
Cable Companies Are Astroturfing Fake Consumer Support to End Net Neutrality - ghosh
http://www.vice.com/read/cables-companies-are-astroturfing-fake-consumer-support-to-end-net-neutrality
======
ilamont
Cable companies have been astroturfing the net neutrality issue for years. In
the Boston area in 2006, a Verizon astroturfing scheme was blown out of the
water when a local blogger became suspicious after receiving a strange email
from a local college student (1). Comcast has also employed professionally run
astroturfing campaigns to serve its own ends (2). It would not surprise me if
both companies have their anonymous shills drop by HN from time to time to
pollute the waters.

1\. [http://borderlinenewtonwaltham.blogspot.com/2006/09/lies-
cab...](http://borderlinenewtonwaltham.blogspot.com/2006/09/lies-cable-tv-and-
patrick-hynes.html)

2\. [http://stopthecap.com/2011/11/15/comcasts-snake-oil-
astrotur...](http://stopthecap.com/2011/11/15/comcasts-snake-oil-astroturf-
operation-pulls-up-stakes-in-longmont/)

------
iwwr
There is some genuine concern about any regulations involving the internet.
But the need for Net Belligerence only arises in stifled and monopolized
markets. The solution would be to break open the myriad of rules that make it
hard for independent ISPs to expand: from local right-of-way's to utility
poles to telecom regulations.

When bandwidth is expanding in a Moore's law manner, Net Neutrality begins to
be less relevant. ISPs under market forces will expand their network capacity
to meet demand. It's monopoly ISPs that want to forego that investment to
squeeze out content distributors.

In the end, even if Net Neutrality is passed, that still leaves entrenched
monopoly ISPs with outdated networks (and terrible customer support). Even if
the big ISPs get broken up and get forced to inter-connect, there remains the
problem of local regulations, right-of-way's and utility poles (local
utilities are also monopolies under political control).

~~~
Zigurd
Alternatively, regulate the last mile as a utility and create a
wholesale/retail market. Also called "structural separation."

~~~
nickff
Is this not what the government did to the telephone companies providing
internet services, which subsequently caused them to stop investing in their
infrastructure, thus resulting in the current market situation, where only
cable companies provide broadband?

~~~
vertex-four
> Is this not what the government did to the telephone companies providing
> internet services, which subsequently caused them to stop investing in their
> infrastructure, thus resulting in the current market situation, where only
> cable companies provide broadband?

Last I checked, they never split up Bell into separate retail, wholesale, and
infrastructure divisions operating as separate companies. Look at BT's
organisation for how it's better done: BT Wholesale sell everything from the
exchange to the backbones to retailers, and BT Openreach (generally) maintain
the last mile. Then, there's a market of retail ISPs who buy services and
space in the exchanges from BT Wholesale, BT Openreach, and other companies,
and sell a whole Internet service to businesses and consumers.

If BT Wholesale or BT Openreach didn't get off their arses, there's now enough
money floating around in the right places for any retail ISP or group of ISPs
to invest in replacing them. They don't really want to, as there'd be a bunch
of red tape and figuring out how the regulations apply, but they could if they
needed to. We also have Ofcom, which is a very strong telecoms regulator which
keeps this market running fairly (i.e. various parts of BT can't give out
special discounts to retail ISPs, new services fall under the same
regulations, etc).

We've had a few bumps, but all in all, it's going well for us. Many in the
cities and large towns now have access to 70Mbps fully unmetered, unshaped
Internet access through a number of ISPs for no more than their previous
Internet package cost, and they can also often get Internet access through
American-style cable companies (Virgin being the big one).

We're still trying to solve the problem of investment in rural areas, but
there's actually been a couple of success stories regarding independent
community ISPs, and I've noticed various towns you'd generally regard as
"small" having their exchanges being upgraded to support fibre.

------
nikanj
As a person living abroad, I find it quite amusing to watch the struggle for
decent internet in the US. The Time Warner / Comcast merger seems to be a done
deal, and looks like net neutrality is going away soon.

Everyone hates these companies, there's a strong grassroots movement to fix
the policies, and you guys actually do deserve better. The amount of
corruption evident in these developments is staggering, and yet there seems to
be no real possibility of the opposition succeeding in their goals.

