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The Misleading Fliers Comcast Used To Kill Off a Local Internet Competitor
Jason Koebler (3528235) writes In the months and weeks leading up to a referendum vote that would have established a locally owned fiber network in three small Illinois cities, Comcast and SBC (now AT&T) bombarded residents and city council members with disinformation, exaggerations, and outright lies to ensure the measure failed. The series of two-sided postcards painted municipal broadband as a foolhardy endeavor unfit for adults, responsible people, and perhaps as not something a smart woman would do. Municipal fiber was a gamble, a high-wire act, a game, something as "SCARY" as a ghost. Why build a municipal fiber network, one asked, when "internet service [is] already offered by two respectable private businesses?" In the corner, in tiny print, each postcard said "paid for by SBC" or "paid for by Comcast."
The postcards are pretty absurd and worth a look.
These sort of things are legal now. Corporations are people, and people have free speech, and spending money is speech.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
A fine large enough to cover the costs of rolling out fibre in the 3 cities involved.
The money from the fine can then be used to roll out fibre to the 3 cities.
Everyone wins, except SBC and Comcast.
They've got the propaganda and smear campaigns down to a tee.
It'd be one thing if the average voter wasn't susceptible to the person who yelled at them last, or most, but that's unfortunately the case. Yet the alternative, of giving up the vote to the hands of a selected representative, only lets them be bought. And sure, certain groups would have us believe this represents a failure in government, yet what expectation do we have that an alternative could exist without some regulation to facilitate the problems of individualized consent and negotiation?
Dear God, you made this mess. Fix it.
spawned from complete and utter shit.
didn't expect anything else.
If absurd postcards are enough to actually persuade a vote, then perhaps the people got what they deserved.
The only fiber they get is in cereal.
Hey, it worked, didn't it? I think that's the idea here.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The only broadband nightmare I have is the reality of continuous non-stop rate hikes of 10-15% every 6 months. No other "utility" even comes close.
That postcard reminded me of the recent phone recording of the pushy customer retention guy.
Being that we are the number 1 provider of internet and TV service in the entire country. Why is it that you are not wanting to have the number 1 rated internet service, number 1 rated TV service available?
I'm just trying to figure out here, what it is about Comcast services that you're not liking, that you're not wanting to keep. Why is it that you don't want to keep that service?
It's a shame that he didn't go full Hannity and say "Comcast is the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the earth."
The one's I've seen say they're from "(insert your state name here) Taxpayer's Association"
My hometown has municipal broadband, it's had it since 2000. It works much better than Comcast, and they're much easier to work with.
No, I will not work for your startup
Maybe these fliers were honest, and Comcast just believes the investing in an ISP is a money-losing venture. It would explain some things.
I guess the only sensible response is to sell your stock in Comcast. They view their own business as a money-pit and a disaster waiting to happen.
This highlights the need for citizens who would set up municipal broadband to better understand the techniques of propaganda (marketing in the US) and communication - and to not forget to utilize those techniques to further their own agendas. A technique isn't evil or good - it's just a technique, and an advantage if it's a good one.
Some understanding of cognitive science and political science wouldn't hurt either.
http://www.unfocus.com/
Look I get life is unfair, and unfair things happen to people. What I cannot tolerate is the behavior of large corporations who bitch bitch bitch about regulation and free markets, but who behave badly and honestly want anything BUT free markets. F**k them all to hell seriously
It'd be one thing if the average voter wasn't susceptible to the person who yelled at them last, or most, but that's unfortunately the case. Yet the alternative, of giving up the vote to the hands of a selected representative, only lets them be bought.
Not everybody can vote. You have to be a "sane adult" in most of the world. Perhaps we need to up the ante a bit. Voter tests that rule out the extremely gullible, for example. Or tests that rule out those who would sell their vote, for that matter.
FUD works folks, that's why you have spin doctors constantly shaping news headlines with press releases and carefully worded speeches. Couple that with a litany of non-profit organizations to get the word out and you have your own fact machine. Really, facts don't matter because people's perceptions are more important than mere facts. This might have been a great idea, a municipally based service without all the baggage that a big carrier brings to the table but hey, why let facts get in the way of myth?
Dirty tricks in business have been around for centuries and nobody should be surprised that Comcast and SBC(AT&T) did this.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
You could make voting conditional on passing a test. Not a straight IQ test, although that should be a part of it. Pose some questions on postulated issues and synthetic candidates, and try to find those too liable to being gulled by clear hoodwinking.
