Net Neutrality Comments Surge Past 1.7M, an All-Time Record For the FCC 81
An anonymous reader writes Following Wednesday's Internet Slowdown campaign, the Federal Communications Commission says it has now received a total of 1,750,435 comments on net neutrality, surpassing the approximately 1.4 million complaints it saw after the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004. Wednesday saw citizens submit more than 700,000 new comments to the FCC, and place more than 300,000 calls to the agency.
Good (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the FCC can finally do their job.
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Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
I complained to the FCC....
I didn't see enough of Janet's breast to compensate for watching the Superbowl.
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I wonder how many of those Janet Jackson complaints were real and not just blown up by groups like the "Parents Television Council", who have way less members than the complaints reflect.
They were just applying th eold Question "What would Jesus do?"
The answer is obvious - he would have looked at Janet's tits.
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I wonder how many of those Janet Jackson complaints were real and not just blown up by groups like the "Parents Television Council", who have way less members than the complaints reflect.
They were just applying th eold Question "What would Jesus do?"
The answer is obvious - he would have looked at Janet's tits.
It would be unprofessional not to. His father built them after all, and one day J-dawg will have to take over the family business.
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They were just applying th eold Question "What would Jesus do?"
The answer is obvious - he would have looked at Janet's tits.
He also would have flicked the paste off
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They were just applying th eold Question "What would Jesus do?"
The answer is obvious - he would have looked at Janet's tits.
He also would have flicked the paste off
Good point
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Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of corporate dollars will surpass the number of comments. I think the exchange rate of comments to dollars is pretty lopsided. Guess which way it it skews.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
Yep. That is the gist of America's new oligarchy.
"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-... [bbc.com]
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The FCC's job isn't to regulate the internet. They just shoved themselves into that role and idiots online signing petitions just gladly handed the role to them. As a result of that - and this stupid campaign - you're going to end up with metered internet access and more policing of "lawful content". Well done, fucktards. The internet won't be what it is, in another ten or fifteen years. Just remember to look back over your shoulder and blame yourselves for it.
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Re: Will we need to move overseas someday for dece (Score:1)
America is supposedly the most technologically advanced country in the world and thanks to our politics other countries have and will continue to have better internet access. It seems ludicrous but I could see companies relocating to countries with better internet access with fewer restrictions and better pricing. It has happened with labor, supply chain, customer support, and other areas so how long before our government causes it to happen with Internet access?
The argument may be fallacious but I find i
In a strange coincidence... (Score:4, Insightful)
1,750,435 names were added to the No-Fly List today.
All under the suspicion of plotting to vote incorrectly.
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Ahhah - funny one - that would only be the case if voting meant more than leg exercize.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm sure they'll manage. A cushy retirement/sinecure is too much to pass up.
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I observe that the prospect of having to pay extra for netflix has motivated more people to get up and take action than all of Snowden's revelations combined.
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Maybe the FCC can finally do their job.
Which would be, what? Doing the bidding of those who grease the most palms? There hasn't been anything stopping them so far.
Internet Slowdown Campaign? (Score:4, Interesting)
News to me.
Which is a novelty for this site.
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I think I saw it on here, which is why I added the banner to my site.
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The campaign was invisible to those with noscript enabled.
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People with NoScript on are likely already aware of the issue and strong supporters of net neutrality. This was about informing the commoners.
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I didn't see any slowdown on that day.
Posted from my 2400bps modem.
good (Score:3)
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Man, when personal citizens' rights and powerful corporate interests align, amazing things can happen.
Now if we could only get powerful corporations to do the same thing on NSA overreach, CIA overreach, money in politiics, ...
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Man, when personal citizens' rights and powerful corporate interests align, amazing things can happen.
Now if we could only get powerful corporations to do the same thing on NSA overreach, CIA overreach, money in politiics, ...
If the majority of people would vote (at the ballot and with their wallets) for their own rational self-interests once in a while, and not what the silver-tongued TV sound bite sold to them, this would happen much more often. My cynical side tells me that few will ever appreciate the value of abstract principles in and of themselves, but the self-interest angle should be at least achievable.
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Nothing amazing has happened.
Emails and phone calls don't enrich politicians. Big business does. The FCC Chair is a former cable industry lobbyist for fucks sake!
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Now if we could only get powerful corporations to do the same thing on NSA overreach, CIA overreach
Of of them tried, but were slapped with gag orders so they couldn't even mention it to anyone.
what was the SCORE? (Score:2)
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did FOR beat AGAINST?
Only in terms of numbers, in terms of net worth Against had it by a landslide.
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Well, that year.
Clearly this particular Puritannical (shallow, phoney) "moral" crusade must prevail. We must make certain that small children NEVER see a woman's nipple!
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Then how would the baby feed? With his eyes closed?
Maybe the manufacturers of formula can use this as a marketing angle.
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Then how would the baby feed? With his eyes closed?
Yes Ted, that was the joke.
Now you ruined it for everybody.
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Well, that year.
Clearly this particular Puritannical (shallow, phoney) "moral" crusade must prevail. We must make certain that small children NEVER see a woman's nipple!
I'm sure that companies like Nestle could get behind that argument... wait; they already did [theguardian.com]!
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It had nothing to do with that and you know it.
There are rules in place so people can know where to go without being offended. Guess what, when those rules are ignored and people are offended, they act offended and demand something be done about it. Even the game has a delay for the TV editors to change views, angles and do on. Even if the nipple slip qas an accident, the live coverage could have switched cameras without broadcasting the nipple. They didn't, people got offended, the FCc enforced the rules.
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Here here! Now let's turn on some primetime TV. VIOLENCE, BLOOD, AND GORE! Don't stare at those boobies, Timmy, your mom says they're evil because she feels inept with her tits you sucked the perkiness out of. Awe, still I love ya son, the site of those eggs on a fork reminds me watch my cholesterol.
