NET NEUTRALITY IS THE NEW DEATH PANELS
May. 16th, 2010 01:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogPREAMBLE: The following post was written under the assumption that you have a layman’s knowledge of net neutrality. I attempted an explanation in the first draft, but gave up when I tried it out on the bridal unit and her eyes glazed over about three sentences in. You can go here for a quick primer if you think it will help.
ITEM: Earlier this week, ThinkProgress revealed a secret plan by American telecoms corporations to adopt Tea Party tactics to fight “net neutrality”, summed up in a hysterical PowerPoint presentation and web site called NoNetBrutality.com.
CNET then reported that the slideshow actually didn’t originate from the telecoms sector, but was created as a class project for a competition in Florida last month as an assignment for a two-and-a-half week "think tank MBA" program.
ThinkProgress isn’t backing off its claims, saying they got it right in the sense that anti-neutrality advocates are using the presentation to make their argument, so close enough.
Now ... as someone who covers the telecoms industry for a living, even befor CNET weighed in, I had my doubts that telecoms executives had anything to do with this specific web site or PowerPoint deck. Yes, they’re against net neutrality, but they generally don’t rely on pure batshit to state their case.
And frankly, ThinkProgress' case that the front groups pushing NoNetBrutality.com get funding from telecoms companies doesn’t really hold up if you bother to follow those links and do some digging (which I did).
However, as for the people who are NOT in the telecoms business and are taking up the anti-neutrality flag ... I confess I am amazed that the net neutrality debate has gotten this weird.
Seriously. When the net neutrality argument started up a few years ago, the issue was primarily a business issue:
1. Telco networks are getting clogged by by all the traffic GoogleTube generates and they want to start charging them access/transport fees based on proportionate usage.
2. GoogleTube doesn’t want to pay more, and says telcos can’t do that under FCC rules that basically say, “Yr a series of neutral tubes, and you have to treat everyone fairly.”
Now, with the FCC having decided GoogleTube has a point, net neutrality has somehow morphed into this bizarre conspiracy theory in which FCC rules enforcing neutrality amounts to a full-on govt takeover of the Internet that will lead to govt censorship of any web content it doesn’t approve of (you know, just like that healthcare reform bill that means every doctor, hospital and insurance company is now 100% controlled by Dr Barack Hitler Obama and you'll all need to make appointments with death panels before the mid-terms).
To be fair, the net neutrality crowd is coming from the other direction, pointing out that if you allow telcos to charge for a connection based on usage, they’ll throttle your connection speed and any Web services that compete with services they sell (think Skype and Hulu competing with AT&T and Comcast.)
The thing is, that’s actually a real possibility, and in the case of Skype has actually happened.
On the other hand, net neutrality has NEVER been about the FCC imposing content restrictions. I’m not aware of any proposed rule or law ever saying otherwise. Net neutrality is about fair access to Internet connectivity and preventing companies like Comcast from slowing down yr Hulu connection. And until someone can produce one, comparisons to the Fairness Doctrine are wildly invalid.
Hence my fascination with all the hooha. Because what we have here is a pretty cut-and-dried example of taking a straw-man accusation and running with it non-stop until you have everyone arguing over something that doesn’t even exist, because you stand a better chance of winning that argument than arguing on the facts.
In the case of Net Brutality, I suspect it started out as Tea Party conservatives instinctively favoring a deregulation/free market stance, then – once it became clear that they weren’t going to win on those merits, because who wants to see their Internet connection throttled when they’re trying to watch Hulu – they went for the “FCC Socialism Will Destroy Yr Freedom” play because hey, it worked for healthcare.
BTW, none of this is to endorse any of the net neutrality proposals on the table either at the FCC or in Congress. There’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with net neutrality, so the details of any new rules matter.
For a start, telcos DO need to throttle traffic when the network load gets heavy. That’s just a fact of life until they upgrade their networks (which they are working on). Also, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of having a tiered pricing system based on how much bandwidth you need – so long as the telco spells out what yr getting for the price and delivers what you pay for.
Which is also why I think an argument could be made that if the real issue is treating content providers fairly and neutrally – and making sure telcos live up to their service promises – then net neutrality could theoretically be the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission instead of the FCC.
But that may not matter anymore. With the right milking the Socialist Takeover Of The Web conspiracy meme, and the left now milking the Evil Corporate Scumbags In Bed With The Evil Tea Party Scumbags conspiracy meme (and both defending the lack of evidence with the “see, they say they want this when what they REALLY want and WON’T TELL YOU is ...” meme), the chance to debate net neutrality sensibly is looking pretty slim.