Also, and this one is going to be hard to do for a number of reasons, prevent those who are personally turning an overall profit at the expense of the commons from voting. Let there be no stigma to accepting welfare, no matter what the hell you call it (e.g., earned income tax credit, etc, etc), but at the same time if you are cashing in more than you are contributing, so sorry, you don't get to vote yourself largesse either directly or indirectly.
Hey, I said it would be a challenge to implement.
Corporations are not people. Money is not speech. This is deceptive and anti-competitive.
This kind of activity is short-sighted, ultimately damaging to everyone's future, and continues to push the USA into irrelevancy while the rest of the world evolves. Until people get it through their skulls that corporate interests are nearly always diametrically opposed to society's best interests, we will continue this path to the new corporate-sponsored dark ages.
I guess people really do lack the vision to imagine a world different than what we live in now, and fail to see the potential progress that would benefit everyone.
It can never be said enough:
Corporations are not people. Money is not speech. If Comcast and SBC are against it, we should be all for it.
seems like the title says it all.
The questions raised in the advertising are pretty good ones. If the city bungles the fibre network and loses a lot of money, you'll be forced to pay for it in taxes. If Comcast fucks up and their costs go out of control, you at least have a choice to opt out. As much as I don't like Comcast and AT&T, I have no faith in government to be an ISP.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
You could make voting conditional on passing a test. Not a straight IQ test, although that should be a part of it.
Yeah, so the oh-so-trustworthy people in our government can have an easier way to oppress segments of the population. Also, IQ tests are absolute nonsense.
And I'm sure these tests would be perfectly unbiased, not at all ambiguous, and would vastly improve the situation. If we can't even get standardized tests right, how the hell do you propose we create tests that will determine whether or not someone gets access to a fucking fundamental right?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Why would you have to have city council approval to start a new ISP? How dare they kill competition, stifle innovat... Oh, it was going to be a taxpayer funded, government run ISP?
My local DMV can't even keep their computers running for more than a few hours at a time. Seriously, good riddance!
Wonder what the public key field is for?
In theory, voter tests would rule out the gullible. In practice, voter tests would rule out the black / gay / poor / jew / undesirable-group-du-jour.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Don't call it the Aristocrat tax, call it the Death tax!
Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles Illinois. I was a member of the committee that worked on getting this initiative through each community. One of the members posted this interview with Broadband Reports back in the day....
http://www.dslreports.com/show...
Charter Member of The Committee Group For The Elimination And Eradication Of Repetitive Redundancy
You could make voting conditional on passing a test. Not a straight IQ test, although that should be a part of it. Pose some questions on postulated issues and synthetic candidates, and try to find those too liable to being gulled by clear hoodwinking.
And watch partisans on both sides of the aisle immediately try to game the system to their benefit. What? You don't think that would be possible if we managed to eliminate all those gullible people? My, how splendidly naive of you!
Hint: gullibility of the electorate is only part of the problem.
Egads! Are you telling me there was a political referendum somewhere that would have cost local businesses money and they sent out misleading political fliers!?!? Holy shit the sky is falling!!!
Seriously folks, can we stop pretending to be outraged when the thing we normally have no problem with... exagerating our the negatives of our political opponents... is suddenly used against us?
How is this any more misleading than:
ISPs want to throttle our connections so they can force us to only watch their content!
ISPs have a menopoly! They don't want competition!
ISPs are conspiring with the NSA to spy on us!
All of that nonsense is just as much of an exaggeration and misleading as what was on those post cards yet I see in on slashdot all day long. And just like those misleading post cards there are real problems with municipal broadband we could all discuss if everyone wasn't so busy throwing FUD back and forth.
[From TFS] Why build a municipal fiber network, one asked, when "internet service [is] already offered by two respectable private businesses?"
For the same reason we don't let the human shit running these self-proclaimed "respectable businesses" make water a privatize commodity. Unfortunately, the likes of the Koch brothers are working on this one; still without much success. One day, it will come to pass. Americans will be lugging jugs of water around like those in Africa, Asia, et al.
In theory, voter tests would rule out the gullible. In practice
... everyone other than the slashdot crowd?
> In the corner, in tiny print, each postcard said "paid for by SBC" or "paid for by Comcast."
I agree it's low, but they at least assume the authorship.
Other Monopolie$ didn't show the same courtesy.
