The Senate has forced a vote to restore net neutrality | Hacker News Reader

The Senate has forced a vote to restore net neutrality

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365 pointsvwadhwani132 comments

> Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy and other sites have put up Red Alert banners as part of a day of action to drive petitions in support of the resolution.

This is being seriously mismanaged, and that may actually cause long term harm to the chances of saving (or restoring) net neutrality.

The big mistake being made is not explaining where the Congressional Review Act (CRA) approach fits into the bigger picture. There are several places along the timeline of net neutrality repeal where it in theory could be saved. The Congressional Review Act (CRA) approach is just one of them.

The CRA approach has almost no chance of actually passing both houses (it has a pretty good chance in the Senate, but because of the way the House is structured it would take a miracle there).

When you consider it in the context of the bigger picture, that's not a problem. Its role in the overall effort is to get members of Congress on the record, which might be useful later in campaigns for office. The public is broadly in favor of net neutrality and this support is very high even among Republicans.

That's probably not enough to get Republican voters to vote Democrat, because it is not high on the list of important issues for them, but it could be enough to get them to vote for more moderate Republicans in the Republican primaries or caucuses.

In sports terms, this is not a play to score a goal. It is an attempt to get better position to set up a later scoring play. But the people running these campaigns treat everything like it is a scoring attempt...and then when it doesn't score the people who participated feel like they failed.

That can discourage them, making them less likely to respond to later calls to action. Then they might not be there when it is time to actually go for a goal (e.g., get out and vote).

How do you convince network giants like IBM, Intel, Cisco, Nokia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Juniper, D-Link, among others, that net neutrality regulations are a bad idea? They currently support what Ajit Pai is doing. They have even have gone as far as crediting his repeals for greater investment into their network infrastructure.

You probably don't because net neutrality isn't an automatic win for everyone. Some companies clearly benefit from the repeal. They do have incentive to invest in their networks when they can monetize it every which way, it's now a feature they can charge for...

Except maybe for a PR tidal wave so huge that anyone who opposes net neutrality is driven out of business, I don't see how you convince companies to go against their own interests.

You don't - you can only change the rules of the game so their interests are set in line with public opinion, or environmental standards, or safety practices, or whatever else.

^^ Right answer. Board members will be upset if companies don't do every thing they can to increase profits, including "persuading" members of Congress and swaying public opinion. Our job, as "civilians," is to set the rules of the game the way we want them. The companies won't- unless there is accidental alignment between the company's goals and ours (in this case, small companies may align for example).

In what sport do you hold back from scoring a goal in order to set yourself up to score a goal later though?

That is to say, what you're saying is true, but typically (as long as the net is in sight) the best way to set yourself up to score a goal later is to try to score a goal now.

The approach is prone to local maxima, but I'm not convinced there can be another approach here. If you're not trying to win it all, then you're setting yourself up to lose.

Pretty much every sport? You don't go all out every opportunity you have the instant you have priority. Nearly every sport has some concept of setting up plays: American football, soccer, basketball, boxing, MMA.

They can't even score a goal now. The purpose of this within the US legal system is a pure intermediate play. And the when net neutrality doesn't get overturned as a result of this instance people will feel demoralized and hopeless.

Consider Small Ball in baseball: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_ball_(baseball)

Literally any game that has a distinction between tactics and strategy (ie. most of them).

"would need a bare majority in both the Senate and the House, as well as the president’s signature"

"We don’t know how this is going to end...."

They know very well how it will end. This is an effort to get ammo for the primaries.

> Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy and other sites have put up Red Alert banners as part of a day of action to drive petitions in support of the resolution.

I get the feeling that these sites are just 'preaching to the choir' (i.e. their customers already support these things, and most likely have let their 'representative' know).

Is anyone doing anything to give the 50 senators who are against this a taste of what is to come? I recall cloudflare or someome along those lines threatenning to throttle traffic from government IPs, or maybe that just happened in my dream..

As someone else put it... "That's how you get the choir to sing!"

It's not about changing minds. It's a call to action - they're specifically trying to get their users to contact their representatives.

Those sites are a huge portion of overall internet traffic. While on e.g. Reddit, people may subscribe to tech subreddits, there are many people who don't and are unaware of anything to do with net neutrality. If they can convince a nonzero amount of people to contact their representatives, that's worth the hour or two of some intern's time to put up a banner. Who knows, some of those people might be in states represented by those 50 senators.

