Sprint's CEO Thinks This Whole Killing Net Neutrality Thing Is Pretty Nifty
from the with-friends-like-these... dept
So when the FCC's 2015 net neutrality rules were passed, we warned how the agency's failure to include zero rating (exempting an ISP's own content or the content of a deep-pocketed partner) was going to let ISPs creatively engage in anti-competitive behavior. And sure enough, companies like Verizon and AT&T began exempting their own content from usage caps, giving them a leg up in the market. Carriers like Sprint similarly began to fracture the internet experience, at one point charging users more money if they wanted to enjoy music, video and games without having their connection throttled.
T-Mobile pushed these creative barriers further with its Binge On offering, which exempted only the biggest and most popular video services from the company's usage caps. This automatically put thousands of smaller video providers, non-profits, educational institutions and startups at a notable market disadvantage, but by and large nobody outside of the EFF and academia gave much of a damn because a) ill-informed consumers are happy laboring under the illusion that they're getting something for free and b) the public (and by proxy media) was lazy and tired of debating net neutrality.
Just as the Wheeler FCC realized the error of their ways and began showing signs of cracking down on carriers that use usage caps and zero rating as an anti-competitive weapon, Trump won the election and Ajit Pai's FCC began dismantling the rules entirely. You know, for "freedom." As the U.S. moved further away from a truly open internet, regulators in other countries (like India) moved to prohibit ISPs from using usage caps or zero rating as an anti-competitive bludgeon against smaller operators, startups and non-profits.
With the rules now on the chopping block, and ISPs successfully gutting FCC and state oversight of ISPs, zero rating is going to be the least of our problems. We're back to now worrying about things like "paid prioritization," or the ability of ISPs to give their own video content (or the content of the deepest-pocketed companies) priority treatment on the network. And ISPs that were previously against such deals are now walking back their promises at an unsurprising pace.
Throughout all of this, carriers like Sprint repeatedly professed their breathless dedication to net neutrality while they continued to implement policies that made consumer connectivity less transparent, more expensive, and less open. And speaking at the Mobile World Congress this week, Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure made it clear that the company doesn't think this whole paid prioritization thing is that big of a problem, either:
"I don’t think there’s anything wrong for you to eventually charge a higher price for a faster access to your network,” Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said during a keynote discussion here at the Mobile World Congress trade show. “You have this anyway. In the United States in many roads you drive, you have a faster road and you pay more. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’re still determining what is going to be the price for 5G and how we’re going to charge you, but the economics say, consumers are willing to pay more for a better service and are willing to pay less for a different type of service."
Except net neutrality rules have always carved out massive exemptions for prioritization (medical services, high-end VOIP service, etc.). It's only the anti-competitive paid prioritization deals the rules hamstrung. ISP executives know this, they just like to conflate the two to justify their quest to turn the internet into the modern equivalent of mid nineties walled gardens like AOL. Claure proceeded to imply that past net neutrality rules didn't let the company "manage its networks," which was never the case:
"We’re big believers in the open internet,” Claure said. “I believe there needs to be some light regulation, and it needs to be very light, in order for us to manage our networks."
Added Claure: “We need to manage our networks … That’s the most important thing to us."
Again though, the FCC's net neutrality rules never stopped Sprint from "managing its networks." In fact it took years of hashing out specifics in the rules to ensure that would never be a problem. Meanwhile, you don't get to proclaim you're "big believers in the open internet," while at the same time pushing for changes that could completely tilt the whole god-damned thing on its axis by letting giant companies (often a company's own subsidiaries) pay for lower latency, higher priority, and better service -- leaving startups, non-profits and educational institutions in the dust.
Just a few years ago we were concerned that loopholes in the 2015 rules would result in caps, overage fees and zero rating being used anti-competitively (and they were and are). Now, with the FCC's rules officially slated to expire in April, most of those problems are going to appear god damned quaint in comparison with the nonsense awaiting all of us just over the horizon.
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Filed Under: ajit pai, broadband, competition, fcc, marcelo claure, net neutrality, wireless, zero rating
Companies: sprint
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Ahem.
Telcos care about their customers. They just want said customers to experience 3rd-world-levels of progress and infra-structure. Nothing wrong in enriching lives by providing different experiences.
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Your network is the data equivalent of two tin cans attached by a string. You HAVE no faster access. If you did, and you've been hiding it all these years Sprint customers should demand you and the entire board of directors be fired into the sun.
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This is why I tell everyone that NN is a waste of effort. By all means go get those crumbs falling off the table, you deserve them!
Regulation has changed places with religion as the opiate of the masses now.
