
FCC Filings Overwhelmingly Support Net Neutrality Once Spam Is Removed - xparadigm
http://jeffreyfossett.com/2017/05/13/fcc-filings.html
======
meddlepal
Anyone who thinks the FCC is going to change course under this administration
based on public comments can buy the bridge I am selling in NYC.

~~~
cookiecaper
Anyone who thinks that these bodies _ever_ change their mind due to the public
comment periods is gullible. The public comment period is mandatory, and it's
not like the FCC commissioners are dying to know the public's thought process
and need their input. They have already made up their minds.

The value provided by the public comment process is a) an opportunity for the
public to get their comments on the record, not because it will change the
outcome, but just for the historical value of having their viewpoint
officially represented somewhere and b) the opportunity for FCC commissioners
to be surprised by a higher-than-normal flood of replies and realize they may
need to back something out for political expediency.

This is the same way it works when you call your Congresspeople or do almost
any other citizen interaction with the government. It's not like your Senator
actually cares about _your specific_ opinion and may find it convincing. The
proposals supported or opposed by politicians are much larger than any single
person's opinion or ideology (including the representative's own).

Since Oliver did a segment on net neutrality under the Obama administration
(in which he analogized cable lobbyist and then-FCC chair Tom Wheeler to a
dingo hired to babysit a child), it really probably doesn't surprise them that
a large volume of comments would be directed from that type of source again.
It's also probably not surprising that people more likely to fill out an FCC
comment form are generally pro-net neutrality.

~~~
mcherm
> Anyone who thinks that these bodies ever change their mind due to the public
> comment periods is gullible.

It happened less than 2 years ago, on the topic of Net Neutrality. Remember?
Tom Wheeler who was a known opponent of Net Neutrality? And the amazing flood
of comments CHANGED HIS MIND?

Quit spouting off about how it's hopeless to change anything, and instead GO
START REACHING OUT TO YOUR GOVERNMENT. (Your suggestion of calling
congresspeople is a good one.)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Tom Wheeler who was a known opponent of Net Neutrality?

Tom Wheeler was a supporter of net neutrality from his first day on the
commission. The FCC majority he led didn't initially see common carrier
classification as the best route to enforce neutrality after the 2010 Open
Internet Order was struck down, and proposed a revised Order which sought to
do that without reclassification, and on that point the comments changed his
mind. But that's different than being opponent to neutrality regulations like
Pai has been (and Pai was on the committee, and opposed to both the non-
reclassifying and reclassifying version of the Open Internet Order, at the
time of the last go around; if comments were going to change his mind, they
already would have.)

~~~
unityByFreedom
Ehh, he supported internet fast lanes. Not so different in my opinion.

Anyway the GP's point is that comments changed his mind, not that Wheeler and
Pai thought exactly alike.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Ehh, he supported internet fast lanes.

No, he didn't.

~~~
unityByFreedom
Yes, he did

> "F.C.C., in a Shift, Backs Fast Lanes for Web Traffic " ... The proposed
> rules, drafted by Mr. Wheeler and his staff ... [1]

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/technology/fcc-new-net-
ne...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/technology/fcc-new-net-neutrality-
rules.html)

~~~
vorotato
Yeah the support for gutting net neutrality has been bipartisan by
politicians, and the opposition has been bipartisan by the people. Anyone who
supports gutting net neutrality is either a sucker or bought.

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hhw
It would be naively optimistic to think the FCC is going to just remove the
spam from their counts willingly. At best they may remove from their counts
any cases where someone's name was confirmed to have been used fraudulently.
But how many of those 440,000 comments would that end up happening for?

Unless the FCC fears public backlash, I think they're going to aggressively
exercise plausible deniability on the spam counts, and push through their
agenda using those counts as justification.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
They'll probably say _none_ of the comments can be reliable and throw them all
out and push through their agenda.

~~~
IshKebab
Yeah if they wanted the comments to be reliable they would have spent 5
minutes to add a CAPTCHA. This way they get to easily ignore the public
comment.

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kharms
That caveat, yikes!

>there is some evidence of botting/spamming on the pro-NN side as well (though
likely not to the same degree), which is not investigated in this post, and
could shift conclusions.

~~~
jobigoud
Yeah, he took a lot of liberties to support the title statement. The fact that
many thousands of pro-NN are variations on the same sentences, because the
template was provided by J. Oliver, also means implies that part of the anti-
NN bulk could have been registered by humans working off a template as well.

I would like to know the number of unique sentences and the stats on these.

The only sane conclusion from this debacle is that these things are highly
unreliable and better ways to get the population opinion are desirable.

~~~
croon
> Yeah, he took a lot of liberties to support the title statement. The fact
> that many thousands of pro-NN are variations on the same sentences, because
> the template was provided by J. Oliver, also means implies that part of the
> anti-NN bulk could have been registered by humans working off a template as
> well.

I agree that it's possible, but seeing as the anti-NN template was used 440k
times, and the top pro-NN template was used 26k times, I think it's fair to
say that it's highly unlikely.

Think about how viral that John Oliver clip/story got, and it doesn't even
contain a template (IIRC), and then try to think of an anti-NN template that
somehow got 17 times more viral/engagement.