Not to introduce flame bait but one of the reasons the NRA is powerful is the ability to quickly motivate their very vocal members.

It would be amazing if someone could figure out a way to measure constituent opinion that didn't involve people showing up at or calling in to an office.

Well, that's kind of the thing. Everyone's willing to kill and die for their beliefs on the internet; a lot fewer will actually campaign and canvas and march and vote for their beliefs. The inconvenience of calling or mailing your politician tells them that you have passed a rock bottom threshold of willingness to act, and might conceivably have an effect on their vote totals next election.

The fact that those members have guns might also have something to do with it. 'Do this or else we will sick our gun carrying members on you' even if they do nothing at all is a more powerful signal than 'Do this or a bunch of people will show up to protest'.

> 'Do this or else we will sick our gun carrying members on you' even if they do nothing at all is a more powerful signal than 'Do this or a bunch of people will show up to protest'.

That threat is entirely without teeth for two reasons:

One: Disorganized militias fail against a well-regulated military force. Especially since this militia would be a minority group, composed of the subset of gun owners who are outright crazy/stupid enough to go up against their own government.

Two: It would destroy the NRA in the public sphere. They'd go from being a normal political group to truly being Yall-Qaeda, the armed paramilitary force of reactionary idiots no normal person can support. The NRA can put on a normal face right now, and get practically everything it wants through politics, but if it tries to force the issue through armed insurrection, it gets crushed like an insect. A small insect.

Maybe they can crowdfund ? If I read the news and see the prices to get "insights", it may be doable.

Then again I find it troubling how easy politicians are getting bought these days while in essence it's not that hard to govern with all the people in mind instead of them self. But I may be very naive in this regards.

>Is anyone doing anything to give the 50 senators who are against this a taste of what is to come?

No, because I am fine with the way things are, ie unregulated.

It's not currently 'unregulated.' Consumers are being regulated by ISPs, who are driven by profits and literally nothing else.

> 'unregulated'

In the sense of 'government regulation'. They are the ones who can arbitrarily enforce rules, pick and choose winners, and complicate the barrier to entry so much to discourage competition ...all within the law mind you.

> ...ISPs, who are driven by profits and literally nothing else

They live by the profits, and die by them too. That's how free market works.

This is an almost meaningless bill, only going to a vote so various politicians can claim to support net neutrality on the campaign trail.

Not only is it unlikely to pass both chambers and be signed by the president, passing the bill doesn't change the broader status of net neutrality. Currently, the legality of the FCC enforcing net neutrality is unclear, with the matter destined to be decided in the courts either way.

A law explicitly giving the FCC control has been necessary for over a decade, but both parties have refused to pass one or even consider passing a future one.

I find it funny that some people still see Net Neutrality as 'government controlling the internet'. They should take a look at FOSTA if they want to know what government controlling the internet really looks like.

It is government controlling the internet. It's the extent and who that is different. In this case, it's only forcing a fair playing field. Kinda like highways being public vs. toll instead of telling you what cars you are and are not allowed to drive. I'd like a "free" internet, but I still have to admit it's going to cost someone else's "freedom".

So we can summarize saying it's customers freedom against ISP freedom.

The only freedom that nobody should have is the freedom to take away somebody else's freedom.

"my freedom ends where yours begins"

Yes

No, that implies companies have the same rights as individual people. They do not and should not as they don’t have the same legal constraints as people. There’s no human equivalent to many of the abilities enjoyed by corporations and corporations don’t die and cannot be imprisoned. They’re also able to raise funds in ways humans may not. The list goes on from there.

What I said doesn't imply this at all. I'm just stating that there's a trade-off between the freedom of corporations and the freedom of the people (but different kind of freedoms, ofc)

I’m thinking it over.

I think you are actually in agreement with the person you are replying to?

They point out it is freedom of ISPS vs natural people, and you are pointing out that considering ISP rights the same as people is bad.

If I ran an ISP without incorporating, should I be able to disregard net neutrality?

Controlling ISPs !== controlling the internet.

You're contradicting everything the pro net neutrality people have said for years, namely that without it the ISPs will control the Internet. Part of the premise is that the ISPs do in fact have control over the Internet by acting as the monopoly access point, and that they can do various terrible things accordingly. If you control the ISPs - ie how almost all Americans access the Internet - you inherently do control the Internet.

> They should take a look at FOSTA if they want to know what government controlling the internet really looks like.

