The false comments, basically gave them opportunity to claim that citizens were equally divided and they could just ignore them, when in reality people were overwhelmingly against the changes.
The whole FCC change reminds me of ICANN and .org TLD. Overwhelmingly unpopular to the public but driven by special interests.
I'd suggest this describes most lobbying. When something's overwhelmingly popular to the public, no one has to get paid to make that clear to the powers-that-be.
I think the reason the case is being fought is the same reason, it's not about whether people actually like net neutrality, they clearly don't. The point is to rules lawyer through the situation - oh well the comments were a wash, oh well there seems to have been fraud, let's ignore the comments entirely, oh well we can actually really easily tell which comments were fraudulent, but the rules have been in place for years now so it's a moot point.
I disagree with you here, those who are informed are are for net neutrality, not against it.
No one wants ISP (or in fact anyone) deciding what sites they can visit or not.
A lot of people do want that because they view prohibiting it as a government take over of the internet. I personally think that is absurd, but it's a very popular opinion.
Can you point to some places where this opinion is expressed? I've never encountered it.
HN for starters.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9107915
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14347013
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9114134
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20166118
And many more examples if you search.
But not just here, I've seen this opinion represented pretty much anywhere I see net neutrality discussed. Anecdotally, it's nowhere near a majority opinion, but it's definitely not an uncommon one.
I happen to think they are wrong as a matter of tactics in this particular case: governments gave ISPs the special privileges they have now, and if we can't get governments to just withdraw those privileges altogether and force ISPs to compete on a level playing field, net neutrality regulation might be the "least worst" alternative we can actually achieve.
But as far as being skeptical of government regulation in general, and government regulation of any form of mass communication in particular, as a longer term strategic position I think they are right. Net neutrality regulation, even if we could get it, would not allow us to just sit back and relax, problem solved. We would still have to be prepared to protest the next time the government tries to overreach, and the next, and the next, and the next...
A distinction without a practical difference. They do want ISPs to decide what sites they can and cannot visit because that is the defacto state of affairs in a world without net neutrality, it is only that they are satisfied with the decisions the ISPs have made thus far.
Is like trying to convince people that first amendment should be abolished, because it is enforced by the government and they should not control what we can say or not. It is flipping the whole thing upside down, and many confused people are supporting it, when they really want the opposite.
The most common argument I hear against net neutrality is that it's unnecessary government overreach and that ISPs would never try to dictate network traffic in a draconian fashion because it would be bad for business. I won't list all the problems with this reasoning since I'd be preaching to the choir, but this is a belief that a lot of people have.
I know a software engineer who is very much against net neutrality. He also happens to be very much pro free market (in the “no regulation at all” approach).
Is he also in favor of ending the monopolies that ISPs have over Internet access in most places in the US? I'm also pro free market, and if ISPs were a free market I would also be against net neutrality as a government regulation. But ISPs are not a free market; they are huge beneficiaries of government regulation. So net neutrality is one of those unfortunate cases where we need government regulation to offset the effects of other government regulation. That's the bet we can do if having a truly free market is not an option.
After all, it is a transaction between to private entities.
I'd like to call that view "free as in oligopoly".
Interestingly I've learned that there is a big difference between "left libertarians" and "right libertarians". I think the left libertarians and the socialist anarchists could actually be allies if they could get past all their language differences and knee jerk reactions. My roommate is a knowledgeable left libertarian and it's amazing how similar our end goals are but how different our language and conceptual frameworks for getting there can sometimes be.
Yeah, it's from the Bible. Yeah, Paul was talking about something completely different from political programs. It still seems to fit. There are people who seek to destroy the existing system first, in order that there will be no alternative but to build a replacement. They thereby show that they seriously doubt their ability to persuade people that their alternative is better. (They also assume that their alternative is the only alternative, or at least is the one that will be chosen. They are, I think, over-optimistic in doing so.)