Just like everything else in the modern age.
Argument clinic,
This is dF
ITEM: Earlier this week, ThinkProgress revealed a secret plan by American telecoms corporations to adopt Tea Party tactics to fight “net neutrality”, summed up in a hysterical PowerPoint presentation and web site called NoNetBrutality.com.
CNET then reported that the slideshow actually didn’t originate from the telecoms sector, but was created as a class project for a competition in Florida last month as an assignment for a two-and-a-half week "think tank MBA" program.
ThinkProgress isn’t backing off its claims, saying they got it right in the sense that anti-neutrality advocates are using the presentation to make their argument, so close enough.
Now ... as someone who covers the telecoms industry for a living, even befor CNET weighed in, I had my doubts that telecoms executives had anything to do with this specific web site or PowerPoint deck. Yes, they’re against net neutrality, but they generally don’t rely on pure batshit to state their case.
And frankly, ThinkProgress' case that the front groups pushing NoNetBrutality.com get funding from telecoms companies doesn’t really hold up if you bother to follow those links and do some digging (which I did).
However, as for the people who are NOT in the telecoms business and are taking up the anti-neutrality flag ... I confess I am amazed that the net neutrality debate has gotten this weird.
Seriously. When the net neutrality argument started up a few years ago, the issue was primarily a business issue:
1. Telco networks are getting clogged by by all the traffic GoogleTube generates and they want to start charging them access/transport fees based on proportionate usage.
2. GoogleTube doesn’t want to pay more, and says telcos can’t do that under FCC rules that basically say, “Yr a series of neutral tubes, and you have to treat everyone fairly.”
Now, with the FCC having decided GoogleTube has a point, net neutrality has somehow morphed into this bizarre conspiracy theory in which FCC rules enforcing neutrality amounts to a full-on govt takeover of the Internet that will lead to govt censorship of any web content it doesn’t approve of (you know, just like that healthcare reform bill that means every doctor, hospital and insurance company is now 100% controlled by Dr Barack Hitler Obama and you'll all need to make appointments with death panels before the mid-terms).
To be fair, the net neutrality crowd is coming from the other direction, pointing out that if you allow telcos to charge for a connection based on usage, they’ll throttle your connection speed and any Web services that compete with services they sell (think Skype and Hulu competing with AT&T and Comcast.)
The thing is, that’s actually a real possibility, and in the case of Skype has actually happened.
On the other hand, net neutrality has NEVER been about the FCC imposing content restrictions. I’m not aware of any proposed rule or law ever saying otherwise. Net neutrality is about fair access to Internet connectivity and preventing companies like Comcast from slowing down yr Hulu connection. And until someone can produce one, comparisons to the Fairness Doctrine are wildly invalid.
Hence my fascination with all the hooha. Because what we have here is a pretty cut-and-dried example of taking a straw-man accusation and running with it non-stop until you have everyone arguing over something that doesn’t even exist, because you stand a better chance of winning that argument than arguing on the facts.
In the case of Net Brutality, I suspect it started out as Tea Party conservatives instinctively favoring a deregulation/free market stance, then – once it became clear that they weren’t going to win on those merits, because who wants to see their Internet connection throttled when they’re trying to watch Hulu – they went for the “FCC Socialism Will Destroy Yr Freedom” play because hey, it worked for healthcare.
BTW, none of this is to endorse any of the net neutrality proposals on the table either at the FCC or in Congress. There’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with net neutrality, so the details of any new rules matter.
For a start, telcos DO need to throttle traffic when the network load gets heavy. That’s just a fact of life until they upgrade their networks (which they are working on). Also, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the idea of having a tiered pricing system based on how much bandwidth you need – so long as the telco spells out what yr getting for the price and delivers what you pay for.
Which is also why I think an argument could be made that if the real issue is treating content providers fairly and neutrally – and making sure telcos live up to their service promises – then net neutrality could theoretically be the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission instead of the FCC.
But that may not matter anymore. With the right milking the Socialist Takeover Of The Web conspiracy meme, and the left now milking the Evil Corporate Scumbags In Bed With The Evil Tea Party Scumbags conspiracy meme (and both defending the lack of evidence with the “see, they say they want this when what they REALLY want and WON’T TELL YOU is ...” meme), the chance to debate net neutrality sensibly is looking pretty slim.
Just like everything else in the modern age.
Argument clinic,
This is dF
