Just Because The Internet Didn't Implode The Day After Repeal Doesn't Mean Killing Net Neutrality Was A Good Idea

from the we've-been-over-this dept

By now we've well established that the FCC ignored the public, ignored the experts, and ignored all objective data when it killed net neutrality rules at the behest of telecom monopolies.

While the vote to kill the rules occurred last year, the rules didn't technically die until last June 11. And one common refrain by Pai and pals (and many folks who don't understand how the broken telecom market works) is that because the internet didn't immediately collapse upon itself post-repeal in a rainbow-colored explosion, that the repeal itself must not be that big of a deal. For example, Ajit Pai tried to make that point again last week at an FCC oversight hearing that was severely lacking in the actual oversight department.

In his opening statement, Pai proclaimed (pdf) that the internet still working semi-reasonably is proof positive that the threat of the repeal was over-hyped:

At the time that the Restoring Internet Freedom Order was adopted, there were many hysterical predictions of doom. We were told that it would be the destruction of the Internet, or as some outlets put it, “the end of the Internet as we know it."...It has now been 67 days since the repeal of the previous Administration’s utility-style Internet regulations took effect. Far from ending or being delivered one word at a time, the Internet remains open and free.

Of course Ajit Pai lecturing anybody on truthfulness is amusing, given his past claims that net neutrality only aids fascists and that the U.S. broadband market is wonderfully competitive. But Pai's not the only one repeatedly making this claim in the hopes it magically becomes true. Pai staffer Matthew Berry has also pushed this same claim on Twitter each and every day since net neutrality was repealed, though the message is usually accompanied by adorable little trivia nuggets in an effort to make them seem interesting. For example:

Charming. And given the naming choice of the FCC's net neutrality-killing "Restoring Internet Freedom" order, that last one is quite apt.

Again, the message is that because Comcast didn't immediately begin behaving like a jackass, what Pai's FCC did must have been a good idea. But there are numerous reasons ISPs didn't immediately start behaving idiotically. One, they're worried that the FCC behaved so ridiculously during the repeal that it may not stand up to a court challenge from Mozilla, consumer groups, and 22 states attorneys general. It's more than possible that the courts could find that the FCC violated agency policy and several laws (including the Administrative Procedure Act) by ignoring the will of the public and basing the repeal on fluff and nonsense.

ISPs are also worried about the fact that more than half the states in the nation are now pursuing their own state-level rules in the wake of federal apathy. So not only are ISPs (temporarily) inclined to behave to avoid adding any ammunition to the looming lawsuits, they're wary of agitating state lawmakers and Governors looking for a reason to impose tougher state level rules. Should the FCC win in court and ISP efforts to ban states from protecting consumers proceed, their inevitable behavior won't be subtle. They didn't just spend millions of dollars gutting FCC authority and consumer protections for fun.

In short, ISPs are only really behaving until the legal fight has been settled and the dust has been cleared, something Pai and Berry know very well. But as we've noted previously, just because the internet didn't immediately implode doesn't mean that killing net neutrality won't be immeasurably harmful. After all, what many see as a silo'd conversation about net neutrality is really about something larger: a horrible lack of competition in broadband and the laundry list of bad behaviors ISPs engage in to take advantage of that fact.

What tends to be forgotten in this whole conversation is that net neutrality violations are really just a symptom of the lack of broadband competition.

It's a problem nobody really wants to fix, given it would require standing up to hugely powerful campaign contributors like AT&T. And instead of fixing it, the current administration's "solution" has been to eliminate oversight of natural monopolies and gut consumer protections. The theory is that this blind deregulation of broadband will somehow magically result in a free market utopia. In reality, eliminating oversight of natural monopolies like Comcast simply frees those monopolies to engage in bad behavior, with neither regulatory oversight nor healthy competition to constrain it.

This isn't opinion. Former FCC boss Michael Powell (now the top lobbyist for the cable industry) followed the same mindless deregulatory mantra, and it's one of the major reason why Comcast is currently the only real broadband option in countless areas country-wide. Mindless deregulation may work in healthy markets where competition can supplement adult regulatory supervision, but broadband is not a healthy market. It's a broken system of regional monopolies propped up by regulatory capture and corruption. Anyone who thinks killing basic consumer protections solves this problem doesn't understand the problem we're dealing with.

No, the internet didn't immediately implode in the wake of the FCC's historically-unpopular decision. But that's not the point. Killing net neutrality is just one part of a broader, multi-decade effort to eliminate most meaningful oversight of one of the most broken, predatory, and unpopular markets in America. Anybody who thinks this hasn't already slowly but surely resulted in significant, additional problems hasn't paid attention to history, or spent a few hours on the phone with Comcast technical support. And as U.S. telcos refuse to upgrade their networks and Comcast's monopoly power grows, you'd be a fool to believe the current trajectory won't make our current broadband problems significantly worse.

