Biker Protestor 'Throttles' Traffic Around FCC Headquarters | Hacker News Reader

Biker Protestor 'Throttles' Traffic Around FCC Headquarters

gizmodo.com

99 pointsbetolink28 comments

Many people have pointed out time and again that the only way to convince politicians on this issue, or any issue where they receive substantial funding, is to make them feel the pain points personally. I'm not making a judgement call as to whether they simply do not understand the plight of those affected, or don't care unless it hurts them personally.

However, this concept betrays the actual feelings of large companies like Google and Netflix that claim to be Pro Net Neutrality. They've had over a year to implement a "Congressional access slowdown" protest, and have done nothing of the sort to demonstrate the issue to congress. People should recognize that these companies will benefit from slow lanes in that they can afford faster ones, while upstart competition cannot.

"Biker" doesn't sound right. I was expecting a bearded man on a Harley.

How about a "Cyclist"?

Bicycles were there before motorbicycles, and in many countries with robust bicycle culture people think of bicycles first when they hear biker.

As a cyclist, I'm wary of "blocking" the lane as a form of protest. Many drivers seem to believe that the only reason a cyclist would take the lane is to annoy drivers, and this reinforces that thinking. This encourages thinking that dangerously close passes ("punishment passes") are justified. To these drivers it doesn't matter if a cyclist is avoiding an illegally parked car and is leaving the bike lane only briefly, etc. I would have preferred that the protester made some sort of checkpoint instead.

As you wish.

In this post, you imply an adversarial relationship with drivers, declare them to be bad, and yourself a victim of people who are just trying to get to work.

No general adversarial relationship was implied. That's why I said "many drivers" not "drivers" or "all drivers". Fact is that only a relatively small fraction of drivers are bad, but the ones who are cause a disproportionate amount of harm.

For what it's worth I didn't have a problem with your other post aside from it being vague. I dislike when people claim to have a problem with something I said but don't explain what their problem is.

Why not link the original article instead of this sad spamageddon?

Original article: https://thenextweb.com/creative/2018/01/29/net-neutrality-ac...

So, in conclusion, the government had to come in to prevent profiteering on a shared public resource important to commerce and heavily subsidized by tax dollars.

Wow, it's shocking how good of a metaphor this is.

"Restoring your automotive freedom" - I love this analogy. This is a great way to explain the issue to the masses

Childish, silly and I enjoyed watching every minute of it.

Brilliant stunt. This is the correct way to use pranks/humor to make political protest. Props to that guy.

pretty funny. reminded me that burger king did an ad about net neutrality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltzy5vRmN8Q

This page is dead, if you're not from USA.

"I got Sorry, we couldn’t find that page" until I turned on my VPN and tunneled via USA.

This is pretty damn funny.

“Bikes may use whole lane for poetic protest”

That thumbnail is priceless: A man with a goal!

So far, all of the gloom and doom scenarios from the repeal of net neutrality have failed to emerge. More people have been inconvenienced by the pro net-neutrality protesters than have been harmed or inconvenienced due to ISP action post-repeal.

These net-neutrality protesters are akin to the anti-fur protesters running around throwing blood on people. It may make them feel good about their virtue and that they are doing something, but it is unlikely to change minds.

> So far, all of the gloom and doom scenarios from the repeal of net neutrality have failed to emerge

How quickly do you expect these things to happen? Overnight?

This isn't Hollywood. The moment the decision is made storm clouds don't appear overhead to signify the ominous direction that things have gone.

"More people have been inconvenienced by the pro net-neutrality protesters than have been harmed or inconvenienced due to ISP action post-repeal."

As I understand it, the repeal order hasn't yet taken effect. If nothing has changed (yet) then of course no one has been harmed or inconvenienced by it, which would make your argument pointless.

My understanding is that there was a vote to repeal in December. The final order was published in the Federal Register on January 4, 2018. It then takes 60 days until the repeal order takes effect.

Yet. They know it would be suicide to implement anything like that while it's so fresh in people's minds. Just because they haven't doesn't mean that they won't. It was famously said (although by whom is debated) that 'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.' To prevent the feared negative consequences we need to keep the public engaged and educated on the topic.

Did you expect downsides to be realized both completely and immediately? I think some of the doom scenarios were far overblown, but surely it's far too early to claim the naysayers were totally wrong.

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/14/16774148/net-neutrality-repea... Read #7. The repeal has not taken effect yet.

> So far, all of the gloom and doom scenarios from the repeal of net neutrality have failed to emerge.

With the repeal being challenged in the courts and states adopting net neutrality policies by law and executive action, ISPs are unlikely to make major changes outside of what they were doing for the decade+ when neutrality, enforced by different means, was FCC policy is until the legal landscape is more clear, even once the repeal formally takes effect (which, barring a preliminary injunction, it will in, IIRC, mid-March.)

So, yeah, barring an ISP deciding to take a huge risk by setting up an extreme test case in an uncertain legal environment, the full effect (or even any major effect) is unlikely to be felt for quite a while.

Draconian throttling is not step one of any sane business plan to exploit a lack of net neutrality regulation. The first phase is to start soliciting the protection payments from your intended victims, and that's not a very public process. Actually following through on the threats of throttling is a lower priority, and takes time to deploy.

ISPs have been sued multiple times in the past for throttling traffic. Examples are not hard to find.

The fact that dial-up ISPs are still required to submit to NN, but cable-based ones are not seems odd, wouldn't you think?

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