WEBVTT - Dead People Hate Net Neutrality 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.519 It seems people who have passed away have strong reservations 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.040 about net neutrality. What is actually going on here? I'm 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:17.000 Jonathan Strickland and this is text updaily. For some time now, 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.480 the Federal Communications Commission in the United States has accepted 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.280 comments submitted by US citizens on the subject of net neutrality. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.840 That's the concept that states that companies that provide Internet 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:31.280 service should allow access to all content and apps that 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:35.400 rely upon the Internet, regardless of their source. Further, they 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.479 should do so without extending any preferential treatment to some 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.920 services or hindering others. It's a hot topic issue in 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.920 the United States in particular, and net neutrality advocates have 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.080 been submitting comments on the subject for the last few years. 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.640 According to James Harvey, who wrote about his experience on 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:54.680 medium dot com, there have been several comments on the 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.400 FCC site that are against net neutrality. There are from 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:02.440 some suspect sources. Harvey discovered the surprising number of those 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.679 comments originated from Sharpsburg, Georgia. That's a small town in 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:11.000 my home state that in census boasted a population of 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.959 threety one people. It's also a town where Harvey grew 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:17.679 up and isn't too far from where he lives now, 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.800 Harvey decided to do some investigation. He had already noticed 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:25.120 that many of the comments against net neutrality shared the 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.000 exact same wording. That led him to conclude that the 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.160 comments had been added in some automatic way. He went 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.600 to Sharpsburg to find out why hundreds of people, essentially 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.000 the population of the town, were so against the idea 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:41.920 of net neutrality. According to his account, Harvey discovered that 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.560 most people were unaware that they had apparently left a 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.160 comment on the subject in the first place. Many had 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.160 no clue what net neutrality was denied, ever having written 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:52.480 anything on the subject at all. More than a few 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:54.480 of the people on his list no longer lived in 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.360 Sharpsburg and hattan't in years, and in at least one case, 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.600 the person who had supposedly emitted on the FCC site 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:06.120 had died more than a year earlier. Harvey's suspicsions seemed 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.520 well founded. Someone had apparently taken a list of people's 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:13.520 names and addresses, most likely called from a compromised database 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:18.040 or collection of databases, and then populated the FCC's comments 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.840 section with fake public statements coming out against net neutrality 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.799 using bots, in other words, using a program to automatically 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.679 populate those comment fields. The current chairman of the FCC 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:33.520 has voted against Internet service providers being grouped under Title 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.480 two of the Communications Act of nineteen four That group 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.160 was created originally for telephone service providers. It's also the 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.400 group that gives the FCC more oversight over I s 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.920 P policies. He has advocated for a strategy of light regulation, 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.560 and opponents to his point of view state that this 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.960 leads to large companies solidifying monopolistic holds on regions and 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.200 is ultimately bad for the customer. According to Carl Bode, 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.520 who wrote about his own experiences on tech Dirt, contacting 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.200 the f c C about fraudulent comments is a waste 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.000 of time. Mode claims that someone left a comment in 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.080 his name on an FCC site that very much was 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.320 in opposition to his actual views. He says that when 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.360 he contacted the FCC to alert them to the fraudulent post, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.320 he was told nothing could be done. So what exactly 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.960 are the two sides of this argument. Let's take the 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.639 pro stance first. Net neutrality is supposed to require everyone 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.440 to offer up a level playing field on the Internet, 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.800 regardless of the service or device that's in use. Ideally, 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.040 any person accessing the Internet should be able to use 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.200 or visit any legal site or service on the Internet itself. 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.360 The user's I s P would not block any legal content, 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.920 nor would the I s P put some content on 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.520 a fast track while purposefully throttling other content. That last 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.240 bit is important. Many I s p s, such as 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.400 Comcast don't just provide access to the stuff that's on 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.560 the Internet. Many of them also are in the business 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.760 of making that stuff too. In a world without net neutrality, 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:07.560 such an I s P could choose to boost its 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:12.400 own content to users while throttling competing products. Here's an example. 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:16.640 Without net neutrality, Comcast could choose to give its customers 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.599 favorable access to its own on demand video services while 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.599 slowing down traffic from a competing service like Netflix or Hulu. 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:29.360 Net neutrality advocates argue that this is an anticompetitive practice. 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.719 Netflix doesn't have its own dedicated connections to customers, its 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.400 traffic has to travel across I s P infrastructure. It 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.360 would be unfair, say the advocates, for a service dependent 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.640 upon that infrastructure to find itself impeded purposefully and Since 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.120 many regions in the United States have few options when 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.320 it comes to I s p s, there's not much 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.680 of a customer can do should their own I s 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.320 P start engaging in that type of behavior. In an 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.400 ideal world, customers could cancel a contract with one I 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:00.960 s P and higher on an another one with a 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.080 more fair approach to delivering content. But if you don't 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.880 have any options open to you, you're stuck with whatever 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.600 your I s P wants. Opponents to net neutrality say 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.080 that the increased regulation is at best unnecessary and at 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:18.320 worst holding back companies from innovating. Specifically, the argument states 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:20.760 that if I s p s could charge content creators 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.320 fees in return for which the content creators would find 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.200 their work put on fast track of the I s 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:27.960 p S infrastructure, the I s P could then use 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:30.880 that money to build out better networks with advanced fiber. 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:35.040 This would lead to unprecedented data throughput and download speeds. 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.200 The pro side counters with the argument that such a 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:42.240 policy would stifle innovation because only really big companies would 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.800 be able to afford those fast tracking fees. Any startups 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.159 would be at an enormous disadvantage, making it very difficult 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.039 to discover their services. Plus, say the net neutrality advocates 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.920 i sp s have shown little interest in investing more 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:58.800 money into infrastructure, they might find it more helpful to 0:05:58.880 --> 0:06:02.279 use that money to boost pure profit. The current FCC 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:05.200 appears to be more sympathetic to the con side of 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.120 net neutrality than the pro side. That has led some 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.000 people to suggest that the FCC has no incentive to 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:15.560 take allegations of fraud seriously or to even acknowledge opposing viewpoints. 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.760 Where this will lead remains to be seen. That's all 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.200 for now. To learn more about net neutrality and the 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:25.120 tech policies that affect everybody, check out the podcast tech Stuff. 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.800 The show publishes on Wednesdays and Fridays and is a 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.040 much longer, more in depth look at technology. I'll see 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:31.760 you again soon.