stories filed under: "republicans"

Stop Pretending The Trump GOP Genuinely Cares About Monopoly Power

from the gullible-and-adorable dept

Wed, Oct 7th 2020 6:36am — Karl Bode

Over the last year or two, a constant drumbeat has permeated tech news coverage. It goes something like this: the GOP is embracing a "populist" agenda by standing up to "big tech." The modern Trump GOP (with heroic consumer champions like Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn in the lead) we're told, have become stalwart opponents of monopolization, especially in tech. They're just super concerned about what this power means for free speech, especially given that conservative voices are routinely "censored" on the internet.

One problem. It's all bullshit. And there's a long line of journalists and experts who still somehow haven't quite figured that out yet. Or have figured it out but are too afraid of upsetting readers or advertisers to be honest about it.

Case in point: the New York Times, which this week explored how the GOP's interest in "reining in big tech" has stalled because "solutions" to modern tech problems could hurt revenues or don't include adequate hand-wringing over "conservative censorship":

"The Republicans’ chief objections to the report are that some of the legislative proposals against the tech giants could hamper other businesses and impede economic growth, said four people with knowledge of the situation. Several Republicans were also frustrated that the report didn’t address claims of anti-conservative bias from the tech platforms. Mr. Buck said in “The Third Way” that some of the recommendations were “a nonstarter for conservatives."

The Times, like most big outlets, proceeds from the assumption that the Trump GOP genuinely cares about reining in "monopoly power" in technology. But that gives the GOP way more credit than it has earned or deserves, and helps prop up bad faith bullshit as legitimate grievance.

For one, the GOP's breathless concerns about "monopolization" aren't apparent anywhere else. As the GOP freaks out over "big tech," for example, "big telecom" has been allowed to effectively guard the chicken house and eat the lion's share of the chickens. The GOP-controlled FCC effectively neutered itself at AT&T's and Comcast's request. Terrible job and competition killing telecom mergers have been repeatedly, rubber stamped by the GOP. Similarly there's zero evidence of any serious attempt to rein in other monopolized sectors from banking and airlines to pharmaceutical and energy.

There's also still no evidence that "conservatives are being censored." As in, none. Oddly, the New York Times can't be bothered to mention this. The lion's share of those being kicked offline are being kicked offline because they're simply...behaving like assholes on the internet. And in fact, there's far more evidence that platforms like Facebook are ignoring their own rules to protect right-wing speech because it's more profitable to let inflammatory bullshit bumble around the information ecosystem (see: Breitbart being a trusted news ally and nobody giving a damn that Ben Shapiro games Facebook systems to inflate traffic).

Here's the thing. This steady flood of shitty Section 230 bills aren't about policing monopoly power. And folks like Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley, who've never had a single bad thing to say about telecom monopolies, couldn't give any less of a shit about monopoly power. They do however care about political power. And the over-arching goal right now is to apply enough pressure on Silicon Valley giants that they don't start adequately policing political disinformation. Because if they do, many of the cornerstones of the modern Trump GOP (race baiting, divisive bullshit, inflammatory garbage, rampant disinformation) fall apart.

Yes, Democrats have plenty of bad ideas and frequently can be found doing nothing or making things even worse. Congress needs a reboot and fresh blood on a tragic scale. But that doesn't change the fact that the entire, multi-year GOP quest to tackle "big tech's monopoly power" has never actually been about monopoly power. It's about political power and money. It's about trying to shovel more ad revenue to accountability-immune telecom monopolies or Rupert Murdoch. It's also about preventing anybody from tackling the mountains of hateful internet bullshit that has become the cornerstone of Trumpism.

And despite countless gullible news reports and experts eager to portray GOP "big tech" pearl clutching as a good faith, earnest examination of the very real problems popping up in tech, it's simply not. And those who continue to pretend otherwise are part of the problem.

Filed Under: antitrust, big tech, gop, josh hawley, marsha blackburn, monopoly, republicans

58 Comments

Why Are Senate Democrats Helping Move Forward Trump's Strategy Of Attacking The Internet?

