

New poll: 1 in 5 Americans want 'Net regulated like TV - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/new-poll-21-of-americans-want-net-regulated-like-tv.ars

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mpk
Most people don't know what the FCC's charter is, what its position is in
relation to other governmental entities and lets not get started on the
Internet itself. Most people just think of it as this magic black box (and why
would they not?).

Asking random people to decide on what they do or do not want the FCC to do
regarding the Internet will inevitably result in answers based on flawed
premises.

Take the Campaign to Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide as an example here.

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dihydrogen_mo...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax)

~~~
lucasjung
"Asking random people to decide on what they do or do not want the FCC to do
regarding the Internet will inevitably result in answers based on flawed
premises."

Let's rephrase that a little and see what we get: Asking [constituents] to
decide on what they do or do not want [any particular government agency] to do
regarding [any particular issue] will result in [a pretty good indicator of
how congress is likely act].

If congress is hearing that "random people" (aka "constituents") are against
"more" or "TV-like" regulation of the internet, then congress is going to take
steps to prevent the FCC from doing whatever it is that congress thinks people
don't want. If you don't like this, rather than pointing out "uninformed"
typical voters are you'd be much better served by trying to "inform" them.

Caution: a lot of times, "typical" people hear what experts have to say and
respond with something to the effect of, "I understand and accept the facts as
you have explained them, but I do not share your opinion about what should be
done in light of those facts because I am balancing your concerns against a
whole list of other concerns which you prioritize very differently."
Frustrated experts routinely misinterpret this as "we don't need your stinkin
'facts,' nerd-boy!" because they consider their chosen issue to be so
important that they are incapable of understanding how someone could
understand the facts and still come to a different conclusion. This is usually
followed by general complaints about "anti-intellectualism."

Aside: when I was in high school, a group of friends and I distributed
anti-H20 literature with great success: other students started making their
own photocopies and redistributing them, eventually to teachers and faculty. A
few days after we started the process, an airhead vice-principal (our school
had multiple vice-principals) was in the process of organizing a student group
when the AP Chemistry teacher took her aside and tried to politely explain to
her that she had been had. At first she wouldn't hear it, and turned his
attempt at a quiet aside into a noisy and public scene, much to her eventual
embarrassment. I'm pretty sure he knew we were responsible, but didn't bust us
because he was so annoyed by that vice-principal.

~~~
zeemonkee
Reminds me of the British satire Brass Eye, which conned a number of
celebrities about a new drug called "Cake":

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0GxUxKZdHk>

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biot
Shouldn't the title be "80% of Americans do not want the net regulated"?

~~~
gnaritas
Depends on who you're trying to manipulate.

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elai
You can make opinion polls say what you want to say.

Look at this comical example from yes prime minister:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMcZic1d4U>

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stelfer
Well luckily that's not even a remote possibility even in an alternate
universe. They should stick to stuff they understand.

~~~
electromagnetic
I'd love to have a TV that could watch an alternate reality and just see the
hilarity that would ensue if this passed.

Step 1: All US hosted sites facing regulation would simply move host to
anywhere but the US, collapsing US hosting companies (Why do I feel the people
likely to vote for this legislation are the same people who have the moronic
"Out of a job yet? Keep buying foreign!" bumper stickers on their 1997 Fords
and Chevy's)

Step 2: US government follows suit of China and Middle Eastern countries and
builds its own Great Wall to filter the internet. This creates huge political
problems when everything from ecommerce to email becomes difficult between US
and foreign countries.

Step 3: The US government that instituted the Great Wall ultimately gets
kicked out of government for causing internet prices to hike to well over 200%
original price instead of including it in the tax budget.

Step 4: The Great Wall ends up a multi-billion dollar kiddie porn filter.

Honestly I don't even comprehend the reasoning behind regulating the internet,
given that you have to pay to use it - just like you have to pay to watch HBO
or an R rated movie.

Here's where regulation for the internet should start and end: All customers
subscribing to internet services should sign a waiver saying they understand
that the ISP and US government is not responsible for content on the internet,
but that the content creator is and any concerns about content should be
addressed to the content creator and _not_ your local government
representative.

~~~
javert
_Here's where regulation for the internet should start and end: All customers
subscribing to internet services should sign a waiver saying they understand
that the ISP and US government is not responsible for content on the internet,
but that the content creator is and any concerns about content should be
addressed to the content creator and not your local government
representative._

Why not just teach the US Constitution in school and/or mail a copy of it to
all citizens? Your statement follows directly from the following two
"premises": (1) U.S. Constitution. (2) The Internet is built atop private
property.

~~~
anamax
> The Internet is built atop private property.

It's private property which crosses state lines, which is more than you can
say for Wickard's wheat.

Today there are relatively few constitutional constraints on regulation of
interstate commerce.

~~~
ataggart
Filburn's wheat. Wickard was the Secretary of Agriculture.

~~~
javert
Is your username a reference to Atlas Shrugged? If so, I'm intrigued; if not,
I apologize---I bet you get that a lot.

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hristov
I have to agree with arstechnica here. The questions here are either extremely
loaded or utterly idiotic (the tv question being the latter). If Ramundsen had
any integrity they would have never taken this poll.

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powera
Rasmussen is more a Republican lobbying organization than a polling firm at
this point. Scott Rasmussen, the namesake founder, is very clearly also a
Republican activist. Personally, I wouldn't believe him if he put out a poll
that said 90% of Americans believe the sky is blue.

Their "political class" spin is even more complete BS; they routinely say the
"political class" is like 5% of the US population, and assign it all sorts of
boogey-man positions based on a sample size that can't exceed 100.

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dotcoma
and a remote control, too?

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txt
" following a telephone survey of 1,000 "likely voters." "

~~~
lucasjung
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you questioning the veracity
of the "likely voters" screen? If so, you should understand that this is not
some arbitrary designation. Different pollsters have different methods for
applying this screen, and none of them are perfect, but all of them are based
on serious analysis by real experts. I'm not a polling expert, but I've read
enough about it to have an appreciation for how complex the problem is, and
how creative some of the pollsters can be in finding ways to make their polls
more accurate. For anyone interested in building an "enlightened layman's"
understanding of polling, a good place to start is by reading Sean Trende:

<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/authors/sean_trende/>

It's not necessarily that he's the best analyst out there (I happen to think
that he's at least in contention for that title), but rather that he explains
all of his reasoning and processes so clearly.

~~~
powera
Unless there is going to be a national plebiscite, whether or not a person
plans to vote in some election (he doesn't say which) shouldn't really be
relevant here. Congress and regulatory agencies are supposed to represent all
the people, not just the ones that vote.

~~~
lucasjung
"Congress and regulatory agencies are supposed to represent all the people,
not just the ones that vote."

That may be what government is supposed to do, but in reality congressional
representatives and senators mostly care about the ones that vote, since
that's how they keep (or lose) their jobs. Also, I don't think that's all bad:
"How much have you voted in the past? And do you plan to vote again next
time?" is a pretty good proxy for "How much do you care about current issues?"
Not voting is a way for the less informed/concerned to defer to the more
informed/concerned. In an ideal world everyone would be fully informed and
concerned, and so everyone would vote, but humans aren't ideal and our system
handles that fact pretty well.

Furthermore, while there generally is a diffrence of about 5 points between
likely voters and registered voters, and another five points between
registered voters and adults, there's no way that a 1:5 ratio is going to
swing the opposite way due to the difference between likely voters and the
general population. At best it would shift to 1:4 or 1:3, still an
overwhelming majority.

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Detrus
As Dick Cheney eloquently put when asked about about approval ratings:

"So?"

