Why is There a Battle Over Net Neutrality?

Net neutrality is the idea that the internet is a public good and that everyone should have equal, unfettered access to it. Though the FCC strongly supported it with new rules in 2015, today’s FCC is under new leadership and has other ideas.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, stuff you should know is going on tour.
Do do do do do? What are the deeds? My friend? Okay,
So starting August eighth in Toronto, that's in Canada. We're
gonna be at dan Fourth Music Hall. And then Chicago.
We're gonna be there the next night, August nine, at
the Harris Theater at Chicago. We want to see your faces.
Step it up, Step it Up. Vancouver or the Vote

(00:23):
Theater September. That's gonna be a great show, I think,
don't you. It's gonna be a great one. And then
Minneapolis at the Pantageous Theater where we've been before. It's
lovely September. Yeah, and then we're gonna swing down to Austin.
It's gonna be during Austin City Limits, although it has
nothing to do with Austin City limits. Will be there
October ten, yes, and then we're going to Lovely Lawrence,

(00:44):
Kansas go Jayhawks. Yeah, on October eleven. Then Hey, if
you're in Kansas City or anywhere in that area, this
is your chance. Get in your car. Yeah. Uh. If
you are anywhere near Brooklyn, well then you should go
to the Bellhouse October. Will be there all three nights.
And finally we're gonna wrap it up here in Atlanta
at the Bucket Theater on November four for a benefit

(01:05):
show where we are donating all of the money's to
Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta and the National Down Syndrome Society. Yep.
So for all this information again visually and for links
two tickets, just go to s y s K live
dot com. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House

(01:26):
Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there.
So this is stuff you should know the podcast. Correct.
We are not going dark, No, although that's a thing.

(01:46):
It is a thing for the Battle for the Net
Action Day, Battle of the Network Stars. Nope, just net okay,
Battle for the Net Yeah, which I would guess most
people have heard of, maybe not by that name necessarily,
but um say, if you're a John Oliver fan or

(02:06):
have been paying attention at all to the FCC rules
about net neutrality, um, Battle for the Net is is
kind of at the forefront of all that. Yeah. And
since our show comes out on a Tuesday, which is
July eleven, and that is the day that, uh, some
websites have elected to go dark. I think they're going
dark the next day. Yeah, okay, al right, well then

(02:30):
I don't feel so bad, right, but we we figured
we're actually someone wrote in suggesting this, Um, then maybe
instead of going dark, because you guys probably can't do that,
maybe you should just do an episode on net neutrality
to teach all the people's about the things, which I
thought was a pretty pretty good I suggestion. I agree,

(02:51):
good suggestion. Yeah, I feel bad that we UM. I
can't remember who it was that road in, but thank
you for that. Whoever it was, you know who you are,
because you're the only one who did. Yeah, and they
don't do it for the glory. No, So what are
we talking about, Chuck, When we're talking about net neutrality
or network neutrality or open internet? So what that is? Um?

(03:17):
Mainly what people mean when they say net neutrality is
the idea that the Internet is an open road and
it doesn't have fast lanes or slow lanes. Uh. It
is providing equal access to anyone who wants to build
a website, let's say, can can throw it up there

(03:37):
and have equal access to the big rollers on the
internet with huge sites. You're all the same as far
as how people can access you and whether or not
they can access you. Yeah, and how fast they can
access you. Exactly right. There was this um there's a
great explainer in Vox about net neutrality that that we

(04:00):
used as a resource. But they gave this good example
of net neutrality. Right, So they pointed out that when
um Facebook was created, Zuckerberg didn't have to go to
Comcast or Verizon or any of the I s p s,
the Internet service providers, the companies that provide the last mile,

(04:22):
the connection between your house and the public Internet. Okay,
that's what an I s P is very important to
remember that part. Right. He didn't have to go to
them and say, hey, will you carry my website on
your network? He just built the website, plugged it into
the Internet, uploaded it to the Internet, and it was
available to any device or computer that was connected to

(04:45):
the Internet anywhere in the world. Right. And the fact
that he didn't have to go to them and ask
that to be added to their network, The fact that
he didn't have to go to them to say, hey,
I need people to be able to download this stuff fast.
So here's a bunch of extra money. UM. The fact
that he didn't do that. That's how it has been
up to this point. That is network neutrality. That's the

(05:07):
that's the basis of net neutrality, especially from the standpoint
of UM developers and companies that create sites and applications
on the web. Yeah, it's uh wow, that's a very
large spider crawling next to me. Sorry, I saw something
out of corn ofm eye and I'm on yeah, nope,

(05:31):
just a big spider. Uh, good for you. So it's
an It levels the playing field, and all Internet traffic
is treated equally. Right, So not only does it level
the playing field for people who are creating you know,
Facebook or Netflix or what have you, it also levels

(05:51):
the playing field or levels the experience for users. Right,
if you're a user and you are on UM the
Internet through your I s P, like, you should be
getting whatever site you want to go to at the
same speed as any other site, and your Internet service
provider shouldn't be able to decide we don't really like

(06:14):
you getting that site, we don't really like you having
that app. We're gonna make it so that this this
traffic moves so slowly, you're gonna give up trying to
download it, or we're just gonna block it entirely. Yeah,
and why maybe because that's a competitor to us in
some way and we would like to serve you up
our product faster, right, So preventing sps from being able

(06:37):
to do that. That's open, open internet or network neutrality. Okay,
that's the basis of it. That is currently how it
stands right now. UM, and the idea of network neutrality,
it's it's UM, I guess about fifteen years old back
in a two to a guy named Tim Woo who
is a Columbia University law professor or not, I believe,

(07:01):
coined the term network neutrality to basically describe a level
playing field for everybody involved, right especially at the at
the Internet service provider level. And since then it's become
this topic of debate like should it should this be
um something that that that we all want to adopt

(07:23):
as like the basically the rules for the Internet. Should
network neutrality be the basis of how the Internet is
built and approached? Which is a big deal because we are,
even though it seems like we're far along, we are
still in the infancy stage of the Internet and the
impacts UH would be long lasting and huge moving forward.

