More than a Million Pro-Repeal Net Neutrality Comments Were Likely Faked

Megalith

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NY Attorney General Schneiderman estimated that hundreds of thousands of Americans’ identities were stolen and used in spam campaigns that support repealing net neutrality. This author’s research found at least 1.3 million fake pro-repeal comments, with suspicions about many more. In fact, the sum of fake pro-repeal comments in the proceeding may number in the millions.

Public participation and civic engagement are fundamental to a functioning democracy. It’s scary to think that organic, authentic voices in the public debate — more than 99% of which are in favor of keeping net neutrality — are being drowned out by a chorus of spambots. We already live in a time of low faith in public institutions, and given these findings, I fear that the federal regulatory public comment process may be yet another public forum lost to spam and disinformation.
 
Just was thinking of this the other day and how the time Warner merger spectrum deal made America great again. (sarcasm)

Since doesn't everyone like their bill going up every few months with out any consent, heads up. Importance of people needing to vote.

Always thought the price of cable would go lower not higher
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.
Lol whut? Internet is a stupid pipe and is sold as a stupid pipe. If people start utilizing the stupid pipe as per the agreements they signed up for (Typically unlimited bandwidth which is only limited by the speed you're paying for), why is there any discussion of subsidizing utilization habits? Are you trying to suggest that ISPs oversold their capacity? Say it ain't so! Are you suggesting that the services which people are using should pay for this oversold capacity? LOL. That's not how it's supposed to work.
I really doubt there's any real bandwidth issues currently. More than likely the increase of minimum bandwidth requirements were sold to customers without the backend infrastructure improvements that were needed in the past few years mainly due to the FCC reclassification of what's considered broadband. Now they want to double dip because they're used to not paying directly for any backend improvements without being paid by the government for it.
This net neutrality crap doesn't mean anything. The internet was functioning fine prior to 2015 and was functioning fine after 2015.
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.

ISPs want Net Neutrality? Thats the funniest thing I've heard all week.
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.

How about the ISPs give me the Internet speed I pay for without throttling me or without placing a cap on how much content I can pass through that speed.

Doesn't matter if I am using it to stream 4K content or Linux ISOs. Give me what I pay for.
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.

Go spread your disinformation elsewhere, it won't work here. This is a tech forum and majority of people here are brighter than your typical fox news crowd.
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.


Oops!!! sorry, if you want to post on to forums such as [H] comcast would like to bill you an additional $1.99 a month for a subscription to the hundreds of tech forums available on that tier of subscription....
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.

Are you Ajit Pai?
 
The only reason net neutrality is being abolished is so ISP's can make more money with their existing infrastructure. Anyone not using their ISP's VOIP will find their VOIP provider's site is blocked, but can be unblocked for 29.99/mo. Anyone not using their ISP's cable TV product will find their streaming service provider is blocked, but can be unblocked for 29.99/mo.
The ISP's have paid a lot of money to get their man into the FCC and it is going to be done. The courts will have to once again put the brakes on corporate government gone crazy.
 
The only reason net neutrality is being abolished is so ISP's can make more money with their existing infrastructure. Anyone not using their ISP's VOIP will find their VOIP provider's site is blocked, but can be unblocked for 29.99/mo. Anyone not using their ISP's cable TV product will find their streaming service provider is blocked, but can be unblocked for 29.99/mo.
The ISP's have paid a lot of money to get their man into the FCC and it is going to be done. The courts will have to once again put the brakes on corporate government gone crazy.
I disagree. Net neutrality has only been around for what, like 2-3 years? Do you have examples of this tiered/partial internet packaging that occurred before hand?
 
I disagree. Net neutrality has only been around for what, like 2-3 years? Do you have examples of this tiered/partial internet packaging that occurred before hand?

If they aren't going to do it then why do they want the rules preventing them from doing it repealed?
 
I disagree. Net neutrality has only been around for what, like 2-3 years? Do you have examples of this tiered/partial internet packaging that occurred before hand?

He doesn't need examples because preventing ISPs from the aforementioned business practices is precisely what Net Neutrality is for. The call for Net Neutrality was prompted by different but equally troubling practices:

2005 – North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked VoIP service Vonage.