Politics

from the this-makes-no-sense dept

Fri, Oct 2nd 2020 1:38pm — Mike Masnick

We've detailed for a while now how both Republicans and Democrats are mad online about how the internet works -- though often for reasons that directly conflict with each other. We've also highlighted how Donald Trump and his administration are actively encouraging Republicans to focus all of their legislative and grandstanding firepower on attacking the internet.

What I cannot understand is... why are the Democrats helping?

In a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, Democrats initially seemed to recognize that plans to subpoena various internet CEOs (AGAIN) were little more than a dog and pony show for Republicans working on their Trump-directed culture war against the internet. Senators Cantwell and Blumenthal both stated that they knew this was all a grandstanding ruse to pressure social media companies to leave up their misinformation and propaganda:

Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the top Democrat on Wicker’s panel, said she resisted his initial subpoena request over fears that such a move would chill the companies’ efforts to tackle “lies, harassment and intimidation” ahead of the election.

“I am not interested in using our subpoena power to try to play or game the refs days before an election, which is clearly what Republicans are doing,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said this week. “The timing shows that these subpoenas are clearly calculated to chill efforts to get misinformation or falsehoods from abroad or domestic groups [removed].”

But take a wild guess what came next? You got it. They ended up supporting the subpoenas unanimously. Why? Because Republicans told the Democrats that while everything they feared about this nonsense was true, the Democrats can also grandstand over their own bullshit misleading culture war issues. It's a win-win for politicians on both sides of the aisle and a lose-lose for the public and the internet we rely on. I mean come on:

Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the panel, urged caution amid her colleagues' complaints of anti-conservative bias. Last week, as Wicker had been pushing internally for the subpoenas, Cantwell said she feared Republicans sought to "chill the efforts of these companies to remove lies, harassment, and intimidation from their platforms."

On Thursday, Cantwell said she was pleased to move forward with the subpoenas after Wicker agreed to include the topics of Big Tech's impact on media and privacy as issues of concern.

"What I don't want to see is a chilling effect on individuals who are in a process of trying to crack down on hate speech or misinformation about Covid during a pandemic," she said at Thursday's markup.

Neither party seems interested in dealing with real problems. Both parties seem to want to waste time focusing on the internet rather than any of the actual problems facing the country and the world these days. What a waste.

Filed Under: congress, democrats, donald trump, grandstanding, intermediary liability, maria cantwell, privacy, republicans, richard blumenthal, section 230

43 Comments

Congressional Republicans With No Strategy On Pandemic, Healthcare, Societal Problems... Have Decided That The Internet Is The Real Problem

Politics

from the culture-wars dept

Fri, Oct 2nd 2020 3:21am — Mike Masnick

We've pointed out just how ridiculous it is that Congress seems wholly focused on destroying the open internet by gutting the Section 230 protections that enable the open internet to exist in its present form. We're in the midst of a variety of pretty major issues, and yet Congress is introducing new anti-internet and anti-tech bills like it's last call before the bar shuts down.

The reason for this is not that hard to grasp, really. As Politico reports, the Trump administration has decided that a culture war against the internet is the best election strategy right now:

The Trump administration is pressuring Senate Republicans to ratchet up scrutiny of social media companies it sees as biased against conservatives in the run-up to the November election, people familiar with the conversations say. And the effort appears to be paying off.

In recent weeks, the White House has pressed Senate Republican leaders on key committees to hold public hearings on the law that protects Facebook, Twitter and other internet companies from lawsuits over how they treat user posts, three Senate staffers told POLITICO. They requested anonymity to discuss private communications.

As the article notes, most of these new anti-internet bills are coming from Republican Senators who are engaged in big political fights and want to retain the backing of the President. The focus on "big bad tech" serves to accomplish multiple goals:

Culture war: These are always popular during election seasons. Politicians need to get people riled up while pretending that they're "doing something." So starting culture wars is a common past time during election seasons.
Distraction: We're still in the middle of a pandemic in which thousands of people are dying. We're still in the middle of an economic crisis with record unemployment, and massive impacts to people all around the country. We're still in the middle of a social upheaval as more and more people are speaking out against police brutality. We're still in the middle of huge climate issues, including devastating wild fires up and down the west coast and devastating hurricanes in the south. Fighting with internet dweebs is a distraction.
Fundraising: It's common knowledge in DC for politicians that if you need to bump up your coffers, you introduce important legislation about an industry that is doing well, because it leads them to suddenly start throwing money into the campaign funds of folks on all sides of the issue. Tech is an industry that has been doing well, so why the fuck not?
Working the refs: A key strategy of Republicans lately has been to try to use this "oh, poor us, we're the victims" snowflake mentality to pressure social media companies to treat them with kid gloves when it comes to handling the propaganda and misinformation they're posting on social media. Continually attacking tech companies has worked so far, in at least getting Facebook to give Trump and friends more leeway to post nonsense, so why not keep pushing that button over and over again.

Note, of course, that none of this actually helps the public even slightly. Apparently, that's not what's important to the White House or folks in Congress.

Indeed, at a time when technology and the internet has become that much more important due to the pandemic that the President seems to want to ignore, it seems that much more damaging to focus on destroying and hammering the open internet. It's positively backwards. Sure, let's attack the one sector that is helping to keep a bunch of stuff afloat, and helping to keep people at home, rather sending them out to risk their lives in the midst of a pandemic.

And, of course, all of this seems to be coming directly at the request of the President himself who is desperately looking for any issue to draw focus to other than all of the things that make him look bad:

“There’s hardly a conversation I have with the president where this doesn’t come up, where Section 230 does not come up, usually raised by him,” Hawley said in an interview. “It is much on his mind and I think his strong stance on this issue has had a big effect in opening the eyes of some of my Republican colleagues to realize this is a major issue.”

Spoiler alert: it's not "a major issue." It's a half-baked, made up, hyped up issue for all of the reasons above, having nothing to do with actual problems in the world.

I get that culture wars are the way politics is done. I get that demonizing successful industries is something that lots of politicians do for political reasons. But it seems kind of batshit crazy that in a time when literally hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake, we're still seeing Congress and the White House play political games rather than focusing on actual issues.

Filed Under: congress, donald trump, gop, internet, josh hawley, open internet, pandemic, republicans, section 230
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

35 Comments

WSJ Rightly Attacks Senator Josh Hawley's 'Nannyish' Laws Regarding The Internet

Legal Issues

from the good-to-see dept

Wed, Aug 21st 2019 10:41am — Mike Masnick

Just days after publishing yet more anti-internet nonsense, the Wall Street Journal, at least, allowed Andy Kessler to publish an excellent opinion piece calling our Senator Josh Hawley's ridiculous "big government" approach to regulating internet companies.

Mr. Hawley’s new bill has all the worst instincts of the regulatory state—a disappointing achievement coming from a Republican. It would remove the autoplay feature from YouTube, end infinite scrolling on Twitter and Facebook feeds, limit scrolling time to three-minute sessions, set default limits on the use of platforms to 30 minutes a day, and outlaw Snapchat streaks (rewards for consecutive days of contact with friends) and most “gamification” (badges, rewards) for any online service. These diktats are the opposite of market freedom.

The bill’s final kicker is a proposed triennial Federal Trade Commission report to Congress describing how internet companies “interfere with free choices of individuals” by “exploiting human psychology and brain physiology.” In other words, Mr. Hawley wants to restrict freedom because it interferes with free choice. Or something like that. Cut to a video of Orwell rolling over in his grave (though it won’t autoplay). OK, to be fair, Skopos Labs gives the bill a measly 3% chance of being enacted. But that doesn’t make it any less . . . cuckoo.

Kessler's piece also calls out Hawley's laughable claim that there is no innovation at all in social media.

This antitech inclination hasn’t always defined Mr. Hawley’s persona. As attorney general he said, “American workers and American entrepreneurs can compete with anybody, anywhere if our government will stop making America a cost-prohibitive place to do business.” Hear, hear. When he won his Senate seat last year he ran mostly as a conventional conservative.

But even then he already had his enemies marked. His first Senate speech lamented the “cold and judgmental world of social media,” and things kind of went downhill from there.