(07:46):
For from what I understand, most people agree that net
neutrality is at its basis, the an agreeable way to
frame the the Internet. That's the way it should be.
And there was even back in two fourteen. As we'll see,
we just went through this um and we're going through
it again now. But back in two fourteen, there were

(08:09):
a pair of polls that I ran across from two
different groups. One of them is University of Delaware. I
can't remember who the other one was, but it found
that um, even among conservatives, that net neutrality is highly valued.
Something like eight of people who identify as conservative say
that I s p s should be prevented from slowing

(08:31):
or blocking traffic, right, and that Congress should actually do
something about it. Right. So people people buy in large
degree that net neutrality is the way the Internet should go.
The division that has really kind of come out, especially recently,
is how that good can be achieved. Do you achieve

(08:54):
it by giving power to the FCC to go police
the I s p s and find them and basically
make life hard for them if they don't follow the rules,
or do you remove any teeth that the FCC might
have in policing the I s p s and just
leave it up to competition. And depending on where you

(09:16):
fall ideologically as far as um government regulation goes, is
probably where you're going to fall along the spectrum of
net neutrality. Yeah, and it's uh, it's not a black
and white thing like you would think. Um, Like, uh,
the end user just saying, yeah, you know, there's got

(09:37):
to be net neutrality no matter what. There's a lot
of users are like, I don't know, man, I like
care about is streaming my stuff as efficiently as fast
as possible, And if if getting rid of net neutrality
would increase that competition and I could get my Netflix
movies awesomer and faster than I'm all for it, right. Um.

(10:00):
On the other side, you've got big corporate corporations that
maybe don't feel like you think they might. Yeah, you
would think, you know that stuff like this usually when
the government's involved, it's like a big guy, big corporation
versus little guy kind of thing. But no, there's a
there's a dispute between corporations too, like you said, where
the I s p s like Verizon and Comcast, UM

(10:23):
and A T and T are lined up against the
tech companies like the tech media companies like YouTube and
Netflix and formerly Tumbler, some of the other guys, Facebook, Google, um.
Where they're they're on opposite sides of this this issue,
which is strange because they need each other. They have

(10:46):
very incestuous relationships that are very complicated and complex. Um.
But as far as net neutrality goes, they are pretty
much divided between I s p s and tech media companies.
One side is the against the net neutrality rules. One
side is strongly in favor of them. Boy, and you
talk about complicated like in the future companies corporations merging

(11:09):
and then I sps being a part of the same
company or getting into the media content game, like things
are getting interesting, you know, yeah, interesting but also kind
of scary because right now, um back in well, back
in two thousand and fifteen, the FCC UM struck a
huge blow to the I s p s with a

(11:32):
set of new rules four page compendium, I guess you
would call it of rules that basically said, you guys
can't mess around anymore. The I s p s are
not allowed to block or throttle or provide fast lanes. Um.
Stuff getting real and the net really is going to
be neutral from now on. UM. That was under Obama

(11:56):
and Trump has appointed a UM a different FCC chairman
who was a member of the SEC before UH, and
he is not in favor of that at all. So, UM,
do you wanna do you want to talk about the
what the two fifteen rules are and kind of how
it is for the moment. Well, here's what I think
we should do. I think we should take a break. Okay,

(12:19):
all right, we should uh go back in time when
we come back and talk a little bit about the
phone companies, which will kind of set the stage for
what's going on today. Okay, alright, alright, we'll be right back.
That's why we should know, should know. But Josh Clark,

(12:57):
all right, I promised talk about phone companies because that's
exciting stuff. Yeah, it is. It's amazing how much telephone
companies have shaped UH law and policy in this country
over the years. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is like
with the telephone monopolies back in the day. I mean
that was it's all very interesting. Yeah, you used to
have to lease your telephone from the phone company like

(13:20):
people in buy telephones you released it. Yeah, were there
just one telephone company wasn't it just bell Yeah, basically yeah,
and then they broke it up into the smaller bells,
the baby bells. I think that's what they call them.
This is all like from my childhood, so I didn't
really look up much of that. Um, but we're talking
about the FCC. Uh here is the governing body. And

(13:41):
back in the seventies and eighties, they were sort of
early in on this game with the phone companies in
the early days of computer uh networking, and they came
out really early on. They had a lot of foresight
back then and said, you know what, we need to
guarantee consumers with the right to use modems on their
phone lines. Yeah, because this is like everyone's seeing war

(14:04):
games and we all know that that's that's how the
future is going, Right, you gotta put your phone on
a big box. Ye, your phone receiver on a big box.
I wanted one of those so bad. Yeah, Like they
were so expensive. You literally connected your phone, right. I
had no idea what to do with it. I just
thought like, well, that's that's computer plus yeah exactly. But

(14:28):
the but treating the saying okay, everybody has the right
to have a modem in their house and to use
a phone line to use it. That's that's that was
a kind of a radical idea. And the reason why
is because when you're talking about um telephone carriers right,
like back in the day, um A T and T right,
mob Belt, what what you were saying is you're a

(14:51):
private corporation. You have gone and laid telephone wires all
throughout the United States. You guys built the US telephone infrastructure.
And yes, we the government, the taxpayers, gave you substantial
tax breaks and in lots of benefits to doing this.
And you guys are the ones making the money operating