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He just doesn't like it because the democrats are for it and republicans are against it, therefore it must be bad. Ignoring the fact that outside of congress and news media, republican and democrat voters alike are all for it.
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regulations and 'free market'
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The rules
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#2. Take away any ISP's power to own any public infrastructure, they should never have been allowed to own them in the first place. If a cable of any kind runs across a piece of public land, it cannot be privately owned, period.
#3. Proactively tie funding of enforcement agencies to the amount of corruption in the businesses. In short, you get no funding if you cannot identify wrong-doing. If you can identify wrong doing you get the money up front (Pro-Active) with which you can hire staff necessary to investigate.
#4. Require that the Public have input on the subject via their actual voting records/identification, not just some flimflam "public comment section" visa vie the current shit hole that is the FCC. And yes, must be legally required to be audited too! No fucking secrets!
Of course there is a lot more that would go into the details but that should be a simple yet high enough level for most to understand.
So yea, while I do hate regulation, some of it is definitely necessary. The problem we constantly have at places like TD is that the only thing is asked for it just "Regulations". And politicians take that "mindset" and run with the ball in a very anti-consumer and anti-citizen way. If we do not limit what kind of regulations they are allowed to put in, then we are going to get whatever regulations the business and the politician will give us without our input!
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Democracy is essentially a free market ideal in government. Of course a pure Democracy cannot work, but having some of its principles underpin the framework is good to have.
Same goes for Free Market. You cannot have a 100% free-market, but if you take away the people's ability to decide who they can do business with that you are left with all the businesses the government chooses to let you have, which is a free-market monopoly everyone is so afraid of by a different name.
"He just doesn't like it because the democrats are for it and republicans are against it, therefore it must be bad."
I hate both parties. Go you have any other partisan tricks you can pull out of your ass?
"Ignoring the fact that outside of congress and news media, republican and democrat voters alike are all for it."
As usual you are over fluffing your BS statistics, and If I was ignoring that more than enough people do want it, I would not be over here telling you guys you are wrong for wanting it. You logic belongs in the waste basket because it is easily picked apart.
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Re: regulations and 'free market'
If you hate it then you MUST be a republican.
If you like it then you MUST be a democrat.
For them, its not about what is right or wrong, its about the party, and that comes before everything else. Country, Friends, even Family are second to their politics. Those are the people that suck of have over for Thanksgiving because they think everyone must think like them or else.
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#1. Establish strong anti-trust and anti-monopoly regulations. Basically, if you own or produce content, you are not allowed to become a distributor of it. No more exclusive contracts between producers and distributors for them either (anti-trust). If Netflix has it... Hulu and Youtube does too! It is obviously a conflict of interest to create, own, and distribute your own content like HBO for example and soon Disney (anti-Monopoly). Case in point Disney will control it's entire library and they have become one of the largest lobbies on anti consumer and cultural rights by helping extend copyrights on things to what is essentially infinity from a human perspective.
I really like that one. Makes sense.
#2. Take away any ISP's power to own any public infrastructure, they should never have been allowed to own them in the first place. If a cable of any kind runs across a piece of public land, it cannot be privately owned, period.
Okay, that's problematic. It's easier to just ban them from owning infrastructure, end of.
#3. Proactively tie funding of enforcement agencies to the amount of corruption in the businesses. In short, you get no funding if you cannot identify wrong-doing. If you can identify wrong doing you get the money up front (Pro-Active) with which you can hire staff necessary to investigate.
Also problematic. It takes years to train someone to investigate such matters. Keeping them on per-case contracts, which you appear to be advocating here, would result in revolving doors in which investigators would have a perverse incentive to keep the crime rate high enough to keep themselves in business. This could result in all kinds of anti-competitive shenanigans. Therefore, while we need to deal firmly with corruption, it can't be on a short-term contract basis.
#4. Require that the Public have input on the subject via their actual voting records/identification, not just some flimflam "public comment section" visa vie the current shit hole that is the FCC. And yes, must be legally required to be audited too! No fucking secrets!
I quite like this one, although the public comments section idea has merit; if you work for a company opposed to your viewpoint you could end up risking your job. That said, given the fraud, I'm more inclined to agree with you on this point than to disagree.
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#2 If you mean local loop unbundling, yes, I can get behind that.
#3 That is actually a terrible idea. What happens when they stamp out all wrong-doing and there is nothing to find? Or there is little to find or companies get very good at hiding it? Tying funding to that is stupid because they have other functions to perform that don't require finding wrong-doing.