Unfortunately, that's not a winning argument from a rhetorical perspective. Almost every single person in both the House and the Senate, of both parties, voted for FOSTA/SESTA.

FOSTA and SESTA are truly abominable bills. They're arguably the most anti-gay bills passed at the federal level since DOMA in 1996. But telling people "net neutrality isn't about controlling the Internet, because it's not as bad as these other bills that received near-unanimous, bipartisan support" isn't going to win over any allies who weren't already in your camp on both issues in the first place.

I made no mention of it 'not being as bad' as other bills. I stand by my statement. Net Neutrality is government regulating ISPs. ISPs are not the internet.

And I think it could convert those in the anti camp. Some are against Net Neutrality because they see it as government control of the internet (it is not). They need to recognize that FOSTA is directly what they perceive Net Neutrality to be (at least in terms of results).

> And I think it could convert those in the anti camp. Some are against Net Neutrality because they see it as government control of the internet (it is not). They need to recognize that FOSTA is directly what they perceive Net Neutrality to be (at least in terms of results).

As someone who's fairly active around both issues, trust me when I say that all this will do is solidify their opposition to net neutrality, and in the worst case, strengthen their support of FOSTA/SESTA.

No, it's not consistent. But it's also not a line of reasoning that will work with opponents of net neutrality. Politics isn't always cut and dry the way we might wish.

In my experience in discussing these issues with people who were pro-FOSTA, this argument has helped them realize that it is violating the first amendment, and an example of government controlling the internet. So I have to respectfully disagree with your conclusion.

> Net Neutrality is government regulating ISPs. ISPs are not the internet.

I've been doing some research on the prelude to Russian revolution and what I discovered is that Communist party of USSR did not start or create the concept of a brutal 'Secret Police'. The Tsar of Russia created the secret police and they had no concept of civil liberties to begin it.

When Communist party took over, they merely used this concept (and bolstered it), in addition to all the other terrible things they did.

Similarly, China didn't end up with a brutal communist party, they had a brutal Emperor, and Chinese communist party just step into that place (preceded briefly by Republic of China).

My point is, generally a tyrannical control of things begins with a more nobler or palpable reason, which eventually is taken over by bad people.

Take for instance, France has ban burqas in public places. You would think that the American right would consider this to be a noble thing and would wanna advocate it, but they won't because this gives the govt power, and eventually this power could and would be used against them.

Today you're claiming that net neutrality is govt controlling ISPs, not the Internet. But can a radical religious govt ban blasphemy on the internet by forcing the ISPs? FOSTA-SESTA were terrible things which passed, without any anti-NN side opposing them, and now nearly everyone in this thread is saying "Oh if you have a problem with NN how come you don't say anything to FOSTA-SESTA".

Slippery slope? Haha.

I still can't believe that the movement to kill net neutrality was (is?) called "restoring internet freedom". I guess it's a shortening of "restoring internet service providers' freedom"? But the longer form isn't as catchy.

Well, it is about "restoring internet freedom". It's just that, except in a few large cities, Americans have very little choice about ISP. So there's no way for ISPs to compete for users who care about net neutrality.

Edit: Actually, we'd have even more freedom with an Internet version of the FERC rule for open access to electrical transmission lines.[0]

> The legal and policy cornerstone of these rules is to remedy undue discrimination in access to the monopoly owned transmission wires that control whether and to whom electricity can be transported in interstate commerce.

0) https://www.ferc.gov/legal/maj-ord-reg/land-docs/rm95-8-00w....

What's your definition of freedom?

Being unconstrained.

So you’d obviously want to ensure net neutrality then?

Net neutrality is literally constraint on how data passing through networks can be routed and shaped. It’s exactly “constraining the Internet”. It’s not “freedom” in any shape or matter. Freedom is never constraint on others. It’s a popular constraint, and people just happen to confuse and conflate “things I like/feel positivity about” and “freedom”.

It’s controversial to say here but I don’t think it gets discussed enough: Net neutrality only really helps established players. That is not to say it hurts others, but it certainly helps established players.

That’s why they all love it. Facebook, Hulu, Netflix, GitHub, Tumblr, Microsoft. Unestablished unpopular players are not the ones getting throttled. It’s the ones already using tons of bandwidth getting throttled and odds are good most new players bandwidth usage is hardly even noticeable to the ISP. They wouldn’t be touting the joys of something that had the potential to displace them.

The one who would be getting throttled is primarily Netflix, who literally uses over half of the bandwidth of the Internet. Literally slows everything else on the Internet down. Netflix doesn’t want to be throttled, so of course they love net neutrality.

