FCC's Ajit Pai is Surrounded By a 'Set of People With a Very Traditional Mindset', Says Sir Tim Berners-Lee (bbc.com)

Next Monday the web celebrates its 29th birthday. Ahead of it, Sir Tim Berners-Lee spoke with BBC on a wide-range of topics. An excerpt: In Barcelona last week at the Mobile World Congress I heard FCC boss Ajit Pai mount a robust defence of the move, pointing out that the internet had grown and thrived perfectly well in the years before 2015, when the net neutrality provision came in. "He said the same thing to me," Sir Tim tells us, revealing that he had recently been to lunch with Mr Pai. He had told the FCC boss that advances in computer processing power had made it easier for internet service providers to discriminate against certain web users for commercial or political reasons, perhaps slowing down traffic to one political party's website or making it harder for a rival company to process payments. But he failed to change Ajit Pai's mind. "He's surrounded by a set of people with a very traditional mindset, which has been driven by the PR machine of the telco industry, who believe it is their duty in Washington to oppose any regulation, whatever it is." Sir Tim, however, is refusing to concede defeat in this battle. "We stopped SOPA and PIPA," he says, referring to two US anti-piracy measures which campaigners opposed on the grounds they impinged on internet freedoms.

Comments

Nonsense!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ajut Pai was chosen because he is very confused and will support any dishonesty he is paid to support. That's my opinion.

Re:Nonsense!

[pots]

That is not a contradictory statement, though it's not impossible that he's a true believer even without compensation. There are a decent number of people here on Slashdot parroting the various talking points about the evils of regulation and regulatory bodies, and I can't believe that all of them are telco shills. This kind of crap is effective because people genuinely buy into it.

SOPA and PIPA

[nitehawk214]

What was Ajit Pai's views on SOPA and PIPA? Was he for those but against Net Neutrality?

Re: SOPA and PIPA

[Anonymous Coward]

He hasn't been told what to think of those.

Just sad since we need more government-control...

[greenwow]

of the Internet in order to protect people and ensure fairness.

He's talking about Republicans.

[Gravis Zero]

He's surrounded by a set of people with a very traditional mindset, which has been driven by the PR machine of the telco industry, who believe it is their duty in Washington to oppose any regulation, whatever it is.

The foolish abide by absolutist beliefs.

Re:He's talking about Republicans.

[SuperKendall]

The foolish abide by absolutist beliefs.

Says the man who harps constantly about regulation he has never read, just because of the label on it.

Re:He's talking about Republicans.

[Bing Tsher E]

Listen to the swinging-dick he-man, carrying on about somebody on the Internet that he disagrees with. Anonymously.

What a funny way to say "corrupt"

[grasshoppa]

I guess it's no longer "corrupt", it's "traditional", which is fair if we're talking politics. Corruption is pretty traditional.

Re:What a funny way to say "corrupt"

[grasshoppa]

You're projecting. I never said the democrats would be better, in fact I never said anything about political parties at all.

Politicians are horrible people, no matter their supposed affiliation.

Re:What a funny way to say "corrupt"

[Rick Schumann]

'Traditionalists' or even 'corrupt' is just a polite way of saying 'conscienceless people who are more than willing to fuck everyone else over so long as they acquire more money and more power'. Funny thing happens though if these sorts of people get their way too much for too long: everyone else tends to get rather upset over it. Tell them "Let them eat cake", and they start building guillotines and dragging people out into the streets to feed them to it.

In other words, Ajit Pai worships Gawd Profit

[shanen]

It's not money per se that causes the evil, but the excessive love of money, the dream of infinite profits to solve the unsolvable problem of not having enough money. Pursuit of happiness is a good thing, but when the boundless greed of a corporate cancer hurts or even kills actual human beings, then it has crossed the line into sociopathic behavior.

I'm SO tired of problems, even including the defense of the free and open Internet. Now I want solutions.

My first suggestion is taxation based on increasing freedom, NOT growing the largest possible corporate cancers. The taxes on corporate profits should be progressive based on market share. Detailed ideas about that suggestion (and others) available upon polite (and sincere) request.

Even better if you have a better idea. Vicious criticism is too easy, too mindless, and in a better crafted Slashdot, ought to kill your karma (AKA EPR).

In conclusion, I think Ajit Pai is a typical worshiper at today's economic church. Not capitalism or communism or socialism. How passe. He worships at the church of corporate cancerism, where the main creed is:

"There is no Gawd but Profit, and ..."

Is it such a Social Faux pas

[rsilvergun]

that we can't just call them right wing corporate lobbyists? And yeah, the right wing part matters, since it's the right wing laissez faire idealism that justifies deregulating the Internet and yes, eliminating government backed Net Neutrality regulations is deregulation...