Hawley, of course, has been grandstanding a lot lately about how the "cosmopolitan elite" are the problem. He conveniently leaves out the fact that he attended Stanford and Yale Law School, clerked for the Supreme Court, worked at a massive "cosmopolitan" law firm (based in DC and London), Hogan Lovells, and then became Attorney General for Missouri before becoming Senator. Hawley is about as "cosmopolitan" a Senator as you can find. But apparently, in grandstanding to what he seems to believe is a very, very gullible base, he wants to convince them that he's standing up to the "elites" and that the only innovation that matters is innovation that comes from "the Heartland" or some such nonsense. As Kessler notes, cynically, Hawley's act is all for show:

Whether that worry is real or not doesn’t matter; condemning tech is a form of pretend populism. Mr. Hawley is taking an Elizabeth Warren-esque “I have a plan for that” approach, which is more about grabbing headlines than actually passing laws.

Yet the claim that big tech companies don’t deliver innovation is false. We can stream TV shows on subways, enjoy same-day package delivery, have a lady in our phones help us to avoid traffic, sort photos automatically by date, location and faces, and get instant answers to any question in our kitchens from something that looks like a hockey puck. Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?

Kessler notes that Hawley's plans would completely destroy innovation online.

Mr. Hawley’s style of heavy-handed regulation is what killed Detroit, distracted phone companies, inflated health-care costs, and wrecked education. Don’t let it kneecap the internet. It won’t be long before the senator announces, “If you like your social media, you can keep your social media.”

Given the willingness of the WSJ to publish anti-internet nonsense of late, it's nice to see Kessler able to get at least something sensible through.

Filed Under: andy kessler, big government, ftc, josh hawley, regulations, republicans

37 Comments

Mozilla Poll Again Shows Net Neutrality Has Broad, Bipartisan Support

Politics

from the not-really-that-divided-after-all dept

Fri, Jun 9th 2017 6:24am — Karl Bode

So we've noted for a long time that while net neutrality is framed as a "partisan" issue, it really isn't. Data has consistently shown overwhelming, bipartisan public support for the concept and the rules, in large part because of the way most people have been treated by marginally-competitive TV or broadband providers. But to help sow dissent among the public, large ISP lobbyists (and the lawmakers paid to love them) have been immensely successful in framing this as a hotly contested subject, usually by portraying the effort, incorrectly, as a "government takeover of the internet."

A new survey from Mozilla and IPSOS once again highlights this cap between reality and common media and policy wisdom. The survey found, unsurprisingly, that over three quarters of Americans (76%) support net neutrality. When it comes to the supposed "partisan division," the survey also found that 81% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans are in favor of it:

So again, this narrative that countless, angry Americans see net neutrality as "Obamacare for the internet" or "incredible government over-reach" tends to be the pervasive wisdom you'll see in the press and in most ISP policy rhetoric, but it's simply not accurate. Most people, across parties, realize the importance of a healthy and functioning internet. And, as the survey makes pretty clear, wanting to prevent giant companies like Comcast from using massive gatekeeper power to anti-competitive advantage against consumers and smaller companies isn't really all that complicated.

"Americans view net neutrality as having a positive impact on most of society. Respondents said it is a “good thing” for small businesses (70%), individuals (69%), innovators (65%) and ISPs (55%), but fewer think that it will benefit big businesses (46%)."

Or, put more simply by the folks at Mozilla:

"At Mozilla, we believe net neutrality is integral to a healthy Internet: it enables Americans to say, watch and make what they want online, without meddling or interference from ISPs (Internet Service Providers, such as AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner). Net neutrality is fundamental to free speech, competition, innovation and choice online."

It's clear that most people understand that net neutrality is just a symptom of a lack of competition in the broadband market, something that has proven endlessly frustrating to consumers and entrepreneurs alike for going on two decades now. Fix the lack of competition, and you fix not only many net neutrality issues, but countless other problems -- from privacy violations. Even the cable industry's own polls reflect this reality.

But it's also clear that the current FCC not only has no real plan to fix or really even acknowledge these competitive shortcomings, but also wants to replace the already-fairly flaccid oversight of the sector with the technology policy equivalent of damp cardboard. All while ignoring the massive, overwhelming support for the rules piling up in their own proceeding's comment section. What's more, they seem to be under the impression that there will be zero repercussions for giving the public a giant, obnoxious middle finger on this subject. One would like to think they're wrong on all fronts.