(15:13):
these phone lines. But we have decided that the phone
lines are so important to the public good that you
guys aren't allowed to just be a normal corporation. That
the government stays las fair hands off with right, you
guys are deemed order considered common carriers. But yeah, well

(15:34):
you're like the people who carry people along roads, like
goods and people. Right, You're like an airline, You're like
a you're like a cargo transport ship. You're like a
greyhound bus, but but with telephone lines. Right, So the
government said everyone should be able to have access to
telephone lines. You can charge people for that access, but

(15:57):
you can't mess with their access. We're not letting you.
And in the seventies one of the things, or the eighties,
I think one of the things the government said was, Hey,
you know how we're kind of the bosses of you guys,
even though your private corporations, Well, we're gonna boss you
around right now and say, any business that wants to
come along and use your phone lines to provide dial

(16:20):
up modem service to their customers, you have to let
them do it. And that was it was for the
public good. And by doing that, the dial up Internet
UM industry was able to blossom unfettered with government protection. Right,
the government got in between that blossoming industry that was

(16:40):
in competition with the telephone companies, and the telephone companies
that could have strangled it in the cradle. And that
was that was the first big thing that the SEC
did as far as the Internet goes. Yeah, and very
important UH distinction was drawn with basically Congress drawing up
to category stories. And this you'll see plays out kind

(17:03):
of over and over and will continue to in the future.
UM two different things, telecommunication services and information services. So
telecom services, UH we're talking about the phone lines. That
what we were talking about here, And um, as far
as the law is concerned, there are a lot of
like you were talking about, legal obligations on these services,

(17:25):
and the FCC has a lot of um oversight and
regulation over them. Yeah. Uh. Information services on the other hand, Um,
they said, like like Facebook, that's an information service. YouTube
is an information service. They were less or well basically
exempt for most of the FCC regulations. So dividing those

(17:48):
things in two was a very, very big deal. And
during the Clinton years what most people would consider what
a JITPI, which we he is Trump's um pick to
chair the FCC. He called the Clinton era and basically
up through two thousand fifteen a light touch regulation, which

(18:08):
is what he is in favor of and what we'll
get to him a little bit more in a minute. Um,
but it's that Clinton era fec uh regulations that basically
did what you're talking about and said, you know what
we want DSL that's the newest thing forget dial up.
We want to send faster speeds over the Internet, and
you all have to play along. So they did it

(18:29):
again to the phone companies. They went to and said,
remember dial up modems. No one wants that any longer.
Everybody wants DSL. So now you guys have to let
any DSL provider use your phone lines, and that let
the DSL, the beginning of the high speed Internet industry flourish. Right.
So there's this pattern of the SEC coming in and
being like, you guys are huge, You guys who provide

(18:49):
that last mile. You common carriers, who are the gatekeepers
between the public at large and the public Internet. You
guys stand in between them, and we're saying you can
do this, you can't do that. You can do this,
you can't do that. And for a while, the I
s p s were classified as telecommunication services, which meant

(19:11):
that they fell under way more oversight and scrutiny, like
you said, than say, like YouTube. And the reason the
government did this was to let the Internet start to boom, right, Yes,
And I'm not sure why, I guess because it was
Bush era, and the Bush FCC chair said we shouldn't

(19:33):
be classifying I s p s as telecommunications companies anymore,
but we have to. It's the law. He went to
court and the court said no, Actually, you guys are
the f CC. If you want to start classifying Internet
service providers as information services, which are not as heavily regulated.

(19:54):
You guys go ahead and do that. So the Bush
era FEC said, okay, well, we here by decree that
Internet service providers are not the akin to the Bell
telephone switchboard operators of your They're much more akin to YouTube.
They're part of the Internet, which, if you really stop
and think about it, doesn't make much sense. But that

(20:16):
that was that that was a huge sea change in
what the government could say or do to I s
p s. That gave them way more freedom to do
a lot more stuff after they were classified as information services. Yeah.
And then, uh, in two thousand and ten, the chair
of the SEC at the time, Julius Ganikowski, said, you

(20:38):
know what, we've got some new regulations on the books.
We're gonna prohibit I s p s from blocking content online.
We're gonna prohibit what we call unreasonable discrimination, and they're
all gonna have to be a little more transparent about
what's going on. And this is in the era of
broadband now, right. Uh. And then Verizon stepped up and said,
you know what, we don't like the sounds of this.

(21:00):
This is you guys are stepping way over your your
congressional power here. Yeah, they said, well, don't forget you
guys classified us as information services. You can't tell us
to to do or not do this stuff. We're not
telecoms anymore, suckers. Yeah, pretty much. Uh, And the d
C Circuit Cord of Appeals agreed with Verizon and this
is just inten so just a few years ago then

(21:23):
said those rules have got to go. As long as
you're classified that way, Uh, then you're gonna have to
play by these rules. Right. But that changed again in
two thousand and fourteen when Tom Wheeler came along as
the chair of the FCC and he kind of flip flopped.
He came out initially and proposed some rules that people said, no,

(21:47):
that's like, that's way too weak, bra Right, Well he was.
They got leaked and there was a huge backlash in
public outcry against it. And but I don't think anyone
was surprised because Tom Wheeler was a longstanding UM lobbyist
for the cable and wireless industries, right, so he was
an industry insider who was supposed to be regulating that

(22:10):
that industry that he was already friends within, where his
background was, so nobody was really surprised when the FCC
came out with these really weakened rules on I s
p s. But there was a huge backlash. Yeah, that
was the first battle for the net. And then Wheeler
went whooa, whoa, whoa, I was just kidding, Um, here's