Re:Is it such a Social Faux pas

[Xylantiel]

Yep, I think regulatory capture is the applicable term here, which is typically thought of as a form of corruption.

Re:Is it such a Social Faux pas

[shanen]

Most interesting of the early replies, but I'll never see a mod point to give you. I'm wondering what hideous crime I must have committed at least 10 years ago not to have seen a mod point in that long...

Anyway, though I mostly agree with you [rsilvergun], I still think you have been misled when you wrote "laissez faire idealism". They are extremely realistic about increasing their profits, and they are completely socialistic when it comes to handling the losses. Becoming "too big to fail" so you can privatize the profits while socializing the losses has no relationship to the once-great now-late capitalistic system that long ago worked to help people.

Now we live in the age of corporate cancer, and helping actual people is irrelevant. The actual human beings are to be divided and conquered. Their lives have become wage slavery (or actual incarceration and too often slow starvation) in a race to the bottom, with a few foolish exceptions (like Ajit Pai and his cronies). They are fools because it will avail them not to die with the most toys.

The corporate cancers are NOT human beings and they have no fear of death. No feelings at all, actually. No fear, no love, no concern for the human beings that get hurt or killed in the pursuit of the ever larger profits programmed into the mindless machines. After the fools are dead, the cancerous machines will continue with fresh fools in place (until AI eliminates any need for actual human fools).

Solutions? See my earlier comment for one possibility, but even better if you [any reader] has a better idea than mine.

Re:Is it such a Social Faux pas

[RazorSharp]

I'm sure TBL wants to continue to have influence, hence he resorts to euphemisms rather than divisive rhetoric. Sometimes, you have to have prudence so you don't sacrifice the future. Being blunt and polarizing doesn't achieve anything. We know what he means.

Re:Is it such a Social Faux pas

[Bing Tsher E]

And yeah, the right wing part matters, since it's the right wing laissez faire idealism..(boring shit truncated)

Politics is a big dirty flapping bird. It couldn't fly around without both wings.

People who carry on endlessly about one wing or the other are just being stupid. And covered with bird shit, like the rest of us.

Re:Is it such a Social Faux pas

[Bing Tsher E]

Tim is just a figure-head, somebody who came up with an idea and put it on his NeXT workstation.

He was probably a crummy scientist and is better off not being at CERN anyway.

He is definitely prudent. You don't ride the gravy train successfully with a blunt approach.

FCC ...

[CaptainDork]

... the new NRA.

Re:FCC ...

[CaptainDork]

You don't know the difference between bullshit and wild honey.

~ © 2018 CaptainDork

Re:FCC ...

[CaptainDork]

Fix yer unicode.

You that Comcast is in court, right now

[jd]

For cutting cables of rivals?

And that Comcast and Verizon lobbied against cooperatives such as Chattanooga and got a State Constitutional amendment banning cooperatives in Tennessee?

Sorry, but this is hardly the act of a corporation is fine with playing nice with others.

Re:Talk about stuck

[DaveyJJ]

just because companies CAN do something does not mean they WILL.

And you seem to be, what was the phrase, "willfully ignorant" of how almost every corporation ever has behaved within the framework of capitalism, methinks. Externalities and any sense of ethics goes out the window when their motive to exist is profit for the shareholders. You seriously don't think that the largely monopolistic or dualistic telcos that control both pipe and content aren't salivating? Won't take advantage? You can't be that naive.

.

The Internet was under Title 2

[jd]

Until Bush rescinded it. And the Internet suffered when he did so. Badly.

The FCC chairman is not only corrupt but a liar. If he wants to play Venezuelan politics, deport him there.

Re:The Internet was under Title 2

[jd]

I certainly did.

Progress towards IPv6 reversed. Internet speeds on major links dropped. Multicast access declined. Key Internet infrastructure security declined. Bandwidth was siphoned off. Deep packet inspection by ISPs increased. Users were censored. This was previously illegal. Freedoms declined. For a country of the free, you seem damn eager to lose the freedom that really matters.

America went from being one of the best countries for Internet to, currently, being ranked alongside North Korea. American Internet is now one of the slowest but also one of the most expensive. Britain, in the 1990s, was slower than the US, it is now not only faster, it's cheaper. Sweden is hardly flat, unlike the Midwest. Swedish users get up to 400 gigabits per second. Yes, two zeros and a g. For a country that's mostly vertical cliffs and volcanic rock, that's not bad.

