[HN Gopher] The FCC voted to reimplement net neutrality. Now com...
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The FCC voted to reimplement net neutrality. Now comes the hard
part
Author : cratermoon
Score : 55 points
Date : 2023-11-10 18:59 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationaljournal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationaljournal.com)
| W3cUYxYwmXb5c wrote:
| Remember when people were manipulated into being absolutely
| convinced that the internet as we knew it would be destroyed when
| it was removed?
| Spivak wrote:
| Or ya know, you could just look at the violations that already
| happened. Like were you not around for the bullshit Verizon
| tethering plan? It was one of the reasons I rooted my phone.
|
| https://www.freepress.net/blog/net-neutrality-violations-bri...
| graphe wrote:
| What about after it was repealed?
| behringer wrote:
| You mean like increased Netflix prices due to being charged
| both for my Comcast service and my Comcast usage via
| Netflix?
|
| I'm still waiting for my better internet service too...
| That never seemed to materialize after getting rid of net
| neutrality.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Wasn't the increased Netflix price because they realized
| they weren't charging the maximum the market would bear?
| scrps wrote:
| Not sure at netflix scale if NN really affected them iirc
| netflix does most everything on the edge, I doubt most of
| your netflix traffic even left comcast's network other
| than maybe auth data.
|
| Not saying you are wrong about cost increases in general,
| I think it probably had more of an impact on more up and
| coming services who might not have the funds to ship out
| a ton of edge servers.
| danShumway wrote:
| See https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/9/20687903/net-
| neutrality-wa..., a mere year after the repeal.
|
| But I think it's really silly to to look at an industry
| with documented abuse in the absence of regulation and to
| essentially ignore that and say "but what about the abuses
| within this specific time period?"
|
| We know that under current broadband rules absent Net
| Neutrality, the abuses described above are legal. We've
| seen companies engage in those abuses. To the extent that
| the worst of that behavior is still illegal, it's only
| because individual states like California have picked up
| the fight, which broadband providers have fought fiercely
| to prevent.
|
| But there's no evidence that broadband providers wouldn't
| repeat the same behaviors given the opportunity. Broadband
| providers do engage in behavior today that would be in
| violation of Net Neutrality rules, particularly around
| video throttling and zero-rating. The ongoing fight over
| Net Neutrality and increased customer attention might be
| limiting that behavior, but if anything that's evidence
| that increased scrutiny is _good_ for the market, not that
| it 's unnecessary. Companies have in the absence of Net
| Neutrality, taken advantage of the lack of regulations
| about as much as was feasible for them to do so.
|
| There's a weird pattern on HN I'm noticing where people are
| holding a wild dog at bay with a stick, and other people
| are standing behind them saying, "I thought you said if we
| unleashed this dog it was going to maul us, you sure have
| egg on your face. See, there's no reason to leash the dog."
| booleandilemma wrote:
| If net neutrality isn't the thing protecting Americans from
| some kind of internet dystopia where data for each service is
| treated and billed differently, then what is?
|
| There must be some law preventing it, because knowing
| companies, they'll do the basest things they can get away with,
| and I'm sure they'd love to do this.
|
| This is what I mean, from Indonesia:
| https://www.traveltomtom.net/media/cached-resp-images/images...
| wmf wrote:
| ISPs want to make as much money as possible but there are
| multiple ways to do that. Once ISPs discovered that "fast
| lanes" and similar ideas are bad PR they moved on to peering
| extortion. Unfortunately, activists haven't really adapted
| and are still mostly talking about QoS and protocol blocking.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Ads are bad PR, raising prices are bad PR, yet we see
| plenty of both.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| They make money selling all sorts of stuff. Wireless was
| never neutral, but tech and the marginal competitive
| pressures kept it ok.
|
| My Spectrum connection is 40% more expensive and 0% faster
| than it was in 2013. My Wireless spend is 20% lower and 2-5x
| faster.
|
| Between the industry astroturfing and the splinterd advocacy,
| "net neutrality" is almost as meaningless as "fake news".
| falcrist wrote:
| > Between the industry astroturfing and the splinterd
| advocacy, "net neutrality" is almost as meaningless as
| "fake news".
|
| I have to disagree with this. There's a very clear meaning,
| and the 2015 FCC rules for wired connections put it
| succinctly.
|
| No blocking or throttling of legal content, and no paid
| prioritization.
|
| The wikipedia article has more information, but
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
| falcrist wrote:
| > some kind of internet dystopia where data for each service
| is treated and billed differently
|
| I feel like this particular topic (while important) distracts
| from a much more disturbing possibility: blocking or
| throttling legal content for political purposes.
|
| It has been pretty rare, but it's not unheard of. Given the
| number of companies that can block your access to a given
| site (DNS, ISP, backbone, webhost, etc), I think having
| _some_ regulatory or statutory protections for online speech
| is in order. Net Neutrality (in it 's 2015 FCC formulation
| among others) is basically that.
| scrps wrote:
| I don't remember that at all but I do remember a time when
| using politicians to deregulate industry so said industry can
| rent-seek was called corporate welfare.
| hansjorg wrote:
| When it was removed, several states, stepped up and introduced
| their own net neutrality laws.
|
| E.g California with their Internet Consumer Protection and Net
| Neutrality Act.
|
| Some of the large telecoms are on record saying that this made
| it not worth it to enact the changes they had planned.
|
| WNYC On The Media had an episode on this recently.
| Alupis wrote:
| Or how you could ask 10 people what Net Neutrality meant and
| get 12 different answers, none of which related to the proposed
| policies?