Filed Under: ajit pai, fcc, matthew berry, net neutrality

The FCC's Sneaky Plan To Make It Easier To Ignore ISP Complaints

from the nothing-to-see-here dept

From real news to fake news then back again. The FCC this week was slated to vote on some seemingly insubstantial changes to the way the agency fields consumer complaints, but journalists and consumer advocates appear to have derailed the plan. It began when a few Senators expressed concern that the agency was subtly changing the wording to its consumer complaint process, potentially making it easier for the agency to ignore them entirely:

"As the chief communications regulator, the FCC plays a critical role in ensuring consumers -- including families, small businesses and struggling Americans -- get fair and honest treatment from their service providers. We worry that the proposed change signals that the FCC no longer intends to play this role, and will instead simply tell consumers with limited means and time that they need to start an expensive and complicated formal legal process."

As it stands, consumers have two options if they want to file a complaint about their ISP or cable company with the FCC. They can either file an informal complaint, which is free, or they can file a formal complaint, which requires a $225 fee and begins a long, court-like process that involves oodles of paperwork and numerous hearings. For obvious reasons most consumers don't select the latter. In fact, during the net neutrality repeal fight only one consumer actually bothered to even file a truly formal complaint, though that complaint does a pretty stellar job explaining why the net neutrality repeal was terrible (pdf).

In short, subtle wording changes by the agency reduced the likelihood that the FCC would have to take informal complaints seriously, forcing consumers toward a formal filing and the costly $225 fee to begin any meaningful process. When initial news outlets reported on the story, they incorrectly implied that the $225 for a formal complaint was new. Pai's staff was quick to pounce on those incorrect headlines to insist numerous media reports were "fake news":

Berry's denial quickly got outlets like the Washington Post to issue stories "debunking" the previous stories, parroting Berry's claim that nothing was actually changing (though it's worth noting that the Post had to later walk back the headline below claiming such). Berry, as you can imagine, really liked that:

The problem: consumer advocates like Free Press then clearly spelled out precisely what language was being changed, and why the Post was wrong to believe the FCC's claims at face value:

While minor (for example the term "disposition" is fiddled with in footnotes), many of the changes did indeed reduce the FCC's obligation to take consumer complaints seriously and intervene:

As the day wore on, tech journalists were again reporting that yes, the FCC did appear to be subtly tinkering with rules surrounding complaint handling to make it easier to ignore your complaints (again, unless you're willing to pay $225, file lots of paperwork and attend hearings). By day's end, the Washington Post received leaked word from the agency that it would be scrapping the change-that-supposedly-wasn't-a-change after "political backlash":

"The Federal Communications Commission has dropped the parts of its proposal dealing with informal complaints, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The move comes after Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel requested the provisions be struck. Several officials cited the political backlash over the issue as a reason the FCC will not vote on those provisions Thursday, with one official saying the proposal on informal complaints was never a “conservative plot” intended to harm consumers. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal agency deliberations."

But this morning, the Post was then told that the agency might be including the language after all:

Whatever the outcome, it highlights how paying attention to often wonky policy really does matter. Pai, a telecom policy wonk since his days working at Verizon, has spent the last year building the agency he envisions: namely one that sits on its hands while giant ISPs dictate most major policies, leading us down the miraculous path to supposed telecom Utopia. Pai's Title II repeal already gutted much of the FCC's authority over ISPs, and it's unclear how many other revisions and rule changes he's shoveled through for similar effect. Whoever winds up replacing Pai will have their work cut out identifying and reversing many of these changes, if they're reversed at all.

Meanwhile, it should probably go without saying that an agency that has completely made up supporting data for its net neutrality repeal, and made up a DDOS attack in an incredibly bizarre attempt to downplay the "John Oliver effect," probably shouldn't be giving lectures on "fake news" (whatever the hell that means) anytime soon.

Filed Under: ajit pai, complaints, consumer protection, fcc, isps, matthew berry, oversight

The FCC Spent Last Week Trying To Make Net Neutrality Supporters Seem Unreasonable, Racist & Unhinged

from the ignoring-the-will-of-the-people dept

Last week, we noted how the FCC was inundated with a flood of pro-net neutrality comments after HBO's John Oliver ran another segment on the subject. The FCC will vote to begin dismantling the rules on May 18, so Oliver even went so far as to craft a special URL (www.gofccyourself.com) to make commenting on the FCC proceeding easier. Unsurprisingly, the surge in annoyed consumers wound up temporarily crippling the FCC's website. And when you look at some of the early analysis of the data, it's not particularly hard to see why:

Now if you're a giant telecom mono/duopoly, or any of the thousands of sockpuppets they pay to misleadingly portray net neutrality as an unyielding assault on "freedom," this flood of pro-net neutrality sentiment is obviously a PR problem.

As a result, net neutrality opponents quickly got to work trying to counter the "John Oliver effect" with alternative facts. One, the FCC tried to claim the FCC website didn't choke from a flood of pro-net neutrality supporters, but was the victim of a DDoS attack that just happened to occur at exactly the same time Oliver's segment was airing (a claim security researchers say isn't supported and for which the FCC has yet to offer a shred of evidence).

Another, as-yet-unidentified player began using a bot and a (likely) hacked database of names to flood the agency's website with fake comments against net neutrality. One analysis of the comments filed so far found that 40% of the 1.5 million comments made so far were created by this busy little bot.