~~~
rybosome
I agree completely. It's difficult to watch this without feeling deeply
cynical about our particular implementation of democracy. The wants of the
wealthy few are being given precedence over the needs of the many.

~~~
crazy1van
> particular implementation of democracy

What about the implementation is causing the results you dislike? I think it
may be less the system itself and more the specific choices of voters that are
causing the undesirable results.

~~~
freshhawk
But you don't get to change the voters, only the system (well ... besides re-
education camps or similar I guess).

So if the specific choices of the voters are consistently against their own
interests it has to be the systems fault. POSIWID [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does)

~~~
crazy1van
Yeah I agree. The citizenry is the citizenry. No changing that. The tricky
thing is to design a system where it is more difficult for them to make
certain choices (arguably bad ones). Taken too far, you end up without a
democracy anymore.

Although I think representative government is important, perhaps even more
important is the protection of rights of those people not in the majority. You
hear this constant drum beat from the American conservatives advocating for
more democracy in the world. Certainly, that is an element of a solution. But
that alone will just end up with mob rule and life for those outside the mob
will be terrible.

~~~
ams6110
Which American conservatives advocate for more democracy without rule of law
and strong protection of individual rights (particularly property rights)?
None I've heard.

~~~
warfangle
I'm pretty sure most American conservatives advocate for less democracy
(corporations are people, my friend!), less rule of law (if not by voting, by
actions: be it sexual misconduct -- from rape to child molestation -- or
outright abuse of power for personal monetary gain) and less individual rights
(from gay marriage to the surveillance state).

~~~
crazy1van
While I don't agree with the simplistic neo-conservative view of just try to
spread democracy everywhere, I think your critiques are unfair.

> corporations are people, my friend!

Of course they are. Corporations are groups of people pooling their resources.
Why would people lose rights by acting together with other people?

> less rule of law (if not by voting, by actions: be it sexual misconduct --
> from rape to child molestation

I don't think there is any wing of American politics in favor of rape or child
molestation. I'm assuming this comment refers to a particular event that I'm
not aware of.

> or outright abuse of power for personal monetary gain

That's just power + human nature. I don't think it follows party lines.

> less individual rights (from gay marriage to the surveillance state).

I agree, conservatives have been stupid on gay marriage. Why would the same
people who always advocate family values want to prevent people who care
deeply for each other from forming new families?

As for the surveillance state, that seems to be about the same on both sides
of the political spectrum.

~~~
warfangle
>Why would people lose rights by acting together with other people?

Well, they as individuals don't. And shouldn't! Why would preventing
corporations from funding politicians prevent the individual members of a
corporation from funding politicians? Organizations probably shouldn't be
donating to political campaigns or political action committees, be they unions
or banks or technology companies. Politics is for the individual, not the
conglomerate. Otherwise you're knee deep in lester-land[0] and all the quid
pro quo corruption that results from it.

>I don't think there is any wing of American politics in favor of rape or
child molestation.

Oh, the politics doesn't favor it, but a lot of (both)-wing politicians tend
to get caught diddling people they're not supposed to[1], including minors.

>that seems to be about the same on both sides of the political spectrum.

That's because there really is only one side of the political spectrum in this
country :) Right wing (democrats) or extremist right wing (republicans). There
is no left in this country, there's just "left of."

0.[http://www.lessig.org/2013/04/lesterland-the-talk-the-
ebook-...](http://www.lessig.org/2013/04/lesterland-the-talk-the-ebook-the-
abook-as-in-audio-book/)
1.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_sex_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_sex_scandals_in_the_United_States)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Why would preventing corporations from funding politicians prevent the
> individual members of a corporation from funding politicians?

Even under _Citizens United_ , corporations _are_ still prohibited from
funding politicians, _per se_. What they are _permitted_ to do is make
unlimited independent expenditures of their own funds in order to promote
candidates, policies, etc.

And corporations are not just natural persons banding together, they are
creations of government through which other people in society subsidize the
downside risk of the people "banding together" in the corporation, including
debts incurred -- so anything they are allowed to spend funds on is something
that potentially something _other people_ would be forced to pay for even
though the people "banding together" were solvent.

------
milesf
I love that we use words like "astroturfing" to soften the behaviour of people
(corporations merely being a collection of people acting as one).

We used to call it "lying" and "deception" as in "The cable companies have
been lying and being deceitful about the net neutrality issue".

<sarcasm> So glad we have improved as a society </sarcasm>

------
zeruch
ALL of them need reclassification to common carrier status. Then their exec
staffs need to be Clockwork Oranged.

We are a laughing stock against the broadband in almst any other industrial
state AND we have these mendacious toads astroturfing pure nonsense.

------
stretchwithme
All the more reason we need proportional representation and the ability to
overrule Congress via referendum.

The appearance of voter approval needs to be replaced with actual voter
approval.