(22:33):
here's my real document. He didn't really say that, but
he came up with a new document with with bigger,
sharper teeth, and that was what you referenced earlier four
page document called the two thousand fifteen Open Internet Order,
which was a really big deal. And that was a
surprise because Wheeler, again who was a lobbyist for the

(22:54):
these very industries, um not only reversed course from these
toothless weak law rules to much stronger rules that were
in step with the what the net neutrality advocates were
asking for. He actually went even further and made even stronger,
tighter net neutrality rules and then took the time to

(23:15):
write something like three hundred pages of rules explaining the
logic and the thought behind all this, which could pose
a problem as we'll talk about later for a jeep
Pie and the Trump FCC to get past. But the
the it was a huge, huge surprise that came out

(23:35):
of nowhere in an enormous victory for net neutrality advocates
and for Obama and his administration. It became one of
the signature um acts I guess or watershed moments for
the Obama administration because he campaigned as a net neutrality supporter.
And then finally, you know, one year, the last year

(23:57):
of his presidency, his FCC just dropped the mic on
net neutrality and said it is it is done. Yeah,
and within that Open Internet Order one of the first
I mean, it did a couple of big things, but
the big big thing it did was it said, hey,
remember way back in nine the Communications Act, we think

(24:17):
we can actually reclassify broadband as what we're gonna call
a title to telecommunication service. So remember earlier when we
said they split it up in the two buckets. Uh,
this all changed a couple of years ago when they
can now classify you know, Verizon, our Comcast as a
telecom service, which again means it's a common carrier and

(24:41):
much more heavily regulated. Yeah. So the SEC was like, oh,
we can't tell you what to do if you're classified
as an information service, Well you're no longer classified. Is
that you're classify as a telecommunications service now and we
are up your rectum. It's so interesting that this like
we've seen the birth of this industry that like is
being figured out in full view. Well maybe not always

(25:03):
full view, right you know what I'm saying though, Yeah,
and it's still it's still being molded right now. You know.
It's really interesting. So that was that was the first
thing that the two thousand and fifteen Open Internet Order did, right,
It reclassified the I s p s back to telecommunication status.
It really it took them out of the same league

(25:25):
as YouTube and Netflix and um all of these these
um content providers on the web and said, you guys
actually handle the nuts and bolts of it. You you
don't handle the actual content, So you're telecom now. Then
it did a second part two, which was basically saying
we're the net is now neutral. We're instilling net neutrality

(25:49):
values onto the Internet as the FCC. Yeah, and we'll
do so in three main ways. No blocking. You can't
block lawful content, can't block services, You can't block applications.
As long as it's lawful and legal content, you can't
block it. You can't throttle it. To me, throttling is
a weird word. It seems counterintuitive because through throttling, I

(26:12):
would think means you speed something up, but in this case,
it means you can't slow something down. Yeah, basically I
would say breaking, not throttling. Playing on, Yeah, but throttling
basically means, as a I s P. You can't come
in like we're talking about earlier and saying, uh, you
know what your competition Netflix to our Comcast services, So

(26:33):
we want to make sure no one can stream anything
very well, right, so we're gonna slow you down. And
then the final one was no paid prioritization, so yeah,
they can't. You can't pay someone to juice up your site,
right so that you can get an edge over the competition,
Which I mean like if Netflix is doing that to
Amazon Prime, nobody's really shedding a tear. Like Amazon Primer

(26:57):
big kids, and they can handle themselves. But if you are,
you know, developing the next streaming video app and you
don't have the money to to compete against Netflix, you're
that's that's a huge disadvantage and and it has been
pointed out as a potentially stifling to to new technology.

(27:21):
So um one of the things that the FCCS two
thousand fifteen rules said, we're that I sps have to
behave in a quote just and reasonable manner. I think
you said that, right, No, I didn't. Okay, Well they do.
That's part of it. And they also said, hey, everybody

(27:42):
from YouTube to YouTube, uh, you guys, if you see
an I s P behaving in an unjust and unreasonable manner,
let us know, even if it's if it's not illegal,
if you think it's unjust and unreasonable, let us know,
and we will look into to it. And the I
s p s went, Oh, the f c C So

(28:06):
that was a really big thing. We'll we'll talk about
a little a little bit more about why it is
such a big thing in a in a minute. UM.
But then one of the other things that it did
too was it said this also applies to wireless providers
before in two ten, when the FEC introduced some the
some net neutrality rules that were challenged by Verizon and

(28:28):
court and were overturned by the court in two thousand fourteen. UM,
one of the things that they did was it exempted
wireless carriers wireless I s p s from these laws.
Again because they wanted to promote UM. They wanted to
promote growth in that industry. They're like, no one's ever
going to use their phone to stream content. I think

(28:50):
they were hoping that people would and that regulation might
hamper that. Right, So that kind of brings us up
to speed on where we are today. Uh enter uh
adject pie who was UM. He was a former lawyer
for Verizon and is the head of the SEC under Trump,
and he, like I said before, he favors what he

(29:10):
calls a light touch regulation, which is basically pre title
to reclassification. Right that basically, if you are if you
are an I s P, you are going to be
subject to the laws of competition of capitalism and those

(29:31):
will keep you in line. And the SEC doesn't need
to be involved. And the more of that secs involved,
the more stifling these regulations will be. And um, basically
the whole Internet will break if the SEC is involved. Yeah,
and his theory. Watched a couple of interviews with him
and his theory. Very smart guy. His theory is that

(29:52):
if we deregulate and kind of make it wide open,
then people in uh I guess more rural areas of
the kind tree will benefit because if we have all
these regulations, it might stifle their internet, and we want
everyone to have like good fast internet, and he believes
that the way forward is through uh not regulating this stuff,

