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Cable Lobby Survey Backfires; Most Americans Support Net Neutrality (consumerist.com)
New submitter Rick Schumann writes from a report via Consumerist: The NCTA hired polling firm Morning Consult to survey people about their attitudes toward net neutrality. In the results and a blog post about the survey, the organization crows that clearly, everyone thinks regulation is bad. Here's the "TL;DR" version: The NCTA claims Americans want "light touch" regulation of the "internet," but did not ask about regulation of internet service providers. The survey claims most voters believe regulation will harm innovation and investment, but their own numbers show that just as many people believe it won't. Most people don't believe the internet should be regulated like a "public utility," which is good because that's not what net neutrality does. When people were asked their feelings about what neutrality actually does, they overwhelmingly support it.
with Comcast, and I live less than a mile from Microsoft's HQ, I still can't believe Comcast is allowed to get away with this. They're charging me for 200 Mbps.
eating?
The numbers in the survey indicate that 78% of Americans are in favor of either the equivalent of Title I or of no regulations at all.
lucm, indeed.
Instead of asking if people want to get screwed over by telecoms, they should instead ask if people support 'Restoring Internet Freedom.' Since most people will say yes to freedom, their lackey in congress can then pass a bill doing exactly the opposite, but call it that. Just lie more, problem solved!
Well, if you go back to when Net Neutrality wasn't yet a thing and everyone was outraged by the plans of telcos to hobble 3rd party site traffic over their networks unless they were paid a protection fee, you'll find that pretty much everyone who isn't going to profit from it really and truly hates that idea. Go back to the original Slashdot stories and you'll find that practically everyone agreed that it was an absolutely despicable money grab. What's changed since then is that the telcos bought lobbyists and worked hard to split the public along party lines as to how we should stop them from doing this disgusting cash grab.
If the public could build consensus around some solution without getting split up in D vs. R nonsense, most of us really hate the scumbag tactics the telcos and their lobbyists were using. The public has mostly forgotten this and is being divided and conquered by lobbyists.
There is a reason that we had a Postmaster General (1775) before we had a President: communication is vitally important to both government and the people. That is also why the Postmaster General was a cabinet post for nearly 150 years.
There were and still are strict laws which penalize anyone interfering with the delivery, processing, etc. of the US mail. In 2017, the Internet is even more important to government and the people than the Postal Service.
I am definitely a free market, small government sort of person, but it is absolutely clear that strong net neutrality is desperately needed. Saying we don't need net neutrality would be like someone in the 19th century saying that it was OK for the Pony Express (remember they were a private mail service) rider to interfere with someone else's correspondence sent through the US mail. The fact that private entities provide what has become an absolutely vital public service (in some cases where only a single provider is even an option) is not a reason to try and apply a free market dynamic where it so clearly cannot work. We aren't talking about flower shops or clothing stores. We are talking about the basis of modern daily life. What we really need to consider is whether for every law protecting physical US mail, whether we need an analogous law protecting our packets on the Internet.
I can't believe I actually said/wrote all that, but I recently had an Aha! moment.
Net Neutrality is great, if you can get people to come up with a good definition of what net neutrality is. The translation from the ideal to what has ended up in regulations isn't so pretty. I'm kind of left wondering if the issue would be better solved with some highly visible truth in advertising requirements. I believe if ATT/COX/Verizon were required to state in LARGE BOLD print "100MBS...except Netflix, which we are going to throttle, particularly on Friday night while you are watching a movie with your family" the problem would be solved.
Wait, except in many (most?) markets there is no real choice in high-speed internet provides. The reason? In most cases regulatory capture, and government granted monopolies.
Discus: A disc used in the track and field event called the "Discus Throw"
Discuss: to talk or write about (a topic) in detail, taking into account different ideas and opinions.
How many standard deviations below the norm are you?
I'm black, so 1 I guess.
Maybe it counts.. maybe it doesn't... but this was a movie that was about inspiring post-apocalyptic (dozens of movies but I digress) but the focus on the parcel-post is relevant.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119925/
Discus is also a fish...but I guess for some reason, you didn't know that.
That's a perfect analogy, thank you.
Presumably they learned about it while taking the survey. The question I highlighted explains what it is. You did actually read the post, right?
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I have yet to meet ANYONE against the idea of Net Neutrality, ignoring the technical comments about QOS which I believe is valid (except ISP/content providers combined, which is few). Even with QOS addressed properly, I think NN could be done in a way that everyone outside of government would agree with, but I doubt government could actually come up with this.
That being said, the arguments against NN that I've heard (and weren't batshit crazy) were directly related to the specific rules and regulations proposed for NN under Obama administration. Under Obama's FCC, the FCC would decide which websites fall under rules of FEC and the FEC would regulate content on sites they deemed were "election sites". Specifically they were targeting Drudge Report, I'm sure there were others. Obama's NN was just an attempt at censorship of sites he didn't like. This was brought up numerous times, with examples of the regulations that were involved. I've never heard anyone who supported NN address this concern, but did hear many say they would prefer censorship who did hear this argument.