But the FCC itself also began engaging in a rather obvious and ham-fisted attempt to make net neutrality supporters seem racist, unstable and unreasonable. By Wednesday, as the "net neutrality support was so massive it broke the FCC's website (again)" narrative was peaking in the press, FCC staffer Matthew Berry began linking on Twitter to news outlets claiming that net neutrality supporters were filling the FCC coffers with racist attacks:

Berry subsequently highlighted a statement made by the Internet Association (a pro-net neutrality group backed by the likes of Reddit and Netflix) criticizing any racist behavior by commenters:

The news reports being pushed by the FCC (like this one over at the Daily Caller) cling to several misleading narratives. One, that the people watching John Oliver's program were somehow not airing legitimate complaints with Pai's plan to gut all oversight of giant broadband monopolies. Two, that most of these people were hateful, racist, or otherwise horrible people that shouldn't be taken seriously. And three, that the pro side was using misleading "bots" to generate fake support from fake people (despite the fact that only the anti side appears to have used this tactic so far, a story the FCC also appeared eager to bury).

Take this excerpt from the Free Beacon "story" Berry links to:

"John Oliver's "grassroots" activism against Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai is full of bot accounts, fake comments, and death threats against the chairman...an analysis of comments to Pai's Restoring Internet Freedom filing, which Oliver has dubbed "Go FCC yourself," shows thousands of comments using fake names and bots posing as "Jesus Christ," "Michael Jackson," "Homer Simpson," and "Melania Trump."...Over 500 were submitted using Chairman Pai's name, as well as 189 from "Donald Trump" and 8 from "Obama." Eleven submissions used some version of the word "f–k."

If you think about it, the fact that Pai is trying to dismantle consumer protections for one of the most despised industries in America and only eleven people said fuck is actually pretty impressive. Also, for future reference, you don't magically delegitimize people with legitimate complaints just by putting words like activist or grassroots in quotes.

That said, if you dig through the now 1.5 million comments so far, you'll find that the vast, vast majority of the comments from both sides of the debate are entirely civil. Yes, there are the occasional comments from jackasses and racists, but by and large the feedback the FCC is getting sticks to the issues. And again, analysis of the comments so far has found that most of the original comments (comments made not using form letter systems embraced by both sides) are coming from consumers that actively support net neutrality protections.

How hard FCC staffers like Berry pushed these outlets to carry this narrative isn't clear. But Berry and the FCC's attempt to counter the Oliver effect also involved highlighting a story run by the Independent Journal Review featuring FCC boss Ajit Pai reading some of the mean comments he's been receiving on Twitter:

For whatever reason the original story pulled the video, which is embedded below for your enjoyment:

Now these kinds of segments aren't really new. Countless politicians (including Obama) and celebrities have done similar schticks, where they field unhinged comments from often juvenile and blindly hostile Twitter users. That Pai (who obviously has post-FCC political aspirations) did a similar video isn't a problem in and of itself.

The problem in this particular instance is that outside of some vagaries, the Independent Journal Review doesn't explain why people might be legitimately angry with Pai. After all, this is the guy that's not only killing net neutrality, but recently helped protect prison monopolies, began axing a program that brings broadband to the poor, killed an attempt to bring competition to the cable box, helped axe consumer broadband privacy protections, and is working to eliminate anything even vaguely resembling oversight of growing monopolies like Comcast. All while insisting he's an unwavering champion of the poor.

Pai is disliked right now for entirely legitimate reasons. Yet the mean tweets segment tries very hard to make gutting consumer protections seem "folksy," and the corresponding backlash seem unreasonable. When a few reporters pointed out Pai's mean tweets segment was a bit tone deaf to the legitimacy of the public complaints, Pai advisor Nathan Leamer was quick to insist that critics simply couldn't take a joke:

Again though, the problem isn't Pai reading mean Tweets. The problem is that the segment doesn't explain why Pai is incredibly unpopular with consumers and the internet in the first place. The problem is also that this segment was obviously part of a larger, overarching attempt to make people with very legitimate grievances seem wholly unhinged and unreasonable. Oliver even went so far as to highlight how cable news channels were pushing the narrative as well, in an expanded bit the show did solely for online viewers (skip to the 3 minute mark if you don't want to watch the whole thing):

As an additional layer of irony, this PR effort was occurring during the FCC's "sunshine" period, an arguably stupid bit of long-standing policy bureaucracy during which the FCC is supposed to pause and "reflect" the will of the public and the facts on the ground.

And the facts on the ground say net neutrality rules protecting consumers from growing monopolies like Comcast have broad, bipartisan public support. It's also a fact that despite his claim of a "deliberate consideration" of all the facts, Ajit Pai has every intention of completely ignoring public will when the agency votes to begin rolling back the rules this Thursday -- after his agency gets done smearing the consumers he's supposed to be protecting as the very worst sort of villains, of course.

Filed Under: ajit pai, comments, fcc, john oliver, matthew berry, net neutrality, racism