#4 Not seeing the difference in the two. Whether they are identified by voting IDs or not, you can still fake it and the FCC can still ignore the comments altogether. There also are no secrets about the public comment system, it is public after all. The problem is that the commissioners willfully ignored any comments they didn't agree with and willfully did not take action when it was discovered the system was being abused. Your solution solves none of these problems.
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You scumbag Marcelo Claure. I bet you'll make the current service suffer to push people up to the next payment tier.
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Re: Re: regulations and 'free market'
No I'm not. I'm simply pointing out that the only people who seem to be against NN are either big ISPs themselves or people who have bought into the BS the republican news media and politicians are spreading. I am neither dem nor rep, nor do I wish to engage in stupid partisan arguments.
However, I can't change the fact that parties on either side seem to engage in stupid games where they are for or against something solely because the other party has the opposite view.
The view that NN rules are bad has been debunked so many times it's no longer funny. The only ones still pushing that all seem to have a particular political leaning. I disagree with views on both sides on various issues, but rep's seem to consistently get tech issues wrong.
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There is a reason for that, which is why they must generally be the only regulations allowed. Imagine you are a dirty politician, how would you get your voters to agree to giving you more power? You intentionally fail at the power you do have and say you need more in order to fix it. World History has proven this happens all the damn time. Part of it is just lazy, they don't want to perform the due diligence asked of them, and the other part is for power, both are corrupt. The same logic that emperors used in the past to raise an army from fears that a neighbor would invade and then use them as a police force while they have nothing to do raping and oppressing the people along the way is the same logic that gets applied here.
Just like here in America the military is not allowed to police the citizens, the Regulatory agencies should not be allowed to perform certain regulations. Basic Conflict of interest.
"There isn't anything inherently wrong with owning, creating, and distributing your own content."
Conflict of interest as the industry has already proven. Have you not heard of the middle man? They exist solely for the purpose of being the sole resource of something. Same reason that copyright mills exist. It is just good business to buy copyrights and sue people for money in courts. Just like it would be good business to produce, own, and control the distribution of something people really like and then charging unreasonable prices for people to see them or face criminal jail time for finding ways to consume something in a way the "owner" does not approve.
"#3 That is actually a terrible idea. What happens when they stamp out all wrong-doing and there is nothing to find?"
O wow, do you not know what you are talking about. A person being falsely charged on their bill is not a difficult thing to investigate, there is either a direct paper trail of acceptance of service or the business refunds the customer. Neither is finding out who owns which Content because copyright office and Who is distributing it. You are making a mountain out of a mole hill just to be contentious. This is not as difficult or complex as tracking down espionage or financial book cooking.
Do you know who owns the Movie "Finding Nemo" Great, now you just need to know who Owns Netflix. If you can draw and dotted line between who owns Nemo and Who owns Netflix then guess what... open and shut case.
"#4 Not seeing the difference in the two. Whether they are identified by voting IDs or not, you can still fake it and the FCC can still ignore the comments altogether."
That is the change I recommend. The public opinion must be the odd vote and it must be audited. This means the head of the FCC current Ajit Pai would lose their vote power and it would be given to the Publics Opinion instead. Would this not have saved NN after a healthy audit of the "comments"? Do you know what the other benefit is? The head position of the FCC would be a much less coveted position for control. Those in control should never be allowed to vote!
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I disagree, do you not see Orwell's 1984 all over the place already? If the entire infrastructure is government owned you get to pay for everything and not have a say in it. Not a good solution for me. The ISP's can be private, but the (dumb)lines running between everything is public/government owned. That is the best balance for obvious reasons. Think China, that should say more than another, and China learned from America well!
"Also problematic. It takes years to train someone to investigate such matters."
Like I said in another post, I believe this is way over blown. Determining if a business is engaged in anti-competitive behavior is not a difficult task, because the results cannot be hidden. If Apple produces software and then controls what software can go onto their devices? Wham, anti-competitive. Easy!
If ATT overcharges a customer for something, wham easy to invesitgate!
If ATT buys "Finding Nemo" from Disney and then only allows Netflix to stream it... wham anti-trust!
We are not talking about complex subjects here like financial data for SOX. Each bill goes to a customer to review and each bit of content has an easily tracked owner and distributor.
Just a simple, if you do this, you are legally not allowed to do any of that, not through an holding or umbrella company of any kind or you are in violation.
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You said.
"He just doesn't like it because the democrats are for it and republicans are against it,"
That is directly turning it into a partisan issue. I have nothing else to say to an obvious liar that is brazen enough to maintain that they are not lying after they have already been caught.