2005 – Comcast blocked or severely delayed traffic using the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol. (The company even had the guts to deny this for months until evidence was presented by the Associated Press.)

2007 – AT&T censored Pearl Jam because lead singer criticized President Bush.

2007 to 2009 – AT&T forced Apple to block Skype because it didn’t like the competition. At the time, the carrier had exclusive rights to sell the iPhone and even then the net neutrality advocates were pushing the government to protect online consumers, over 5 years before these rules were actually passed.

2009 – Google Voice app faced similar issues from ISPs, including AT&T on iPhone.

2010 – Windstream Communications, a DSL provider, started hijacking search results made using Google toolbar. It consistently redirected users to Windstream’s own search engine and results.

2011 – MetroPCS, one of the top-five wireless carriers at the time, announced plans to block streaming services over its 4G network from everyone except YouTube.

2011 to 2013 – AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon blocked Google Wallet in favor of Isis, a mobile payment system in which all three had shares. Verizon even asked Google to not include its payment app in its Nexus devices.

2012 – AT&T blocked FaceTime; again because the company didn’t like the competition.

2012 – Verizon started blocking people from using tethering apps on their phones that enabled consumers to avoid the company’s $20 tethering fee.

2014 – AT&T announced a new “sponsored data” scheme, offering content creators a way to buy their way around the data caps that AT&T imposes on its subscribers.

2014 – Netflix started paying Verizon and Comcast to “improve streaming service for consumers.”

2014 – T-Mobile was accused of using data caps to manipulate online competition.
 
Anarchist would not do this as it would affect them.

So that leaves foreign actors or the ISP themselves. If the later can be proven they are bigger trolls than we could have ever imagined.
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.

You do realize that isp's are already capping data amounts so this can't happen?

Dumb uniformed comment is dumb and uninformed.
 
He doesn't need examples because preventing ISPs from the aforementioned business practices is precisely what Net Neutrality is for. The call for Net Neutrality was prompted by different but equally troubling practices:

2005 – North Carolina ISP Madison River Communications blocked VoIP service Vonage.

2005 – Comcast blocked or severely delayed traffic using the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol. (The company even had the guts to deny this for months until evidence was presented by the Associated Press.)

2007 – AT&T censored Pearl Jam because lead singer criticized President Bush.

2007 to 2009 – AT&T forced Apple to block Skype because it didn’t like the competition. At the time, the carrier had exclusive rights to sell the iPhone and even then the net neutrality advocates were pushing the government to protect online consumers, over 5 years before these rules were actually passed.

2009 – Google Voice app faced similar issues from ISPs, including AT&T on iPhone.

2010 – Windstream Communications, a DSL provider, started hijacking search results made using Google toolbar. It consistently redirected users to Windstream’s own search engine and results.

2011 – MetroPCS, one of the top-five wireless carriers at the time, announced plans to block streaming services over its 4G network from everyone except YouTube.

2011 to 2013 – AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon blocked Google Wallet in favor of Isis, a mobile payment system in which all three had shares. Verizon even asked Google to not include its payment app in its Nexus devices.

2012 – AT&T blocked FaceTime; again because the company didn’t like the competition.

2012 – Verizon started blocking people from using tethering apps on their phones that enabled consumers to avoid the company’s $20 tethering fee.

2014 – AT&T announced a new “sponsored data” scheme, offering content creators a way to buy their way around the data caps that AT&T imposes on its subscribers.

2014 – Netflix started paying Verizon and Comcast to “improve streaming service for consumers.”

2014 – T-Mobile was accused of using data caps to manipulate online competition.
Read my question. Where are the tiered service packages offered to consumers?
Blocking crap and throttling has always occured even when not announced. Since net neutrality laws came into practice, were the payments netflix were paying to the ISPs refunded? Or were they continuing to pay the ISPs protection money for their service to not be throttled?
Any service which competes against the ISPs and becomes popular will be secretly throttled so people won't switch to it. Should they be allowed to do this? No. But what's the solution? The govnerment monitoring services and packets to ensure ISPs play fair? Or to break down local mono-duo-opolies and exclusive contracts and enforce competition.
Because if any ISP announced they were throttling netflix and there existed a competitor who didn't throttle, people would vote with their money.
 
