0:00

Hey, everybody, stuff you should know is

0:02

going on tour. Do do do do do?

0:06

What are the deeds? My friend? Okay, So starting

0:08

August eighth in Toronto, that's

0:10

in Canada. We're gonna be at dan Fourth Music

0:13

Hall. And then Chicago. We're gonna be there

0:15

the next night, August nine, at the Harris Theater

0:17

at Chicago. We want to see your faces.

0:20

Step it up, Step it Up. Vancouver

0:22

or the Vote Theater September. That's

0:25

gonna be a great show, I think, don't you. It's gonna

0:27

be a great one. And then Minneapolis

0:29

at the Pantageous Theater where we've been before.

0:31

It's lovely September. Yeah,

0:34

and then we're gonna swing down to Austin. It's

0:36

gonna be during Austin City Limits, although

0:38

it has nothing to do with Austin City limits.

0:41

Will be there October ten, yes, and then we're

0:43

going to Lovely Lawrence, Kansas go Jayhawks.

0:45

Yeah, on October eleven. Then Hey, if you're in Kansas

0:48

City or anywhere in that area, this

0:50

is your chance. Get in your car. Yeah. Uh.

0:52

If you are anywhere near

0:54

Brooklyn, well then you should go to the Bellhouse

0:57

October. Will

0:59

be there all three nights. And finally we're gonna

1:01

wrap it up here in Atlanta at the Bucket Theater on November

1:04

four for a benefit show where we

1:06

are donating all of the money's to

1:09

Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta and the

1:11

National Down Syndrome Society. Yep.

1:13

So for all this information again visually

1:16

and for links two tickets, just go to

1:19

s y s K live dot

1:21

com. Welcome

1:23

to Stuff you Should Know from

1:25

House Stuff Works dot com.

1:33

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

1:35

Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry's

1:37

over there. So this is stuff you should know the podcast.

1:41

Correct. We are not going dark,

1:44

No, although that's a thing. It

1:46

is a thing for the Battle

1:49

for the Net Action Day, Battle

1:51

of the Network Stars. Nope, just net

1:54

okay, Battle for

1:56

the Net Yeah, which I would

1:58

guess most people have heard of, maybe not

2:00

by that name necessarily, but

2:03

um say, if you're a John Oliver

2:05

fan or have been paying attention

2:08

at all to the FCC

2:10

rules about net neutrality, um,

2:13

Battle for the Net is is kind of at

2:15

the forefront of all that. Yeah.

2:17

And since our show comes out on a Tuesday,

2:20

which is July eleven, and that is the day that, uh,

2:23

some websites have elected to go dark. I

2:25

think they're going dark the next day. Yeah,

2:28

okay, al right, well then I don't feel

2:30

so bad, right,

2:32

but we we figured we're actually

2:35

someone wrote in suggesting this, Um, then

2:37

maybe instead of going dark, because you guys probably can't

2:39

do that, maybe you should just do an episode on

2:42

net neutrality to teach all the people's

2:44

about the things, which

2:47

I thought was a pretty pretty good I suggestion.

2:50

I agree, good suggestion. Yeah,

2:52

I feel bad that we UM.

2:55

I can't remember who it was that road in, but thank

2:57

you for that. Whoever it

2:59

was, you know who you are, because you're the only one who did.

3:02

Yeah, and they don't do it for the glory. No, So

3:05

what are we talking about, Chuck, When we're talking about

3:08

net neutrality or network

3:11

neutrality or open internet?

3:14

So what that is? Um?

3:17

Mainly what people mean when they say net neutrality

3:20

is the idea that the

3:23

Internet is an open road and

3:25

it doesn't have fast lanes

3:28

or slow lanes. Uh.

3:30

It is providing equal access

3:33

to anyone who wants to build a website,

3:35

let's say, can can throw it up there and

3:38

have equal access to the

3:41

big rollers on the internet with

3:44

huge sites. You're all the same as

3:46

far as how people can access you and

3:49

whether or not they can access you. Yeah,

3:51

and how fast they can access you. Exactly

3:54

right. There was this um there's a great

3:56

explainer in Vox about net neutrality

3:59

that that we used as a

4:01

resource. But they gave this

4:03

good example of net

4:06

neutrality. Right, So they

4:08

pointed out that when um Facebook was

4:10

created, Zuckerberg

4:13

didn't have to go to Comcast

4:15

or Verizon or any of the I s p s, the Internet

4:18

service providers, the companies that

4:20

provide the last mile, the

4:22

connection between your house and the public

4:24

Internet. Okay, that's what an I s P is very

4:27

important to remember that part. Right. He

4:29

didn't have to go to them and say, hey, will

4:31

you carry my website on your network? He

4:34

just built the website, plugged

4:36

it into the Internet, uploaded it to the Internet,

4:38

and it was available to

4:41

any device or computer

4:44

that was connected to the Internet

4:46

anywhere in the world. Right. And the

4:48

fact that he didn't have to go to them and ask that

4:50

to be added to their network, The fact that he didn't

4:52

have to go to them to say, hey, I need

4:54

people to be able to download this stuff fast.

4:56

So here's a bunch of extra money.

4:59

UM. The fact that he didn't

5:01

do that. That's how it has been up to

5:03

this point. That is network neutrality.

5:06

That's the that's the basis of net neutrality,

5:09

especially from the standpoint

5:11

of UM developers and companies

5:14

that create sites and

5:16

applications on the web. Yeah,

5:19

it's uh wow,

5:21

that's a very large spider crawling next

5:23

to me. Sorry,

5:25

I saw something out of corn ofm eye and I'm on

5:29

yeah, nope, just a big spider. Uh,

5:33

good for you. So it's

5:35

an It levels the playing field,

5:38

and all Internet traffic is treated

5:40

equally. Right, So not only does it

5:42

level the playing field for people who are creating

5:45

you know, Facebook or Netflix

5:48

or what have you, it

5:50

also levels the playing field or

5:53

levels the experience for

5:55

users. Right, if

5:58

you're a user and you are on

6:00

UM the Internet through your I s

6:02

P, like, you should be getting

6:05

whatever site you want to go to at

6:07

the same speed as any other site, and

6:09

your Internet service provider shouldn't

6:11

be able to decide we don't

6:13

really like you getting that site, we don't

6:15

really like you having that app. We're

6:18

gonna make it so that this

6:20

this traffic moves so slowly, you're gonna

6:22

give up trying to download it, or we're just

6:25

gonna block it entirely. Yeah, and

6:27

why maybe because that's a competitor

6:29

to us in some way and we would like to

6:31

serve you up our product faster, right,

6:34

So preventing sps from

6:36

being able to do that. That's open,

6:39

open internet or network neutrality.

6:41

Okay, that's the basis of it.

