The Senate has forced a vote to restore net neutrality

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/9/17333108/net-neutrality-congressional-review-act-cra-resolution-vote-senate

by vwadhwani • 8 years ago

365 85 8 years ago

craftyguy3• 8 years ago

Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy and other sites have put up Red Alert banners as part of a day of action to drive petitions in support of the resolution.

I get the feeling that these sites are just 'preaching to the choir' (i.e. their customers already support these things, and most likely have let their 'representative' know).

Is anyone doing anything to give the 50 senators who are against this a taste of what is to come? I recall cloudflare or someome along those lines threatenning to throttle traffic from government IPs, or maybe that just happened in my dream..

dlgeek• 8 years ago

As someone else put it... "That's how you get the choir to sing!"

It's not about changing minds. It's a call to action - they're specifically trying to get their users to contact their representatives.

esaym• 8 years ago

Is anyone doing anything to give the 50 senators who are against this a taste of what is to come?

No, because I am fine with the way things are, ie unregulated.

craftyguy3• 8 years ago

It's not currently 'unregulated.' Consumers are being regulated by ISPs, who are driven by profits and literally nothing else.

_asummers• 8 years ago

Those sites are a huge portion of overall internet traffic. While on e.g. Reddit, people may subscribe to tech subreddits, there are many people who don't and are unaware of anything to do with net neutrality. If they can convince a nonzero amount of people to contact their representatives, that's worth the hour or two of some intern's time to put up a banner. Who knows, some of those people might be in states represented by those 50 senators.

rhcom2• 8 years ago

Not to introduce flame bait but one of the reasons the NRA is powerful is the ability to quickly motivate their very vocal members.

mch822• 8 years ago

It would be amazing if someone could figure out a way to measure constituent opinion that didn't involve people showing up at or calling in to an office.

jacquesm• 8 years ago

The fact that those members have guns might also have something to do with it. 'Do this or else we will sick our gun carrying members on you' even if they do nothing at all is a more powerful signal than 'Do this or a bunch of people will show up to protest'.

glenndebacker• 8 years ago

Maybe they can crowdfund ? If I read the news and see the prices to get "insights", it may be doable.

Then again I find it troubling how easy politicians are getting bought these days while in essence it's not that hard to govern with all the people in mind instead of them self. But I may be very naive in this regards.

jordigh2• 8 years ago

I still can't believe that the movement to kill net neutrality was (is?) called "restoring internet freedom". I guess it's a shortening of "restoring internet service providers' freedom"? But the longer form isn't as catchy.

StaticRedux• 8 years ago

Branding makes the world go round. Whether it's forward, or in this case, backward.

mirimir2• 8 years ago

Well, it is about "restoring internet freedom". It's just that, except in a few large cities, Americans have very little choice about ISP. So there's no way for ISPs to compete for users who care about net neutrality.

Edit: Actually, we'd have even more freedom with an Internet version of the FERC rule for open access to electrical transmission lines.[0]

The legal and policy cornerstone of these rules is to remedy undue discrimination in access to the monopoly owned transmission wires that control whether and to whom electricity can be transported in interstate commerce.

0) https://www.ferc.gov/legal/maj-ord-reg/land-docs/rm95-8-00w....

mch822• 8 years ago

What's your definition of freedom?

duxup2• 8 years ago

It's freedom... just not for a lot of people.

rectang• 8 years ago

Freedom of the powerful to abuse the powerless endlessly and without consequence.

JohnJamesRambo• 8 years ago

It’s a very 1984 way of doing things where the ones in power blatantly say the opposite of what their intent is, to twist the truth and the meaning of the words entirely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

jampekka• 8 years ago

It's nowadays quite a good heuristic that purpose and effects of a bill is opposite to what the bill's name says.

yosito• 8 years ago

If you live in Arkansas, Louisiana, or Ohio, call your senators and urge them to vote in favor of net neutrality!

nateconq• 8 years ago

"would need a bare majority in both the Senate and the House, as well as the president’s signature"

"We don’t know how this is going to end...."