(30:16):
and he thinks that would lead to rural areas getting
like faster speeds. I don't see how that's I don't,
I don't, I don't see how it's possible. Like, I
mean that just just by definition, fewer customers out there
means it's more expensive to lay that cable out to
those people. Well, I think his his argument is that uh,

(30:41):
investments in this infrastructure would would dry up because of
these rules, which in turn would like the first people
to lose out on that would probably be people in
rural areas. Like we're not gonna bother putting infrastructure in
these rural areas because it's not worth our time and effort. Uh,
you know that's what he's saying. So there's a there's

(31:03):
actually another thing that addresses that that's from the old
telephone days. I can't remember what it's called. It's like
a universal fund, but it's basically where everybody who has
a telephone line or gets service from an I s
p um paid like paid a little tax. Like if
you looked at your phone bill back in the day,

(31:25):
there would be a line item that said, like the
universal something fun and it was three cents or seven
cents or something like that, something you just couldn't care
less about. But put together in a pot for with
the seven cents from all the other phone users households
that had phones, you had a pretty decent amount of money.
And that money was was taken to goo to to

(31:48):
create infrastructure out to rural areas so that people out
in the sticks had telephones. There's a there's a bill
right now or a proposal in the FCC that was
proposed by the Wheeler FEC about creating that or continuing
that same thing, not broad with broadband, right, So, I

(32:08):
mean that's there's a solution right there. It's everybody paying
an extra few cents so that people out in rural
areas can get that kind of infrastructure, and it's the
taxpayers paying the I s p s to go lay
that cable for people in rural areas. Yeah, he also
says because one of the one of the things a

(32:29):
lot of people talk about are the harm that can
be caused by this deregulation and there are examples even
which will go here in a minute, but he called
those he calls those hypothesized harms and even UH said,
a solution that wouldn't work. Title two is a solution
that wouldn't work for a problem that didn't exist. So

(32:49):
when in this interview I saw an NPR when they
sat down and gave him examples of what can happen,
he said, well, this has happened. I'm not saying it
hasn't happened, he said, but these are are single examples.
And he said to me, it would have to be
that would have to be widespread evidence of this kind
of problem, uh, in order for this kind of regulation

(33:13):
to be enacted. Right, I got um, which you know
I don't. Maybe it would be more widespread if there
was no regulation. So, well, that's the fear. That's another hypothesis.
I guess that that's the fear that that once you
you know, take the take take the bridle off of
the I s p s who you know, they're gonna

(33:35):
run rampant. And again, these are multinational companies that are
providing most of the access to the public Internet in
America and you know the Western world. So you it's
it's not foolish to think that they're going to very
quickly consolidate as much power as they can with the

(33:56):
new less restricted freedom, uh to do so that would
be given if you rolled back the two thousand fifteen rules.
And a lot of people point out too that if
you look at the period from five, while the I
s p s were classified as telecoms, the Internet still
boomed and flourished. We had a bubble, an internet um

(34:18):
stock bubble happened even pretty early on, and the Internet
as we know it today developed during that time. Uh
So the idea that it's stifling or would stifle that
growth classifying eyes pieces telecoms doesn't seem to hold much water. Well.
And when you talk about investment infrastructure, it kind of
depends on which studies you've looked at. Some have said

(34:40):
that it uh it has already. Um Like Pie pointed
to twelve. I think over the two year period since
the Title two went into effect, the twelve major carriers
have had five percent reduction and infrastructure spending. Um. And
then you can cheery pick another study that might say, well, yeah,

(35:01):
but these companies actually put in more money and invested
more money. So I think in either case, it's probably
a correlation and causation argument. You know, maybe you can't
necessarily say it's because of the the different classification, right,
and so the numbers we have are not so great
that there's this lobbying group called um U s Telecom,

(35:25):
and their numbers show that the infrastructure investing this is
new fiber cable or upgrades to existing cable being laid
in the United States, the broadband infrastructure that the spending
by the big twelve I s p s went down
by a billion dollars between two thousand and fourteen and
two thousand fifteen, and the idea is that's because of reclassification.

(35:50):
The US Census Bureau said, actually, no, our numbers show
that between two thousand fourteen and two thousand and fifteen,
the spending on infrastructure went up by six hundred million.
Now that not that much, but it was an actual increase.
And this is really really important, Chuck, because if you
are looking at net neutrality in the battle over it
from a legal standpoint, infrastructure is going to be the

(36:13):
crux of the argument. Because there was a law passed
back in I can't remember what it's called, but it
basically bans federal agencies from making capricious rule changes, which
is basically like, for if exactly the situation that we're
in right now, you have one administration making one set
of rules and then a year or two later a

(36:35):
philosophically different in administration coming in and completely changing those rules. Well,
to do that that the new administration's regulators have to
prove why it's a it's a good idea to change
these rules. They can't just be capricious, right And so
observers of this whole battle that's going on right now

(36:57):
are saying, probably Pie is going to be using the
infrastructure um the drop and infrastructure investing as his reason why.
He's going to point to it and say, look, man,
this title to classification led to a billion dollar, five
billion dollars whatever billion dollar dropped in infrastructure investment. It
was a bad idea. We're going to reverse the rules.