6:44

That is currently how it stands

6:46

right now. UM, and the idea

6:48

of network neutrality, it's it's UM,

6:52

I guess about fifteen years old back in

6:54

a two to a guy named Tim Woo who

6:56

is a Columbia University

6:59

law professor or not, I believe, coined

7:01

the term network neutrality to basically

7:03

describe a level playing

7:05

field for everybody involved, right especially

7:08

at the at the Internet service

7:10

provider level. And

7:13

since then it's become this topic of debate

7:16

like should it

7:18

should this be um

7:20

something that that that we all

7:23

want to adopt as like the basically

7:25

the rules for the Internet. Should network neutrality

7:27

be the basis of how the Internet is

7:29

built and approached? Which is

7:32

a big deal because we are, even

7:34

though it seems like we're far along, we are

7:36

still in the infancy stage of the Internet

7:39

and the impacts UH

7:41

would be long lasting and huge

7:44

moving forward. For

7:46

from what I understand, most people agree

7:49

that net neutrality is at

7:52

its basis, the an agreeable

7:55

way to frame the the Internet. That's

7:58

the way it should be. And there was even back

8:01

in two fourteen. As we'll see, we just

8:03

went through this um and we're going through

8:05

it again now. But back in two

8:08

fourteen, there were a pair of polls

8:10

that I ran across from two different groups.

8:12

One of them is University of Delaware. I can't

8:14

remember who the other one was, but

8:16

it found that um, even among

8:19

conservatives, that net neutrality

8:22

is highly valued. Something

8:24

like eight of people

8:26

who identify as conservative say

8:29

that I s p s should be prevented from

8:31

slowing or blocking traffic,

8:34

right, and that Congress should actually

8:36

do something about it. Right. So people people

8:39

buy in large degree that net neutrality

8:42

is the way the Internet should go. The

8:45

division that has really kind

8:47

of come out, especially recently, is

8:51

how that good can be achieved.

8:53

Do you achieve it by giving power to the

8:55

FCC to go police the

8:57

I s p s and find them

9:00

and basically make life hard for

9:02

them if they don't follow the rules,

9:05

or do you remove

9:08

any teeth that the FCC might have

9:10

in policing the I s

9:12

p s and just leave it up to competition.

9:15

And depending on where you fall ideologically

9:18

as far as um government regulation

9:20

goes, is probably where

9:23

you're going to fall along the spectrum of net

9:25

neutrality. Yeah, and it's

9:27

uh, it's not a black

9:29

and white thing like you would think.

9:32

Um, Like, uh,

9:34

the end user just saying, yeah, you

9:36

know, there's got to be net neutrality no matter what.

9:38

There's a lot of users are like, I don't know, man,

9:41

I like care about is streaming

9:43

my stuff as efficiently as

9:45

fast as possible, And if

9:47

if getting rid of net neutrality

9:50

would increase that competition and I could

9:52

get my Netflix movies

9:55

awesomer and faster than I'm all

9:57

for it, right. Um.

10:00

On the other side, you've got big corporate

10:02

corporations that maybe

10:04

don't feel like you think they might. Yeah,

10:07

you would think, you know that stuff

10:09

like this usually when the government's involved, it's like

10:11

a big guy, big corporation versus little

10:14

guy kind of thing. But no, there's a there's

10:16

a dispute between corporations too, like you

10:18

said, where the I s p s like

10:20

Verizon and Comcast, UM

10:23

and A T and T are lined

10:25

up against the

10:27

tech companies like the tech media companies

10:30

like YouTube and Netflix and

10:33

formerly Tumbler, some of the other

10:36

guys, Facebook, Google, um.

10:38

Where they're they're on opposite

10:41

sides of this this issue, which

10:43

is strange because they need each other.

10:45

They have very incestuous relationships that

10:47

are very complicated and complex. Um.

10:50

But as far as net neutrality goes, they

10:53

are pretty much divided between

10:55

I s p s and tech media companies.

10:58

One side is the against the

11:00

net neutrality rules. One side is

11:02

strongly in favor of them. Boy, and you talk

11:04

about complicated like in the future companies

11:08

corporations merging and then I

11:10

sps being a part

11:12

of the same company or getting into the media

11:16

content game, like things

11:18

are getting interesting, you know, yeah,

11:21

interesting but also kind of scary because right now,

11:23

um back in well, back in two thousand

11:25

and fifteen, the FCC UM

11:28

struck a huge blow to the I s

11:31

p s with a set

11:33

of new rules four page compendium,

11:35

I guess you would call it of rules

11:38

that basically said, you

11:40

guys can't mess around anymore. The

11:42

I s p s are not allowed to

11:44

block or throttle or provide fast

11:46

lanes. Um. Stuff

11:49

getting real and the net

11:51

really is going to be neutral from now on. UM.

11:55

That was under Obama and Trump

11:57

has appointed a UM

11:59

a different FCC chairman

12:01

who was a member of the SEC before

12:04

UH, and he is not in favor

12:06

of that at all. So, UM, do you wanna

12:09

do you want to talk about the what the two fifteen

12:12

rules are and kind of how it is for

12:14

the moment. Well, here's what I think we should

12:16

do. I think we should take a break. Okay,

12:19

all right, we should uh

12:22

go back in time when we come back and

12:24

talk a little bit about the phone companies, which

12:27

will kind of set the stage for what's going on

12:29

today. Okay, alright, alright, we'll be right back.

12:32

That's why we

12:35

should know, should

12:40

know. But Josh

12:44

Clark,

12:57

all right, I promised talk about phone companies

13:00

because that's exciting stuff. Yeah,

13:02

it is. It's amazing how much telephone

13:04

companies have shaped UH

13:07

law and policy in this country over the years. Yeah.

13:10

Yeah, I guess it is like with the telephone

13:12

monopolies back in the day. I mean that was it's

13:15

all very interesting. Yeah, you used to have

13:17

to lease your telephone from the phone company

13:20

like people in buy telephones you released it. Yeah,

13:23

were there just one telephone company wasn't it

13:25

just bell Yeah, basically yeah,

13:27

and then they broke it up into the smaller bells,

13:30

the baby bells. I think that's what they

13:32

call them. This is all like from my childhood, so I

13:34

didn't really look up much of that. Um,

13:36

but we're talking about the FCC. Uh

13:39

here is the governing body.

13:41

And back in the seventies and eighties, they were

13:43

sort of early in on this game

13:46

with the phone companies in the early days

13:48

of computer uh

13:51

networking, and they came out really

13:53

early on. They had a lot of foresight

13:55

back then and said, you know what, we

13:57

need to guarantee consumers with the right

14:00

to use modems on their phone lines.

14:02

Yeah, because this is like everyone's seeing

14:04

war games and we all know that that's

14:07

that's how the future is going, Right,

14:10

you gotta put your phone on a big box.

14:13

Ye, your phone receiver on a big box.

14:15

I wanted one of those so bad. Yeah,

14:17

Like they were so expensive. You literally

14:19

connected your phone, right. I had

14:22

no idea what to do with it. I just

14:24

thought like, well, that's that's computer

14:26

plus yeah exactly. But

14:28

the but treating the saying okay,

14:31

everybody has the right to have a modem

14:34

in their house and to use a phone line to use

14:36

it. That's that's that was a

14:38

kind of a radical idea. And

14:40

the reason why is because when you're talking about

14:43

um telephone carriers right,

14:45

like back in the day, um A T and

14:47

T right, mob Belt, what

14:50

what you were saying is you're a private corporation.

14:53

You have gone and laid telephone

14:56

wires all throughout the

14:58

United States. You guys built

15:00

the US telephone infrastructure.

15:02

And yes, we the government, the taxpayers, gave

15:05

you substantial tax breaks and

15:07

in lots of benefits to doing

15:09

this. And you guys are the ones making

15:11

the money operating these phone

15:14

lines. But we have decided

15:16

that the phone lines are so important to

15:18

the public good that you guys

15:21

aren't allowed to just be a normal corporation.

