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.

Comments

while we're bitching about cable companies..

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

Re:while we're bitching about cable companies..

[Anonymous Coward]

I can get all the shows I want without paying any premium or renting their shitty hardware, and they can't do anything about it ;)

Take whatever you can get from them, my friend. They'll certainly take all they can from you.

Re:while we're bitching about cable companies..

[C0R1D4N]

More popular stations help subsidize the cost of less popular more niche stations. Also, a la carte wouldn't help your bill; the pricing for a la carte would ensure that you are still paying as much or more than you are for bundled tv.

ooh ive played this game before.

[nimbius]

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

Re:ooh ive played this game before.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Arguably, it's a bit of a hybrid phenomenon: neither pure misinformation nor pure purchase:

A large number of these assorted 'community' interest groups; are both relatively impecunious and relatively minimally informed, or interested, in the details of issues outside their mission area. It would be relatively trivial to, say, tell the group representing rural hospitals in Texas (one of the ones mentioned in TFA) that what's good for Comcast is good for rural internet access (this might even be true, since a time-honored technique for bargaining with the FCC is to promise to provide coverage to some totally uneconomic rural areas in exchange for the right to squeeze the much more numerous customers in some more profitable and denser markets. Going all the way back to the Communications Act of 1934, telling the FCC that you'll wire Podunkistan is approximately the equivalent of telling them that you love them for who they are, and generally about as honest.)

It is also the case that telcos and cable outfits, as with most large corporations, have 'philanthropic' arms, and here the 'bought and paid for' aspect takes on a greater role than the 'duped'. Some outfit that does gang-prevention for at-risk youth or some similar more-or-less-unrelated-to-broadband mission really has no business signing up pro or con; but if their operating budget is peanuts, and Comcast is kicking in part of it, it would be only polite to return the favor, no?

The one other aspect to keep in mind, specifically with telcos and cable companies, is the role of their employee structure: If you want to build infrastructure, nationwide, you need a lot of workers, including a lot of blue collar, tradesmen, and the like. Even if, in the long run, those workers might be better off in a more competitive climate(more laying cable and new service rollouts, which benefit the linesmen and splicers and bucket trucks, less buying fancy appliances from Cisco and Sandvine to wring more revenue out of legacy infrastructure), those workers can still answer "What has Comcast done for me?" a lot more easily than "What has Netflix done for me?", or any of the other internet-using companies, who tend to have relatively small, largely high-skill white collar, employee bases concentrated in a few specific locations.

This 'roots in the community' aspect is a nontrivial advantage: Somebody like Google or Netflix has customers in the community; but customers tend to be disorganized, and to perceive only small benefits, per company(though public backlash on net neutrality has been fairly strong, by the standards of policy wonkery, so they aren't totally ignorant of the value of the internet); but they only have employees, presence, relationships with local charities and Little League teams and such, in a few specific areas, if at all. A cable company or telco, though, has (although the name on the HQ may have changed a few times) been employing linesmen, trenchers, and service, maintenance, and field-tech people of all levels from 'guy with shovel' up through 'skilled tradesman' and 'local guru on freak issues with cable head-ends' for decades, and a fair few of them: Cable started rolling out ~1950, POTS predates 1900. Unless you are an utter failure at PR, or just a real, real, asshole, turning that into relatively broad-based influence over local 'good causes' should be an easy and natural process, however counterproductive you are to the long term interests of your customers.

Re:ooh ive played this game before.

[Richard_at_work]

Cigarette company dupes consumers into thinking smoking is a right, not a crippling addiction

Why can't it be both?

Re:ooh ive played this game before.

[Sarten-X]

Hello, there. I'm part of that community you deny exists.

I think Snowden did something damned near treason. It's obvious that he broke the law and jeopardized aspects of national security, but the issue of mens rea is still in question. No evidence has been presented (other than his word and the government's assertions) that he was or was not acting for the benefit of society. Resolving that question is one of the primary functions of a trial, which is why I think a trial should be held. As it stands now, the victim of a crime has been denied due process, and the Slashdot hivemind is happy about it.

I also think smoking is a right, in the more general case that I believe people should be permitted to mutilate their bodies however they wish, at whatever personal expense they wish. That might mean using alcohol or other drugs, or engaging in risky behaviors like skydiving, automobile racing, or bacon eating. However, I also believe their costs to society should be suitably offset so that their choices do not cause harm to society as a whole, and their damaging activities should be isolated appropriately so that uninvolved bystanders cannot be harmed.