So its not NN that I've heard is the issue, its the censorship the FCC wants to impose in the specific regulations the FCC was attempting to pass under the Obama administration that people opposed.
I suspect this is new to you. You should find it odd that you have not heard this argument before considering this appears to be a big issue for you.
The book by David Brin is much better than the movie.
Although net neutrality is currently the law of the land, Amtrak's WiFi service blocks Apple's "apps upgrade" as well as Playboy.com — likely, some other sites as well.
Why is Amtrak allowed to do that today? Are some Internet service-providers — such as the government-owned ones — more equal than others?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Survey?
What survey?
Nonono! I think you are MISTAKEN!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
People support Net Neutrality because of imagined abuses by ISPs, and the only way to fix that, in the minds of too many, is more government.
Imagine, instead, an alternative: These large companies exercising monopolistic strength being broken up into several smaller entities that have to compete.
Capitalism works.It always works. But it only works when there is competition, only when regulations don't stifle innovation, and only when the government isn't injecting cronyism to pick winners and losers.
But, nobody is going to go for that. Not anymore. And especially not here. Slashdot has become a big government haven over the past 10 years.
Love sees no species.
Nobody asked them about title 1 vs title 2. They were asked a fluffy question not related to it.
I recall a telecoms meeting. In it ATNT boss espoused a world where they could charge Netflix for access to their customers. 'Why should Netflix be able to send data to their customers for free?' he said.
That resulted in an outcry and a push to legilslate.
The pushback from Verizon (who had a little shit there named Ajit Pai, now in the FCC) was to sue to stop the regulation. Which resulted in the judge decision that they'd need to be under Title 2 to be under these regulations, so they were moved to Title 2.
So the drive to regulate was caused by ISPs attempts to double charge: Charge you for 20mbps and charge others to send their 4mbps streams down to you, because they don't want to deliver the 20mbps service they sold to you claiming insufficient capacity.
And this comes only a few weeks after ISPs are allowed to sell your websurfing history without permission, even to every foreign government, e.g. Paul Ryan's web surfing history to Putin? That'll be 100 rubles comrade. (I might be using an extreme case here, but it illustrates why selling customer private data is a bad thing.)
So we get it, fox in the hen house, killing the hens from Orangina in the Whitehouse killing America.
The issue isn't net neutrality per se, it's that the FCC has illegally declared large swaths of the internet public utilities in order to impose net neutrality. Net neutrality can occur without doing this.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
The problem with Title II is that it replaces the free principles that the internet was founded on with overbearing regulations. An example: Let's assume that your neighborhood wasn't adequately served by internet service. You decide to do something about it. You start a small internet provider for your neighborhood, convincing all of your neighbors to invest. You go get an expensive resellable gigabit (or 10 gig) internet feed, and then run fiber from the feed to everyone's homes. Or use wireless technology to distribute it. Everyone is happy, until you realize that you are now an internet provider and have to also jump through the Title II hoops, which include a pile of regulations, and have to hire employees simply to comply with the government mandate.
There are many many small, independent internet providers out there which are feeling the pain of Title II. This isn't pain because of anything they've done wrong. If anything, they all are shining examples of how network neutrality should work. Fortunately, much of the regulatory burden of Title II has been deferred for these providers, and now won't be implemented - but this level of regulation definitely has a much heavier impact on a small internet provider with a handful of employees.
Everyone who is considering their position on this issue really should go read Ajit Pai's disssent on the original passing of the order classifying ISP's under Title II. It's available at on the FCC website. I would encourage everyone to read it to truly understand Commisioner Pai's position.
The equivalent of the postmaster general has turned into the head of the FCC, and he has fucked us.
If you bias the questions and cherry pick the results, you can get pretty much any statistic you want.
Who woulda thunk it?
I credit Larry Wall with greatly appreciated influence in my upbringing. Perl and it's linguistics background opened my mind further to the words and history and their deeper meaning; things that we can take for granted with every breath. It is good that their fight is to get rid of net-'neutrality', instead of corralling us towards a 'Patriot' act. It is almost too good to be true. It is kinda sad when you think that we should have an ubiquitous free and open internet by now, though. Now we may have ubiquity--in the sense that I could have intel ME up my ass or a Comcast X1 remote complete with mics and sensors next to me, but we don't have the 'free', or 'open'. We have Comcast, Charter, AT&T, actively fighting against local fiber installs. Alas, we can at least pause for half a second and half-smirk knowing that the gatekeepers that work to constipate society have a lot of work to do--and so do we.
Catatonic ...History would tell me that we are being corralled into something else worse, but this fight to bring down net-neutrality stinks of arrogant, lazy bureaucrats thinking they'll get their way. Well, what is next? Cable hasn't quite clawed it's way into everything like the pharmaceutical industry has, so maybe they can all pivot into being rodeo clowns someday.