(37:18):
And if he can do that, then the rules probably
will be changed and net neutrality will be rolled back.
But the figures aren't in yet for two thousand and sixteen,
so no one actually knows if overall spending on infrastructure
declined or increased or stayed the same, but that's probably
going to be the crux of the legal argument about

(37:40):
changing the rules back. You want to take a break, Sure, alright,
we're gonna take a break, and hopefully we'll get to
hear Josh say lay the cable at least two more times.
That's why has that you should know? That's a should knows.
But Clark, all right, so we're back. Um, you're still

(38:19):
laughing at that. Huha. So before we move on, we
should say that this um uh, like we were saying
about websites going dark, the title two is up for
grabs again, essentially coming up soon and UH people are
being asked if you care about this one way or

(38:40):
the other. UM. You can leave your comments on restoring
Internet Freedom by going to FCC dot gov and you
click on file a Public comment, UM, and then you
click on preceding seventeen Dash one oh eight Restoring Internet Freedom,
and then you can tell them what you think about it. Yea,
And the comment in and of themselves have gotten a

(39:02):
lot of traction and pop popular culture. UM. Back in
two thousand fourteen, John Oliver UH did a piece on UM,
what's this show called this week tonight? Uh? Last week
tonight that's right, thank you. Um and he uh he
very famously called the battle over net neutrality cable comp

(39:23):
company Smurfrey, right and um he basically he said, everybody
go leave your comments about net neutrality, and the next
day the FCC's website broke under. It buckled under the strain. Uh.
And ultimately the FCC got something like three point seven
million public comments about the the the two thousand fifteen rules,

(39:48):
most of them in favor of them. Right. So, um,
the this time around, John Oliver has done another thing.
The internet broke again, but they think this time it
was actually a d E O S attack. It was
an attack, and there's also been evidence that uh, spam
bots are leaving um comments as well. Yeah. Wasn't there

(40:09):
like uh five million identical comments on the half a million?
Oh half a million? Yeah, there's been about five million total,
but they found like half a million from a spam box, right,
which were identical comments, uh with I mean, I think
they use real names and addresses, but including all the same. Yeah.
One of the persons whose name was stolen and used

(40:32):
by the spambot was a jeep pie himself. Yeah, and
this is what it said. It said, Um, the unprecedented
regulatory power by the Obama administration imposed on the Internet
is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy, and obstructing job creation.
The plan currently under consideration at the FCC to repeal
Obama's title to power grab is a positive step forward

(40:55):
and will help to promote a truly free and open
internet for everyone. Yeah. So it's it's just so interesting
to me that both sides want the same thing and
they just have two very different ideas on how to
go about it, and someone's right and wrong. Right, Well,
I think you know what's bizarre about this one. There's
there's three sides to it. There's two sides that are

(41:16):
opposed philosophically over the role of government and regulation, and
then there's a third side. The I s p s
were like, everybody, shut up, stop telling us what to do.
We want to just go make some money, and uh,
we want the FCC out of our butts. Yes, you know. Yeah,
So let's let's we've kind of hit on some of them,

(41:38):
but let's talk about what some of the arguments in
favor of net neutrality are, and then we'll talk about
some of the arguments against. Well, um, I guess the
first thing that we should point out is that it
actually will prevent censorship. Yeah, when that is what it
is feared, it won't happen. Yeah, there's we didn't say that.

(42:02):
The The name that a jeep pie and his f
CC came up with for their new rules is um
Restoring Internet Freedom Rules, which has kind of been accused
of being news speaker double speak because it it's it's
basically saying, like, you know, the FEC being involved in

(42:24):
this is was a power grab by the Obama administration,
and that by getting the FEC out of this whole thing, Um,
then we're actually protecting against censorship. That it was a
government grab of the Internet to try to start to
censor it, right, which is not the case. Well, I mean,

(42:45):
I guess it depends on how you feel about government regulation.
But yeah, the saying that the two thousand and fifteen
rules allowed government censorship is patently wrong, That's what I meant.
And if anything, it prevents censorship by the I s
p s by preventing blocking and throttling. Yeah. Another thing
that um, some people, Uh it's weird. The arguments and

(43:08):
counter arguments all like use each other. Um, they'll say
that like, no, we we need the regulations so we
can promote uh, growth in this industry, not stifle it.
But when you have net neutrality in place, it keeps
that low barrier to just getting a website going. And
like like you said before, Um, we're at an age

(43:32):
now where anyone can design the next Facebook. Uh. And
if if let's say you needed half a million dollars,
like you've designed it and everything's great, but you need
to pay an I s P five grand to get
it going at a reasonable speed, then that'll that'll kill innovation, right.

(43:52):
I guess it depends on whose innovation you're stifling. If
you're looking at the I s p s as part
of the Internet, Um, well, then having the Internet thrive
and having new new, huge, massive traffic driving companies like
Facebook that get a lot of people to the Internet
to use it in the first place, that's an inherent good. Um.

(44:14):
But really what you're talking about is is keeping that
unregulated and regulating the I s P s. Um, So
I mean, what are you stifling? And the argument is
that you're stifling infrastructure investment, so like high speed cable
being laid by not by me. Uh. And then um,

(44:35):
you know, getting cable out to rural areas, that kind
of thing. Um, the I think when you when you
hear both sides using the same point to prove their case,
it means that BS is a foot somewhere. Another thing
that we touched on a little bit is like when
we said, hey, maybe Comcast as a cable company would
want to slow down or throttle Netflix. Uh, so you know,

(45:00):
it would not unleveled the playing field. The same can
be said of like a telephone company not wanting Skype
to become a thing or Internet phone to become a thing. Uh.
And so that is a genuine fear that behind the scenes, um,
that will be throttling going on. Yeah, and that's a
real legitimate fear for two reasons, Chuck. One that um,

(45:25):
it's the I s p s are starting to branch
out and getting into like you said earlier, um, the
content game. Yeah, the content game. Right. So so that's
that's rule one, or that's that's problem one. Like for
for for instance, Verizon just bought Yahoo and Yahoo owns