Filed Under: democrats, net neutrality, partisanship, republicans
Companies: mozilla

32 Comments

As Republicans Turn Off House Live Feed, Reps & C-SPAN Turn To Periscope And Facebook Live Video To Cover Sit In

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the we-all-are-the-media dept

Wed, Jun 22nd 2016 3:47pm — Mike Masnick

So something fascinating happened in Congress today. No matter what your opinion is on gun control or the various legislative proposals around it that have been up for debate in the past week or so, it's hard to fathom what Congressional Republicans thought they were doing today in shutting off the live video feed from the House floor. A bunch of Democrats decided to hold a sit in on the House floor to push for a vote on some gun legislation. That's a bit of a stunt no matter how you look at it, but the Republicans shot back by helping that stunt get much more attention by not just gavelling the House out of session, but also turning off the live feed of the House floor that flows to C-SPAN and out to the rest of us. C-SPAN doesn't control the cameras and is at the whim of Congress to access that feed, so when the GOP shut off the feed, C-SPAN was left without. This isn't a stupid move that's limited to the Republican side of Congress, apparently. Eight years ago the Democrats did the same thing when they controlled the House and were upset about Republicans trying to focus on a particular issue.

Of course, we now live in a modern technological age, where everyone has the power to broadcast live video in the devices we all carry in our pockets. Thus, despite House rules that forbid any sort of broadcasting from the floor, Rep. Scott Peters started broadcasting from the floor. And even as the Sergeant at Arms tried to stop the broadcasting, more people on the floor started using Periscope, Snapchat and Facebook Live, leading to C-SPAN rebroadcasting those feeds.

C-SPAN claims it's the first time it's done this (and let's not even bother with the copyright questions related to all of this...). But it seems like yet another example of a form of the Streisand Effect. The sit in was designed to get attention, and it certainly would have no matter what. But shutting off the cameras and trying to shut down the entire process only seemed to drive that much more attention to what was going on, and modern technology helped let the story still come out, no matter what the "House rules" happened to say.

Filed Under: cameras, congress, democrats, facebook live, gun control, periscope, republicans, streaming, video
Companies: c-span, facebook, snapchat, twitter

97 Comments

Despite Claiming To Want To Negotiate A Net Neutrality 'Compromise,' Many Republicans Rush In To Kill New Rules

Politics

from the because-of-course dept

Tue, Apr 14th 2015 2:55pm — Mike Masnick

It's getting rather ridiculous to have to keep repeating it at this point, but it's fairly ridiculous that net neutrality/open internet is a partisan issue at all. The public overwhelmingly supports net neutrality, no matter which party they're associated with. It's only the politicians who think this is a red team vs. blue team issue. But, for whatever reason (and much of it appears to do with campaign fundraising), net neutrality has become partisan, with Republicans "against" it and Democrats "for" it. So, with the rules now officially in the Federal Register, not only have the lawsuits begun, but so has the Republican wrangling in Congress to try to kill the laws.

Specifically, Rep. Doug Collins has teamed up with a bunch of his Republican colleagues to put forth a "Resolution of Disapproval" to block the FCC's new rules from taking effect. This is a totally pointless move, as it would need President Obama to sign it -- something he wouldn't do. As some are quickly pointing out, this seems to go against the earlier claims from House Republicans that they really do "support net neutrality" with a flimsy bill that pretends to do that, while really undermining the FCC.

But the real ridiculousness is in the claims made by Collins about this new bill, which don't make any sense at all:

Collins said his resolution would be the quickest way to stop heavy-handed agency regulations that would slow Internet speeds, increase consumer prices and hamper infrastructure development, especially in his Northeast Georgia district. “Resources that could go to broadband deployment will go to federal taxes and fees,” he said. “We’ll all be paying more for less.”

Except, none of that is true. Nothing in the FCC 's new rules will slow down speeds (quite the reverse from what we've seen, actually), and none of it will lead to new taxes.