American ISPs aren't even required to provide what they sell. I pay for 50 mpbs and get 10. That is LEGAL under the Bush changes. I call it fraud. There are no competitors, because Comcast arranged a deal with them. Nobody enters the other person's turf. And, yes, this is from the engineers. That is flat-out illegal, companies may not work together to close a market like that or to threaten competitors who do enter the other person's turf - that falls under racketeering laws.

This is a criminal enterprise.

Re:The Internet was under Title 2

[shanen]

You've made several good comments on this topic, but I'll never see an insightful mod point to give you. Do you still get any to give? (You actually came into my focus this time due to the "funny" in your sig, but I still miss the days of a much wittier Slashdot.)

While I mostly agree with you, I'm not sure I would accept your characterization of the FCC as a criminal enterprise. I think it is more precise to say that the referees have been bribed and even selected by the criminal enterprises.

(I may be out of context, however. My settings hide the ACs. Too many trolls among them, and I regard playing with trolls to be a waste of time.)

The main focus of today's criminal enterprises [AKA corporate cancers] is actually the legalization of their crimes. Their "handling" of the FCC is more like offense as the best defense. Their primary concern (as regards government) is which politicians can be bribed or otherwise manipulated most cheaply, the better to maximize their profits (while socializing their (gambling) losses, of course).

(I actually think there are great similarities between the parties, but most of the loot given to Democrats is more like insurance payments (for doing nothing), while most of the loot collected by so-called Republicans [AKA Bolshevik Republicans] is more like investments (for actual actions).)

Re:The Internet was under Title 2

[Lost Race]

Swedish users get up to 400 gigabits per second. Yes, two zeros and a g.

400 Gbps is even impressive for a general distribution network. I'm having a hard time imagining how you'd deploy that all the way to a customer endpoint at some random rural residential address. Can you find some reference to support this claim? I would love to find out how it works, and what kind of hardware the customer would need to support it.

Re:The Internet was under Title 2

[Zontar The Mindless]

Sweden is hardly flat, unlike the Midwest. ... For a country that's mostly vertical cliffs and volcanic rock, that's not bad.

Actually, Sweden is mostly rolling or flat, and doesn't have any volcanoes. You must have us confused with Iceland.

Re:Burners-Lee is also a villain

[SpzToid]

CITATION REQUESTED

Projection

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

He had told the FCC boss that advances in computer processing power had made it easier for internet service providers to discriminate against certain web users for commercial or political reasons, perhaps slowing down traffic to one political party's website or making it harder for a rival company to process payments

That's precisely what the platform providers like the big PISaaS providers, social media, etc. are doing with their machine learning algorithms.

A small town in NC was able to start an ISP on their own until the state stepped in. So please tell me again why we need net neutrality at the infrastructure level instead of at the application level. Why should Verizon be required to be a common carrier, but Facebook and Twitter get to have "standards" and ruthlessly shut down content they don't like that is otherwise legal?

Oh right, because their politics align with most of the ardent net neutrality advocates.

Re:Talk about stuck

[RazorSharp]

You're right. Corporations always act benevolently. If the government would just cease regulations, we could all live in a Rocky Mountain paradise where self-interest creates a utopia. No one would starve or be taken advantage of because everyone would be motivated to work hard and innovate. And we could go back to the gold standard and worship the dollar sign.

It's government regulations that harm people. Not "pollution" or "usury" or "fraud" or any of those other fictitious crimes the collectivists have invented to scare mankind into submission. Government regulation is synonymous with slavery.

Re:Talk about stuck

[Anonymous Coward]

>just because companies CAN do something does not mean they WILL
They already did.

https://i.imgur.com/qa3Ryyd.pn...

If he's willfully ignorant of potential threats, you're willfully ignorant of proven ones.

Re:Talk about stuck

[postbigbang]

All these are neo Tea Party and Libertarian memes. Reduce regulation and the world will be saved.

Those pesky regulations prevent monopolies and support comparative fairness in transactions and common carrier treatment.

Using the same theories, watch Uber and Waymo trucks become allowed to do 80mph on freeways, but human piloted Kenworthy trucks must do 70. Why? Who loves to burn more cash, Uber and Waymo, or Kenworthy? Pai has shown time and again that he's more interested in listening and enforcing to false memes and false outcries of slavery-by-regulation, and the unbridled corporate personhood plutocracy.

The insidious Sons of The John Birch Society ride again.

Net neutrality existed before 2015

[rminsk]

"... pointing out that the internet had grown and thrived perfectly well in the years before 2015, when the net neutrality provision came in"

I hate this argument form Ajit. Net neutrality existed before 2015 and most carriers followed the practice. What happened in 2015 was the FCC had to reclassify broadband as a common carrier under Title II to be able to enforce the principles it had in place. This was because Verizon won the ruling in Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC (2014).