People don’t want a government run, heavily regulated internet and yet somehow every time net-neutrality laws get written that seems to be exactly what we get. Imagine that.
Most such persons enact their philosophy through deregulation, although that actually contradicts the "free market" philosophy. It also becomes a slippery slope: What level of (de)regulation empowers the person? How much freedom can be sacrificed for the common good? People have different answers to these questions, making it difficult to choose the best outcome.
And not the fake monster the telcos or Republicans claim it is.
You can't decide to interfere with the traffic based on where it comes from or is going to.
Which is the definition of neutral networks in the regulations.
Title II: Turbo Fighting Edition
As much as I like NN, the question you highlighted only shows how people are prejudiced by the question.
The survey claims most voters believe regulation will harm innovation and investment, but their own numbers show that just as many people believe it won't.
Last I checked, "most" had to be greater than 50%. For simplicity's sake, we'll avoid using fractions and say that 51% is the minimum to claim "most" of something. So if 51% of people believe one thing, then it is mathematically impossible for "just as many" to believe the complete opposite.
Oh wait, I get it, it's because "just as many" was about people, while "most" was just about voters (a subset of people). Is that it?
Judging from opinion polls, time and time again we see solid majorities among Americans supporting such liberal causes as a woman's right to choose an abortion, stricter gun controls, more liberal recreational drug policies, environmental protection, less harsh criminal sentencing, universal healthcare, consumer protection, etc. etc. etc.
It doesn't mean shit.
Because for roughly half the population, they'll vote Republican no matter what. Just because.
2/3 of the people don't know what net neutrality is. How can you say 60% are in favor.
The short answer is because that is what the numbers showed; however your comment rightly points out a problem with surveys when it comes to making claims based o answers. The first problem is people may have no idea what you are talking about which leads to the second problem is that how you ask the question can bias a person's answer to what you want. In addition, what questions are asked and what order can also lead people to the "desired" results. Most sponsored surveys are designed to get a desired outcome to promote a cause; not get a true picture of what a group of people want or believe.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Perfect comment. Even applies beyond simple E-Mail.
Lady Galadriel
Slashdot editors took a chainsaw to the way the above story was formatted; this is what it was supposed to look like, which was much more readable than the crap they actually posted on the front page. Apologies, even if there wasn't anything I could do about it.
I completely agree with you, and I consider this survey to be worthless. What I disagree with is the summary, which does not reflect the content of the results of the survey.
It would have been so easy to do it right. Something like: "Biased survey fails to convey a clear position of Americans on net neutralty". But no. The propaganda machine of Slashdot had to spin this into a net neutrality win.
More and more this website is becoming a platform for virtue signalling. It reminds me of those videos from North Korea where we see people crying of joy as they stand on the sidewalk to watch a military parade. It's beyond phony.
lucm, indeed.
As much as I like NN, the question you highlighted only shows how people are prejudiced by the question.
It's not prejudice. It's information. When a large fraction of the population is wildly ignorant about the subject, giving them complete, valid, real information about it should be required before they're allowed to even answer the damn survey. Surveying ignorant idiots lets you get any answer you want. And really, when 40% of those people would Strongly Agree that Jesus walked on water, I could give a fuck less what any of them think about shit they don't understand, which is practically everything.
This article is spinning pretty hard.
First of all, YES, the Network Neutrality policy regulates internet services as a public utility. The FCC's order on NN reclassifies internet service as a common carrier service under Title II of the Communications Act, just like other public utilities. Why try to deny this? If we're going to protect the internet for the public, be proud about doing so.
The article itself contains many similar dodges. Here's a particularly rough one:
So they take a polling question about "the internet," assert that the term "could be taken" in a general way, then discuss it by taking it in a specific way, and finally recast the poll question in terms of what private actors should do when it was originally about what government should do.
A similar disconnect appears later on:
Setting aside that this is about a regulation and not a law, we're asked to accept that these qualities of access have nothing to do with how, when, or where we can access? Again, if this is good work then let's own up to it. Why the verbal acrobatics?
There are legitimate criticisms of Network Neutrality proposals, many of which are indicated in the legal and public polling history of the regulation. Articles like these fail to address those criticisms, and instead seem to work awfully hard to paper over them. Instead, if Network Neutrality is on the whole a good thing, we should honestly propose and embrace it, explaining why the downsides are outweighed by the upsides and making our case.
This article will come off as unconvincing and slanted to readers not already in the choir.
Lobbyists don't give a crap about poll numbers, they only care about who's paying them the big bucks.
So, no, I doubt Comcast or the other players give a damn about this study. They know who they need to buy.
Sure, they would have liked to get poll numbers that support their business model, but not getting them isn't going to stop them from getting what they want.