Read my question. Where are the tiered service packages offered to consumers?
Blocking crap and throttling has always occured even when not announced. Since net neutrality laws came into practice, were the payments netflix were paying to the ISPs refunded? Or were they continuing to pay the ISPs protection money for their service to not be throttled?
Any service which competes against the ISPs and becomes popular will be secretly throttled so people won't switch to it. Should they be allowed to do this? No. But what's the solution? The govnerment monitoring services and packets to ensure ISPs play fair? Or to break down local mono-duo-opolies and exclusive contracts and enforce competition.
Because if any ISP announced they were throttling netflix and there existed a competitor who didn't throttle, people would vote with their money.
Make ISPs subject to utility laws, introduce the same universal tax on internet service that utilities have to pay for infrastructure maintenance and open up the pipes for all ISPs to compete all across the country.
 
Read my question. Where are the tiered service packages offered to consumers?
Blocking crap and throttling has always occured even when not announced. Since net neutrality laws came into practice, were the payments netflix were paying to the ISPs refunded? Or were they continuing to pay the ISPs protection money for their service to not be throttled?
Any service which competes against the ISPs and becomes popular will be secretly throttled so people won't switch to it. Should they be allowed to do this? No. But what's the solution? The govnerment monitoring services and packets to ensure ISPs play fair? Or to break down local mono-duo-opolies and exclusive contracts and enforce competition.
Because if any ISP announced they were throttling netflix and there existed a competitor who didn't throttle, people would vote with their money.

I'm all for breaking this shit apart and doing anything possible to ensure competition. Where I'm at, I can get fast cable, slow DSL, or nothing. If the cable company decides to screw me then I have no choice but to take it.

But short of a market with healthy competition, then we need to ensure that it remains a dumb pipe by whatever regulation is necessary.
 
I am not going to buy into sources paid for by the ISPs themselves because they want to keep NetNeutrality in order to remain government created monopolies. The source in the Ars Technica article was conducted by consulting firm Emprata and funded by Broadband for America, whose members include AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, CTIA-The Wireless Association, Comcast, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and USTelecom.

Making ISPs increase the cost to every user in order to increase their network bandwidth to allow streaming 4k congestion is asking for a handout from your neighbors. Let the ISPs charge Netflix and other providers for the demand they are putting on their networks and let those providers pass that fee onto THEIR users.

Sorry, but I am not going to subsidize your Netflix viewing habits.

Mumble freeloaders Mumble.

Yeah, thats right... People who actually think like this, which i'm my honest opinion are the VAST majority of Americans, are why you all deserve what is obviously coming to you as an early Christmas present.

When this guy can't stream his favorite cat video on YouTube in January next year, he will be the first to go nuts about it. After all, it's Googles problem, right? Yeah, so using this guys "logic", Google will pay millions to the ISPs to speed access to Google services. That's all great and good, but what about if the service you like to use cannot afford to pay millions to ISPs? So yeah, now if you want to stream cat videos, Google is your only choice.

But I expect that people like the guy I quoted will be more than happy to have his Internet censored and curated for him.


You all go on and on about Apple and how much you hate them, because they lock you in to their services, but you are just about to open the gate to a nice new walled garden, and it's all of your own making.


Good luck to you, you're all going to need it.
 
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Expect this type of deceitful disinformation campaigning to ratchet up as 45 and his enablers keep taking pages from the Putin Kleptocracy Playbook.
 
Since many seem to be under false assumptions of what NN is and what it allows, here it is for the reading: https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1_Rcd.pdf

NN itself is not even the important issue anymore. The important issue is that a federal agency, under the direction of a corporate shill, is actively lying to us to further the corporations’ interests. This administration is so spectacularly corrupt, it can only run its con using social wedge issues as distractors.
 