Collins underscored that small Internet providers will be unable to compete in a shrunken marketplace, due to the FCC’s reclassification of broadband as a public utility. “The agency is stretching old definitions to fit its regulatory agenda,” he explained. “Only businesses with the greatest resources will survive Washington, D.C.’s latest bureaucratic expansion into a growing and dynamic industry, particularly mobile broadband.”

If that were true, then why are small ISPs like Sonic cheering on the rules, saying that they're only a burden if you're trying to do something bad? There are conversations to be had about the best way to encourage more internet access -- but unfortunately it's all been destroyed by ridiculous partisan politics. If Collins wants to get the support of big funders, rather than the American public (who, Republican or Democrat, have overwhelmingly spoken out in favor of net neutrality), I guess that's one strategy. But it seems like a risky long term bet.

Filed Under: congress, doug collins, fcc, gop, net neutrality, republicans, resolution of disapproval

Jeb Bush Is The Latest Politician To Demonstrate Absolutely No Understanding Of Net Neutrality

Politics

from the politicians-don't-understand-anything dept

Mon, Mar 9th 2015 7:58am — Mike Masnick

Like many folks, I'm dreading the seeming inevitability of a Clinton-Bush presidential campaign next year involving Hillary Clinton against Jeb Bush. I'm 40-years-old and half of my life has involved a Clinton or a Bush in the Oval Office (and it's even worse if you count Vice Presidency). Both seem completely out of touch with the real issues of today. Instead, both are so surrounded by political cronies and yes-men that it's difficult to see either candidate as being willing to actually take on the real challenges facing the world today. Clinton is currently dealing with the fallout from her decision to expose her emails to spies while shielding them from the American public. And Jeb Bush is now spouting pure nonsense on net neutrality.

Bush's comments aren't surprising, because despite Democrats and Republicans alike both strongly supporting net neutrality and those who truly understand the details favoring these rules, in Washington DC, net neutrality is a partisan issue. The reason almost certainly has to do with campaign finance. Splitting an issue down partisan lines makes it an issue that politicians can raise money around. Things that everyone agrees on aren't useful for fundraising, and since politicians these days need to spend half their time fundraising, politics gets distorted pretty quickly.

But Bush's comments are particularly clueless, trotting out both debunked talking points and clear misstatements that appear to have been fed to him by the broadband players.

“The idea of regulating access to the Internet with a 1934 law is one of the craziest ideas I’ve ever heard,” he said. It was the first time Bush had weighed in on the subject since the FCC voted.

“Just think of the logic of using a 1934 law that was designed when we did have a monopoly for wireline service as the basis to regulate the most dynamic part of life in America,” Bush said. “It’s not going to be good for consumers. It’s certainly not going to be good for innovation.”

Except, you know, that's not true. The 1934 Telecommunications Act was rewritten in 1996 by Republicans, who set it up this way with a clear plan for broadband to be covered by Title II. As Tim Lee at Vox recently explained:

The awkward thing about this is that the rules were drafted by a Republican Congress in the 1996 Telecommunications Act. In that legislation, Congress created two legal categories for online services: a low-regulation category for online services (known unimaginatively as Title I) and a high-regulation category for companies that provide basic infrastructure (called Title II).

When telephone companies began offering broadband access using a then-new technology called Digital Subscriber Lines, it was widely accepted that Title II — the stricter regime designed for basic infrastructure — would apply. After all, telephone companies had been governed under Title II for decades before that. Title II rules had ensured that telephone companies didn't strangle the burgeoning market for dial-up ISPs, which provided internet access over telephone lines.

But Bush trots out the 1934 argument in a totally misleading way. And yes, in 1934 there was a monopoly for wireline service, but in 1996 when the Act was rewritten (again, by Republicans), there was actually a lot of competition in the ISP business thanks to line sharing. Yet, today, everyone knows that there's basically no competition. While not a monopoly, it's at the very least an oligopoly with very little choice for most consumers.

Furthermore, the rules are pretty clearly just basic rules to prevent anti-consumer behavior by the ISPs. How that's going to be "bad for consumers" is hard to fathom. And considering that many of the most innovative internet companies have come out strongly in favor of net neutrality, it's hard to see how it's going to be bad for innovation. You can't even argue that it's going to be bad for broadband companies either, since many independent broadband providers, like Sonic.net, have come out in favor of the rules. As we've noted in the past, it's only bad for broadband providers that want to treat customers badly.