Re:Net neutrality existed before 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

You are exactly right, and this fact completely destroys Ajit's argument.

And I am sure Ajit knows it, too. He isn't arguing from a place of ignorance, but from a place of corruption. He is in a position where he and his allies benefit from his adoption of an obviously fallacious perspective on the issue, and he is just playing his part.

Re:Net neutrality existed before 2015

[burtosis]

If I only had mod points today... this is so true.

Re:Net neutrality existed before 2015

[JThundley]

How about the facts of how internet access has changed over the years? Back in the dialup days all you needed to get online was a phone line. If you wanted to be an ISP, all you needed for customers to connect to you was phone lines. The same was kind of true for DSL. In modern times, your internet comes from cable or (gasp) wireless carriers. With the lack of competition, it's much easier for the few big internet companies to piss off their consumers with stuff like throttling because consumers have no alternative.

Re:Talk about stuck

[rogoshen1]

It's quite a thing isn't it? Convincing people that rules or regulation that would actually benefit them are somehow evil... and that letting the foxes guard the hen-house is preferable.

Regulation should exist to keep the market (and by that I mean entities large enough to unilaterally exert influence) honest. Free market capitalism works when you have many small players; but it's naive to think a duopoly or monopoly can exist and not rape consumers senseless. And yet somehow...

It's also funny how the telco's are very strongly against any sort of regulation, but are so incredibly quick to get government gimmies when it comes to subsidizing infrastructure improvements (which they may or may not actually complete, despite taking the freebie money) Or exclusive rights (such as with blocking community broadband)

And then have the audacity to turn around and jack up rates to compensate for their 'expense'.

Snakes.

Who shall guard those selfsame guardians?

[shanen]

Clarifying the wording: Why should government oversee the Internet?

Because someone has to act as the honest referee. The FCC should be acting impartially to balance the interests of the public (AKA the actual human beings), for example their desire for increased freedom, against the "virtualized lusts" of the corporate cancers (AKA the inhuman corporations) for infinitely larger profits.

If the corporate cancers had their way (or rather were able to execute their programs without any constraint), they would grow and consume each other until there is only one survivor, one humongous corporation that owned everything--but which was still driven to increase its profits towards infinity. Of course the reality is that the host (AKA our society) would die.

However based on my vague memories of the handle, I think no reply can convince you of anything. I think the question was purely rhetorical, with no sincerity or intellectual honesty underneath. It would be nice if I were proven wrong, though it seems increasingly unlikely on today's Slashdot.

Hmmm...

[burtosis]

Seems to me that Pai is only half baked.

Re:Uh.. wait Censorhip was good?

[penandpaper]

NN prevented service providers from discriminating against content providers.

How did Title 2 do that?
Why is the FCC better able to pre-emptivly handle anti-competitive behavior over the FTC on an individual basis?
How would the NN rules open up competition?
   

The opposite of that

[SuperKendall]

You're right. Corporations always act benevolently.

I know you are being sarcastic, but that is totally wrong.

Corporations will never be totally benevolent, they are more like wild animals, prone to strike randomly in a way you did not except, that can do harm.

But here's the thing - when that has happened in the past with regard to the internet, it was dealt with by the FCC on a case by case basis and all was well. So why not continue doing that until there is a real problem to solve?

Instead what you and others propose is a massive set of regulations mostly written by "Big ISP", in large part to help them maintain a monopoly. You know what companies given more power by regulations DO with that power? They do worse things than if they had less power, only now they cannot be stopped because the regulations (that they helped write) expressly allow them to do what they want.

The face of your argument makes it LOOK as if you think corporations are dangerous; your actions make it seem as if you believe a marriage of corporation and government can do no wrong. How is that in any way a sane position? How do you reconcile the disconnect?

How do you espouse the principals of net neutrally in a sentence or two, then proceed to back a set of regulations that is 30+ pages of six point type. How do you do that?

Re:The opposite of that

[RazorSharp]

I just don't buy the argument that NN hurts the little guys—not that there are many little guys left in telco. Things like telecommunications, that require massive infrastructure investment, will always function as an oligopoly. There's no way around that. Even in places where some bit players exist, there are never several players in the market. It's just not economically viable. So, knowing that an oligopoly is unavoidable, what's best is to have regulations that protect the consumers.

Without NN you have a situation where there are very limited roads, they're all private, and the owners can charge varying amounts or block access to certain vehicles. For the government to lay down some ground rules, such as all tolls must be equal and all cars must be allowed access, is only reasonable. It's far from "a marriage of corporation and government." The current situation, in which an admitted corporate puppet* controls the regulatory agency. Personally, I'd prefer a situation where the government owns and maintains the roads, but not the destinations (the government owns the cable, but not the ISPs it leads to).

