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Cable Companies Duped Community Groups Into Fighting Net Neutrality
walterbyrd (182728) writes Last week, it transpired that the big cable companies were bankrolling fake consumer groups like Broadband for America and The American Consumer Institute. These 'independent consumer advocacy groups' are, in truth, nothing of the sort, and instead represent the interests of its benefactors, in the fight against net neutrality. If that wasn't bad enough, VICE is now reporting that several of the real community groups (and an Ohio bed-and-breakfast) that were signed up as supporters of Broadband for America were either duped into joining, or were signed up to the cause without their consent or knowledge.
I guess these were the same people who signed petitions against DHMO
Otherwise, who's the dupe?
STOP THE INSANITY! remember that one?
where the fuck is the alacarte programming options? you bribed the fcc into allowing you to encrypt all video signals and go all-digital.. so now that every customer must have a company-provided receiver, recorder, or cable card... you no longer have ANY EXCUSE for not offering what customers demand -- the ability to pick-and-choose each individual channel or network they want and to only pay for those and not the hundreds of others which are pure junk and would never stand on their own if their existence depended upon viewer choice.
(satellite companies have nothing standing in THEIR way, either, for offering alacarte programming)
other things that are known to happen in american democracy with seemingly little if any recourse:
Oil company dupes community groups into fighting EPA regulations
Major food company dupes citizens into fighting a tax on soda
Cigarette company dupes consumers into thinking smoking is a right, not a crippling addiction
President dupes country into fighting country with no WMD's
Good people go to bed earlier.
1. Get paid to lobby
2. Invent supporters
3. Profit!
I think that bringing broadband to America would be pretty cool. I've heard good things about it...very slowly... from parts of the world that do have it, and it seems like we really ought to as well.
I'm just confused about why Comcast, of all people, would be in charge of operating such an initiative, given their apparent opposition to good internet connections...
But... change! ... .. .
More investigative journalism is the shot in the arm that America needs right now and maybe Snowden did a good thing.
No more than paid shills elected Shrub twice.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Slashdot comments have officially hit rock bottom.
Thank you Mr Shill.
Actually, he was only elected once.
Sue them! They are asking for a Class Action and a "media circus" exposure. Don't be lenient with these deceiving bastards.
I get the sarcasm in that, but I had already stated this when /. first reported this about a week ago, that Cable Companies were already doing this. Government/politicians do this this all the time, PAC groups, censorship groups, ect ect, however those groups were created with the intent of creating propaganda to change laws and re-enforcement of laws, or simply for sabotage.
This is as low as one can get, those groups should be destroyed for backstabbing the public they claimed to support. I don't want to hear any bullshit about them being duped into supporting anti-neutrality, it should be pretty simple to figure out any funding trying to convince your group to oppose net neutrality, is a dead giveaway someone sinister wants your support.
Then again these monopolies maybe leaking this out as a PR spin, they figure people that believe in these groups and support them will scatter and lose interest in making sure net neutrality becomes a reality.
And of course the shit for brain press/media seem only interested in discrediting anyone to make a buck or gain an extra ratings point themselves. I find it very odd VICE reports this at a time when Congress and the FCC are about to make a decision on what needs to be done, instead of this getting leaked when FCC rumors and talks began.
Do you work for the cable company?
This is about net neutrality, not broadband access. Hence the word 'duped' in the title.
I know Comcast would never do anything sneaky, shitty, or otherwise underhanded; so this must be either a huge misunderstanding or what's really the best for us all. Comcast knows best!
I've posted on slashdot regularly for 5 years now, and first was very suprised about the new look of Slashdot Beta. Now I'm accustomed to it and I really would miss it when Dice abandons Beta. I have asked all my friends who also have been on slashdot for a long time. They share my thoughts, and they also like the new comment system.
I believe that the opposers of slashdot beta are only a tiny minority of the users fearing change. When humanity had followed their strategy, we would still live on trees. I think now is the time for progress and to turn off non-beta slashdot.
You can help this (real) grass roots movement by copying this post into every story.
Hahaha....you libfags are still so butthurt. Go gaze longingly at the Obama poster on your wall and know that his two terms will more than make up for the Algore loss you find it so difficult to accept.
Oh, right, of course ... corporations are people with free speech, and entitled to actively lie to us.
Right, that totally makes sense.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Appeal to hypocrisy.
And your comment was helpful how?
Pot, meet the kettle...dick
Google and Netflix fund many of the NGOs that claim to be for freedom, privacy and -- surprise, surprise-- net neutrality. This is a battle between billionaires and the cable companies aren't the only billionaires in the game.
Now, it's just a way to eavesdrop on us, track all we do and where we go. I know there are many smart nerds out there still fighting the good fight for freedom, but it seems it's not enough to hold back the ones who think controlling the populace through technology is their God given right as Masters Of The Universe.
Don't forget, fox news sued for their right-to-knowingly-lie and won in court.....
The irony here is that I think Obama has been tremendously disappointing, and yet he's light years better than the idiot that came before him...