It's also relevant to consider who benefits from what side.

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cdevs
I was pretty prepared for this when I noticed this is one of places I wouldn't
have minded a captcha for once.

~~~
pharrlax
I'm pretty sure they knew there would be a flood of opposition, and they left
it insecure intentionally, in order to delegitimize the overwhelming consensus
by lumping genuine filings in with spam filings and declaring the entire
process tainted.

~~~
eli
It's a non binding public comment period. I think you overestimate how much
they care.

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lutostag
I saw similar. Data for those that want to do their own analysis here:
[https://github.com/lutostag/gofccyourself-
data/releases](https://github.com/lutostag/gofccyourself-data/releases)

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newsat13
It's obvious to the tech community that net neutrality is a good thing. Let me
pose a counter view in any case: what if verizon/comcast said they will give
consumers a 75% discount should they be implement the anti-net neutrality way?
After all, this is what Google/Facebook does. Give things away for free and
their version of net-neutrality is they get to decide who pops up in the first
page results above all (ads).

~~~
smt88
Google and Facebook are not monopolies, as ISPs are in many cases. You have
options.

Internet service is also far more vital than Facebook.

~~~
newsat13
> Internet service is also far more vital than Facebook.

Yes. So by lowering prices, more people will get access. I feel like you are
adding a +1 here to the anti-net neutrality view (cue the internet.org
initiative by facebook).

~~~
kortex
When Google Fiber rolls into a town, prices from entrenched ISPs drop
drastically. There's nothing stopping ISPs from providing cheaper and better
service - except for the moral hazard of monopolistic control, free from the
normal pressures of supply and demand.

~~~
vorotato
When Google Fiber came into my area, the speed went up by 6 fold, I'm still
switching the moment I'm physically able even if it were slower and more
expensive.

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roflchoppa
Strange to see the net becoming a weapon against public interest.

More so to see it be used to push politics.

~~~
East902
The exact opposite of what it should be.

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speedplane
I am hoping (perhaps wishfully) that 5G wireless technology will make much of
this conversation moot. The reason why broadband companies are even
theoretically able to get away with throttling certain sites is because there
is so little consumer choice in broadband; few in this country have a choice
at all.

Assuming 5G delivers on its promise of broadband quality internet (far from
assured), most US consumers will immediately have far more options.
Competition between service providers will be a much better check than
regulation.

~~~
tw04
Why would you ever think that 5g would come without criminally low data caps?

~~~
speedplane
Because if there are multiple companies offering 5G (and they are not
colluding), they will compete for customers. Verizon will offer a higher data
cap than T-Mobile. T-Mobile will then respond with a higher data cap than
Verizon, and so on.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
It isn't a competition problem, it's a laws of physics problem. If you want to
carry more traffic you either need more wireless spectrum or more towers. But
"more towers" quickly devolves to the point that you would need a "tower" on
every block, at which point you have nearly all the expense of a wired network
and might as well run the cable inside the buildings.

~~~
Retric
We are talking about 35.46 gigabits per second. With 20x over subscription
that works out to 20MBPS for 35,000 homes per tower. Or roughly a 200 x 200
home 'block' if everyone was your customer.

Alternatively, is your suburb is 0.5 homes per acre and 20% of people are your
customers that's one tower per ~136 square miles.

Note: These numbers are not accurate for several reasons including directional
antenna on towers etc but they give a ballpark.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
DOCSIS 3.1 supports multi-gigabit speeds on coax. With actual fiber 100Gbps
links are commercially available. For equivalent performance you aren't
serving 35,000 homes per tower, it's more like 35. And a provider having a
lower penetration rate doesn't save you any towers, they still have to exist
and be operated by someone else in order for those people to have service.
Splitting the market between more providers each with lower customer density
would only make each provider's costs higher -- same total number of towers
but now you each need your own spectrum.

------
East902
Can't see why anyone wouldn't support net neutrality, especially consumers. If
only the administration would listen, our opinion doesn't mean much.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Depends on the consumer. The ones getting zero-rated video from AT&T would
_hate_ to see net neutrality rules. To them, it's bad.

~~~
mattnewton
Then they are short sighted (or it is a tragedy of the commons). Zero rating
is being done at the expense of allowing a free competitive market, and they
will have no one to blame by themselves when service get crappier and there
are fewer options in the future.

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ccvannorman
1: No informed citizen in their right mind wants this to pass

2: Big telecoms are making a lot of spam to force democracy to their whim

3: People become aware of this and its talked about in news, "Well I heard the
count was neck in neck, 'Oh well I heard that Comcast paid spammers'",
deepening public hate of Comcast-esque companies

4: Comcast et al will get their way as usual and next week no one will care

~~~
geogra4
aren't there big players on the other side.