15:23

That the government stays las

15:26

fair hands off with right, you

15:28

guys are deemed order considered

15:31

common carriers. But

15:34

yeah, well you're like the people who carry people

15:36

along roads, like goods and people.

15:38

Right, You're like an airline, You're like a

15:41

you're like a cargo transport

15:44

ship. You're like a greyhound

15:46

bus, but but with telephone

15:48

lines. Right, So the

15:51

government said everyone should be able to have access

15:53

to telephone lines. You

15:56

can charge people for that access, but you

15:58

can't mess with their access. We're

16:00

not letting you. And in the seventies

16:02

one of the things, or the eighties, I think one of the

16:04

things the government said was, Hey,

16:06

you know how we're kind of the bosses of you guys,

16:09

even though your private corporations, Well,

16:12

we're gonna boss you around right now and say, any

16:15

business that wants to come along and use

16:17

your phone lines to provide

16:19

dial up modem service to their customers,

16:22

you have to let them do it. And

16:24

that was it was for the public

16:26

good. And by doing that, the dial up

16:28

Internet UM

16:31

industry was able to blossom

16:33

unfettered with government

16:35

protection. Right, the government got in between

16:38

that blossoming industry that was in competition

16:41

with the telephone companies, and the telephone

16:43

companies that could have strangled it in the

16:45

cradle. And that was that was the first big

16:47

thing that the SEC did as far as

16:50

the Internet goes. Yeah, and

16:52

very important UH

16:55

distinction was drawn with

16:57

basically Congress drawing up to category

17:00

stories. And this you'll see plays

17:02

out kind of over and over and will

17:04

continue to in the future. UM

17:06

two different things, telecommunication services

17:09

and information services. So

17:11

telecom services, UH

17:13

we're talking about the phone lines. That what

17:15

we were talking about here, And um,

17:18

as far as the law is concerned, there

17:20

are a lot of like you were talking about,

17:23

legal obligations on these services,

17:25

and the FCC has a lot of um

17:28

oversight and regulation over them.

17:31

Yeah. Uh. Information services on the other

17:33

hand, Um, they said, like

17:35

like Facebook, that's an information service. YouTube

17:38

is an information service. They were

17:41

less or well basically exempt

17:43

for most of the FCC regulations. So

17:46

dividing those things in two

17:49

was a very, very big deal. And during

17:51

the Clinton years what most

17:53

people would consider what a JITPI,

17:56

which we he is Trump's

17:58

um pick to chair

18:01

the FCC. He called the Clinton

18:03

era and basically up through two thousand fifteen

18:05

a light touch regulation, which

18:08

is what he is in favor of and what we'll get to him

18:10

a little bit more in a minute. Um,

18:12

but it's that Clinton era fec uh

18:16

regulations that basically did what you're

18:18

talking about and said, you know what we want

18:20

DSL that's the newest thing forget dial up.

18:23

We want to send faster speeds over

18:26

the Internet, and you all have to play along.

18:29

So they did it again to the phone companies. They

18:31

went to and said, remember dial up modems. No

18:33

one wants that any longer. Everybody wants DSL.

18:35

So now you guys have to let any DSL

18:37

provider use your phone lines, and that let

18:40

the DSL, the beginning of the high

18:42

speed Internet industry flourish.

18:44

Right. So there's this pattern of the SEC

18:46

coming in and being like, you guys are huge, You

18:49

guys who provide that last mile. You common

18:51

carriers, who are the gatekeepers

18:54

between the public at large and

18:56

the public Internet. You guys

18:59

stand in between them, and we're saying you

19:01

can do this, you can't do that. You can do

19:03

this, you can't do that. And for

19:05

a while, the I s p s were classified

19:08

as telecommunication services, which

19:10

meant that they fell under way more

19:13

oversight and scrutiny, like you said, than

19:16

say, like YouTube. And the reason the government

19:18

did this was to let the Internet

19:21

start to boom, right, Yes, And

19:25

I'm not sure why, I guess because it

19:28

was Bush era, and the Bush

19:30

FCC chair said we

19:33

shouldn't be classifying I s p s

19:35

as telecommunications companies anymore,

19:38

but we have to. It's the law.

19:41

He went to court and the

19:43

court said no, Actually, you guys

19:45

are the f CC. If you want to start classifying

19:48

Internet service providers as information

19:51

services, which are not as

19:53

heavily regulated. You guys go ahead

19:55

and do that. So the Bush era FEC

19:58

said, okay, well, we here by decree

20:00

that Internet service providers are not

20:03

the akin to the

20:05

Bell telephone switchboard

20:07

operators of your They're much

20:09

more akin to YouTube. They're part of the

20:11

Internet, which, if you really stop

20:14

and think about it, doesn't make much sense.

20:16

But that that was that that was

20:18

a huge sea change in

20:21

what the government could say or do to

20:24

I s p s. That gave them way more freedom

20:27

to do a lot more stuff after they

20:29

were classified as information services.

20:31

Yeah. And then, uh, in two thousand

20:33

and ten, the chair of the SEC at the time,

20:36

Julius Ganikowski, said,

20:38

you know what, we've got some new regulations on the books.

20:40

We're gonna prohibit I s p s from blocking

20:43

content online. We're gonna

20:45

prohibit what we call unreasonable discrimination,

20:48

and they're all gonna have to be a little more transparent

20:51

about what's going on. And this is in the era

20:54

of broadband now, right. Uh.

20:56

And then Verizon stepped up and said,

20:58

you know what, we don't like the sounds of this. This

21:00

is you guys are stepping way over

21:03

your your congressional power here. Yeah,

21:05

they said, well, don't forget you guys classified

21:08

us as information services. You can't tell

21:10

us to to do or not do this stuff.

21:12

We're not telecoms anymore, suckers. Yeah,

21:15

pretty much. Uh, And the d C Circuit

21:17

Cord of Appeals agreed with Verizon and

21:19

this is just inten so just a few

21:22

years ago then said

21:24

those rules have got to go. As long as you're classified

21:26

that way, Uh, then you're

21:28

gonna have to play by these rules. Right.

21:32

But that changed again in two thousand

21:34

and fourteen when Tom Wheeler

21:36

came along as the chair

21:38

of the FCC and

21:42

he kind of flip flopped. He came out initially and

21:44

proposed some rules that people said, no,

21:47

that's like, that's way too weak, bra

21:50

Right, Well he was. They got

21:52

leaked and there was a huge backlash in

21:55

public outcry against it. And

21:57

but I don't think anyone was surprised because Tom

21:59

Wheeler was a longstanding

22:02

UM lobbyist for the cable

22:04

and wireless industries, right, so he

22:06

was an industry insider who

22:08

was supposed to be regulating that that

22:10

industry that he was already friends within, where

22:13

his background was, so nobody was really

22:15

surprised when the FCC came

22:17

out with these really weakened rules on

22:19

I s p s. But there was a

22:22

huge backlash.