PS:
Beta sometimes does not preview a comment. It disappears. FF/Linux. I pressed "Alt-Backspace", found the comment colapsed, expanded it and tried to post it again. It worked.
> ...when "internet service [is] already offered by two respectable private businesses?"
Because it's not. Respectable, that is. And I could make arguments against "private", as they're a government enforced duopoly.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
There was nothing preventing the pro-municipal fiber people from answering the Comcast distortions. It's called "debate," something which seems to have gotten lost in all the laws restricting speech, advertising, etc. If you don't like what your opponent is saying, say something else. If you can't answer it, then you deserve to lose.
Only when they are designed to rule out those groups instead of ruling out people who have no business voting (for example, people who don't understand how plurality voting can lead to someone getting elected with a minority of the votes).
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
In other words, "only" 100% of the time.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
People didn't look, or think, they just reacted from their gut. Sounds like perfectly trained American voters/consumers.
Who's the villain here?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If you believe double sided postcards from unknown people that are put in your mailbox, you are a fool and you reap the benefits. Been that way since postcards were invented.
I think you have indirectly made the point that corporations should have no input ( speech or money ) into politics.
emt 377 emt 4
In the corner, in tiny print, each postcard said "paid for by SBC" or "paid for by Comcast."
Why didn't they create a political action committee with a name like "People for Internet Freedom" and funnel the money through it?
Really, what is the point of a town providing Internet access? Towns don't own gas stations and grocery stores. Why should tax dollars pay for something that can be and is provided by private companies who employ thousands of workers? Sorry, I'm just not on the whole socialist bandwagon. I'm with AT&T and Comcast on this one.
How long do the bailouts for Wall St. prevent finance-employeed individuals from voting? How far down the corporate chain do you go before oil-company employees can vote? What about all the guys who only pay 15%...do they lose the vote... after all they benefit from subsidies on investing?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
All: Feel free to hit me up with any questions. Either here, via email, or phone. Pete Collins I.T. Manager City of Geneva, Illinois pcollins@geneva.il.us 630.232.1743
You could make voting conditional on passing a test. Not a straight IQ test, although that should be a part of it.
No it shouldn't. IQ tests are just below GRADE-B Bullshit.
Pose some questions on postulated issues and synthetic candidates, and try to find those too liable to being gulled by clear hoodwinking.
By proposing this test, you just failed my test. No vote for you.
Also, and this one is going to be hard to do for a number of reasons, prevent those who are personally turning an overall profit at the expense of the commons from voting. Let there be no stigma to accepting welfare, no matter what the hell you call it (e.g., earned income tax credit, etc, etc), but at the same time if you are cashing in more than you are contributing, so sorry, you don't get to vote yourself largesse either directly or indirectly.
Hey, I said it would be a challenge to implement.
We can't even fairly account for how much a given person benefits from government activity, and you suggest this? You are fucking insane. You failed the test for everybody who had a hand in raising and educating you.
Seriously, how much are you benefiting from the police right now? The local fire department? The streets and roads? You don't know. What about the FCC? The CDC? How are they helping you, and how do we quantify it with any kind of rigor?
A challenge to implement? You'd have to have a surveillance system that would put a divine Panopticon to shame, let alone coming up with the value formula.
"I have no faith in government to be an ISP."
I have no faith in the federal government to run an ISP. They would be worse than Comcast, and would probably never get it running until they have spent a year's GDP.
I have slightly more faith in a state government to run one. Not as many people to pay-off around most state capitols as there are around DC.
I would have a lot of faith in a local or city government to get it done. They live right there amongst their customers, typically have to work within a budget, and have a vested interest in doing it right the first time.
if the votes would have passed it you would have gotten rid of two of the crappiest internet companies like that. replaced with fiber that could potentially be 10x faster and have room for upgrades.
and we know Comcast and Verizon ain't upgrading to full fiber any time soon and when Verizon does they will overcharge for it and not keep the network maintained (because they keep the cash in their pocket, instead).
FUCK MIND CONTROL PIECES OF FUCKING SHIT VERIZON AND COMCAST.
And the South shall rise again!
and if the government wanted to start up a tax funded competitor to my business, I would be fighting that tooth and nail too.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
They denied us fast access here in Seattle with the same sort of BS. Many of my friends still use copper.net dial up. Luckily I can get DSL, but due to the fifty+ year old phone lines, I'm limited to 896 kbps down. Lack of faster than 1 Mbps access here in Seattle is hurting the economy. The few apartment buildings that have fiber are typically nearly twice the price. Several friends have moved outside of the area out of frustration.