I'm not a paid shill. I just think a little bit before jumping on board with everything the dear hivemind thinks.

Re:ooh ive played this game before.

[Antique Geekmeister]

Along with corporate "astroturfing" in the blogs and message boards of various sorts, I'm afraid. We've never been completely free from concealed or fraudulent advertising, but the fake "grassroots" campaigns have gotten out of hand. Even the "Tea Party" was apparently founded as an astroturf campain, with the concealed funding by Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers. The Guardian did an excellent article about it at http://www.theguardian.com/com...: it might have been very, very difficult to print that in any of the Rupert Murdoch owned American newspapers.

Re:ooh ive played this game before.

[thaylin]

Because in this context the "right" is ensuring that your crippling addition can be done in ways that harm / potentially harm others, violating their rights.

Hey, I'd be for it!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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...

Re:How is this legal?

[Thanshin]

Oh, right, of course ... corporations are people with free speech, and entitled to actively lie to us.

What? That is utter nonsense. Corporations are not people!

Corporations are "Very Rich People". A class with little or no relation to "people".

VRPs have the inalienable right to do whatever they very much please and it is legal by Axiom*.

*: The axiom being: "Legal is what very rich people decide it is at any given point."

I really have no choice...

[Vermonter]

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.

Re:I really have no choice...

[gstoddart]

I really, really want to be against net neutrality, because free market and such

Well, then let me disabuse you of that notion.

There is no 'free' market, and there never has been. The 'free' market is predicated on the belief that all players will act honestly, and make informed choices based on available information. This is a completely false assumption, and has been proven so time after time.

It completely ignores human nature whereby someone will always lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their own ends -- this is what we see here.

Industry players will always form cartels and collude in anti-consumer behavior -- price fixing being the prime example.

Without someone to keep corporations in line, the market would steadily skew to all of the power being in the hands of a few.

There is no such thing as a 'free' market, and there simply never has been. It's a utopian myth which can never be true.

People who go around spouting about the 'free' market are either naive, self deluded, or actively lying.

What proponents want is a situation in which corporations are free to do as they choose, under the premise that, in the long run, consumers will have perfect information and be able to make informed choices.

A 'free' market is incapable of addressing things like pollution, product safety, and ethical behavior. In fact, it's almost designed to encourage it.

When Adam Smith wrote "Wealth of Nations", he wasn't writing a rule book, he was making a series of observations. The problem is things have become so skewed, that what we see is an ever-increasing trend where corporations hold all the cards.

Governments who actively support de-regulation have been putting more and more power into the hands of corporations. By allowing industries to 'police' themselves (which isn't what actually happens) they can do as they see fit, for their gain, and to our detriment.

Economics isn't a science, and it isn't based in fact. It is an ideology of how things should work assuming impossible conditions and premises. And, like all ideologies, it is inherently blind to its own flaws, and taken as a matter of dogma to be true.

Taking steps towards a 'free' market has the net effect of removing restrictions on corporations -- which are typically there because we've already seen examples of grossly bad behavior.

The US has been steadily creating (and forcing other countries to adopt) a global oligarchy whereby the corporations call all of the shots. For instance, the TTIP:

The consultation has been called largely to assuage growing pressure from civil society groups concerned about the rights being granted to corporations under the guise of âinvestor protectionsâ(TM), and the system of private tribunals - the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism - that allows corporations to sue governments when they feel that these rights have been breached by a government policy or court decision.

Basically, governments are no longer free to set evidence based policy if it would impact the bottom line of corporations which are the ones causing harm in the first place. They can be over-ridden by these private tribunals which exist to protect the interests of investors and corporations, to the detriment of the rest of us.

This is an oligarchy, and definitely NOT a free market. You could not transition from an oligarchy to a 'free' market by simply removing the laws and regulations governing corporations -- this would not magically create a free market, it simply removes their obligations to society, and frees them to do as they please.

The free market is a complete and utter myth. It has never existed. And the reason society has had to develop laws and regulations around their behavio

Re: Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Dick meeting kettle is not as fun as it sounds.

Re:Idiots

[morgauxo]

You mean no wonder they elected GWB four times right? OK, he has had more of a tan these last two terms, big difference!