22:24

Yeah, that was the first battle for

22:26

the net. And then Wheeler went

22:28

whooa, whoa, whoa, I was just kidding,

22:31

Um, here's here's my real

22:34

document. He didn't really say that, but he came

22:36

up with a new document with with bigger,

22:38

sharper teeth, and that was what you

22:40

referenced earlier four page document

22:43

called the two thousand fifteen

22:45

Open Internet Order, which was

22:47

a really big deal. And that was

22:49

a surprise because Wheeler,

22:52

again who was a lobbyist for the

22:54

these very industries, um

22:56

not only reversed course

22:59

from these toothless weak law

23:01

rules to much stronger

23:03

rules that were in step with the what

23:05

the net neutrality advocates were asking

23:08

for. He actually went even further and

23:10

made even stronger, tighter

23:13

net neutrality rules and then took the

23:15

time to write something like three

23:17

hundred pages of rules

23:20

explaining the logic and the thought

23:22

behind all this, which could

23:25

pose a problem as we'll talk about later

23:27

for a jeep Pie and the Trump FCC

23:30

to get past. But the

23:32

the it was a huge, huge surprise

23:35

that came out of nowhere in an enormous victory

23:38

for net neutrality advocates

23:40

and for Obama and his administration.

23:43

It became one of the signature um

23:46

acts I guess or watershed

23:48

moments for the Obama administration

23:50

because he campaigned as a net neutrality

23:53

supporter. And then finally, you

23:55

know, one year, the last year of his presidency,

23:58

his FCC just dropped

24:00

the mic on net neutrality and said it is

24:03

it is done. Yeah, and

24:05

within that Open Internet Order one of the first

24:07

I mean, it did a couple of big things, but the big

24:09

big thing it did was it said,

24:11

hey, remember way back in nine the

24:15

Communications Act, we think

24:17

we can actually reclassify broadband

24:21

as what we're gonna call a title to telecommunication

24:24

service. So remember earlier

24:26

when we said they split it up in the two buckets.

24:29

Uh, this all changed a couple of years ago when

24:32

they can now classify you know,

24:34

Verizon, our Comcast as

24:36

a telecom service, which again means

24:39

it's a common carrier and much

24:41

more heavily regulated. Yeah.

24:43

So the SEC was like, oh, we can't

24:46

tell you what to do if you're classified as an information

24:48

service, Well you're no longer classified. Is

24:50

that you're classify as a telecommunications service

24:53

now and we are up your rectum.

24:55

It's so interesting that this like we've seen

24:57

the birth of this industry that like is

25:00

being figured out in full view. Well

25:03

maybe not always full view, right you

25:05

know what I'm saying though, Yeah, and

25:07

it's still it's still being molded right now. You

25:10

know. It's really interesting. So that was

25:12

that was the first thing that the two thousand and

25:14

fifteen Open Internet Order did,

25:17

right, It reclassified the

25:19

I s p s back to telecommunication

25:22

status. It really it took them

25:24

out of the same league as YouTube

25:26

and Netflix and um all

25:29

of these these um content

25:31

providers on the web and said,

25:34

you guys actually handle the nuts and bolts

25:36

of it. You you don't handle the actual content,

25:38

So you're telecom now. Then it did

25:40

a second part two, which was

25:42

basically saying we're the

25:45

net is now neutral. We're instilling

25:48

net neutrality values onto

25:50

the Internet as the FCC. Yeah,

25:53

and we'll do so in three main ways. No

25:55

blocking. You can't block lawful

25:57

content, can't block services, You

26:00

can't block applications. As long as

26:02

it's lawful and legal content, you

26:04

can't block it. You can't throttle

26:06

it. To me, throttling is a weird word. It seems

26:08

counterintuitive because through

26:11

throttling, I would think means you speed something

26:13

up, but in this case, it means you can't

26:15

slow something down. Yeah, basically

26:18

I would say breaking, not

26:20

throttling. Playing on, Yeah,

26:23

but throttling basically means, as

26:25

a I s P. You can't come in like we're talking about

26:27

earlier and saying, uh, you know what your

26:30

competition Netflix to our Comcast

26:32

services, So we want to make sure no one can

26:34

stream anything very well, right, so

26:36

we're gonna slow you down. And then the

26:39

final one was no paid prioritization,

26:42

so yeah, they

26:44

can't. You can't pay someone to juice

26:46

up your site, right so that you

26:48

can get an edge over the competition, Which I

26:51

mean like if Netflix is doing that

26:53

to Amazon Prime, nobody's really shedding

26:55

a tear. Like Amazon Primer big

26:57

kids, and they can handle themselves. But

26:59

if you are, you know, developing the

27:01

next streaming video app and

27:04

you don't have the money to

27:06

to compete against Netflix,

27:09

you're that's that's a huge disadvantage

27:12

and and it has been pointed out

27:14

as a potentially stifling

27:17

to to new technology.

27:21

So um one of the

27:23

things that the FCCS two thousand fifteen

27:25

rules said, we're

27:29

that I sps have to behave

27:31

in a quote just and reasonable manner.

27:34

I think you said that, right, No, I didn't.

27:36

Okay, Well they do. That's part

27:38

of it. And they also

27:40

said, hey, everybody from

27:43

YouTube to YouTube,

27:46

uh, you guys, if you

27:48

see an I s P behaving in

27:50

an unjust and unreasonable manner,

27:53

let us know, even if it's if it's

27:55

not illegal, if you think it's unjust

27:57

and unreasonable, let us know, and we will

27:59

look into to it. And the I s p s went, Oh,

28:03

the f c C So

28:06

that was a really big thing. We'll we'll talk about

28:08

a little a little bit more about why

28:11

it is such a big thing in a in a minute.

28:13

UM. But then one of the other things that

28:16

it did too was it said this also

28:18

applies to wireless providers before

28:20

in two ten, when the FEC

28:23

introduced some the some

28:25

net neutrality rules that were challenged by

28:27

Verizon and court and were overturned by the

28:29

court in two thousand fourteen. UM,

28:31

one of the things that they did was it exempted

28:34

wireless carriers wireless I s

28:36

p s from these laws.

28:39

Again because they wanted to promote

28:42

UM. They wanted to promote growth in that

28:44

industry. They're like, no one's ever going to use

28:46

their phone to stream content.

28:49

I think they were hoping that people would and

28:52

that regulation might hamper that. Right,

28:55

So that kind of brings us up to speed

28:57

on where we are today. Uh enter

29:00

uh adject pie who was UM.

29:02

He was a former lawyer for Verizon and

29:05

is the head of the SEC under Trump,

29:08

and he, like I said before, he favors what

29:10

he calls a light touch regulation,

29:13

which is basically pre title

29:16

to reclassification. Right

29:19

that basically, if you are if

29:22

you are an I s P,

29:24

you are going to be subject

29:27

to the laws of competition

29:29

of capitalism and those will keep

29:31

you in line. And the SEC doesn't

29:34

need to be involved. And the more of that secs

29:36

involved, the more stifling

29:38

these regulations will be. And

29:41

um, basically the whole Internet will

29:43

break if the SEC is involved. Yeah,

29:45

and his theory. Watched a couple of interviews

29:47

with him and his theory. Very smart guy. His

29:50

theory is that if

29:52

we deregulate and kind of make it

29:54

wide open, then people

29:57

in uh I guess more rural areas

29:59

of the kind tree will benefit because

30:02

if we have all these regulations, it might stifle

30:05

their internet, and we want

30:07

everyone to have like good fast

30:09

internet, and he believes that

30:12

the way forward is through uh

30:14

not regulating this stuff, and he thinks that would

30:16

lead to rural areas getting

30:19

like faster speeds. I

30:21

don't see how that's I

30:23

don't, I don't, I don't see how it's possible.