I’m not saying net neutrality is inherently bad, I just don’t think it’s as innately good as a lot of the cheerleaders attest.

This doesn't make sense. Why would the ISP's want to throttle the websites that their customers are using? Even with the lack of ISP competition, pissing off your users that much seems like a bad strategy. And they can already throttle users based on bandwidth used, how would eliminating net neutrality help them achieve this goal.

I predict the ISP's selling a default throttled connection to everything, and then for $10 more you can unthrottle Netflix or YouTube. Competitors would need to convince ISPs to allow unthrottled access to even have a chance.

Your prediction is exactly what you said doesn't make sense. Your prediction also doesn't match history. In 2014 Netflix was the one that had to pay Comcast to end its throttling.

In 2014, my prediction was illegal due to net neutrality regulations, while limiting Netflix based on usage was possible.

> Freedom is never constraint on others

Of course it is, you have to constrain the powerful so they cannot take freedom away from the dispossessed.

You have to restrict the freedom of Southern plantation owners to own slaves to ensure the freedom of slaves. You have to restrict the freedom of corporations to merge into a giant conglomerate so you can protect the freedom of choice of consumers. You have to restrict the freedom of corporations to charge for the origin of internet traffic so you can protect the freedom of internet users to visit any site they wish.

Freedom in society is always an exchange and a compromise. Your freedom to swing your fist ends five centimetres away from my nose.

What about my freedom to choose an ISP? If this is really about freedom and not just another cash grab, why doesn't Pai regulate that monopoly rules are illegal?

When att makes it free to use their video service and not free to use everything else, that hurts unestablished players.

Net neutrality also helps users. Do I really need to explain how?

It’s not as clear cut as “it helps users”. There are positives and negatives for users as there are in all things in life; nothing is black and white.

Firstly I would hardly call demanding the end of free services on moral grounds “helping users”. As far as the end user cares, forcing them to pay for all services equally when they could previously get one for free is a net harm.

The bigger problem however is that internet has been running largely at full bandwidth capacity since mid 2015, particularly the backbone. Bandwidth is being devoured faster than it is being added. Not being able to limit major hogs, namely streaming services, in favor of other smaller and potentially more important connections actually harms users with slower overall response time for the internet at large.

I personally think things like medical/government services and online banking traffic getting priority over entertainment is not that controversial - but not allowed under net neutrality.

It’s not as clear cut as people think.

Average connection speed has been steadily increasing for over a decade. I dont like the idea of a risky solution to a non problem. I spend most of my time on the internet & I have one provider to "choose" from in my area.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/616210/average-internet-...

> Net neutrality is literally constraint on how data passing through networks can be routed and shaped.

That's arguing that opposition to putting a dam in a river to alter its natural course is a constraint, because it constrains the placement of dams.

> Net neutrality only really helps established players.

Good for them. For once they're on the right side of an argument.

> Unestablished unpopular players are not the ones getting throttled.

How is that an argument in favour of anyone getting throttled at the whim of the ISPs?

> The one who would be getting throttled is primarily Netflix, who literally uses over half of the bandwidth of the Internet.

Once again: good for them. On the provider side: if bandwidth is a scarcity, data plan prices should reflect that. No need to give them the power to ghettoise the Internet.

This goes to the heart of the matter.

Is freedom to build whatever you want without having to pay gatekeepers important or is freedom from rules important?

It’s a very 1984 way of doing things where the ones in power blatantly say the opposite of what their intent is, to twist the truth and the meaning of the words entirely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

Branding makes the world go round. Whether it's forward, or in this case, backward.

It's nowadays quite a good heuristic that purpose and effects of a bill is opposite to what the bill's name says.

It's freedom... just not for a lot of people.

Freedom of the powerful to abuse the powerless endlessly and without consequence.

Libertarianism in a nutshell ;)

If you live in Arkansas, Louisiana, or Ohio, call your senators and urge them to vote in favor of net neutrality!

Wishful thinking, the president would not sign the bill and there's not a supermajority in the Senate and the house to overrule him. This is going nowhere.

To Trump's credit, I believe he would sign the bill. He mostly cares about winning and looking good. Also, he gives people what they want. If both houses pass the bill; "You wanted net neutrality? We now have the best net neutrality in the history of the internet. We rolled back Obama's sick and dying internet, Obama killed the internet did you know that folks?, and now we have the best most free internet EVER. Period."