| pessimizer wrote:
| The fact that people were warned of a probable outcome of
| failing at net neutrality, making that outcome unbelievably
| unpopular, is the reason we didn't have that outcome.
|
| What you refer to as being "manipulated" is more neutrally
| called campaigning and arguing one's case. I know the zeitgeist
| is to make it seem like ideas we don't support are a form of
| terrorism.
|
| "Manipulated" is hiring temps to submit public comments to the
| FCC.
| digging wrote:
| Awful take. Reads like Ajit Pai wrote it.
|
| People were warning that without NN the internet as we knew it
| could be destroyed. The fact that it wasn't immediately
| destroyed doesn't make them wrong. It just means we didn't get
| the worst possible outcome.
| nicexe wrote:
| Is the title the actual article? The only extra info in the page
| is a semi-unrelated pic.
| LoganDark wrote:
| Looks like it's only available to members with an account, but
| accounts can only be obtained via "contact us" (and probably a
| very expensive subscription).
|
| Here's an "unlocked" link (good until Nov 19th):
| https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/723252/the-fcc-voted-to-re...
|
| Snapshot:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231110203104/https://www.natio...
|
| (I used the Wayback Machine because both archive.is and
| archive.ph are endless captcha loops.)
| leotravis10 wrote:
| Sadly, I can't get past the "continue" button prompt.
| LoganDark wrote:
| There should be no need, you can just use uBlock to remove
| the entire prompt, since it doesn't scroll-lock the page.
| thedaly wrote:
| Here is a backup of the unlocked link:
| https://archive.is/hBf2Z
| LoganDark wrote:
| That's an endless cloudflare captcha loop, but ty
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > That's an endless cloudflare captcha loop
|
| Yeah. It's an ongoing issue (but not the old Cloudflare
| one).
|
| There are workarounds but they have to be put in place.
|
| ref https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38171778
|
| ref
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38063548#38063580
| leotravis10 wrote:
| I feel that SCOTUS will have to put this Net Neutrality debate to
| a end one way or another. Even if it's voted upon, expect
| lawsuits and legal battles that eventually, the highest court
| will have to get involved and we'll know if it's allowed to
| stand, or closing the books on consumer protections for a
| generation.
| willis936 wrote:
| That's not the SCOTUS' job.
|
| The legislative branch sets these rules. The judiciary just
| interprets them and makes sure the rule set is self consistent
| (new rules don't break existing rules). The SCOTUS has no
| business in drawing these lines.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Which branch of government is the FCC?
| jasonjayr wrote:
| Executive, with rule-making authority. (Rules that can be
| changed by the legislative branch)
| jtbayly wrote:
| Precisely. Which is why it will end up being decided by
| the courts. Because the legislative branch _hasn 't_
| passed a law. The unelected, unaccountable committee that
| changes at the whim of the president is not the place to
| legislate. If you want to pass a law, pass a law.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| Unelected in a way, but their boss _is_ elected, and they
| are absolutely accountable. There is no "whim" upon which
| these rules change, there was however an election that
| replaced their boss with someone else.
|
| You either care about accountability and therefore laud
| their changing position based on that accountability, or
| you're just parroting a blind argument conservatives have
| been making for a number of years now because you don't
| like their most recent decision.
| JDazzle wrote:
| It's the Executive Branch, which is headed by PotUS
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| SCOTUS has always played a role in determining whether or not
| executive branch rules are in keeping with constitutional
| understandings, at least since Marbury.
| leotravis10 wrote:
| In the previous chapter of this years long battle, a appeals
| court ruled that the Pai-led FCC can kill Net Neutrality on
| the federal level but allowed states to create their own
| rules, something that the FCC wanted but failed to preempt
| states's rules.
|
| Also, the ISP lobby tried to kill California's state law but
| was defeated three times. https://arstechnica.com/tech-
| policy/2022/05/stung-by-3-court...
|
| I expect the same battles to be fought when the FCC get the
| final votes on it and like I said, the Supreme Court may have
| to get involved to put an end to the back and fourth as ISPs
| will try their hardest to get to the highest court.
| paulddraper wrote:
| The courts will rule on three things:
|
| (1) Whether the legislature has given the FCC sufficient
| regulatory authority for the policy. (See Comcast v FCC which
| the FCC lost.)
|
| (2) Whether the legislature or the FCC's actions comply with
| the Constitution.
|
| (3) Whether the FCC enforcement complies with their rules.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| Remember during the public commentary about removing it, there
| were millions of automated messages claiming to be pro-removal?
| What ever happened with that? Did anyone ever get in trouble?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Ajit Pai deemed the issue unimportant so they took no action
| Federally and then voted to kill NN. Eric Schneiderman, New
| York's AG, began an investigation since a bunch of the fake
| comments used real people's information, so they had an
| 'identity theft' nexus to state laws -- but Pai refused to aid
| the investigation in any way:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/21/16686644/eric-schneiderm...
|
| That's the problem with electing people who don't believe in
| democracy or civil service, they have so many levers to use to
| dismantle things including just straight obstruction. Echos of
| the FEC's corruption, where several members tasked with
| upholding election law have decided they're just not going to
| do that, contrary to the professional staff who've indicated
| that laws were likely broken:
|
| https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7968/7968_14.pdf
| skizm wrote:
| https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/east/2023/05/11/720346...
| thedaly wrote:
| https://archive.is/hBf2Z
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(page generated 2023-11-10 23:01 UTC)