30:26

Like, I mean that just just by definition,

30:28

fewer customers out there means it's

30:31

more expensive to

30:33

lay that cable out to those people. Well,

30:36

I think his his argument is that

30:39

uh, investments

30:42

in this infrastructure would would

30:44

dry up because of these rules,

30:47

which in turn would like the first

30:49

people to lose out on that would probably

30:51

be people in rural areas. Like we're not gonna

30:54

bother putting infrastructure in these rural areas

30:57

because it's not worth our time and effort.

31:00

Uh, you know that's what he's saying. So

31:02

there's a there's actually another thing

31:04

that addresses that that's from

31:07

the old telephone days. I can't

31:09

remember what it's called. It's like a universal

31:12

fund, but it's basically where

31:14

everybody who has a telephone

31:16

line or gets service from an I s

31:18

p um paid

31:21

like paid a little tax. Like if you looked at

31:23

your phone bill back in the day, there

31:26

would be a line item that said, like

31:28

the universal something fun and

31:30

it was three cents or seven cents or

31:32

something like that, something you just couldn't care less

31:34

about. But put together in a pot

31:37

for with the seven cents from all the other

31:39

phone users households that had phones,

31:42

you had a pretty decent amount of money. And

31:44

that money was was taken

31:46

to goo to to create

31:48

infrastructure out to rural areas

31:50

so that people out in the sticks had

31:53

telephones. There's a there's a

31:55

bill right now or a proposal in

31:57

the FCC that was proposed

31:59

by the Wheeler FEC about creating

32:02

that or continuing that same thing, not

32:05

broad with broadband, right, So,

32:08

I mean that's there's a solution right there.

32:11

It's everybody paying an extra few cents

32:14

so that people out in rural areas

32:16

can get that kind of infrastructure, and

32:18

it's the taxpayers paying

32:21

the I s p s to go lay that cable

32:23

for people in rural areas. Yeah,

32:26

he also says because one of the one

32:28

of the things a lot of people talk about are the harm

32:31

that can be caused by this deregulation

32:34

and there are examples even which will go

32:36

here in a minute, but he called those he

32:38

calls those hypothesized harms and

32:41

even UH said, a solution

32:43

that wouldn't work. Title two is

32:45

a solution that wouldn't work for a problem that didn't

32:48

exist. So when in this

32:50

interview I saw an NPR when they sat down

32:52

and gave him examples of what

32:55

can happen, he said, well, this

32:57

has happened. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, he

33:00

said, but these are are single

33:02

examples. And he said to me,

33:05

it would have to be that would have to be widespread

33:07

evidence of this kind of problem,

33:10

uh, in order for this kind of

33:12

regulation to be enacted. Right,

33:15

I got um,

33:17

which you know I don't. Maybe it would

33:19

be more widespread if there

33:21

was no regulation. So, well, that's

33:23

the fear. That's another hypothesis. I guess

33:25

that that's the fear that that once you

33:28

you know, take the take take the

33:30

bridle off of the I s p s

33:33

who you know, they're gonna run rampant. And

33:36

again, these are multinational companies that

33:38

are providing most

33:40

of the access to the public Internet in

33:42

America and you know the

33:44

Western world. So you

33:48

it's it's not foolish to think

33:51

that they're going to very quickly consolidate

33:54

as much power as they can with the

33:56

new less restricted freedom,

33:59

uh to do so that would be given

34:01

if you rolled back the two thousand fifteen rules.

34:04

And a lot of people point out too that if

34:06

you look at the period from five,

34:10

while the I s p s were classified as

34:12

telecoms, the Internet still boomed

34:14

and flourished. We had a bubble, an

34:17

internet um stock bubble happened

34:19

even pretty early on, and

34:21

the Internet as we know it today developed

34:24

during that time. Uh So

34:26

the idea that it's stifling or

34:29

would stifle that growth classifying eyes pieces

34:32

telecoms doesn't seem to hold much water. Well.

34:34

And when you talk about investment infrastructure,

34:37

it kind of depends on which studies you've looked at.

34:39

Some have said that it uh

34:42

it has already. Um Like

34:44

Pie pointed to twelve. I

34:46

think over the two year period since

34:48

the Title two went into effect, the twelve

34:51

major carriers have had five percent

34:53

reduction and infrastructure spending. Um.

34:57

And then you can cheery pick another study that

35:00

might say, well, yeah, but these companies actually

35:02

put in more money and invested more money. So

35:05

I think in either case,

35:07

it's probably a correlation and causation

35:09

argument. You know, maybe

35:12

you can't necessarily say it's because of

35:14

the the different classification,

35:17

right, and so the numbers we have are not

35:19

so great that there's this

35:21

lobbying group called um U

35:24

s Telecom, and their numbers

35:26

show that the infrastructure investing

35:28

this is new fiber cable or

35:30

upgrades to existing cable being

35:33

laid in the United States, the

35:35

broadband infrastructure that

35:38

the spending by the big twelve I

35:41

s p s went down by a billion dollars

35:43

between two thousand and fourteen and two thousand fifteen,

35:46

and the idea is that's

35:48

because of reclassification. The

35:50

US Census Bureau said, actually, no,

35:52

our numbers show that between two thousand fourteen and

35:54

two thousand and fifteen, the spending

35:56

on infrastructure went up by six hundred

35:58

million. Now that not that

36:00

much, but it was an actual increase. And

36:03

this is really really important, Chuck, because

36:06

if you are looking at net neutrality

36:08

in the battle over it from a legal standpoint,

36:11

infrastructure is going to be the crux

36:13

of the argument. Because there was a law

36:16

passed back in I can't remember

36:18

what it's called, but it basically bans

36:20

federal agencies from making capricious

36:23

rule changes, which is basically like,

36:26

for if exactly the situation

36:28

that we're in right now, you have one administration

36:31

making one set of rules and

36:33

then a year or two later a philosophically

36:36

different in administration coming in and

36:38

completely changing those rules. Well,

36:41

to do that that the new administration's

36:44

regulators have to prove why

36:48

it's a it's a good idea to change

36:50

these rules. They can't just be capricious, right

36:52

And so observers

36:55

of this whole battle that's going on right now are

36:57

saying, probably Pie is going

36:59

to be using the infrastructure um

37:02

the drop and infrastructure investing as

37:05

his reason why. He's going to point to

37:07

it and say, look, man, this title to classification

37:10

led to a billion dollar, five billion

37:12

dollars whatever billion dollar dropped in

37:15

infrastructure investment. It was a bad idea.

37:17

We're going to reverse the rules. And if he can

37:19

do that, then the rules

37:21

probably will be changed and net neutrality

37:23

will be rolled back. But the figures

37:26

aren't in yet for two thousand

37:28

and sixteen, so no one actually knows

37:31

if overall spending on

37:33

infrastructure declined or increased

37:35

or stayed the same, but that's probably going to

37:37

be the crux of the legal argument about

37:40

changing the rules back. You

37:42

want to take a break, Sure, alright,

37:44

we're gonna take a break, and hopefully we'll

37:46

get to hear Josh say lay the cable at least two

37:48

more times.