*While you might counter, "he was just joking about the corporate puppet" thing, what was supposed to make the joke funny was that it's true.

Re:The opposite of that

[Anonymous Coward]

I just don't buy the argument that NN hurts the little guys—not that there are many little guys left in telco.

Who said anything about the "little guys" having to be *in* telco?

It is rather the other "little guys" that I fear for. The next "facebook" or next "amazon" or whatnot. Those that need their users/customers to be able to reach them, but when the big fish pay your telco to "get prioritized" over the new players, the old big ones make sure no one else can enter the pond.

Re:Your tactics are transparent

[rogoshen1]

This must be the most sophisticated trolling attempt I've ever read.

Explain to me what you think the end-game is with letting telco's do whatever they want with the world's communication -- how will that play out?

Had the phone companies possessed the ability to control modems -- basically the what/when/who and how they could dial in the 1970's and 1980's, what would the technology landscape look like today? How much innovation would have been stifled in the name of rent seeking by ATT???

That's the analogy we're dealing with here with NN. Open and free access is a public good, and should not be curtailed by profit seeking entities for their own benefit.

Dress it up however you like. But letting a revolving door exist between industry and the regulators designed to you know.. champion the public good is a disgrace.

EXTREMELY traditional...

[Locke2005]

In fact, some might say they are practitioners of the world's oldest profession!

Tough! We in WA are forcing Net Neutrality

[WillAffleckUW]

Enjoy the revolution, Ajit.

You're no longer in charge.

Re:Your tactics are transparent

[rogoshen1]

Honestly I don't care for myself because I have enough money it doesn't matter to me if NN truly takes hold, I can always buy the vastly more expensive ..

And

It just pains me to see supposedly intelligent people embrace them with open arms, I guess like France at first embraced the Nazis... oh yes I went there, because that is exactly the kind of evil YOU are championing while painting a facade of peace.

Also.. That is a distinct and special kind of evil right there. Just saying.

Re:Your tactics are transparent

[wyattstorch516]

The only companies putting filters on the Internet are Google, Facebook, and Twitter. But since they aren't telcos people like you are perfectly fine with that.

Re:Talk about stuck

[Anonymous Coward]

You think Netflix and Youtube don't pay for their (huge) bandwidth? and the people who watch Netflix and Youtube don't pay for their bandwidth?

Re:Talk about stuck

[jnork]

Sure, it's easy. Next month you (gp) can pay Netflix's Internet account. Then tell us again how Netflix is getting a free ride.

You've been drinking Comcast's kool-aid; this is exactly what they want you to think.

Re:Your tactics are transparent

[jnork]

Eh, he's just a troll. Ignore him. As soon as somebody starts invoking Godwin's Law -- especially when he does it to equate government regulation with mass torture and murder -- you can tell he's pushing a provocative argument to try to get you to stop thinking and start reacting irrationally.

Re:Your tactics are transparent

[shanen]

I thought that handle sounded familiar. Primary evidence of the need for a block function on Slashdot, notwithstanding the fake historical evidence.

In EPR terms, integrity and intellectual honesty dimensions of the 25149 entity are far too negative for me to waste time with. Should be invisible to me for our mutual "happiness".

Re: Talk about stuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Netflix pays for its net connection.
Users pay for their net connection.
What the ISPs want is for Netflix to pay more, because they have money to pay and will have to pay if they want to stay in business.
That's a nice business you have there. This driveway well it looks dangerous. Yes, I know, you paid your land tax, paid rates, paid car license renewal, but you see, we know that you can't do business without that driveway. So, pay us, or we will...help. Speed bumps maybe. Pay up or be slowed down. Your choice.

Re:Yup

[q_e_t]

Removing net neutrality makes it harder for newcomers to compete, as they would potentially need additional funds for additional access fees.

Re:Your tactics are transparent

[q_e_t]

That's because I've studied history, and know for a fact that in the end the regulations will NOT help anyone, they will hurt.

I've studied history too, and do not draw that conclusion.

Re:Who cares what this SJW thinks

[Zontar The Mindless]

Do you think he has a working sarcasm detector?

Re: Talk about stuck

[Zontar The Mindless]

AP isn't an Aussie. That kinda spoils the effect.

Re:Yup

[Zontar The Mindless]

So you're saying that the government wants to force companies that provide Internet service to... provide Internet service? Oh, the horror! The horror!

Re:...and as YOU pointed out...

[Zontar The Mindless]

Let both of these asses be set to grinding corn.