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ISPs provide bandwidth. Any content they also provide is treated the same as content from other sources
With the exception of essential services, 1st responders, medical devices etc. No one gets a priority. All content is passed thru the network equally.
The FCC just has the responsibility to ensure that ISPs follow those rules.
This is not hard. No need to obfuscate with side issues.
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There is no reason not to support NN unless you have either have been bought out by big ISPs or are just against anything that the side other than yours supports.
So you are saying then that you have been bought out by big ISPs? Good to know.
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Just remember, this isn't necessarily brought on by Trump. It's ultimately the corporations doing this, they would have solidly bought another FCC chair and prepped them regardless of who became President.
The ISPs want Net Neutrality-killing legislation this badly.
Stop name-dropping the President when it isn't necessary for the context of the article. It was easy enough for you to say "Ajit Pai's FCC" without needing to mention Trump. It's become a cheap journalism gag for clicks and SEO, especially when it's such an innocent-seeming mention.
It also shows that you may not have confidence in your own writing to draw in attention alone, which isn't true because I was enjoying it before this. There are bad things Trump actively does and promotes, but most of them don't directly involve technology.
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Wheeler was (gradually) trying to do something about the problem. He wasn't doing as good a job as he could have, but he was trying. Trump chose to replace him with Pai. They're both responsible.
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Well, yeah
Scammers and con-artists hate rules that make it harder for them to take advantage of people, so of course they're positively drooling over the repeal of rules that put even the slightest check in their behavior.
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Not a pure democracy, again, that only exists in the theoretical sense. Real world requires additional modifications. Now, if you are talking in the general sense in that our country is democratic, then yes.
By your own admission though, neither a 100% free market or democracy works in the real world. Therefore some regulation is needed. NN rules don't take away anyone's choices or decide for them who they can do business with. All they do is tell ISPs to stop screwing over their customers and the internet. Literally. Read the rules, I have.
> *I hate both parties. Go you have any other partisan tricks you can pull out of your ass?*
Couldn't tell because of how much you push the rep side of things, facts be damned.
> *As usual you are over fluffing your BS statistics*
Oh? Please provide links to all those polls and statistics that show the vast majority of the American public doesn't support NN. I'll wait.
> *You logic belongs in the waste basket because it is easily picked apart.*
Really? Because I thought you were the one who didn't have any facts to back up your assertions. Me? All my assertions are backed up by facts that have been proven time and again. Your facts are either non-existent or based on flawed data, assumptions, and outright lies. If you think I'm wrong, give me some hard verifiable data that definitively proves that NN is a bad idea. I'll wait.
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"There is no reason not to support NN unless you have either have been bought out by big ISPs or are just against anything that the side other than yours supports."
And here you are doing it again, proving my point. If you could just stop being a fundie you might have more to add to the conversation other than the lies you have been told to regurgitate like a good little sheeple.
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Another falsehood.
The nation is not democratic, that is just ignorance. We are a Republic. Not even the elections are democratic because politicians can still lose with a popular vote. In fact most of the elections are specifically structure to keep the popular vote from being the deciding factor because 2 million people in just 30 square miles should not have more say than 100,000 people in 300 square miles.
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The only one of those that is actually bad is ATT overcharging.
If Apple wants to say no, we're only going to allow x software on our devices they are fully within their rights to do that. And, newsflash, they already do this. They have specific rules about what software can and cannot be approved and added to the iStore. What they can't do is say we'll allow any software but x software gets on there for free, everybody else has to pay. That is anti-competitive.
Your "Finding Nemo" example doesn't make any sense. Are you saying ATT would buy a single copy of the movie, a license to use the movie, or all the rights entirely and Disney would no longer own it?
If it's a single copy, then they couldn't let Netflix do anything with it period. If they bought a license to use the movie, they probably still couldn't do it if Disney said no and if they said yes, it's still not anti-trust worthy provided everyone else can do the same thing for the same price. In the third case, where they buy all the rights and Disney no longer owns it, then if they only want to allow Netflix to stream it, that also is not worthy of an anti-trust investigation. It's only if they allow Netflix to stream it for free and charge everyone else. If they just choose to only do business with Netflix, that is their prerogative.
Maybe you aren't but we are. And while something may seem pretty simple and straightforward on its face, I guarantee that once you actually get into the details of it, it gets a bit complex.
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Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_democracy
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So apple owns your property? what if you buy a house from Apple? Should they be allowed to say what you can install inside of it? Only Apple products right? I am sure you can understand that this is clearly anti-trust territory. Apple should not be allowed to dictate what software goes onto devices that they do not own. If they don't want it on the Apple Store that is fine, but they do not exactly let you use any "store" you want for your device without some hacks now do they? How would you like your Samsung dictating which channels you can watch on your Smart TV? That is actually happening for Youtube.