Why aren't the big VC houses fighting this? This seriously hampers their
ability to have their startups have equal access to the open internet.

~~~
ccvannorman
VCs are way more interested in investing in 10 companies that might give them
a 100x return than meddling in politics.

Historically, regressive ideologies have funded think tanks at an order of
magnitude higher than progressives. Good luck fighting old money dollar for
dollar.

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dingo_bat
> in this post I use the term “spam” to connote an identical bit of text that
> was repeatedly filed many times

Wow! Nice definition of spam. Remove the most popular opinion, and hey look!
everybody supports NN.

> there is some evidence of botting/spamming on the pro-NN side as well
> (though likely not to the same degree), which is not addressed in this post,
> and could shift conclusions.

IMO, this is just a blatantly biased attempt to delegitimatize any anti-NN
feedback. Many people send their comments thru websites with boilerplate text,
but they do it in support of what they believe. The author has presented no
evidence that the comments he removed from consideration are actually spam and
no evidence that the second most popular phrase (in favor of NN) is not spam.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
I mean the below section of the post is fairly contradictory to your claim.

> To further investigate this hypothesis, I randomly sampled 1000 filings that
> used the repeated text and queried the HaveIBeenPwned API to retrieve a list
> of known data breaches that the associated emails were involved in. I found
> that ~76% of emails associated with the repeated comment had been involved
> in at least one data breach, and ~66% were part of the RCM breach
> specifically:

~~~
dingo_bat
My email address has also been part of multiple breaches. But I have changed
my passwords quick enough that I am sure my email was not used to spam in this
instance. The author's hypothesis would be stronger only if the breaches are
fairly recent. Anything > a few months ago is likely not compromised anymore.
Also, we need to know the same number for the most popular repeated pro-NN
comment.

Edit: apparently the RCM breach occurred quite recently. So I guess there is
some legitimacy to the hypothesis. I would still like to see the same number
for the pro-NN repeated comments too.

~~~
Chaebixi
> But I have changed my passwords quick enough that I am sure my email was not
> used to spam in this instance

Why do you think that would matter? You don't need to give the FCC your email
password to post a comment to these proceedings.

All you need to post a comment on the FCC is: name, address, and email. They
do not validate that the comment-poster actually controls the email address
they used. You can request a filing conformation, but that's _optional_ and
only says they received your comment.

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unityByFreedom
Did anyone else catch Ajit Pai's first public comment since we flooded the FCC
with pro-net neutrality comments? [1]

If he thinks that is hip or cool, he's completely out of touch.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBt84HNAGwU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBt84HNAGwU)

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egypturnash
I like the part where he "supported" his thesis that a certain class of
comments is "spam" by checking a random sample of the associated email
addresses against HaveIBeenPwned and finding that 75% of them showed up in
there, but did not bother to make sure this is actually a real signal by
checking a random sample of "real" comments as well.

------
pvnick
Corporate interests currently support net neutrality regulations for whatever
reason. So you get entertainers like John Oliver pushing young folks who don't
know any better to submit comments. Free market solutions are rarely in vogue.
Thus the discrepency.

------
Frogolocalypse
Shame it won't make any difference.

------
revel
I, for one, am shocked to hear this. Shocked I say

------
devwastaken
Thats how democracy dies. It doesn't have to change it explicitly, it has to
incite tact, and leave a trail. Every day, we are making history. If we do not
speak, then the future will think we weren't talking.

~~~
tn135
Sorry. I do not think people commenting on some document has anything to do
with democracy that might be mob or troll rule but it isn't democracy (not
that I am a fan of democracy either).

Personally I agree with FCC's stand and keeping governments and elites who
want everyone else to pay more for their "fair use" out of the equation looks
like a good thing for me. I don't have time to comment on that document
because I agree with administration.

~~~
nerdponx
It's a shame you're being downvoted for sharing your opinion. Personally I
think you're delusional, but it's not like downvotes are going to change your
mind.

~~~
sdoering
Thanks for being a voice of reason and free speech. I also do not agree in the
slightest with the OP, but non the less being down-voted to hell is a bit
harsh imho.

That is not how democracy should work. We should counter his (missing)
arguments. Sadly he/she/it did not provide anything substantial on that one
could base a valid argument.

~~~
mrout
Sorry for the harsh language, but that's _fucking ridiculous_ in this context.

Free speech? Free speech doesn't exist so that people can make ridiculous
comments like 'taking comments from the public into account when making policy
is mob rule'. Free speech exists _so that people can make those comments on
policy and have them heard_.

~~~
nerdponx
You're wrong too --- but only in my opinion. What free speech really "exists
for" is hard to pin down[1].

It's actually an interesting legal perspective. These are unelected officials,
appointed by an indirectly elected official (albeit confirmed by directly
elected ones) interacting directly with the public. It's a bizarre reversal of
the Jeffersonian republic, like a direct democracy nested deep inside a
republic. The fact that the poster is totally wrong does not alone make the
idea worth censoring.

If you don't listen to people who disagree with you, how can you hope to
engage them in debate? Case in point: you got downvoted so many times you were
[flagged] and [dead], and I vouched for you. 1) You didn't deserve it. 2) I
wanted to bring you back so I could make the point that, under your idea of
free speech, you'd still be [dead].

[1]: [https://www.thefire.org/a-reminder-about-shouting-fire-
in-a-...](https://www.thefire.org/a-reminder-about-shouting-fire-in-a-crowded-
theater/)