They know very well how it will end. This is an effort to get ammo for the primaries.

ryanpcmcquen5• 8 years ago

I find it funny that some people still see Net Neutrality as 'government controlling the internet'. They should take a look at FOSTA if they want to know what government controlling the internet really looks like.

nercht122• 8 years ago

It is government controlling the internet. It's the extent and who that is different. In this case, it's only forcing a fair playing field. Kinda like highways being public vs. toll instead of telling you what cars you are and are not allowed to drive. I'd like a "free" internet, but I still have to admit it's going to cost someone else's "freedom".

cdancette3• 8 years ago

So we can summarize saying it's customers freedom against ISP freedom.

ryanpcmcquen5• 8 years ago

Controlling ISPs !== controlling the internet.

chimeracoder2• 8 years ago

They should take a look at FOSTA if they want to know what government controlling the internet really looks like.

Unfortunately, that's not a winning argument from a rhetorical perspective. Almost every single person in both the House and the Senate, of both parties, voted for FOSTA/SESTA.

FOSTA and SESTA are truly abominable bills. They're arguably the most anti-gay bills passed at the federal level since DOMA in 1996. But telling people "net neutrality isn't about controlling the Internet, because it's not as bad as these other bills that received near-unanimous, bipartisan support" isn't going to win over any allies who weren't already in your camp on both issues in the first place.

ryanpcmcquen5• 8 years ago

I made no mention of it 'not being as bad' as other bills. I stand by my statement. Net Neutrality is government regulating ISPs. ISPs are not the internet.

And I think it could convert those in the anti camp. Some are against Net Neutrality because they see it as government control of the internet (it is not). They need to recognize that FOSTA is directly what they perceive Net Neutrality to be (at least in terms of results).

WheelsAtLarge• 8 years ago

Wishful thinking, the president would not sign the bill and there's not a supermajority in the Senate and the house to overrule him. This is going nowhere.

Rapzid2• 8 years ago

To Trump's credit, I believe he would sign the bill. He mostly cares about winning and looking good. Also, he gives people what they want. If both houses pass the bill; "You wanted net neutrality? We now have the best net neutrality in the history of the internet. We rolled back Obama's sick and dying internet, Obama killed the internet did you know that folks?, and now we have the best most free internet EVER. Period."

We may actually have the opposite problem; Trump may not veto anything that comes across his desk.

kmkemp• 8 years ago

What? He is literally the person who appointed the guy who made this happen. While Trump is erratic, so no one can rule out a complete 180 at any moment, to say that is "to his credit" is ridiculous.

boomboomsubban4• 8 years ago

This is an almost meaningless bill, only going to a vote so various politicians can claim to support net neutrality on the campaign trail.

Not only is it unlikely to pass both chambers and be signed by the president, passing the bill doesn't change the broader status of net neutrality. Currently, the legality of the FCC enforcing net neutrality is unclear, with the matter destined to be decided in the courts either way.

A law explicitly giving the FCC control has been necessary for over a decade, but both parties have refused to pass one or even consider passing a future one.

ghba662• 8 years ago

Why are people here so pro-net neutrality? I don't have NN in Europe and I'm happy: because of it, I enjoy zero-rated services at a fair price.

Matterrr• 8 years ago

Zero-rating is a terrible thing that helps stifle the free market and consolidate monopolies. It is also of questionable legality.

ghba662• 8 years ago

It does not consolidate monopolies because, by law, ISPs are required to add all apps from a category (chat, video, etc) to zero-rating. i.e. if you add Netflix you are required to add YouTube, etc.

All I see about NN is a lot of manipulation from both sides. And what's especially frustrating is that some people insist that NN is anti-customer. No thanks, I'll keep my zero-rating.

Crosseye_Jack• 8 years ago

The U.K.'s (government / regulators) stance on net neutrality) is that as long as there is competition in the market and there are services you can sign up for that “neutral” then there is no need to step in yet.

The competition in the U.S. isn’t as great as it can be in here in the U.K. where many will only have a single choice for their ISP (or have restricted cell/sat isp or have a service that we wouldn’t even consider as broadband as it’s speed is so low).

It’s strange how people from different parts from the world may require different rules that govern them.

garmaine2• 8 years ago

The USA is big. Like, really fucking big. As a result running an ISP, wired or cellular, has an extremely high cost to entry. As a result of that, most people’s choices for internet provider is precisely limited to one choice, the local telco monopoly. No net neutrality means that ISP ca. Do whatever they want and get away with it because what are you going to do? Send a sternly written letter?

spiralx• 8 years ago

The USA is big. Like, really fucking big.