So, does Jeb Bush really think he understands internet innovation better than all these internet companies that have pointed out how the new rule is helpful to innovation?

Is Jeb Bush giving a giant middle finger to internet innovation? That hardly seems like a good campaign move.

But, apparently, Bush not only is doing that, he's also going to totally misrepresent others to do so:

Bush said that Netflix and other backers of net neutrality are already regretting the scale the FCC’s action. “There is no support for this now,” Bush said. “The people who were concerned about this, the content providers like Netflix and others, have now disowned this.”

That's just hogwash. There's massive support for this, which Bush would have noticed if he actually paid attention to the internet, which celebrated when the rules were approved. Anti-net neutrality folks have seized upon an out-of-context statement from a Netflix exec claiming that it would have been preferable to find another route -- but that's not disowning the rules. We've been among those who have pointed out for months that reclassifying under Title II was simply the best of a bunch of not great solutions. Yes, it would have been better to have something even cleaner than reclassification, but that option was not on the table.

Restrained rules, based on Title II, are a perfectly reasonable solution to stopping broadband providers from implementing anti-consumer practices. The only "innovation" it may harm is the broadband guys innovating new ways to screw over consumers and successful internet companies. If Jeb Bush is looking for support from the most innovative sector on the planet, spewing lies and misrepresentations about key issues for the internet world seems like a piss poor way to go about it.

Filed Under: innovation, jeb bush, net neutrality, partisanship, republicans, telecommunications act

57 Comments

Misleading Rasmussen Poll Helps Prop Up Bogus Net Neutrality Partisan Divide

Overhype

from the damn-lies-and-statistics dept

Mon, Nov 24th 2014 7:42am — Karl Bode

As we noted last week, the idea that net neutrality is a strictly partisan issue is a dated one, with several new studies indicating that support for net neutrality (and support for meaningful net neutrality rules) is increasingly common among members of all parties. As we've also noted several times, most people, when you sit them down and talk to them, understand that letting lumbering telecom duopolists write the laws, corner the market, and erect obnoxious new and arbitrary tolls, simply isn't a very bright idea or conducive to healthy technology markets.

While a number of polls and surveys were busy deconstructing the myth of the partisan neutrality feud last week, Rasmussen Reports was busy trying to perpetuate it. The firm recently issued a new poll that breathlessly proclaimed that 61% of the public opposed net neutrality rules, while also insisting that people generally really like their cable and broadband providers:

"Most Americans have opposed increased government regulation of the Internet since December 2010 when some members of the FCC began pushing “net neutrality” efforts to stop some companies from offering higher downloading speeds to preferred customers. Seventy-six percent (76%) of Americans who regularly go online rate the quality of their Internet service as good or excellent. Only five percent (5%) consider their service poor. Americans remain suspicious of the motives of those who want government regulation of the Internet. Sixty-eight percent (68%) are concerned that if the FCC does gain regulatory control over the Internet, it will lead to government efforts to control online content or promote a political agenda, with 44% who are Very Concerned."

Of course if you actually bother to investigate the questions asked of survey participants, you'll notice this amusing little ditty:

"Should the Internet remain "open" without regulation and censorship or should the Federal Communications Commission regulate the Internet like it does radio and television?"

Note that in this case the question tells the poll taker the Internet is currently "open" and that regulation will automatically change this. Amusingly, the phrase "and censorship" is just kind of thrown in there casually, as if nobody reading the poll questions could possibly ferret out that Rasmussen is being misleading. It's effectively asking survey recipients: "Do you like government meddling -- that involves punching you squarely in the face?"

The Rasmussen poll wording also goes on to more subtly rattle ye olde "all regulation is automatically evil" saber, strongly implying that real competition would be immeasurably better than consumer protections. That's partially true -- we've obviously argued more than a few times that net neutrality violations are just the symptom of the lack of competition disease. That said, Rasmussen intentionally ignores (or doesn't actually understand) that Title II with forbearance is the best option available in the face of an immensely powerful broadband duopoly (or monopoly) that's simply not getting fixed anytime soon.