NN itself is not even the important issue anymore. The important issue is that a federal agency, under the direction of a corporate shill, is actively lying to us to further the corporations’ interests. This administration is so spectacularly corrupt, it can only run its con using social wedge issues as distractors.

I guess I gotta get to be a corporate shill so I can order the feds around too. Be pretty sweet. I could lounge around with my feet on the table smoking a cigar and all.
 
I'm all for breaking this shit apart and doing anything possible to ensure competition. Where I'm at, I can get fast cable, slow DSL, or nothing. If the cable company decides to screw me then I have no choice but to take it.

But short of a market with healthy competition, then we need to ensure that it remains a dumb pipe by whatever regulation is necessary.
Still. Regulation of a dumb pipe is only part of the problem. Your speed will never get better without competition. The service if anything should go down will never increase because there's no competition that will get them off their ass to improve. They won't commit any profit into infrastructure upgrades. Competition spurs all those things. Look at all the market that got google fiber to butt in. Every single one of them the incumbent ISPs got better speeds, better prices, better deals to try and compete. This should be the ideal model that all cities and municipalities should adopt. Adding more competition is better for everyone.
 
Still. Regulation of a dumb pipe is only part of the problem. Your speed will never get better without competition. The service if anything should go down will never increase because there's no competition that will get them off their ass to improve. They won't commit any profit into infrastructure upgrades. Competition spurs all those things. Look at all the market that got google fiber to butt in. Every single one of them the incumbent ISPs got better speeds, better prices, better deals to try and compete. This should be the ideal model that all cities and municipalities should adopt. Adding more competition is better for everyone.

Exactly. Any regulation applied should be to break up the de-facto local monopolies granted by municipal government that give ISP's complete control over vast areas of "last mile" service with zero competition. Businesses should run as they please, but customers should also have the ability to choose between two "like" services, not one cable and one shitty DSL that are nowhere near competitive. All NN does is ensure the status quo is kept for far longer than necessary while also giving worrying Article II powers to the federal government which is laughably inept at the best of times.
 
This is very different than the nightmare scenario tiered packages that you people have presented. I'm not saying it's awesome that ISPs may do this, but you don't have a God given right to these things. I also find it odd that THIS is a big deal when we've allowed Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook to create walled gardens left and right. I'd be happy to see NN rules in place only if we hold these entities to a similar standard. Personally, I think that Google etc push NN so hard because they don't want to see across the board enforcement of anti trust laws.
 
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Just was thinking of this the other day and how the time Warner merger spectrum deal made America great again. (sarcasm)

Since doesn't everyone like their bill going up every few months with out any consent, heads up. Importance of people needing to vote.

Always thought the price of cable would go lower not higher

I went from Time Warner 50 Meg connection where they were going to charge me $89 a month to a 60 Meg connection that I pay $65 a month with Spectrum. Also, the prices have not gone up one single cent.
 
Yeah, thats right... People who actually think like this, which i'm my honest opinion are the VAST majority of Americans, are why you all deserve what is obviously coming to you as an early Christmas present.

When this guy can't stream his favorite cat video on YouTube in January next year, he will be the first to go nuts about it. After all, it's Googles problem, right? Yeah, so using this guys "logic", Google will pay millions to the ISPs to speed access to Google services. That's all great and good, but what about if the service you like to use cannot afford to pay millions to ISPs? So yeah, now if you want to stream cat videos, Google is your only choice.

But I expect that people like the guy I quoted will be more than happy to have his Internet censored and curated for him.


You all go on and on about Apple and how much you hate them, because they lock you in to their services, but you are just about to open the gate to a nice new walled garden, and it's all of your own making.


Good luck to you, you're all going to need it.
You do realize that Google already has a monopoly on video streaming, right? Network effects basically guarantee this, and they have already done a lot to block views and punish viewpoints that they don' like. But you guys only seem to get your panties in a wad over ISPs.
 
You do realize that Google already has a monopoly on video streaming, right? Network effects basically guarantee this, and they have already done a lot to block views and punish viewpoints that they don' like. But you guys only seem to get your panties in a wad over ISPs.

I don't need to watch streamed videos, but I need to do a lot of other things with my dump pipe.
 
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