules (or virtues).
Perfect is the enemy of good. At this point, we can't even get them reclassified as title 2. I doubt there's the will power and civility to come up with a whole new set of laws that are reasonable and designed around the public's best interest.
But, I would be happy if my cynicism gets proven wrong.
These laws are dangerous because they are vague enough to give the government a free pass to legally target almost anyone who uses the internet.
It is another means to possibly silence whistleblowers and/or opposition.
Except these laws already apply to every other form of media and they aren't being used to silence whistleblowers or political opposition.
The sky is not falling.
"Every other form of media" is not the same as the media on the internet, where individuals create the media.
More importantly, why would you want the federal government to have such abusable power? The sky may not be falling now, but that is no excuse to do nothing while our freedoms are eroded.
It's not absolute power, as evidenced by the fact that it hasn't been absolute power.
Your whole argument rests on the unspoken and incorrect premise that such laws aren't open to challenge, when in fact they have been challenged and litigated extensively and you're only looking at the statutory side.
This seems to be a common error among hackers who assume that statute = law and don't consider the history of how courts have interpreted and circumscribed statutes over the years. Of course, this is also a structural problem in our legal system which makes it quite difficult to ascertain what the actual operational parameters are without spending a lot of time in a law library or its digital equivalent. Much of what lawyers are paid for is their knowledge of how to trace and apply that history to new fact patterns.
Girls Lean Back Everywhere by Edward de Grazia is widely considered the best single work on the law of obscenity, although it's heavily focused on sexuality and pornography and may seem somewhat dated by today's standards.
Regardless of these specific laws, the fact that one has the "freedom" to spend time and money fighting overreaching laws in court does not make them acceptable.
My point is that you don't have to do so to the extent that you're claiming because other people already have.
Can we acknowledge we live in a dystopian era yet? What further has to happen?
If we're in a dystopian era, that must be in comparison to something. What era was, on the balance of factors, better than today?
It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. It is the age of rationalists, it is the age of complete morons in government. It is the epoch of incredulity, it is the epoch of fake news.
In terms of sentiment, this came out yesterday:
>More than half of Americans (59 percent) said they consider this the lowest point in U.S. history that they can remember — a figure spanning every generation, including those who lived through World War II and Vietnam, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point...
A dystopian era is incredibly subjective in and of itself. I'm sure there are quite a few people in power right now who feel it is the dawn of a new golden (gilded?) age for them.
I do not know about you but my peer group has been acknowledging that for some time now.
People have to have a measurably worse life now than they did before, for one. "I don't like President Trump" isn't a valid response, even if he is an idiot.
There's a massive amount of economic documentation on wage stagnation just for starters. This is of course open to challenge or refutation, but bashing straw men does nothing to advance discussion.
Certainly true, although one can also point out that prices for a lot of things have gone down, with quality improvements in some arenas as well. It's tough to determine if wage stagnation has truly hurt the median American. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted for this post.
I only bring up Trump because a lot of people argue his mere existence and rhetoric as bringing down their quality of life, which is a nonsense point that isn't worth an initial consideration until his negativity is firmly entrenched in legally established policy.
I see what you're saying, although I disagree slightly on the rhetoric/policy thing. Rhetoric is a leading indicator and often guides practice before policy has been put in place. I think Latino people are objectively less safe from discrimination (both official and informal) than they were a few years ago, for example. There hasn't been any formal policy against Latino people, but stoking the fires of racial resentment emboldens bigots and has a chilling effect on the targets of bigotry, or those who might be mistaken for being targets.
This is offered to supplement rather than refute your point though.
Teen suicide is trending the wrong way which is my main argument.
After saying that, yeah, an investigation is due...maybe laws were broken, but I can say that I used a dead person name as a way to be anon.
In the end this should not matter, FCC is not running a vote. If they count pro /against this way then it's their problem. Arguments should be the only deciding factor.
> In the end this should not matter, FCC is not running a vote.
Perhaps. But would you expect the FCC to actually sift through millions of stuffed comments just to get to the few good ones?
By stuffing the system with trash comments, the submitters effectively guaranteed that the FCC won't bother to read any of the comments.
They are, say 5 interest groups on the corp side and 5 known consumer organizations, each with their own connections and lobbyists.
FCC will get their POV and virtually every good argument, especially in such a major case. The "send your comment" is essentially a sham, making us think we have a voice (that matters)
Well if dead people can come up with insightful comments, then great. These are comments, not votes. Once all the possible ideas have been presented, there is no point in further comments.
In the end only actual politics matters. If you want to do a petition then do a partition. If you want to complain then target a politician.
But what if the FCC is counting the quantity of citizens making a given point when deciding? In that case the quantity matters even if it is a restatement of the same argument.
>But what if the FCC is counting the quantity of citizens making a given point when deciding?
That is an interesting theory but ultimately the FCC answers to Congress. They are not allowed to do their own politics (although sometimes they try). They are in the end just a regulator. They do make a nice scapegoat so as to allow the actual politicians to avoid criticism of the policies those politicians created.
Both FCC and congress are composed of people. People can easily be biased just by the amount of data they encounter on one side or the other, especially if arguments on both sides sound compelling and most of those people don't really want to spend too much time into the topic.
My statement was not really about who controls the FCC, but about how they will or are ACTUALLY considering public comments currently.