
Senate Democrats to force vote on FCC net neutrality repeal - MilnerRoute
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-vote/senate-democrats-to-force-vote-on-fcc-net-neutrality-repeal-idUSKBN1E92TC
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kylek
>> A reversal of Thursday’s FCC vote would need the approval of the Senate,
U.S. House and President Donald Trump. Trump also backed the FCC action, the
White House said Thursday.

~~~
crooked-v
The point is to force the Republicans as a whole to take a public stance on
the issue, so they can’t claim to be uninvolved.

~~~
travmatt
Short of a vote there’d be a sudden case of collective amnesia on the part of
said politicians the first time voters connected some suboptimal outcome to
lack of regulation. It’ll be crazy how such a move had occurred when everyone
supposedly had concerns.

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boomboomsubban
Chuck Schumer voted for the Patriot Act, supported SOPA, and supposedly
opposed the famous 1991 Gore Bill that played some roll in opening up the
internet. At least he's supporting a meaningless political vote? Even when
Republicans vote it down, their "the FCC isn't where net neutrality should
come from" talking point still works.

~~~
origami777
How does that point still work? Where does it come from?

~~~
boomboomsubban
Several members of Congress said that they supported the idea of net
neutrality but did not approve of shoehorning it into the FCC's duties. This
vote would be to confirm the FCC's decision, so if that were your stated view
you would approve of the FCC's decision.

~~~
ryanmerket
But the FCC didn’t have to roll back Title 2 for another agency or Congress to
act.

~~~
boomboomsubban
Politicians care about appearance over reality. Pushing for a bill codifying
net neutrality would call out the lie, but the Democrats are also more
concerned with the appearance.

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danjoc
Nevermind they don't have enough power in either house. Nevermind that the
President would veto the thing. You've gotta wonder what the Dems are
thinking. Party of the people? Telecom employs orders of magnitude more voters
than Tech. Just for example,

Reddit employs 230 voters

Comcast employs 153000 voters

Imagine if it did pass. Just think of what happens if Comcast cancels a pay
bonus due to "burdensome new rules passed by congressional Democrats. Also, we
will be bringing in some Silicon Valley efficiency experts to see how we can
automate away about 10% of our workforce to cover the gap."

I don't even know what the Democrats are trying to achieve anymore. The whole
party seems bent on political suicide.

~~~
calciphus
When more than 80% of Americans (according to
[http://thehill.com/policy/technology/364528-poll-83-percent-...](http://thehill.com/policy/technology/364528-poll-83-percent-
of-voters-support-keeping-fccs-net-neutrality-rules)) opposed something and
you can force your opposition to vote against that majority, you can use that
in future elections as evidence that they're corrupt. Especially when there's
a money linked to how they voted against their constituents. Why do you think
there were so many house bills to repeal the ACA when it wasn't possible with
the Senate and Obama in office, and so few once they had the numbers?

Same game, different ball.

~~~
danjoc
>80% of Americans

Biased poll with leading questions. Ask them if they think the FCC should
outlaw unlimited video streaming on T-Mobile Binge On. The 80% evaporates
immediately.

>you can use that in future elections as evidence that they're corrupt

Assuming the wild apocalyptic predictions from Reddit turn out to be even half
true. If what actually happens is a nothingburger, or more zero rating that
people like, then the Dems and Tech companies pushing this lose more
credibility.

~~~
throwaway613834
> Biased poll with leading questions. Ask them if they think the FCC should
> outlaw unlimited video streaming on T-Mobile Binge On. The 80% evaporates
> immediately.

Your potentially good point got lost in how awfully you put it. This wasn't a
vote on T-Mobile or Binge-on, so it would have made no sense to ask if they
should have been outlawed. But if you do have examples of questions you
consider biased and legitimate corrections to them that you believe would
lower the bias, I would be happy to be convinced it was biased and would love
to hear your genuine improvements.

~~~
millstone
Here's some issues with the poll:

1\. Status quo bias. Ask whether any complicated policy should be changed and
most people will say it should not. What percentage of respondents would have
supported reclassifying ISPs under Title II in 2015, giving the government the
power to dictate prices?

2\. The wording of the introduction is phrased in terms of ISPs providing more
access (yayyy!) and being forbidden from charging "extra fees" (booo!). Here
is a different phrasing:

"Currently ISPs are forbidden from offering customers discounts if they do not
use certain sites or services. ISPs are also prohibited from optimizing
latency or bandwidth according to the nature of the content. Removing these
restrictions could allow for cheaper Internet plans and faster speeds for some
content. Should this regulation be removed?"

One might object that "offering customers discounts" is a hypothetical, but
the pro-NN arguments are also hypothetical; the fact is we don't really know
what will happen.

~~~
throwaway613834
> 1\. Status quo bias. Ask whether any complicated policy should be changed
> and most people will say it should not.

Leaving aside the question of whether net neutrality was a "complicated" thing
for people to understand for a moment, I don't even understand how this is an
issue with the polling. The subject or policy under question is whatever it
is. You can't call the _poll_ biased just because the _subject_ it is polling
about is complicated. (And you would need a citation for this too. I would
expect the split to be closer to 50/50, perhaps with a _slight_ bias in the
direction you claim, but nothing like 80/20.)

2\. The wording of the introduction is phrased in terms of ISPs providing more
access (yayyy!) and being forbidden from charging "extra fees" (booo!). Here
is a different phrasing: "Currently ISPs are forbidden from offering customers
discounts if they do not use certain sites or services. ISPs are also
prohibited from optimizing latency or bandwidth according to the nature of the
content. Removing these restrictions could allow for cheaper Internet plans
and faster speeds for some content. Should this regulation be removed?"

Uhm... you talk about the FCC prohibiting discounts and speed boosts the
entire time, and _not once_ do you mention that this regulation also prevents
ISPs from charging extra fees and throttling speeds for whatever sites they
like. You really think your version of this is _less biased_? Seriously?

> One might object that "offering customers discounts" is a hypothetical, but
> the pro-NN arguments are also hypothetical; the fact is we don't really know
> what will happen.

IIRC other countries have already tried this and observed its effects. So we
have some real-world evidence that would seem to suggest some outcomes are not
merely hypothetical. But in any case, you don't get to accuse
someone/something of being biased and then bias them farther in the reverse
direction. That's just dishonest.

~~~
millstone
> You can't call the poll biased just because the subject it is polling about
> is complicated.

My point is the poll may reveal a preference for the status quo, not for the
substance of the policy.

Risk aversion is natural of course. But when the status quo gets changed, what
you thought was public support for your position may vanish.

> You really think your version of this is less biased?

Of course not. I attempted to make it equally biased for the anti-NN position.

> IIRC other countries have already tried this and observed its effects

Yeah... US Rep Ro Khanna (from my district!) had probably the most viral
message on this topic:

[https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/923701871092441088/](https://twitter.com/RoKhanna/status/923701871092441088/)

But this particular case is terrible for the pro-NN proponents. It turns out
people actually LIKE zero-rated services, and the "it crowds out startups"
argument doesn't land at all.