(45:46):
flicker and Tumbler, and Tumbler, by the way, used to
be at the at the forefront the tip of the
spear for net neutrality, um advocacy like they were loud
and proud man and then Verizon bought them and all
of a sudden, Tumbler silent on the subject, right um.
But more to the point, since Verizon bought Yahoo, which

(46:09):
owns Flicker and Tumbler, it told all of its Tumbler
and Flicker users that have a Bell South associate or
a a T and T associated email address that they
weren't gonna be able to access their Flicker or Tumbler
accounts anymore until they created a new user I d
with a using a Yahoo email address. So that's fairly

(46:31):
anti competitive, you can make a case. And so that's
going on right now as I sps are starting to
get into the media game. But it's also happened in
the past plenty of times too. It's already happened. It's
been documented that when the I s p s are
free to to to be anti competitive, they take you
up on the offer. And Pie has responded to those

(46:54):
uh incidents, has isolated examples and not enough of a
reason to regular Yeah. His feeling is it has to
be a widespread problem for it to be a real issue. Yeah,
I mean, I guess that's a position for sure, that's
a position. Yeah. Yeah, uh what about the case against

(47:19):
net neutrality? So again there's there's there's that whole investment
thing in infrastructure, which is that's big, that's legitimate, you know.
I mean like if if the I s p s say, dude,
it's just we're not making enough money, we're not we're
really unhappy about this regulation. We're gonna stop putting money

(47:42):
into the American broadband infrastructure, then America will suffer as
a result. We want the highest, fastest speed infrastructure we
can get, and we rely on the I s p
s to build those and then charge us money for
access using those high speed routes. Right, That's what I

(48:03):
don't buy though, because they want they want the fastest internet,
because they want your business. They totally do. Right, Okay,
here's the thing, Like everybody when they're talking about this
seems to kind of dance around this. But yeah, dude,
the I s p s can make a lot of
money charging access. They make plenty of money, plenty of revenue.
But they're also again they're the gatekeepers. They they're the

(48:26):
ones who built this infratructure. They're the ones who have
this the access to this these networks built and these
these customer bases built, and if they are unhappy and
they want to be sour pusses about it, they can
stop investing in America's infrastructure and America will suffer as
a result. And again, these aren't necessarily companies that have

(48:47):
an office on Main Street in Kansas, in Topeka. They're
multinational companies and if they move their favor elsewhere, then
America could suffer. Right. It's we're somewhat hostages to their
their whims to an extent, but at the end of
the day, America is also one of the best markets

(49:08):
for broadband access and they want the money of American users,
so they are going to keep investing in infrastructure, I think.
But it's a gamble. And if you're if you're opposed
to federal regulation and principle, you're going to say that
gamble is not worth it. Like, I don't want to
put federal regulation on these guys if it's going to
make them unhappy because I don't like federal regulation. They

(49:31):
don't like federal regulation, and it could take them off
enough that America's infrastructure could start to sag. Here's the thing, though,
and I don't know much. I'm not an expert in this,
but my feeling is, wouldn't they have to all collude
and none of them do that, because as soon as
one of them starts, uh, one of them starts laying
the cable, like Josh Clark, then they'll have the advantage

(49:55):
and the other ones be like, we gotta start laying
the cable because they're getting a and getting faster. Well, yeah,
like they would all have to be in cahoots and say, well, hey,
let's all just sort of make a ton of money
and just say this is how fast the internet is now.
So here you just dug up another issue. It's totally
true if you have a lot of different I s

(50:17):
p s who have large, massive networks, if you have
those large I s p s suddenly starting to consolidate,
which they are, and you have fewer and fewer but
bigger and bigger I sps they control larger parts of
the market, to where if you've got basically two major

(50:37):
I s p s competing against one another, they could
conceivably do that, and it would be tough for one
to just be like, no, I'm not doing that, I'm
I'm laying all the cable. Um, I'm gonna take all
your your market share. It's possible that they could do that,
but it could also be likely that they would collude, um,
not necessarily in an illegal fashion, but just saying, you

(50:59):
know what, we both kind of agree America's the pits
right now, will wait until the winds change. Let's go
over to Ireland and invest in their infrastructure because they
got some cash and they don't feel like, um, like
regulating today. So it's not like, you know, I think
a lot of people think like, well, you know, this

(51:21):
is Trump's FCC, so they're just you know, automatically evil
and have no real point there. There are they They
do represent a viewpoint of anti regulation sentiment, right, but
there's there's a there's another aspect to all of this
chuck that has kind of blown my mind. Um that

(51:43):
that it's just not talked about all that much. One
of the well, two of the things that that people
who are in the net neutrality debate are are talking
about and worried about are don't really actually exist any longer.
To major things. Yeah, so internet censorship and a equal

(52:04):
access to broadband networks that that's not around anymore. Neither
of those are around or an internet free from censorship,
I should say yeah, And I mean I don't know
censorship is the right word because that implies you have
no access at all. Um, but what search engines do,
and what apps do, and what Facebook and Google and

(52:25):
YouTube and everyone does in that game as they serve
things up to the public that are very much curated
according to their needs. I was gonna say whims, but
they're not whims. There their their needs as a company. Um,
So it's not like they're censoring things, but they certainly aren't. Uh,

(52:47):
I mean like that you can still find the things
on the Internet. They're not like deleting things and censoring things.
But they're definitely serving up uh like search engines, aren't
You know that they're definitely all just they're serving up
what they want to serve up because that serves their
company best. Whether yeah, whether it's like, um, you know,

(53:10):
content that's more likely to lead to data that they
can use to better target you for ads, or there
are some instances of very like actual censorship where Twitter
Twitter can take your tweet down if it's deemed defensive
that censorship. This book can do the same thing with
your posts that censorship. So there's a whole group of