37:50

That's why has that

37:53

you should know? That's

37:56

a should

37:59

knows. But Clark,

38:16

all right, so we're back. Um,

38:19

you're still laughing at that. Huha. So

38:24

before we move on, we should say that this um

38:27

uh, like we were saying about websites going

38:30

dark, the title two

38:32

is up for grabs again, essentially coming

38:35

up soon and UH

38:37

people are being asked if you care about this

38:39

one way or the other. UM. You

38:42

can leave your comments on restoring

38:44

Internet Freedom by going to

38:46

FCC dot gov and you click on file

38:48

a Public comment, UM, and

38:51

then you click on preceding seventeen

38:53

Dash one oh eight Restoring Internet Freedom,

38:55

and then you can tell them what you think about it. Yea,

38:59

And the comment in and of themselves

39:01

have gotten a lot of traction

39:03

and pop popular culture. UM. Back

39:05

in two thousand fourteen, John Oliver UH

39:08

did a piece on UM,

39:11

what's this show called this week tonight?

39:14

Uh? Last week tonight that's

39:16

right, thank you. Um and

39:18

he uh he very famously called

39:20

the battle over net neutrality

39:22

cable comp company Smurfrey,

39:25

right and um

39:27

he basically he said, everybody

39:29

go leave your comments about

39:32

net neutrality, and the next day the FCC's

39:34

website broke under. It buckled

39:37

under the strain. Uh. And ultimately

39:39

the FCC got something like three point seven

39:41

million public comments

39:44

about the the

39:46

the two thousand fifteen rules, most

39:48

of them in favor of them. Right. So,

39:52

um, the this

39:54

time around, John Oliver has done another

39:56

thing. The internet broke again, but they think this

39:58

time it was actually a d E O S attack.

40:01

It was an attack, and there's also

40:03

been evidence that uh,

40:05

spam bots are leaving um comments

40:08

as well. Yeah. Wasn't there like uh five

40:10

million identical comments on

40:12

the half a million? Oh half a million?

40:15

Yeah, there's been about five million total,

40:17

but they found like half a million from a spam box,

40:19

right, which were identical comments, uh

40:22

with I mean, I think they use real

40:24

names and addresses, but including

40:27

all the same. Yeah. One of the persons

40:30

whose name was stolen and used

40:32

by the spambot was a jeep pie himself.

40:35

Yeah, and this is what it said. It said, Um,

40:38

the unprecedented regulatory power by the Obama

40:41

administration imposed on the Internet is smothering

40:43

innovation, damaging the American economy,

40:45

and obstructing job creation. The

40:48

plan currently under consideration at

40:50

the FCC to repeal Obama's

40:52

title to power grab is a positive

40:55

step forward and will help to promote a truly

40:57

free and open internet for everyone. Yeah.

41:00

So it's it's just so interesting to me that both sides

41:03

want the same thing and they just

41:05

have two very different ideas on how to go about

41:07

it, and someone's

41:09

right and wrong. Right, Well, I think you know what's

41:12

bizarre about this one. There's there's three

41:14

sides to it. There's two sides

41:16

that are opposed philosophically over

41:18

the role of government and regulation,

41:21

and then there's a third side. The I s p s were

41:23

like, everybody, shut up, stop telling

41:25

us what to do. We want to just go make some money,

41:28

and uh, we want the FCC out

41:30

of our butts. Yes, you

41:34

know. Yeah, So let's

41:36

let's we've kind of hit on some of them, but let's

41:38

talk about what some of the arguments

41:41

in favor of net neutrality are, and then

41:43

we'll talk about some of the arguments against. Well,

41:46

um, I guess the first thing that

41:49

we should point out is that it actually

41:52

will prevent censorship. Yeah,

41:56

when that is what it is feared, it won't

41:58

happen. Yeah, there's we

42:01

didn't say that. The

42:03

The name that a jeep pie

42:05

and his f CC came up with for

42:07

their new rules is

42:10

um Restoring Internet Freedom

42:13

Rules, which

42:15

has kind of been accused of being news

42:17

speaker double speak because it

42:20

it's it's basically saying, like, you

42:22

know, the FEC being involved

42:24

in this is was a power grab by

42:27

the Obama administration, and

42:30

that by getting the FEC out

42:32

of this whole thing, Um,

42:35

then we're actually protecting against censorship.

42:37

That it was a government grab of the Internet to

42:39

try to start to censor it, right,

42:41

which is not the case. Well,

42:44

I mean, I guess it depends on how you feel

42:47

about government regulation. But yeah, the

42:50

saying that the two thousand and fifteen rules

42:52

allowed government censorship is patently

42:55

wrong, That's what I meant. And if anything,

42:58

it prevents censorship by the

43:00

I s p s by preventing blocking and throttling.

43:03

Yeah. Another thing that um, some people,

43:06

Uh it's weird. The arguments and counter

43:08

arguments all like use each other. Um,

43:11

they'll say that like, no, we we need

43:13

the regulations so we can promote uh,

43:17

growth in this industry, not

43:19

stifle it. But when you

43:21

have net neutrality in place, it

43:23

keeps that low barrier to just

43:26

getting a website going. And like like you

43:28

said before, Um, we're

43:31

at an age now where anyone can design

43:33

the next Facebook. Uh.

43:36

And if if let's say you needed

43:39

half a million dollars,

43:41

like you've designed it and everything's great, but you need to

43:43

pay an I s P five grand

43:46

to get it going at a reasonable speed,

43:49

then that'll that'll kill innovation, right.

43:52

I guess it depends on whose innovation

43:55

you're stifling. If you're looking at the I s

43:57

p s as part of the Internet, Um,

44:00

well, then having the Internet

44:03

thrive and having new new,

44:05

huge, massive traffic driving

44:07

companies like Facebook that get a lot of people

44:09

to the Internet to use it in the first place,

44:12

that's an inherent good. Um.

44:14

But really what you're talking about is is keeping

44:17

that unregulated and regulating

44:19

the I s P s. Um,

44:22

So I mean, what are you stifling?

44:24

And the argument is that you're stifling

44:26

infrastructure investment, so

44:29

like high speed cable being

44:31

laid by not by me.

44:34

Uh. And then um, you know, getting

44:36

cable out to rural areas, that kind of thing.

44:39

Um, the I think when you

44:41

when you hear both sides using the same

44:44

point to prove their case,

44:46

it means that BS is a foot somewhere. Another

44:50

thing that we touched on a little bit is like when we said,

44:52

hey, maybe Comcast as a cable

44:54

company would want to slow down or throttle

44:57

Netflix. Uh, so you

44:59

know, it would not unleveled

45:02

the playing field. The same can

45:04

be said of like a telephone company

45:06

not wanting Skype to become a thing or

45:08

Internet phone to become a thing.

45:11

Uh. And so that is a genuine fear

45:14

that behind the scenes, um,

45:16

that will be throttling going on. Yeah,

45:19

and that's a real legitimate fear for two

45:21

reasons, Chuck. One that

45:23

um, it's the

45:26

I s p s are starting to branch out

45:29

and getting into like you said

45:31

earlier, um, the content

45:33

game. Yeah, the content game. Right. So

45:37

so that's that's rule one, or that's that's

45:39

problem one. Like for for for instance,

45:41

Verizon just bought Yahoo

45:44

and Yahoo owns flicker and

45:47

Tumbler, and Tumbler, by the way, used

45:49

to be at the at the forefront

45:52

the tip of the spear for

45:54

net neutrality, um advocacy

45:57

like they were loud and proud man

46:00

and then Verizon bought them and all of a sudden, Tumbler

46:02

silent on the subject, right um.