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I really, really want to be against net neutrality, because free market and such, but when I look at Time Warner and Comcast, they are the best argument *for* net neutrality. I guess it comes down to who I trust more, the government, or the cable companies.... and it's kind of a tie at zero... Now if the FCC would decide that the infrastructure could be used by startups, allowing for actual competition, then we might get somewhere.
And Baby Doc Bushwa twice before that.
oblig. FoxTrot
Because voting for Dubya was a sign of high intelligence?
Dick meeting kettle is not as fun as it sounds.
You mean no wonder they elected GWB four times right? OK, he has had more of a tan these last two terms, big difference!
Don't feel bad for these "Community Groups" they have shown time and time again that they can be bought very cheaply. Lets remember that the NAACP gave Donald Sterling two awards after sizable contributions from him.
I had to check if my HOA had been duped too, because this is just the type of thing they would do. They're not on the list, but if anyone else is interested they should check the list themselves to see if any groups they're members of are on it.
^^^^ Now they have. Every level meta you go pushes the rock bottom that much lower...
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Sounds like a criminal conspiracy
To learn that "Broadband for America" and "American Consumer Institute" were in fact bankrolled by industry, instead of being a tight-knit community of volunteers taking time after their kids' soccer and little league games.
I said shills, not dangling chads.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
No there will be even more buracracy and obfuscation in our legal system.
When someone on the street asks me to sign a petition, the answer is always no. It doesn't matter how worthy the stated cause is:
- Free, nutritious school lunches for whales
- Not grinding minorities into paste at the border
- Municipal high-speed internet
You don't know what you are really signing until you read the fine print, and the fine print under the fine print.
You just didn't smoke enough pot first.
This. And so much of the reason he's been a disappointment has more to do with congress than with him. He wasn't the one gutting his own health care bill, was he? Mind you, he completely lacks any of the kind of influence required to sway the opinions of our representatives and bring them back in line with that the general populace wants; but, then, that being necessary in the first place if a failing of congress, not the presidency.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Isn't this some kind of slanderous attribution? at least in the case where folks weren't even aware they were listed as a supporter... there ought to be some form of retribution for behavior like this.
Is there more to this story that doesn't make it fraud?
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Use of a name like that has risk. Doesn't comcast risk a class-action suit by those whose names were falsely named?
it's the only thing the cable & satellite companies will understand - basically cut the cord and buy your content à la cart on DVD, blu-ray, or a streaming service.
I set up a Mac mini DVR at the end of 2012 for off-the-air content - based on my last scan there's 115 channels available via antenna here in Houston. Once I got everything working (my HDTV predates HDMI so I had to get a solution to convert HDMI to Component Video) I then cancelled DirecTV in January of 2013. I buy cable series on blu-ray and iTunes, as well as watch some series on Amazon via my PS3. I've saved over $2000 since then (what I used to pay DirecTV less content purchases).
I'm using the prior generation of these networked HDTV tuners. Since they're networked I can watch live TV on my MacBook Pro as well as on my iPhone and iPad.
more info in my DVR Project blog entries.
I haven't been able to sluice out a diffrence between the two, aside from Reagan's healthcare plan. The speeches are wildly diffrent, but not the actions.
It's debatable whether he was even elected once.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, but the fact that it got gutted is why Obama is as terrible a president as GW.
Any leader worth his/her salt recognizes the assets that they have as well as what they don't have and optimizes based on that. Obama's healthcare law getting gutted is a direct result of intransigence - not only of the Republican party, but also at the White House. He should have seen what the rest of us did: a combative party in control of the House. He should then have worked around them or with them (or both) to lay the groundwork for useful future healthcare legislation. Instead, he went for the Hail Mary, and it (predictably) fell incomplete.
Neither GW's nor Obama's policies on anything have been grounded in reality. Neither belong (or belonged) in the White House. It's interesting to listen to a cross-section of former US Government administration directors about what they DON'T say about White House administrations, current and previous. (At least two of the directors I've heard have spoken very positively about e.g. Reagan and Clinton - bipartisan, even! - but say absolutely nothing about GW and Obama. As the old adage goes, "if you've got nothing good to say...")
This reminds me of something one of my friends told me about signing up for facebook in the early days.
He had created an account, and started following a few famous actors and such, then lost interest in it for a while because nobody really used it yet.
Later, when it became popular, he decided to log in again. In his news feed was the strangest stuff being posted by one of the actors he was following.
The profile was called "The Tony Danza". He had thought he was following the profile of the actor at the time, when in reality "The Tony Danza" is a sex move. http://www.urbandictionary.com...
Presidents usually give me a frown-y face, Bush gave me an angry face, hence the current frown-y face president.
Seriously?
Have we invaded a new country while lying to the entire world about why?
Obama is a disappointment, Bush was a shameful embarassment. Too bad too, because McCain in 2000 (not the bitter f*cked over by Karl Rove McCain of 2008) would have likely have been a decent president.
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He tried with syria, and got a quick victory in libia.
He tried to invade Syria?
He invaded Libya and won a quick victory?
<InigoMontoya>I do not think that word means what you think it means...</InigoMontoya> ;)
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We violated their airspace and blew shit up. That is invasion. Our "allies" won on the ground. Syria, he asked congress for permission to retaliate against them for using chemical weapons, he was shot down. It was a pretty big deal.