If the state actually did help the less privileged, that would be one thing. But the state programs that claim to help the less privileged, mostly don't. And even when they do, the hoops the less privileged have to jump through to get the help are ridiculous. My wife and I have a friend who is on food stamps; he's disabled and unable to work, has been for years. Every year when his food stamps come up for renewal, even though not a single thing has changed with his situation, the county finds a way to screw it up and we have to call them and get it straightened out. Imagine what happens to people who don't have friends that can help them navigate the system.
The root of the problem is not that helping the less privileged is a bad thing; it's that the state is the worst possible tool for the job.
> I get really frustrated with libertarian types that would dismantle useful state programs before we've got something to replace them.
We do have something to replace them: private charity. Anyone can found a nonprofit charity organization to help the less privileged. And they would do a much better job of it than the state does. The fact that the state is doing it at all hurts the actual ability to help people, because the people who would actually do a good job at it are thinking that the state is already taking care of it so they don't have to. Which means that there are actually more people who need help that are not getting it, than there would be if the state were simply out of the business altogether and everybody knew that it was up to them, as private individuals and private charities, to do it.
Also, "we have an idea that could in theory replace them" is not the same as "we have the structures in place and shown capable to replace them".
I would want to see a lot of data to back this up--and it would have to be accurate data, including accurate data on how often the state makes things worse instead of actually helping. I don't have such accurate data on a global scale, and I don't think you do either. The state does not even measure how much harm its employees do; it has no incentive to do so.
> "we have an idea that could in theory replace them" is not the same as "we have the structures in place and shown capable to replace them".
"Replace" assumes that the current structures are providing a net benefit. If they're actually a net cost--if they do more harm than good, all things considered, which I suspect is true for the state if we could actually get accurate data on all the harm as well as all the good--then replacing them with nothing whatever would still be a net gain. Of course replacing them with something that actually did the job the state is supposed to do would be better still, but the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
Could you give an example of what you mean by this?
However they have such different terms for things they typically get really upset at each other when talking. For example they use the term “capitalism” very differently. Socialist anarchists are against “capitalism” for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that is enables cronyism. However libertarians are pro “capitalism” and yet very against cronyism. So both groups are strongly against cronyism, but they can’t seem to get along well enough to fight cronyism together.
Libertarians advocate for “capitalism” which they see as markets unimpeded by the state. Anarchists also don’t want the state interfering in their exchanges. They may place rules on their exchanges but this would be on a voluntary basis, so they could seemingly coexist with libertarians who just want to rely on markets.
Both sides also seem to be against intellectual property restrictions. Another place to work together.
In my personal vision, an anarchist communist society could, and I think should, still take advantage of markets for certain situations. I think it makes sense for individuals to be protected by communal structures, but those communes might use markets to distribute goods in addition to politically coordinated exchanges.
Libertarians don’t want much of the above, but if it’s truly voluntary they’re not against it either. Though they are super touchy when you talk to them about this and they don’t accept any of it until they understand you really want it to be voluntary.
My libertarian friend also really surprises me sometimes. He said recently the state should release control of all hospitals to the hospital workers who have been running them. Like they did some kind of homesteading so they should be the ones to own the hospital. Well that sounds a lot like a worker owned collective!
Maybe start here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl2WH88wmWc
If you have questions I'd be happy to answer them, but I'd recommend doing more research before making sweeping generalizations about "anarchists", "libertarians", "capitalism", etc.
I think you’re missing my point. I think left libertarians and socialist anarchists could be allies. They seem to want almost the same thing. They just can’t stand talking to each other because they use terms that make the other extremely skeptical. It’s difficult for me to use precise language when trying to bring two groups together who use that language very differently. So I know I’m speaking in broad terms. Certainly anarchist and libertarian are very broad and not all of them think alike.
But I think people who like the idea of anarchist socialism might actually like what certain left libertarians have to say. That is my point.
Don’t take my word for it. Check out Roderick Long and you tell me if he makes sense to you.
What gives you the impression that these are different groups that "could be allies" but "can't stand talking to each other"? Every resource I can find seems to say that social anarchism is a subset of left libertarianism.
Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism#/media/Fil...