~~~
nitrogen
Any referendum process needs to have a robust way of ensuring that the
descriptions of the proposals are unbiased, truthful, and complete. It's easy
to make it look like a referendum makes a situation better by using words like
"sets" when "changes" is more correct, and by never mentioning the status quo,
for example.

~~~
stretchwithme
The Swiss do it all the time and can vote directly on legislation already
passed by the legislative body. It just takes a petition with enough
signatures.

Yes, people that are dummy can be deceived. There is no system that will ever
prevent that. But even dumb people learn to not vote for things that they
don't understand.

------
BugBrother
To make a modest proposal, there is a business idea here.

Putin's junta has the Swedish (and other minority languages) comment fields
filled up with propaganda.

The Russian comments are _easily_ recognizable by the opinions (even the left
wing extremists in Sweden are upset by 1930s style destabilisation and
overtaking of areas in Europe).

But at least half the problem is the obviously bad language idioms etc. You
can't just translate arguments and use them in all cultural environments.
Also, the fake upvotes for the media which accept them are clunky and obvious.
It is just not competently done astroturf.

All this goes for Chinese and Iranian political astroturfing etc as well.

To sell high quality astroturf as a service in different countries should be
worth lots of money. Even big countries like Russia struggle to organize the
service competently, then they have part time employees which aren't
specialized.

Edit: I assume that e.g. China, if they don't go democratic, later will add a
minority language/culture as work requirement for their armies -- note plural
-- of censors. So there is a window of opportunity before some junta implement
this and sell the service to other dictators and equally moral companies.

(For anyone missing the "modest proposal", this is tongue in cheek. At least
mostly.)

Edit: Fixed clarity etc.

~~~
rjsw
Israel seems to do astroturfing in english pretty well.

~~~
BugBrother
That was a not particularly subtle example the other way? :-)

Not that it really is relevant, but the other side in that conflict gets a
very good showing in Swedish.

(E.g. Pallywood or torture between Palestinian groups were straight out
censored in Swedish media. Swedes in general have no clue that more Jews were
kicked out from the moslem world -- just for their religion, not in a civil
war -- than the number of Palestinians which fled/was kicked out. And so on.
You can fall off your chair laughing if you follow the Swedish news re Mideast
in parallel with BBC/NY Times, which is the main reason I know anything about
the subject.)

------
dang
Url changed from [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/cable-
companies-b...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/cable-companies-
bankroll-fake-consumer-groups-to-end-net-neutrality/), which points to this.

------
twobits
In a more abstract pov, govs are not bad, and companies are not bad. It's a
false dilemma. BIG govs are bad, and BIG companies are bad. Notice the common
attribute? It's about relative power. That's why companies "lose their ideals"
(hello google), when they grow big. It's not about inner organization and
communication. It's about BIG. The obvious solution for a society, is to limit
the maximum power differential between entities. ("We the people", is one such
entity.) The actual implementation of that, is left as an exercise to the
reader :-) (..But history has shown, that I/we shouldn't be optimistic.)