(53:32):
stakeholders in this whole debate that, like the media companies
that do have the legal and technical ability to censor
the Internet, right, but giving the I s p s
the ability to censor the Internet doesn't make anything any
fairer or more even. It just makes things worse. Right,
So that's the idea that, well, these guys can alregue

(53:54):
sense of the Internet, so why shouldn't the I s
p s be able to? That's a terrible argument. Uh.
And one of the other big things that's already happening
is when we were talking about paying extra money to
get your content faster, that's already going on, right, So
they're already fast lanes essentially exactly. And that's not supposed

(54:17):
to be um, but but it's been going on for
a while. Yeah. And so Google and Netflix, um, among
other companies that basically have paid extra money to connect,
they've almost created like a side Internet by connecting their
routers and servers directly to the I s p S
network servers. Instead of saying, well, we'll just be routing

(54:39):
our traffic along with the rest of the Internet, they
they have essentially paid to have their own special fast
lane right exactly. And again, this has been going on
for years, and Google started it and we basically everybody
has yet and the rub there was a very famous
UM dispute about it that that made this whole concept,

(55:01):
it's called peering, made a public between Comcast and Verizon
and Netflix Netflix as users. And I remember this Netflix
was their Their transmission was degrading fast and Netflix had
to go to Verizon and Comcast and say I need
to peer network setup. I need to be able to
plug in directly. Here's a bunch of money. I hate

(55:22):
you guys, and they publicly accused at least Comcast, I
think of purposefully letting their traffic back up and not
rerouting it UM to make it go faster so that
Comcast would have to come and and and get give
them money. And now Verizon and UM Comcasts viewpoint is, well,

(55:44):
you guys are sending tons of traffic that you're charging
for our way without paying anything extra. Why should we
have to add, you know, an extra router server or
whatever to to accommodate this traffic when you guys are
the ones generating from generating it and profiting from it,

(56:06):
and so that's just kind of been like, uh that,
I mean, that's that's that's the part that part of
that philosophical divide too with net net neutrality, who's who
should be paying for the the increase in traffic? Well,
and not only that, but these these uh deals are
worked out between the companies and if the FCC sticks

(56:28):
their nose in it, then all of a sudden, they
are inserting their self in that process. Uh. And and
companies aren't liking the sounds of that either. Well, yeah,
like the the the market for this has been unregulated
and for the most part, companies have been okay with
it and fine with it. And the sps are happy
because their users are getting faster traffic. And Netflix or

(56:50):
say Amazon Prime is happy because their users are getting
to watch Game of Thrones faster. Right, But the fccs
two thousand fifteen rules say, well, we're involved than this now.
And remember we said that I s p s have
to act in a justin reasonable manner. So Netflix, now
under these two fifteen rules, if they try this again,

(57:11):
you can come and tell us that they're acting unreasonably
and we'll get involved. Which is another thing that a
jeepie wants to roll back because he doesn't think the
SEC has any any business getting involved in these transactions. Yeah,
it's um man, It's really a slippery slope on all
sides if you ask me for sure. But to me,

(57:31):
the whole thing boils down to do we do we
want to give I, s P S the the ability
the freedom to block traffic. I think I think of
them as the switchboard operators. I think conceiving of them
as common carriers as is absolutely right. And I think

(57:52):
I think giving them the ability to to censor, block,
or throttle traffic, I just think it's a bad move. Well.
I mean, one thing that has kind of been true
over and over throughout our history is that greed has
typically wins out when it's completely unregulated, and it has
led to bad things for the end user what whatever

(58:15):
industry that might be. Yeah, yeah, the companies might went out,
and but kind of greed, greed kind of doesn't lead
down the good path for average Joe sitting at his laptop.
I think that's true, man, And that is what it
boils down to, do we trust Do we trust them?

(58:36):
Do we trust them? There? You go to act fairly, Yeah,
let's leave it at that man, Well well done. Uh,
if you want to know more about net neutrality while
you can get involved, and then you can also head
on over to FCC dot gov. And they also allow
comments from international people too. You don't have to be
an American, but you should check a box that says
you're international. You just put your name and address on

(58:59):
there and leave your comment and you can comment. Remember,
you can do that till July what Chuck, Yeah, I
think and then there's comments on the comments that runs
to August six, So go go let them know how
you feel one way or the other. And since I
said feel, it's time for a listener mail, Yeah, click

(59:24):
on the international box so it will go right into
the abyss of the Internet. I'm just kidding. I'm gonna
call this just a very concise stone Wall reaction. We've
got a lot of good feedback on our Remembering Stonewall episode,
and I think both of us feel pretty good about

(59:46):
that one. Great. Um. Hey, guys, I've listened to and
loved your podcast for years, but your recent Remembering Stonewall
episode compelled me to write you guys. As a gay man,
I thought, how can these two straight guys do justice
to my community's history a prejudice. I subsequently, I am
not proud of because you handled the subject so eloquently,

(01:00:08):
so understandingly. Very impressed on how well you tackled the subject, guys,
which shouldn't have surprised me since you handle every episode
so expertly, but since this subject hits so close to
home for me, was so very happy and proud with
the reverence that you gave it. Thank you, thank you,
thank you nice three, thank you, yeah three, thank yous.

(01:00:30):
Is that's the magic number, and that is from Craig. Craig,
thanks a lot for that. We appreciate it. We do
feel pretty good about that. Echo is interesting and good
and stirring and all that jazz. So hats off to
you right back. If you want to get in touch
with this, like Craig did, you can tweet to us
at Josh I'm Clark or s Y s K Podcast.

(01:00:51):
You can join us on Facebook at Facebook dot com,
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