Obviously this isn't the first time Rasmussen has brought loaded questions to play. The firm's reputation as a reliable pollster took a mammoth hit back in 2010 for repeatedly being significantly off on projections, and having what Nate Silver and Five-Thirty-Eight at the time complained was "cavalier attitude toward polling convention," something Silver stated would "need to be refined" if the pollster was to ever be taken seriously again. Judging from their net neutrality poll, those necessary improvements may not be coming anytime soon.

That said, do you support net neutrality...when it involves getting kicked in the groin?

Filed Under: democrats, net neutrality, partisan, polls, republicans
Companies: rasmussen

30 Comments

Ted Cruz Doubles Down On Misunderstanding The Internet & Net Neutrality, As Republican Engineers Call Him Out For Ignorance

Broadband

from the open-your-mouth-and... dept

Mon, Nov 17th 2014 7:51am — Mike Masnick

Last week, we mentioned Senator Ted Cruz's nutty tweet comparing net neutrality to "Obamacare." It was widely mocked -- even by many Republicans -- as it showed Cruz's ignorance of the subject at hand. In fact, one report detailed a number of comments on Ted Cruz's Facebook page from Republican/conservative engineers disagreeing with Cruz and pointing out that he's uninformed about net neutrality. Here's a sampling:

There's a lot more like that, but it highlights what we've seen before -- that while Congress likes to pretend that Republicans are against net neutrality while Democrats are for it, the reality is that net neutrality is a non-partisan issue with voters of both parties overwhelmingly supporting net neutrality.

Rather than recognize this fact, Cruz has decided to double down on it with a rambling and misguided opinion piece in the Washington Post that repeats the "Obamacare for the internet" line, and lumps in a variety of other tech issues in a confusing (and often self-contradictory) jumble. He warns against taxing internet access (good), but then joins in the total overreaction to the Commerce Department's decision to officially relinquish its (barely existent) control over ICANN, falsely claiming that this will allow the Russians, Chinese and the Iranians to control the internet. This is not true. In fact, by giving up the Commerce Department's link to ICANN, it helps cut off the path the Russians, Chinese and Iranians are trying to use to do an end run around ICANN, by giving more power to the ITU. In other words, Senator Cruz (once again) seems to not understand this policy issue at all, and is recommending a policy that is more likely to lead to the world he fears.

Then he gets back around to net neutrality, once again showing he doesn't understand it:

In short, net neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet. It would put the government in charge of determining Internet pricing, terms of service and what types of products and services can be delivered, leading to fewer choices, fewer opportunities and higher prices.

Not a single part of that is accurate. Under the proposed plan, the government would not be in charge of determining any of those. Rather, it would make it so that no one (including the internet access providers) could block what types of products and services can be delivered. It takes a special kind of wrongness to look at a plan that is focused on making sure that no one can be blocked and argue that it means the government gets to pick what services can be delivered.

Even more bizarre, Cruz's final point is to celebrate the victory over SOPA and PIPA as a great example of protecting free speech online, ignoring the fact that it's the very same people who made the victory possible who are now fighting for net neutrality.

In 2012, those who care about Internet freedom were shocked as bills such as the Stop Online Piracy and Protect IP acts, which would regulate speech on the Internet under the guise of protecting property rights, started gaining popularity in Washington. Thankfully, online activists were quick to mobilize to protect their free-speech rights. But we must remain vigilant. Intellectual property must be defended, but any threat to quell speech on the Internet must be treated seriously and subsequently defeated.

Yes, and it's the very same online activists now trying to "protect free speech rights" by making sure that the internet stays open via net neutrality rules. And, yes, it is a free speech issue, because letting internet access providers block or discriminate against certain companies, individuals, services or types of content (such as encrypted content) will stifle free speech.

So, Cruz claims to support online activists and their push to guarantee free speech online... but at the same time opposes those very same activists and their push to protect free speech online by calling it "Obamacare for the internet"? I don't know who Ted Cruz's tech staffers are, but they might want to educate themselves a bit -- and not from the lobbyists at AT&T and Verizon.

Filed Under: activism, free speech, gop, net neutrality, open internet, republicans, ted cruz

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