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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.
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.
As I just posted in another reply, you sir are a clueless idiot.
The reason the FCC declared ISPs to be common carriers was because Verizon sued and won when the FCC tried to impose net neutrality rules without the common carrier status. The court sided with Verizon, but pointed out that the FCC could achieve its objective by making the common carrier declaration.
So, no, net neutrality cannot occur without doing this.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!