"Maybe you aren't but we are."
No, you are making a less complex issue "appear" more complex that it is. It really is not that difficult to see when a business is engaging in anti-competitive behavior because the end consumer is directly exposed to it.
Or can you tell me how Netflix as a content distributor can secretly stream a video they own to no one? What would be the purpose? Just as you can easily understand that Apple controls their device in a wall garden we can easily find out who is engaging in illegal trust/monopoly efforts.
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#1) So those have already been established, they just lack use because politicians currently have issues with using massive hammers to smash the market. Granted Commissioner Pai has been working to abolish the more nuanced approches, for instance removing limits on local station ownership designed as an anti-trust measure. But the rule making and enforcement powers are present. Restrictions on being both a content producer and distributor seem far more heavy handed than requirements that your distribution arm not treat its own content differently than any other content. Why are you going for the cudgel? CBS produces its own content, and distributes via OTA broadcast, is that included in your suggestion? Would they have to offer their show at first run to any network to avoid your rules? I just see a lot more questions than solutions, and what solutions are provided are heavy handed, and distort the market just as much as the issues you are trying to solve.
As for exclusive content distribution deals - are you arguing that smaller content creators are not allowed to make their own financial choices? How about book publishing or music distribution? Are we saying artists are no longer provided a distribution right via copyright? Are we saying that we should eliminate any idea of a competitive market for creative works? It really sounds like you are working to eliminate competition just as much as the current system. If I have to sell to every joe schmo, there is no ability to leverage the competition. Competition effectively goes out the window. If distributors know you have to sell to them or face regulatory investigation, the competing distributors could collude to keep pricing low, and then make a verbal agreement that one or two alone would choose to distribute. In this scenario you haven't bolstered competition, and you have reduced value to content creators. I just don't see your suggestions actually achieving the goal of anti monopoly or anti trust.
#2) I don't believe the issue is ownership of the infrastructure. Its management and monopoly of the infrastructure. I would say a lighter touch solution is local loop unbundling combined with requirements for maintenance schedules and properly measured deployments. This is, again, a lighter touch approach. It solves issues related to high investment cost and long development times with introducing competitors in the market without the need for government. (its why we used to have multiple land-line phone carriers and multiple DSL options in well developed areas). It separates the infrastructure from the Service layer. This has been highly effective in Europe for lowering broadband pricing. And by establishing flexible but mandatory maintenance requirements you can mitigate the kinds of infrastructure loss that appear common with privately held infrastructure, without large government power grabs. Properly written (IE not by the ISP) deployment requirements and allowances for municipal broadband (with similar local loop unbundling requirements) would solve the rest of the issues with private broadband infrastructure.
#3) "Proactive". To proactively enforce something, you have to act before clear evidence of wrongdoing. TO be proactive, by definition you have to do more than respond after the fact. I dont see how getting money to investigate wrongdoing after you have identified wrongdoing has already happened is proactive. It appears by definition to be reactive. Outside of your showing of wrongdoing requirement, this is how the government is funded, effectively. HAving taken government accounting I can tell you it already uses your ass backwards approach. Your expenses are budgeted for the month/quarter/year, they record your expenses at the start of the period, and then you write down your expenses over the period. Its why they talk about using their whole budget. Its hard to explain the difference, but in normal accounting, you budget to forcast expenses, but only record the expense when you make it. Its a technical point, but it seems, as an accountant, the only way to understand your suggetsion. Between the differences in our understanding of the word "Proactive", and you not understanding governemnt accounting, I don't think we can currently debate this point.
#4) Not sure what you are trying to express here. Require all regulatory rule making to be voted on by the public in a big, expensive special elections process? Multiple times per year? A plain yes or no vote without the ability to provide productive, nuanced commentary? That is a very heavy handed way to approach the idea of restricting regulations. Without the commentary input we now use, politicians will be able to read whatever they want into a no or yes vote. As Techdirt and various political commentators have pointed out many times, Politicians love to use the yes/no votes in congress as ways to attack their opponents, by stripping any nuance of their opponents opposition to some bill, and claiming a moral high ground. You appear to be doing this as well in your assertions about Techdirt and regulation. The commentary process, properly used, allows a regulator to hear concerns about anti-consumer and anti-citizen issues, and redraft the rules with those comments in mind. Your solution here does the opposite. It creates a bubble where the regulator only hears Yea or Nay without hearing why. While it might help to prevent regulations from going into place, it fails to improve the quality of regulations, which in turn means you will see more anti-consumer and anti-citizen regulations.