46:05

But more to the point, since

46:08

Verizon bought Yahoo, which owns Flicker and

46:10

Tumbler, it told all

46:12

of its Tumbler and Flicker users

46:15

that have a Bell South associate

46:17

or a a T and T associated

46:20

email address that they weren't gonna be able to access

46:22

their Flicker or Tumbler accounts anymore

46:24

until they created a new user I d

46:27

with a using a Yahoo email address.

46:29

So that's fairly anti competitive,

46:32

you can make a case. And so that's going

46:34

on right now as I sps are starting to get

46:37

into the media game. But it's also

46:39

happened in the past plenty of times too.

46:41

It's already happened. It's been documented

46:43

that when the I s p s are free to

46:46

to to be anti competitive, they

46:48

take you up on the offer. And

46:51

Pie has responded to those uh

46:54

incidents, has isolated examples and

46:57

not enough of a reason to regular

47:01

Yeah. His feeling is it has

47:03

to be a widespread problem

47:06

for it to be a real issue. Yeah,

47:10

I mean, I guess that's a position for

47:12

sure, that's a position. Yeah.

47:15

Yeah, uh what about

47:18

the case against net neutrality?

47:21

So again there's

47:23

there's there's that whole investment

47:26

thing in infrastructure, which is that's

47:28

big, that's legitimate, you know. I mean

47:30

like if if the I s p s

47:32

say, dude, it's just

47:35

we're not making enough money, we're not

47:38

we're really unhappy about this regulation. We're

47:40

gonna stop putting money into

47:44

the American broadband

47:46

infrastructure, then America

47:49

will suffer as a result. We want the highest,

47:51

fastest speed infrastructure

47:54

we can get, and we rely on the I s

47:56

p s to build those and then charge

47:59

us money for access using those

48:01

high speed routes. Right, That's what I don't buy

48:03

though, because they want they want the

48:05

fastest internet, because they want your

48:08

business. They totally do. Right,

48:10

Okay, here's the thing, Like everybody

48:12

when they're talking about this seems to kind of dance

48:15

around this. But yeah, dude, the I s

48:17

p s can make a lot of money

48:19

charging access. They make plenty of money,

48:21

plenty of revenue. But they're also again

48:24

they're the gatekeepers. They they're the ones

48:26

who built this infratructure. They're the ones who have this

48:29

the access to this these networks

48:31

built and these these customer

48:33

bases built, and if they are unhappy

48:35

and they want to be sour pusses about it,

48:37

they can stop investing in America's

48:40

infrastructure and America will suffer

48:42

as a result. And again, these aren't necessarily

48:45

companies that have an office

48:48

on Main Street in Kansas,

48:50

in Topeka. They're multinational

48:52

companies and if they move their

48:54

favor elsewhere, then America could

48:56

suffer. Right. It's we're somewhat

48:59

hostages to their their

49:01

whims to an extent, but at

49:03

the end of the day, America is also one

49:05

of the best markets for

49:08

broadband access and they

49:10

want the money of American users,

49:12

so they are going to keep investing in

49:15

infrastructure, I think. But it's a gamble.

49:17

And if you're if you're opposed to federal

49:20

regulation and principle, you're going to

49:22

say that gamble is not worth it. Like, I

49:25

don't want to put federal regulation on

49:27

these guys if it's going to make them unhappy because

49:29

I don't like federal regulation. They don't

49:31

like federal regulation, and it could take them

49:33

off enough that America's infrastructure could

49:35

start to sag. Here's the thing, though, and

49:38

I don't know much. I'm not an expert

49:40

in this, but my feeling is, wouldn't

49:42

they have to all collude and none of

49:44

them do that, because as

49:46

soon as one of them starts,

49:49

uh, one of them starts laying the cable,

49:51

like Josh Clark, then

49:54

they'll have the advantage and the other ones be like, we gotta

49:56

start laying the cable because

49:59

they're getting a and getting faster.

50:02

Well, yeah, like they would all have to be in cahoots

50:04

and say, well, hey, let's all just sort of

50:06

make a ton of money and just say this

50:08

is how fast the internet is now. So

50:11

here you just dug up another issue.

50:14

It's totally true if you have a

50:16

lot of different I s p s who

50:18

have large, massive

50:20

networks, if you have those

50:23

large I s p s

50:26

suddenly starting to consolidate, which

50:28

they are, and you have fewer and fewer

50:30

but bigger and bigger I sps they

50:33

control larger parts of the market,

50:35

to where if you've got basically two major

50:37

I s p s competing against one another,

50:40

they could conceivably do that, and

50:43

it would be tough for one to just be like, no,

50:45

I'm not doing that, I'm I'm laying all the cable.

50:48

Um, I'm gonna take all your your market

50:50

share. It's possible that they could do that, but

50:52

it could also be likely that they would

50:55

collude, um, not necessarily

50:57

in an illegal fashion, but just saying, you

50:59

know what, we both kind of agree America's

51:02

the pits right now, will wait until the

51:04

winds change. Let's go over to Ireland

51:07

and invest in their infrastructure because they

51:09

got some cash and they don't feel like, um,

51:11

like regulating today.

51:17

So it's not like, you know, I think

51:19

a lot of people think like, well, you know,

51:21

this is Trump's FCC, so they're

51:23

just you know, automatically evil

51:25

and have no real point there.

51:27

There are they They do represent a viewpoint

51:30

of anti regulation

51:33

sentiment, right, but

51:36

there's there's a there's another aspect

51:38

to all of this chuck that has kind

51:41

of blown my mind. Um that

51:43

that it's just not talked

51:45

about all that much. One

51:47

of the well, two of the things

51:50

that that people who are in

51:52

the net neutrality debate are are talking

51:54

about and worried about are don't

51:56

really actually exist any longer. To major

51:59

things. Yeah, so internet censorship

52:02

and a equal access

52:04

to broadband networks that

52:06

that's not around anymore. Neither of those are

52:08

around or an internet

52:11

free from censorship, I should say yeah,

52:13

And I mean I don't know censorship

52:16

is the right word because that implies

52:18

you have no access at all. Um,

52:21

but what search engines do, and what apps

52:23

do, and what Facebook and Google

52:25

and YouTube and everyone does in

52:28

that game as they serve things up to

52:30

the public that

52:32

are very much curated according to

52:34

their needs. I

52:36

was gonna say whims, but they're not whims. There

52:39

their their needs as a company.

52:41

Um, So it's not like they're censoring

52:44

things, but they certainly aren't.

52:46

Uh, I mean like that you can still

52:48

find the things on the Internet.

52:51

They're not like deleting things and censoring

52:53

things. But they're definitely serving

52:55

up uh

52:58

like search engines, aren't You know that

53:00

they're definitely all just they're serving up what they

53:02

want to serve up because that serves

53:05

their company best. Whether yeah,

53:07

whether it's like, um,

53:10

you know, content that's more likely to

53:12

lead to data that they can use to better

53:15

target you for ads, or

53:17

there are some instances of very

53:20

like actual censorship where Twitter

53:23

Twitter can take your tweet down if

53:25

it's deemed defensive that censorship.

53:28

This book can do the same thing with your posts

53:30

that censorship. So there's a whole group

53:32

of stakeholders in this whole debate that, like

53:34

the media companies that do have the legal

53:37

and technical ability to

53:39

censor the Internet, right, but giving

53:42

the I s p s the ability

53:44

to censor the Internet doesn't make anything

53:46

any fairer or more even.