"Here, disclosing the originating IP addresses and user-agent headers would help clarify whether and to what extent fraudulent activity interfered with the comment process for the FCC's [net neutrality repeal], and more generally, the extent to which administrative rulemaking may be vulnerable to corruption. This serves a vital public interest because of the importance of public comments in agency rulemaking," Schofield wrote.
I have had the same thought, and I am not sure why the veracity of the comments is fomenting so much anger. No matter what the comments had said, the FCC would have done the same thing; Pai had been very clear about his opinion on net neutrality over the course of many years.
As for your actual premise, ‘the comments didn’t matter’, the rest of your comment invalidates your premise. Because if the comments did not matter, then the FCC would feel no need to fake the result.
What you mean to say is, ‘the comments would not effect the outcome of the FCC’s decision.’ And we can have a proper opinionated debate as to whether that is true. But the comments clearly ‘matter’.
First rule of any good investigative reporting: follow the money. Whoever paid for the comments must have had some motivation for committing fraud and identity theft en masse.
The fact that the FCC is fighting to keep the comment-purchasers IP address(es) secret is telling in and of itself though I suppose.
[1] https://medium.com/ragtag-notes/bot-or-not-verifying-public-...
[2] https://medium.com/@csinchok/an-analysis-of-the-anti-title-i...
>Based on this analysis, we estimate that 91% of all anti-net-neutrality submissions, and 79% of all pro-net-neutrality submissions, came from bots.
Their survey data is mostly inconsistent with the WSJ data. See https://archive.fo/sp9Q7. WSJ had multiple orders of magnitude higher sample size, so I'd go with their numbers.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/millions-of-people-post-comment...
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/dead-people-amon...
Pai knows this, and the fact that the public comments on net neutrality rulemaking were so obviously manipulated has made people think there is at least a possibility that he, or the FCC, was complicit, in order to flout the APA. The fact that the agency has gone out of its way to cover the situation up does not inspire much confidence, either.
TL;DR: A bunch of comments on a website could result in the FCC's actions being struck down in court.
Long story short, that is why comments on a website genuinely matter to the regulatory process.
EDIT: as a side note, the current administration has been sued a lot over APA violations. Most of the lawsuits brought by states against the federal government you hear about in the news hinge on the APA. An example off the top of my head is the repeal of DACA. Now, DACA was an executive order and could have been un-done by an executive order (executive orders are mostly not subject to the APA). But Trump did not make an executive order repealing DACA: instead the Attorney General removed the rule himself, which means his decision was subject to APA review. As a part of this he had to publish a document explaining why he was going to repeal it. In it he said the reason he was repealing DACA was because he believed it was unconstitutional. A number of states have sued over this change, and one of the legal arguments used is an APA violation, because there is no evidence that DACA is unconstitutional. Which gets to what I find interesting about the APA; it forces the person making the change to specifically spell out their reasoning and rationalization for making that change. If their reasoning is faulty you can sue, and the federal government can't defend it by throwing about alternative rationales for the decision.
If you read SCOTUS opinions, it feels like every other case with the U.S. government involves the APA. It's a powerful piece of legislation preventing agencies from abusing their rule-making power.
I don't have much of a problem with this ruling given that all commenters were warned:
"every commenter was provided with a privacy notice, stating that '[a]ll information submitted, including names and addresses, will be publicly available via the Web.'"
If they are asking for them, and piping them into /dev/null, that's a scandal that FOIA requests can reveal. It also gives political capital for a subsequent administration to overturn a ruling with minimal fuss.
sadly in this inter connected world it is far easier to name and shame people which thwarts any useful discussion, it is no different than voter intimidation; which is why one side wants to do away with secret ballots in unionization pushes.
winning is all that is cared about.
what are we going to do when either the NYT or another organization links back those ids to private individuals, just hashtag apologize and ignore it?
The NYT of any other organization can pull the filing and see each and every name and address associated with a comment. No combing or linking back to IDs needed. It’s all there for the entire world the see as part of the public record. The information that will be exposed by this ruling is the IP address(es) of whoever fraudulently commented using other people’s names and addresses.