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Your suggestions go way past 'neccisary'. They blow past it with more gusto then a rabbit in spring. A big issue with regulations is how burdensome they are. The law requires that regulations be tailored to achieve their goal in the least burdensome manner. Your rules ignore that idea completely, instead believing that simple = good. IN doing so you fail to consider long term consequences of such a rule. Your rules about the interactions of TV and Broadband start to significantly impact copyright law, and could potentially negatively affect consumers and content creators in such a way as to completely undermine the constitutional purpose of copyright (to encourage the creation of culture).
Why are your heavy handed regulations any better than lighter touch approaches I suggest? You try to beat the market into submission. My suggestions try to reorient the market and allow the market to correct itself. Why are your suggestions better?
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They own the iStore. It's hard (but not impossible) to install anything on an iphone that doesn't come from the iStore.
False equivalence.
If they wanted to completely lock down their phone so that no one could develop any apps for it (i.e. they switched to new code and didn't release any info on it or API's) then that is totally their choice and within their rights. No one would use it obviously, but it's legal. They made it, they can make it however they want.
Now what they can't do is prevent someone from buying a phone, hacking it, and installing Android OS on it or cracking it to allow other apps to run on it. But they certainly can redesign it to technically allow only pre-approved apps to run on it. No different than a Playstation not being able to accept Xbox game disks or vice versa. Or do you think that Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo devices are all anti-competitive because they only run their pre-approved game disk formats?
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Re: regulations and 'free market'
What does this mean?
I have seen many markets and none of them had two sides, most have four sides with windows and doors but I failed to see any political affiliation(s). I don't get it, must be naive.
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Re: The rules
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Way to avoid the point he was really making.
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There was a president some time ago that had a sign on his desk, it said the buck stops here.
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Under net neutrality ISPs were forced to play nice and get less economic incentive for their investments. Now they can go back to the freedom of blackmailing contracts for IXP-access...
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Re: Re: regulations and 'free market'
"buyer" and "seller" are the usual definition. (assuming no middlemen)
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To my knowledge, as long as you are a legal citizen of the US, you have full rights to vote. Do you have proof to back up your allegations?
Votes not counting due to gerrymandering is an entirely separate issue. The country is still established and runs as a democracy, there are just some bad actors who subvert it. That doesn't make it no longer a democracy.
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I didn't do it, hence why I denied it.
Pointing out an observation does not mean I am engaged in stupid partisan games. I merely observed that you seem to exhibit behavior classic of someone who only opposes something because some other person or group supports it. Reps or dems, dogs or cats, it doesn't matter.
What point did I prove? You mean the one where you have no facts to back up anything you say? Or the one where you totally disregard the fact that all of your arguments against NN have been disproven time and time again?
Whether I am a fundie or not, is irrelevant (especially since I have no idea what you mean by it, there are lots of different kinds of fundamentalists and I could be classified as several).
What is relevant is that I understand technology and how NN would or would not and does or does not affect the internet. You sir, do not, despite our repeated attempts to educate you. You are the one "regurgitating lies that you have been told", who does not add anything to the conversation, not me.
When you actually figure out how the internet and technology works, then we can have a conversation on equal footing.
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1) Ex felons (several state laws)
2) Women (up till 14th amendment 1868)
3) African Americans (up till the 15th amendment 1870)
4) U.S. citizens and non-citizen nationals who reside in American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, or the United States Virgin Islands
5) more recently people lacking new IDs
6) and then there is the somewhat covert actions of many states, mostly southern
Proof? Which of the many studies would you be interested in?
"gerrymandering is an entirely separate issue"
No it is not. What an ignorant think to say.
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Seriously? That's your proof?
Being convicted of a crime comes with punishments, one of those can be losing your right to vote. Most states only remove voting rights during incarceration and probation/parole. They are restored after. Some states do cause them to lose them permanently. However, we also don't allow anyone under 18 to vote. Is it undemocratic to require that people show some basic form of mental competency (age restriction)? And if you are convicted of proving a detriment to society (murder, rape, etc...) should that not indicate you do not have society's best interests at heart? Otherwise, all the felons could vote in their local drug dealer, I'm sure that's what we all want. Voting is a right, not a privilege, and conviction is a punishment after all. Felons lose a lot of other rights than just voting.
Irrelevant. No longer a restriction.
Same as 2.
It is not as simple as they are just not allowed to vote. Many in fact are allowed to either by absentee or if they moved to the mainland. Additionally, these are not states, they are federal territories, by nature of how our government is set up, they do not have representation in Congress as a full state. Now, perhaps this should change, that is a discussion worth having but it's not as simple as just "they aren't allowed to vote, period".