So? Most of that is empty space nobody is trying to serve. The key metric is population density, which is comparable between urban areas in Europe and the US. The size of the US has nothing to do with lack of ISP choice, as evidenced by the fact that the same problem doesn't occur in countries with lower population densities than the US (33.8 people per km²) such as Sweden (21.5), Finland (16.2), Norway (13.4) or Australia (3.1).

dzdt• 8 years ago

We long had zero-rating in the form of toll free telephone numbers while most long distance calling required per-minute fees. That system worked okay because it just transferred costs from one party (the caller) to another (the callee) and was available to any provider who wanted to subscribe to the model. Zero rating that works like that would be okay.

What people are worried about is when the ISP's get to play kingmaker about which services will get deals and which will not. The cable TV providers are among the most hated companies in the US for a reason, and those are the only broadband ISP's available to most Americans.

Zero-rating as we fear it is just another way to let them impose arbitrary and capricious costs on their customers.

tzs• 8 years ago

Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy and other sites have put up Red Alert banners as part of a day of action to drive petitions in support of the resolution.

This is being seriously mismanaged, and that may actually cause long term harm to the chances of saving (or restoring) net neutrality.

The big mistake being made is not explaining where the Congressional Review Act (CRA) approach fits into the bigger picture. There are several places along the timeline of net neutrality repeal where it in theory could be saved. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) approach is just one of them.

The CRA approach has almost no chance of actually passing both houses (it has a pretty good chance in the Senate, but because of the way the House is structured it would take a miracle there).

When you consider it in the context of the bigger picture, that's not a problem. Its role in the overall effort is to get members of Congress on the record, which might be useful later in campaigns for office. The public is broadly in favor of net neutrality and this support is very high even among Republicans.

That's probably not enough to get Republican voters to vote Democrat, because it is not high on the list of important issues for them, but it could be enough to get them to vote for more moderate Republicans in the Republican primaries or caucuses.

In sports terms, this is not a play to score a goal. It is an attempt to get better position to set up a later scoring play. But the people running these campaigns treat everything like it is a scoring attempt...and then when it doesn't score the people who participated feel like they failed.

That can discourage them, making them less likely to respond to later calls to action. Then they might not be there when it is time to actually go for a goal (e.g., get out and vote).

jiojfdsal3• 8 years ago

How do you convince network giants like IBM, Intel, Cisco, Nokia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Juniper, D-Link, among others, that net neutrality regulations are a bad idea? They currently support what Ajit Pai is doing. They have even have gone as far as crediting his repeals for greater investment into their network infrastructure.

Brockenstein• 8 years ago

You probably don't because net neutrality isn't an automatic win for everyone. Some companies clearly benefit from the repeal. They do have incentive to invest in their networks when they can monetize it every which way, it's now a feature they can charge for...

Except maybe for a PR tidal wave so huge that anyone who opposes net neutrality is driven out of business, I don't see how you convince companies to go against their own interests.

davvolun• 8 years ago

In what sport do you hold back from scoring a goal in order to set yourself up to score a goal later though?

That is to say, what you're saying is true, but typically (as long as the net is in sight) the best way to set yourself up to score a goal later is to try to score a goal now.

The approach is prone to local maxima, but I'm not convinced there can be another approach here. If you're not trying to win it all, then you're setting yourself up to lose.

Yhippa• 8 years ago

Pretty much every sport? You don't go all out every opportunity you have the instant you have priority. Nearly every sport has some concept of setting up plays: American football, soccer, basketball, boxing, MMA.

They can't even score a goal now. The purpose of this within the US legal system is a pure intermediate play. And the when net neutrality doesn't get overturned as a result of this instance people will feel demoralized and hopeless.

op00to• 8 years ago

Consider Small Ball in baseball: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_ball_(baseball)

monocasa2• 8 years ago

Literally any game that has a distinction between tactics and strategy (ie. most of them).

mnw21cam• 8 years ago

This is about the USA. Perhaps the title could be updated to say "The US Senate..."?

enknamel• 8 years ago

Why do we need NN? I have yet to hear any valid argument for it. Everything that people complain about is already illegal under multiple laws.

boomboomsubban4• 8 years ago

Without it, ISPs can stop offering internet access and start offering YouTube access. Here's an example of a plan in a country with weak net neutrality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Screenshot-2017-10-28_MEO...

If you believe some other law already prohibits this, please tell me.

Tyr42• 8 years ago

Just to be 100% clear with the packages shown, they offer the benefit that those apps don't count towards your mobile data, rather than just being available.

Still not great though, since it just increases the moat for existing companies. Also companies in the states have tried exactly the same thing before with their video streaming service not counting towards you data cap.

The Senate has forced a vote to restore net neutrality

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