I appreciate that if party affiliation clouds how we use words. But if Bush 2 did it, would you have approved?
Unfortunately, he isn't. And it wouldn't have been that hard. For the first couple of months it looked as if he would be an improvement.
OTOH, he hasn't made things as much worse as he easily could have.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Obama is as terrible a president as GW.
I just have.. fifteen.. words to say to that.. ... Act
Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism
I hate the Affordable Care Act too, but it doesn't even come close to that.
We violated their airspace and blew shit up. That is invasion.
No, it isn't - unless you're using the trivialized definition of the word where if you are standing a foot from me then you've 'invaded' my personal space. No rational person could compare our actions in Libya with the invasion of Iraq.
No rational person could compare asking congress for permission to retaliate against Syria if they used chemical weapons with "attempting to invade Syria."
Party affiliation? I'm an independent. I'd love for a non-retard conservative to somehow magically make it through the primaries.
If Bush 2 did it, I wouldn't be bringing it up as an example of how shameful his presidency was, I'd be bringing up the part about lying to absolutely everyone about WMDs simply to get the war he wanted.
You sound like you're viewing things through a political filter to me.
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Unfortunately, he isn't.
He isn't what? He isn't better than W? Are you crazy? My f*cking dog would be a better president than George Bush Jr. I've had navel lint smarter than that dipsh*t.
If Rove hadn't sabotaged McCain in 2000 we'd very likely be in a much better place.
Sadly, since that bitter back stabbing McCain has become "new and improved McCain - now with more crazy!"
Let's hope somebody sane can make it through the Republican primary to give non crazy people someone to vote for besides whatever Democrat comes out on top.
The Republican party should get down on its knees and kiss Colin Powell's a** until he says 'yes' - I swear that man would win in an absolute landslide. Hell, the Democrats would probably just concede the election once he'd won the primary.
Again, sadly, the Bush gang poisoned that great man as well.
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Please, sir, I implore you to go back and re-read the last sentence of my post. Here, I'll make it easy for you (while correcting a typo): Mind you, he completely lacks any of the kind of influence required to sway the opinions of our representatives and bring them back in line with that the general populace wants; but, then, that being necessary in the first place is a failing of congress, not the presidency.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Yeah Bush 2 was a doucher. But Obama has followed suit. Afganastan had about as much validation as Syria. I'll bow to your comments on invasion being the wrong term. How about Act of War against a nation that posed no threat?
I'll second that. We can all acknowledge that O's peace price was a "Not Bush" prize. As much as I am pissed at Obama for being weak and not actually fighting for any of the changes to the system that he spoke of on the campaign trail...... He at least didn't enter a war in Afghanistan because a group in that country pissed us off (Think about that for a second. A radical Canadian group blows up a pipeline. We do NOT invade Canada!) or invade Iraq based on shitty intelligence AND for no good reason at all (Note, ISIS just took Fallujah. We are leaving that country more fucked than when we came in. Saddam was a bastard, but at least he was stable-ish and the Taliban were NOT in Iraq.).
Yes, Obama is just as bit a corporatist as Bush.
I'm a liberal. I'd vote for Colin Powel. He's accomplished, intelligent, and seems to have common sense in spades. He also seems to actually just say what he thinks instead of trying to be "presidential". He'd never make it through a Republican primary though... :D
I did not have a problem with us invading Afghanistan because the Afghani government hid and protected Al Qaeda after 9/11.
How about Act of War against a nation that posed no threat?
Don't get me started ;). Yeah, we've gone from the policeman of the world (understandable in many cases) to the 'overzealous swat douchebag' of the world.
I am against sending troops or drones or air strikes of any kind inside of countries that have not explicitly given us permission that we are not at war with. Every president has probably flirted with this, but Bush really made it policy and Obama has followed suit (the f*cking coward.)
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I fought in Afganastan, there was some basis, like Syria, but it was kinda thin. The vast majority of the bad guys came from the House of Saud, but there isn't real fidellity on wha state actors were involved. Afganastan certainly tried to shelter Osama after the fact, but was protecting him from procectution a valid cause for the longest war in US history?
I was fine with pounding on the Taliban, but I don't think the goal should have been to do any 'nation building' there. Beat the crap out of the Taliban, kill all the Al Qaeda we can find, then get immediately out - a la the 1991 gulf war.
I don't think we should been in Afghanistan for longer than it took to decapitate the current Taliban leadership. None of this 'force democracy down your throat' crap. We didn't care that they weren't democratic before 9/11.
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Yes, there is an obstructionist Congress, but there are many areas where the president could've acted freely and unilaterally, (to keep the campaign promises that got him elected in the first place), but didn't. He could've been light-years better than his predecessor, but in fact, his record is worse in many instances. I hope the examples are glaring enough for even the most ardent supporter not to need them listed here. The sad truth is that, even our team lies about campaign promises.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Our team? I'm sorry, I don't vote partisan, I vote for the best candidate; sadly, in the last 2 elections, that was Obama.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.