This is relevant how? Not all states require this and is not required federally. Your current ID will expire at some point anyway at which point you will have to get a new ID. So eventually everyone will have these new IDs and it will be a non-issue. What does it matter if you have to get a new ID now or in a few years when your current one expires? They have to prove who you are and that you haven't already voted somehow.
It's not ignorant and it is a separate issue. Related tangentially perhaps but still separate. Gerrymandering does not prevent people from voting at all. It can influence the outcome of a vote but does not prevent people from actually voting. It's also not a sure thing. There are also laws against doing this. It is illegal to engage in gerrymandering so if you have proof of someone doing it, bring it up so they can be prosecuted.
So of your proof you have managed to show that an extremely small fraction of people in the US can't vote, this includes:
So please explain to me again how the US doesn't allow "many" of their citizens to vote? Because it seems to me that the overwhelming majority are allowed to vote and there are some very specific, narrow instances where they are not. Two out of three involving someone not following federal or state laws and in some cases breaking them.
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So yeah, he hired the guy. But if he knew any more than Pai claiming, "Yeah, I'll do good things for American businesses for you" I'd be really surprised.
The point is that name-dropping here isn't *necessary* in the article. That's it. Trump's ultimately responsible, but it's such a limp kind of passive thing to only hire a guy who does a bad job well enough on his own.
In comparison to Pai's active and loud grandstanding (and knowingly lying to Americans all the time), Trump isn't worth mentioning in the context of the issue.
If he comes out (probably tweeting), "Net Neutrality kills American businesses and I promise to stop this monster in its tracks", I'll change my tune.
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Not that that's a big deal where I'm concerned. As folk may have noticed from some of my posts, I vote third party, so the people I vote for never win anyway.
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So - the claim was that the US is a democracy but you want to ignore a large portion of its history while focusing upon the present. I think one needs to take off the blinders every now and then just to have a look around. Seeing where we have been and looking at where we seem to be going is helpful for some.
Conspiracy theories probably did influence many from voting.
The real world would like a word with you.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman
The saying "the buck stops here" derives from the slang expression "pass the buck" which means passing the responsibility on to someone else.
https://www.trumanlibrary.org/buckstop.htm
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The ISP's can be private, but the (dumb)lines running between everything is public/government owned. That is the best balance for obvious reasons. Think China, that should say more than another, and China learned from America well!
Sorry, that's what I meant.
Like I said in another post, I believe this is way over blown... wham anti-trust!
If it were that simple we wouldn't be discussing this as those problems would have been dealt with by now in the way you described.
We are not talking about complex subjects here like financial data for SOX...
The suject might seem straightforward but implementing reforms is not a simple matter at all.
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You approve more of a President that delivered "prompt and utter destruction" (read: nukes) upon a country that was then only defending itself with sharpened sticks wielded by civilians?
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I'm not asking you to provide proof of comment veracity, what I am saying is what you state has no basis in fact. The facts and studies instead support me. If you have facts that say otherwise, please provide them so that we all may be educated.
I'm not ignoring the history of the US. You questioned whether the US is currently a democracy. I answered that yes it IS currently a democracy. You didn't ask about the past or the future, only the present and that is how I answered you. Bringing up the fact that some groups of people in the past were unable to vote is not relevant to whether the US is presently democratic because those restrictions no longer exist.
By your definition then, there has never been, is none, and never will be any government that is democratic because at some point in the history of all governments there have been some people who have been restricted from voting. Just because some groups of people are restricted from voting, does not mean the government is not a democracy. That's just discrimination. What makes a government a democracy or not is how it operates and what form it takes. Not whether 100% of the people are allowed to vote or not. If that was the case, a dictator could hold elections every year in which everyone could vote, then discard the results and call his country a democracy.
That is their problem, not the US's. Whether people choose to believe and act on a conspiracy theory is not the responsibility of the US and has no bearing on whether the US is democratic or not. They are still allowed to vote, whether they choose to or not is up to them.
The real world has had a word with me. It says it misses you and wants you back.
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... and yet you ask for proof?
"You questioned whether the US is currently a democracy."
- Incorrect. The operative word here would be "current".
" those restrictions no longer exist. "
- Disenfranchisement is alive and well
"That is their problem, not the US's."
- Oh, so "they" are no longer citizens? When did you decide this? I can see where this is going.
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My point is - it would be refreshing to see a politician or high flying c-suite type accept responsibility rather than brush it off by blaming the easy target. I'm tired of the bullshit.