Call the FTC.
Not that they can actually do anything about it.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.
If the people were dumb enough to vote down the proposition then they deserve what they will be left with.
We need more competition in broadband to spur on more coverage, speed and customer service. Most cable companies thrive because they have little in the
way of competition. I have Comcast broadband and have no complaints about speed or up time. Both have been stellar in my area. But I would welcome some competition in my area that could really provide a alternative. So far just some small players have evolved, from a Wireless ISP to DSL and of course Satellite internet. None of which offer anything as comparable to cable broadband. About the closest thing is Verizon's LTE which does have Comcast beat on upload
speed. Too bad phone companies never bothered to invest in fiber when it had the chance. We have fiber going in all over as a trunk line to service government
and educational facilities. Not sure why this was not expanded to include business, and even the consumer markets? Would have helped pay for it.
At least at some point their will be possible access to another backbone for anyone interested in giving cable a run.
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"internet service [is] already offered by two respectable private businesses?"
Well, that leaves out Comcast and AT&T, as neither are "respectable" by any stretch of the imagination.
Exclusive franchises are illegal. There is no "allowing only two competitors." See http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc... Those two are probably the ones that have been there forever - the first cable company/plant and the local phone company. You can invite players in to overbuild all you want but it's not going to happen in most towns. We've tried. We've applied to be a Google city as well. No joy.
ComCast et al. knows that they are going to eventually lose this fight. They are simply playing a delaying action. Remember the Ma-Bell days and her break up? That to half a century.
Have you not read more than a couple Slashdot comments? Slashdot is filled with the gullible.
yeah, right, responsible, sober-minded people seriously advocate that we should all be fucked up on street drugs.
try again, asshole.
Comcast and USWEST/Qwest/Century Link did the same thing here. Except that much of the Wasatch Front already has municipal fiber. The local cities just mismanaged the roll out and now an Australian company is offering to lease it for 20 years and finish the build out while keeping the network open to 3rd party companies that want to provide service. Comcast and Century Link have been sending out fliers and sending plants to city planning meetings to try to convince the cities to let the network go dark instead. The cities would still be the hook for the already issued bonds. 3 out of the 16 cities involved fell for their lies and misinformation.
Yeah, Ronald Reagan relied on the fact that political memory only lasts two generations or less than 60 years, and then old mistakes get repeated, especially under his skilled use of simpleton propaganda and well financed lies. I am referring to his undermining of the Air Traffic Controllers Union in 1983 and his oversimplification of the value of deregulation, for which we are paying mightily now. It is one of the factors behind the bimodal income distribution which was predicted by his critics in 1982. We should re-examine why David Stockman left his admin. that year. But the Great Communicator as Reagan was called was a Great Liar. If those of you too young to know what I am talking about, need a history lesson, as do many of you who can't seem to remember U.S. History from 1890-1940, or British history in the 19th Century. Sweat Shops were real, massive exploitation of salleried workers by tycoons, today's entrapaneurs, was very real, and liars like Reagan and lately Mitt Romney and hundreds of High Tech entrapaneurs and Libertarians repeat the lie because they want to exploit you.
We could put a stop to this, but first we need to become conscious of the universality of humans taking unfair advantage and that political ideology and rhetoric is no antidote, only cover for the base motive. A world in which such urges that appear in any one of us, if given the power, is discouraged, is better than accepting the lies of one side of the tendency. So a completely unregulated economy is not the answer, nor is a totally regulated one. We are just going to have to accept the conflict between the opposed interests, and unlike the Roberts Court, tipping the balance to one group against the other is not going to help, in fact it is going to destroy the entire system beginning with the U.S. Constitution, which, in case you are unaware, is on very shaky grounds because of it.
The city of Wilson, North Carolina has a happy citizenry, and a couple of pissed off big ISPs. The big ISPs also lobbied the "reasonably priced" cough, NC legilsature to put the city owned outfit out of business but it didn't work.
Here's the city website, click on the :"Greenlight" link for their prices.
http://www.wilsonnc.org/
I think the best selling point is that all the tech staff are local, and... therefore more likely to understand the importance of not pissing off their neighbors.
If your only tool is a hammer, you'll approach every problem as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
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