Net Neutrality and Congress

This episode of Radio Active Magazine will focus on efforts to discuss net neutrality with people who represent major portions of the KKFI listening area in the US Congress.

What is net neutrality?  

Net neutrality is the principle that all information on the Internet should be treated equally.  Different types of data should not be blocked, throttled, altered or redirected to maximize the profits of Broadband Internet Access Service (BIAS) providers like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, and Spectrum (formerly TWC).

Opponents of net neutrality claim that the 2015 Title II Order by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that made net neutrality enforceable in the US has forced BIAS providers to reduce their investments in expanding the Internet, thereby making new and better service less available to the public.2

Supporters of net neutrality claim the opposite:  Even the publicly traded BIAS providers make no claims of deleterious effects in the only place with credible penalties for misleading statements:  their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).3 A group of 191 leading Internet engineers, pioneers and technologists wrote that if the FCC implements some of their current proposal to destroy net neutrality, “the result will have a disastrous effect on innovation in the Internet ecosystem“,4 as briefly explained further below.

Radio Active producer Spencer Graves claims that every credible source of data he has found so far fails to show a deleterious effect of the Title II Order.  Most of the changes following the Title II Order are not statistically significant.  The only statistically significant changes found since the Title II Order were positive.  However, those may be due to other things that happened at the same time.5

Moreover the 2015 Title II Order was adopted only after seven years of activism on this issue and efforts by the Federal Communications Commission to prevent the blocking, throttling, altering and redirecting that generated the activism.6

Open discussion 

KKFI’s phone lines will be open for comments by people who want to ask what they can do or discuss want they have done on this issue: The number to call is

816-931-KKFI (i.e., 816-931-5534).

These efforts are supported locally by the Friends of Community Media (FCM) and nationally by “BattleForTheNet.com”.

FCM will host a Forum dedicated to this issue on Saturday, September 16, 4-5:30 PM, in the KKFI Annex, 3901 Main St., KCMO 64111: Park and enter in the rear.

This August 22 episode and the September 16 Forum will provide interested parties opportunities to ask questions or discuss what you have done or might do to contact your representatives in the US House and Senate about this issue. An easy way for you to get involved is via “BattleForTheNet.com”, if you have not already signed up with them. If you have done that or have questions about how to do that, you can the KKFI on-air number above on August 22 between 6 and 6:30 PM.  Or check “BattleForTheNet.com” and / or come to the September 16 event mentioned above.

Many people have heard little or nothing on net neutrality, because the mainstream media do not want you to know that the Trump administration is trying to destroy it by “Restoring Internet freedom”. The “freedom” Trump’s FCC wants to restore is the freedom of BIAS providers like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Spectrum to block, throttle, alter, or secretly redirect content exchanged with their end users.

Kansas Senators Moran and Roberts 

Kansas Senators Moran7 and Roberts8 both replied to questions about this by claiming that the 2015 Title II Order, which established net neutrality, was an abrupt decision to apply to the Internet outdated, utility-style regulations intended for monopolistic telephone companies in the 1930s. This leaves BIAS providers vulnerable to the consistent threat of interpretation and change by a group of unelected FCC commissioners, they say.  These recent emails suggest that Senators Moran and Roberts may not be familiar with the questions about the credibility of the data1 upon which the NPRM on “Restoring Internet freedom” is based, nor the concerns expressed in the “Joint Comments of Internet Engineers, …” about blocking, throttling, altering and redirecting information, mentioned above.1

The motivation for the 2015 Title II Order 

The blocking, throttling, altering and redirecting content that generated the groundswell of activism that led to the 2015 Title II Order has a number of deleterious effects on society:

  1. Currently, with net neutrality, anyone with Internet access can compete in the marketplace of ideas based solely on the quality of their presentation. “Restoring Internet freedom” would dramatically increase the cost to individuals and small businesses of reaching their audience.  Major companies that can more easily afford to pay the higher fees associated with “Restoring Internet freedom” to have their content delivered at the high speeds that are standard and expected today. “Restoring Internet freedom” would also make it harder to expose political corruption and other questionable activities that major advertisers and public officials do not want exposed[5] — and even threaten world peace and broadly shared economic development.[9]
  2. Blocking, throttling, altering and redirecting content make it easier for big money interests to push people into acting contrary to their own interests.[5]
  3. Altering and redirecting content make everyone more vulnerable to identity theft.
  4. Altering and redirecting content also make it impossible for web designers to know what the user will actually see. And it contributes to “ossification” of the Internet that makes it harder and potentially infeasible for entrepreneurs to develop new services that will add substantial value to people’s lives if the Title II Order remains in place.[1]

Radio Active producer Spencer Graves says the following:

Progress on many and perhaps all substantive issues is blocked, because every countermeasure threatens someone with substantive control over the media.10

Graves says we need others besides him to ask their elected representatives about their position on this issue and to meet with them or their staffs.  “BattleForTheNet.com” is helping organize groups of people to visit their elected representatives in the US House and Senate.  Or write to spencer dot graves at effectivedefense.org.

Notes

[1] “Joint Comments of Internet Engineers, Pioneers, and Technologists on the Technical Flaws in the FCC’s Notice of Proposed Rule-making …”, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, July 17, 2017 (https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filing/1071761547058), accessed 2017-08-18.

[2] US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) “In the Matter of Restoring Internet Freedom”, WC Docket 17-108, adopted May 18, 2017 (https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-17-60A1.pdf), accessed 2017-08-18.

[3] Spencer Graves and Ernesto Falcon, “$15 minimum wage on Aug. 8 ballot in KCMO plus Trump’s attack on net neutrality”, July 25, 2017, episode of Radio Active Magazine on KKFI (https://kkfi.org/program-episodes/15-minimum-wage-aug-8-ballot-kcmo-plus-trumps-attack-net-neutrality), accessed 2017-08-18.

[4] “Joint Comments”, op cit., p. 2.  

[5] Spencer Graves, “EffectiveDefense.org Comment in Opposition to Restoring Internet Freedom NPRM”, filed July 17, 2017 (https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/10717083022106/EfDef-comments-FCC%2017-60A1-2017-07-17.pdf), accessed 2017-08-18.

[6] ibid., p. 3.

[7] email from Sen. Moran to Spencer Graves, 2017-07-14.

[8] email from Sen. Roberts to Spencer Graves, 2017-08-15.

[9] Wikiversity, “Winning the War on Terror” (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Winning_the_War_on_Terror), accessed 2017-08-18.

[10] Spencer Graves, “Endowment for Journalism” (http://endowment4journalism.org/), accessed 2017-08-18.


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