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What are you on? Are you deliberately not understanding what we are talking about?
Let's try again:
Fine, maybe we're getting caught up in what "comment veracity" means. I took it to mean that you can't post a comment unless it is verified and proven in some way. Apparently you were talking solely about the content of the comment. In that case, yes, I want proof that what you are stating is true because from everything I see, you are wrong and all the facts and statistics say you are wrong. You are not required to provide it, but if you don't I have no reason to believe you unless you have facts and proof to support your assertions. Otherwise you could be lying for all I know.
Ok, so I'm confused. Because my statement and your statement both seem to indicate we are talking about the present. Are you questioning whether the US is currently a democracy? As in right now, today? Or are you asking if it was a democracy in the past?
This is where I again ask for proof. Because according to your statement, you are implying that women and african americans are still not allowed to vote. All the females and african americans who voted in the last election would all disagree with you and seem to prove your statement incorrect. So, where's your proof they still aren't allowed to vote?
I don't even know how to parse this. Nowhere did I say they weren't citizens, and nowhere did I say they weren't allowed to vote. In fact I said they WERE allowed to but they CHOSE not to. Stop trying to twist my words into something I never said.
I didn't decide anything, they decided (for whatever abominable logic and reasoning) that they were not going to avail themselves of their Constitutional right to vote. That's their choice, not mine, not yours, and not the government of US's. They were given the opportunity, they chose not to take it. They still have the opportunity to vote in the next election.
I also can see where this is going. It's called a non-productive argument with someone who refuses to accept facts, and has to resort to try to put words in people's mouths because otherwise he has to admit he was wrong and actually face reality.
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To your first point, that is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I will agree that power can be a corrupting influence. However I disagree with all your other points. Since established law disagrees with you, we can argue about whether or not it should be changed or not but it doesn't negate the fact that it is currently legal, lawful and how it works today.
To your second point, so you are saying that middlemen should be mandatory and that the creator of something should be absolutely banned from distributing it? That is ludicrous and idiotic on a number of levels. That's also not how any of our market system in America works. If you are the owner and creator of works, you have the right to distribute it however you wish, middleman or not. What you can't do is forcibly disadvantage other creators from distributing their works. See, ISPs can make all their own content they want, and they can offer it for free or for a price, that's not the problem. The problem is that they also control access to all the other content online and what they are trying to do is charge for all that other content while making theirs free. That's what they can't do and what NN would stop them from doing. It's not anti-competitive to create, own, and distribute your own works for free, it is anti-competitive if at the same time you force people to pay extra for other people's competing content.
To your third point, I happen to know exactly what I'm talking about. You don't. I'm not disputing the fact that a false charge on a bill is an easy thing to investigate (on the face anyway, actually doing it is kind of difficult because you have to track paper and money trails, get access to accounts, etc...).
I'm not sure what you're getting at with the content and distributing it. That doesn't seem to relate to the discussion at hand. Regardless, the fact remains that your proposal is not financially sustainable. Taken to its logical conclusion, if it's so easy to investigate all this stuff, then eventually the FCC would find all the offenders and force them to stop. At that point there would be nothing left to investigate and their funding would dry up. The problem is, they have many other functions to perform that are NOT dependent on investigating wrong doing (e.g. spectrum management, EMF interference rating, etc...). If their only funding comes from investigating wrongdoing and that dries up, then they become useless to perform all their other functions.
Again, with your Finding Nemo reference, not sure what you are getting at. Disney owns Nemo, and Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph own Netflix. Not seeing a connection. Disney granted a license to Netflix to show their movies on Netflix which is up later this year. At that point all Disney movies will be removed from Netflix. What's your point?
To your fourth point, that is an interesting proposition. One that you didn't not clearly state originally. May I suggest some English and grammar lessons?
I admit I am intrigued by your proposal but I still do not think it would work out in reality. The problem is the public is not always an expert on the matters the FCC puts forth, nor do they always have the entire picture. That's why there are public comments, so that the FCC can have the whole picture and make informed decisions. The problem is not with people in power voting, the problem is holding them accountable to vote based on facts and data, not their preference.
I don't agree that those in control should never be allowed to vote. The president has a veto vote and that has proven to be a very necessary thing over the years. Can it be abused? Yes. But there is no way to ever prevent anything from ever being abused and sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, or else you end up with lots of bad and not much good.
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Fair enough, and as I'm not nearly masochistic enough to wade through the sewage and/or inanity that are his tweets I've no idea if he's said anything related to network neutrality either way, so with regards to your last point I've no idea, and as such I can see your point.
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