Tits (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a little more concerned that the fact that Janet Jackson's led to over a million complains. Why are American's afraid of tits?! There wasn't even a nipple. I don't get it!
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I'm a little more concerned that the fact that Janet Jackson's led to over a million complains. Why are American's afraid of tits?! There wasn't even a nipple. I don't get it!
Because their football game was tits up and it wasn't even the second half.
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I think I would have written in to complain about the entire show; the "wardrobe malfunction" wouldn't really have played into the complaint at all. But then, I didn't watch the superbowl that year, and so didn't have to put up with the sensationalist half time show.
And they will read them when? (Score:1)
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I don't think it really matters. The FCC has to pull legal stunts which will likely be overturned in court just to get the jurisdiction to cover the internet let alone regulate it.
The bigger problem is netneutrality isn't a single issue. Ask a dozen random people and you will get half a dozen or more answers. Even the politicians who you would expect to be somewhat versed in the subject before they speak on it will have different answers. This likely means that the FCC will be under pressure from them just
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If this ...
The FCC has to pull legal stunts which will likely be overturned in court just to get the jurisdiction to cover the internet let alone regulate it.
ever happens, I wonder what these people will do
... surpassing the approximately 1.4 million complaints it saw after the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast ...
when they find out what's available on the internet.
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They wont do a damned thing they haven't already done.
The problem with the breast wasn't that she showed them but where the showing happened. It happened on a station that was supposed to not show it at all due to federal regulations. When that station failed to prevent its showing, (which was entirely possible due to a broadcadt delay specifically designed to deal with stuff like that) they became upset. Its no different than you going to a library for study and getting pissed because they decided to hold
Quality not Quantity (Score:5, Informative)
It was recently found that when the FCC (or some other US federal govt. agency) has a request for comments, they're only compelled to seriously consider the in-depth, intelligent comments. In practice, this means that form-letters done via the EFF website etc. are tossed out, while lawyer-produced walls of text that read like Congressional legal pronouncements get serious consideration. Almost always, the latter are produced by big businesses with lots of money to spend on lawyers to ensure the decision goes in the direction of greater profits for themselves.
The only way to undermine this is for organizations like the EFF, and individuals, to gather and present as much easily-digestible data as possible and edit and refine their message until it's intelligible and palatable to a politician. Mindless ranting is immediately dismissed as uninformed. Probably only a dozen or so of these 1.7 million messages will actually be read by a decision-maker.
Fax is the best medium to contact your agencies with, as it tends to be printed and read by a human, rather than a keyword-search-delete-all like can be done for email ("delete all emails containing superlatives"). Also, 1.7 million sounds alot bigger when pushcarts full of paper can be wheeled into their office, rather than the messages easily fitting on a disc or flash drive. I presume they don't tend to auto-OCR faxes.
citation (Score:5, Informative)
It was recently found that when the FCC (or some other US federal govt. agency) has a request for comments, they're only compelled to seriously consider the in-depth, intelligent comments.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/... [slashdot.org]
OMG! (Score:1)
That'll take the issue-thank-you-for-your-feedback-then-discard-message bot ages to process those.
Predicted Response... (Score:5, Funny)
Your comments give me such a thrill,
But your comments don't pay my bills!
And the lesson here is... (Score:5, Funny)
...that the only thing that stirs more outrage than a nipple on TV is the chance that one will have to deal with a slow connection when downloading a picture of it.
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Now Be Very Careful (Score:5, Interesting)
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because it calls for equal treatment of *lawful* content.
No internally consistent definition of metwork nuetrality would call for any distinction between "lawful" and "unlawful." Attempting to do so would almost completely defeat the purpose of neutrality in the first place!
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> That no legal content may be blocked; and
FrankDrebin is right. That's quite a loophole. Make a note of that, everyone, and include objections to it in your e-mails.
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And watch settlement-free peering die quickly too as the monster ISP's declare war on the remaining independents, backed by the FCC (which __DUH__ is in their pockets already). If this happens the monster ISP's will write the new regulations behind closed doors and it'll be strongly in their favor to preferentially comply.
98% of the people who are writing these letters don't even know what the terms that are in play mean, much less are they able to understand the consequences.
I guess that's normal for a de
Internet delay (Score:1)
Comments filed: 1.7x10^6. Fucks given: zero. (Score:2)
Attempting to do the math as to how much they care will get you a big hole in the dirt somewhere in Nicaragua.
The issue isn't really net neutrality. (Score:5, Interesting)
In deregulated markets when you have competition, if your Netflix doesn't work, you shout at your ISP who either loses you as a customer, or sorts their peering out.
Problem in the states would seem to be that if your Netflix doesn't work, you don't appear to usually have an alternate/comparable ISP you can switch to that will give you working Netflix.They've got you over a barrel, and see an opportunity to make money. Asking you for extra cash to make your netflix work is what they'd really love to do, but as they can't, they'll ask Netflix for it (who'll then ultimately have to pass this onto you).
Looking at it another way - if you had a 'net neutral' google connection available to you, you wouldn't care what other ISPs you didn't use were doing.
US ISPs are currently trying to have their cake and eating it - they want the regulation that prevents the competition, but don't want regulation that makes the connection 'neutral' (whatever exactly you think that means).
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I disagree with that. What we want is to have net neutrality in practice. Now competition in the ISP market is a tool that could lead to net neutrality. It is an indirect way of getting net neutrality. But I strongly believe that net neutrality is important enough that we want to have a direct regulation about it.
Now, more competition in the ISP market woud not hurt :)
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net neutrality is still useful to have, even if competition actually existed.
competition by its very nature leads to less and less competition over time, til we end up right back where we are now.