53:49

It just makes things worse. Right, So that's

53:51

the idea that, well, these guys

53:53

can alregue sense of the Internet, so why shouldn't the I s

53:56

p s be able to? That's a terrible argument.

53:59

Uh. And one of the other big things

54:01

that's already happening is when

54:04

we were talking about paying extra money

54:06

to get your content faster,

54:08

that's already going on, right,

54:11

So they're already fast lanes

54:14

essentially exactly. And

54:16

that's not supposed to be um, but

54:19

but it's been going on for a while. Yeah. And so

54:21

Google and Netflix, um,

54:23

among other companies that basically have

54:26

paid extra money to connect, they've almost

54:28

created like a side Internet by

54:31

connecting their routers and servers directly

54:33

to the I s p S network servers.

54:36

Instead of saying, well, we'll just

54:38

be routing our traffic along

54:40

with the rest of the Internet, they they have essentially

54:43

paid to have their own special fast

54:46

lane right exactly. And

54:48

again, this has been going on for years,

54:50

and Google started it and we basically

54:53

everybody has yet and the rub

54:56

there was a very famous UM dispute

54:58

about it that that made this whole concept,

55:01

it's called peering, made a public

55:03

between Comcast and Verizon and

55:05

Netflix Netflix as users. And

55:07

I remember this Netflix was their

55:10

Their transmission was degrading fast

55:13

and Netflix had to go to Verizon and

55:15

Comcast and say I need to peer network setup.

55:18

I need to be able to plug in directly. Here's

55:20

a bunch of money. I hate you guys, and

55:23

they publicly accused at

55:25

least Comcast, I think of purposefully

55:28

letting their traffic back up and not rerouting

55:30

it UM to make it go faster

55:33

so that Comcast would have to come

55:35

and and and get give them

55:37

money. And now Verizon

55:40

and UM Comcasts viewpoint

55:43

is, well, you guys are sending

55:46

tons of traffic that you're charging

55:48

for our way

55:50

without paying anything extra. Why

55:52

should we have to add, you know, an

55:55

extra router server or

55:57

whatever to to accommodate this

55:59

traffic when you guys are the

56:01

ones generating from

56:03

generating it and profiting from it, and

56:06

so that's just kind of been like, uh that,

56:08

I mean, that's that's that's the part

56:10

that part of that philosophical divide

56:13

too with net net neutrality, who's

56:15

who should be paying for the

56:18

the increase in traffic? Well, and not

56:20

only that, but these these uh

56:22

deals are worked out between

56:24

the companies and if

56:26

the FCC sticks their nose

56:28

in it, then all of a sudden, they are inserting

56:31

their self in that process. Uh.

56:34

And and companies aren't liking

56:36

the sounds of that either. Well, yeah,

56:39

like the the the market

56:41

for this has been unregulated and for the most part,

56:44

companies have been okay with it and fine with it.

56:46

And the sps are happy because their users are

56:48

getting faster traffic. And Netflix or

56:50

say Amazon Prime is happy because

56:52

their users are getting to watch Game

56:54

of Thrones faster. Right, But the

56:56

fccs two thousand fifteen rules say,

56:59

well, we're involved than this now. And

57:01

remember we said that I s p s

57:03

have to act in a justin reasonable manner. So

57:06

Netflix, now under these two

57:08

fifteen rules, if they try

57:10

this again, you can come and tell us that they're

57:13

acting unreasonably and we'll get involved.

57:15

Which is another thing that a jeepie wants

57:17

to roll back because he doesn't think the SEC has

57:20

any any business getting involved

57:22

in these transactions. Yeah, it's

57:24

um man, It's really a slippery

57:27

slope on all sides if you ask me for

57:30

sure. But to me, the whole

57:32

thing boils down to do

57:35

we do we want to give

57:38

I, s P S the

57:40

the ability the freedom to block traffic.

57:43

I think I think of them as the switchboard

57:45

operators. I think conceiving of

57:47

them as common carriers as is

57:49

absolutely right. And I think

57:52

I think giving them the ability

57:54

to to censor, block, or throttle traffic,

57:56

I just think it's a bad move. Well. I mean,

57:59

one thing that has kind of been true

58:01

over and over throughout our history is that greed

58:04

has typically wins out

58:07

when it's completely unregulated,

58:10

and it has led to bad things for

58:13

the end user what whatever

58:15

industry that might be. Yeah,

58:18

yeah, the companies might went out, and

58:20

but kind of greed, greed

58:23

kind of doesn't lead down the good

58:25

path for average Joe

58:27

sitting at his laptop. I

58:30

think that's true, man, And that is what

58:32

it boils down to, do we trust Do we

58:34

trust them? Do we trust

58:37

them? There? You go to act fairly,

58:39

Yeah, let's leave it at that man, Well well

58:41

done. Uh, if you want to

58:43

know more about net neutrality while

58:45

you can get involved, and then you can also head

58:48

on over to FCC dot gov. And

58:50

they also allow comments from international

58:52

people too. You don't have to be an American, but

58:54

you should check a box that says you're international.

58:57

You just put your name and address

58:59

on there and leave your comment

59:01

and you can comment. Remember, you can do that till

59:04

July what Chuck,

59:07

Yeah, I think and then there's

59:10

comments on the comments that runs to August

59:12

six, So go

59:14

go let them know how you feel one way

59:16

or the other. And since I said

59:19

feel, it's time for a listener mail,

59:24

Yeah, click on the international box so it will

59:26

go right into the abyss

59:28

of the Internet. I'm

59:31

just kidding. I'm

59:34

gonna call this just a very concise stone

59:36

Wall reaction. We've

59:38

got a lot of good feedback on our Remembering

59:41

Stonewall episode, and

59:44

I think both of us feel pretty good about that one. Great.

59:48

Um. Hey, guys, I've listened to and loved

59:50

your podcast for years, but your recent

59:52

Remembering Stonewall episode compelled

59:55

me to write you guys. As a

59:57

gay man, I thought, how can these

59:59

two straight guys do justice to my

1:00:01

community's history a prejudice.

1:00:03

I subsequently, I am not proud of because

1:00:06

you handled the subject so eloquently, so

1:00:08

understandingly. Very impressed

1:00:10

on how well you tackled the subject, guys, which shouldn't

1:00:13

have surprised me since you handle every episode

1:00:15

so expertly, but since this subject

1:00:18

hits so close to home for me, was

1:00:20

so very happy and proud with the reverence

1:00:22

that you gave it. Thank you, thank

1:00:24

you, thank you nice

1:00:27

three, thank you, yeah three, thank yous.

1:00:30

Is that's the magic number, and

1:00:32

that is from Craig. Craig,

1:00:35

thanks a lot for that. We appreciate it. We do

1:00:37

feel pretty good about that. Echo is interesting

1:00:39

and good and stirring and

1:00:41

all that jazz. So hats

1:00:43

off to you right back. If

1:00:45

you want to get in touch with this, like Craig did, you can

1:00:48

tweet to us at Josh I'm Clark or s

1:00:50

Y s K Podcast. You can join us on

1:00:52

Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash

1:00:54

stuff you Should Know or slash Charles

1:00:56

W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us an email

1:00:58

to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff Works dot com

1:01:01

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1:01:03

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1:01:09

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