New poll: 1 in 5 Americans want 'Net regulated like TV

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/new-poll-21-of-americans-want-net-regulated-like-tv.ars

by evo_9 • 16 years ago

19 22 16 years ago

dotcoma• 16 years ago

and a remote control, too?

stelfer• 16 years ago

Well luckily that's not even a remote possibility even in an alternate universe. They should stick to stuff they understand.

electromagnetic• 16 years ago

I'd love to have a TV that could watch an alternate reality and just see the hilarity that would ensue if this passed.

Step 1: All US hosted sites facing regulation would simply move host to anywhere but the US, collapsing US hosting companies (Why do I feel the people likely to vote for this legislation are the same people who have the moronic "Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign!" bumper stickers on their 1997 Fords and Chevy's)

Step 2: US government follows suit of China and Middle Eastern countries and builds its own Great Wall to filter the internet. This creates huge political problems when everything from ecommerce to email becomes difficult between US and foreign countries.

Step 3: The US government that instituted the Great Wall ultimately gets kicked out of government for causing internet prices to hike to well over 200% original price instead of including it in the tax budget.

Step 4: The Great Wall ends up a multi-billion dollar kiddie porn filter.

Honestly I don't even comprehend the reasoning behind regulating the internet, given that you have to pay to use it - just like you have to pay to watch HBO or an R rated movie.

Here's where regulation for the internet should start and end: All customers subscribing to internet services should sign a waiver saying they understand that the ISP and US government is not responsible for content on the internet, but that the content creator is and any concerns about content should be addressed to the content creator and not your local government representative.

javert3• 16 years ago

Why not just teach the US Constitution in school and/or mail a copy of it to all citizens? Your statement follows directly from the following two "premises": (1) U.S. Constitution. (2) The Internet is built atop private property.

dschobel• 16 years ago

Excellent, you take care of the citizens who value security over personal freedom and I'll handle the politicians willing to exploit that fear and we'll have this problem all wrapped up in a neat little package.

txt• 16 years ago

" following a telephone survey of 1,000 "likely voters." "

lucasjung3• 16 years ago

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you questioning the veracity of the "likely voters" screen? If so, you should understand that this is not some arbitrary designation. Different pollsters have different methods for applying this screen, and none of them are perfect, but all of them are based on serious analysis by real experts. I'm not a polling expert, but I've read enough about it to have an appreciation for how complex the problem is, and how creative some of the pollsters can be in finding ways to make their polls more accurate. For anyone interested in building an "enlightened layman's" understanding of polling, a good place to start is by reading Sean Trende:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/sean_trende/

It's not necessarily that he's the best analyst out there (I happen to think that he's at least in contention for that title), but rather that he explains all of his reasoning and processes so clearly.

powera2• 16 years ago

Unless there is going to be a national plebiscite, whether or not a person plans to vote in some election (he doesn't say which) shouldn't really be relevant here. Congress and regulatory agencies are supposed to represent all the people, not just the ones that vote.

mpk• 16 years ago

Most people don't know what the FCC's charter is, what its position is in relation to other governmental entities and lets not get started on the Internet itself. Most people just think of it as this magic black box (and why would they not?).

Asking random people to decide on what they do or do not want the FCC to do regarding the Internet will inevitably result in answers based on flawed premises.

Take the Campaign to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide as an example here.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dihydrogen_mo...

lucasjung3• 16 years ago

"Asking random people to decide on what they do or do not want the FCC to do regarding the Internet will inevitably result in answers based on flawed premises."

Let's rephrase that a little and see what we get: Asking [constituents] to decide on what they do or do not want [any particular government agency] to do regarding [any particular issue] will result in [a pretty good indicator of how congress is likely act].

If congress is hearing that "random people" (aka "constituents") are against "more" or "TV-like" regulation of the internet, then congress is going to take steps to prevent the FCC from doing whatever it is that congress thinks people don't want. If you don't like this, rather than pointing out "uninformed" typical voters are you'd be much better served by trying to "inform" them.

Caution: a lot of times, "typical" people hear what experts have to say and respond with something to the effect of, "I understand and accept the facts as you have explained them, but I do not share your opinion about what should be done in light of those facts because I am balancing your concerns against a whole list of other concerns which you prioritize very differently." Frustrated experts routinely misinterpret this as "we don't need your stinkin 'facts,' nerd-boy!" because they consider their chosen issue to be so important that they are incapable of understanding how someone could understand the facts and still come to a different conclusion. This is usually followed by general complaints about "anti-intellectualism."

Aside: when I was in high school, a group of friends and I distributed anti-H20 literature with great success: other students started making their own photocopies and redistributing them, eventually to teachers and faculty. A few days after we started the process, an airhead vice-principal (our school had multiple vice-principals) was in the process of organizing a student group when the AP Chemistry teacher took her aside and tried to politely explain to her that she had been had. At first she wouldn't hear it, and turned his attempt at a quiet aside into a noisy and public scene, much to her eventual embarrassment. I'm pretty sure he knew we were responsible, but didn't bust us because he was so annoyed by that vice-principal.

zeemonkee• 16 years ago

Reminds me of the British satire Brass Eye, which conned a number of celebrities about a new drug called "Cake":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0GxUxKZdHk

elai• 16 years ago

You can make opinion polls say what you want to say.

Look at this comical example from yes prime minister: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMcZic1d4U

biot• 16 years ago

Shouldn't the title be "80% of Americans do not want the net regulated"?

gnaritas• 16 years ago

Depends on who you're trying to manipulate.

Detrus• 16 years ago

As Dick Cheney eloquently put when asked about about approval ratings:

"So?"

hristov• 16 years ago

I have to agree with arstechnica here. The questions here are either extremely loaded or utterly idiotic (the tv question being the latter). If Ramundsen had any integrity they would have never taken this poll.

powera2• 16 years ago

Rasmussen is more a Republican lobbying organization than a polling firm at this point. Scott Rasmussen, the namesake founder, is very clearly also a Republican activist. Personally, I wouldn't believe him if he put out a poll that said 90% of Americans believe the sky is blue.

Their "political class" spin is even more complete BS; they routinely say the "political class" is like 5% of the US population, and assign it all sorts of boogey-man positions based on a sample size that can't exceed 100.

New poll: 1 in 5 Americans want 'Net regulated like TV

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