We may actually have the opposite problem; Trump may not veto anything that comes across his desk.

What? He is literally the person who appointed the guy who made this happen. While Trump is erratic, so no one can rule out a complete 180 at any moment, to say that is "to his credit" is ridiculous.

I get your point, but he is also the guy to fire multiple people in his cabinet for arbitrary/popularity reasons, so don't put it past him to throw ajit under the bus because it would make him 'look good'

Exactly. He is fine with seeing if ideas or people will float or sink; it's his modus operandi.

Plus, Trump is a master at walking stuff back and saving face with his party and base. Net neutrality comes back? Well it's Trump net neutrality now, way better than broken Obama net neutrality. Obama job numbers fake, Trump job numbers great. Trump economy(which has basically not deviated from the Obama economy trajectory) doing great, Obama economy was broken. Etc, etc. All that matters is if it floats, and he can brand it Trump.

Why do we need NN? I have yet to hear any valid argument for it. Everything that people complain about is already illegal under multiple laws.

Without it, ISPs can stop offering internet access and start offering YouTube access. Here's an example of a plan in a country with weak net neutrality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Screenshot-2017-10-28_MEO...

If you believe some other law already prohibits this, please tell me.

Just to be 100% clear with the packages shown, they offer the benefit that those apps don't count towards your mobile data, rather than just being available.

Still not great though, since it just increases the moat for existing companies. Also companies in the states have tried exactly the same thing before with their video streaming service not counting towards you data cap.

This is about the USA. Perhaps the title could be updated to say "The US Senate..."?

Why are people here so pro-net neutrality? I don't have NN in Europe and I'm happy: because of it, I enjoy zero-rated services at a fair price.

The U.K.'s (government / regulators) stance on net neutrality) is that as long as there is competition in the market and there are services you can sign up for that “neutral” then there is no need to step in yet.

The competition in the U.S. isn’t as great as it can be in here in the U.K. where many will only have a single choice for their ISP (or have restricted cell/sat isp or have a service that we wouldn’t even consider as broadband as it’s speed is so low).

It’s strange how people from different parts from the world may require different rules that govern them.

The USA is big. Like, really fucking big. As a result running an ISP, wired or cellular, has an extremely high cost to entry. As a result of that, most people’s choices for internet provider is precisely limited to one choice, the local telco monopoly. No net neutrality means that ISP ca. Do whatever they want and get away with it because what are you going to do? Send a sternly written letter?

> The USA is big. Like, really fucking big.

So? Most of that is empty space nobody is trying to serve. The key metric is population density, which is comparable between urban areas in Europe and the US. The size of the US has nothing to do with lack of ISP choice, as evidenced by the fact that the same problem doesn't occur in countries with lower population densities than the US (33.8 people per km²) such as Sweden (21.5), Finland (16.2), Norway (13.4) or Australia (3.1).

ISPs serve more than just downtown urban areas.

They don't have to when they start. Google Fiber hasn't gone into any rural areas AFAIK.

Zero-rating is a terrible thing that helps stifle the free market and consolidate monopolies. It is also of questionable legality.

It does not consolidate monopolies because, by law, ISPs are required to add all apps from a category (chat, video, etc) to zero-rating. i.e. if you add Netflix you are required to add YouTube, etc.

All I see about NN is a lot of manipulation from both sides. And what's especially frustrating is that some people insist that NN is anti-customer. No thanks, I'll keep my zero-rating.

That's definitely not the case in the UK.

Three offers Deezer and Apple Music but not Spotify zero-rated. This puts Deezer and Apple Music at an advantage, no matter if they're technically better or worse

Three also does this for social media and video services. (Part of why I'm leaving them when my contract is up)

That sounds sort of like... zero-rating neutrality? Might be even harder to pass that kind of law over here.

I agree about the manipulation from both sides though. There's an acceptance that we have to be so shrill and lie for our cause, because marketing.

We long had zero-rating in the form of toll free telephone numbers while most long distance calling required per-minute fees. That system worked okay because it just transferred costs from one party (the caller) to another (the callee) and was available to any provider who wanted to subscribe to the model. Zero rating that works like that would be okay.

What people are worried about is when the ISP's get to play kingmaker about which services will get deals and which will not. The cable TV providers are among the most hated companies in the US for a reason, and those are the only broadband ISP's available to most Americans.

Zero-rating as we fear it is just another way to let them impose arbitrary and capricious costs on their customers.

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